Baking Madness Has Begun!

It's all systems GO since this morning. Eli and I went for our very last swim class at Marsden Swim School and said our goodbyes to Sam (his coach) and his friends Leila and Tyng Hao. By the time we got home, it was about 1030am. From that point onwards, it was bake bake bake, mix mix mix and assemble assemble assemble to get good and ready for Len's Christmas party tomorrow.

My first brioche loaf

Cookie monster would be in heaven

Weird blue-tinged macaron shells waiting to be filled with buttercream

To Do Done and Dusted:
1. Bake the whole wheat chocolate chip cookies and oatmeal raisin cookies we're giving away to our guests
2. Make the jelly for the trifle
3. Assemble the trifle
4. Make the sponge for the Malted Milk Chocolate cake
5. Bake a brioche for use in the stuffing
6. Oblige my older son by making French macarons and making them blue
7. Get Zac to practice his English and Mandarin reading

Still Left To Tackle TOMORROW:
1. Roll out, cut and bake chocolate and vanilla sugar cookies to add to the guest goody bags
2. Make royal icing to ice cookies
3. Make milk chocolate buttercream for the cake and assemble said cake
4. Make potato salad
5. Cook the pasta and make pasta sauce

Our Favourite Books

Thought it would be nice to keep a record of our favourite books and see how that changes from year to year.

Zachary's Top 5 Requested Books:
1. The Usborne Big Book of Big Dinosaurs (Alex Frith & Fabiana Fiorin)
2. The Snail and the Whale (Julia Donaldson)
3. The Circus Ship (Chris Van Dusen)
4. There is a Bird on Your Head (Mo Willems)
5. One Lucky Duck (Alison Maloney)

Eli's Top 5 Requested Books:
1. The Fish Who Cried Wolf (Julia Donaldson)*
2. That's Not My Monkey (Fiona Watt)
3.
4.
5.

*Eli mostly looks for the mermaid ("mah-met") and the fish ("pishees") in this book and isn't really listening to the story at the moment.