Exploring Our Children’s Potentials

[Photo was taken the night before he turned six =) ]

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Our little guy turned six years old last week!

He was SO happy that he’s now older and bigger.

He was like, ‘Mommy, I’m NO longer five. I’m SIX now!’ =)

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As for the preparation of his birthday cake,  well … here’s a little ‘behind the scene’ story on how it went :

Vai asked if he could have a car themed birthday cake this year, and I thought to myself, ‘Hmm, that should be possible.’

BUT, apparently it’s not as straight forward as usual this year because:

– We’re moving to our own place only next year, and our current rented home is tiny, which explained why the oven’s still in a box at my parents’ place.

– We’d need to somehow find a place to fit that oven in our tiny kitchen

– We had a one-week holiday before Vai’s birthday (the Hari Raya holiday break), and that meant we’re busy, extra busy, every day. We either stayed at grandparents’ place, or went around checking out different places around Jakarta.

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In the end, I decided to bring my oven over.

Because somehow, I just couldn’t bring myself to ‘buy a cake’, though it’s perhaps the simplest and fastest way out.

(Somehow, since I started baking cakes for my own kids’ birthdays two years ago, I feel however simple the cake is, it’ll be meaningful if it’s a personalised one, made by their mommy on their special day)

The oven is now on top of my fridge btw (and I have no plans of putting it back into the box! =)

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As for Vai’s cakes, well … I thought it should just be kept simple and nice.

I decided to go for cupcakes, because … it’d be faster for me to make.

AND, also because the round baking pan is still somewhere in one of the boxes, and I still haven’t found it! =)

I bought the ready-to-use fondant and did the shaping of tiny cars etc the night before.

I used paper to make the track, 2 flags and ‘podium’ (so I didn’t have to use my 0.5kg fondant)

(Note:  I wanted some of the cupcakes to be ‘elevated’ so I drew the black boxes – using a black marker and crayon – on a strip of white paper and wrapped the strip around a round metal bowl. I used to sticky tape to ‘laminate’ it too, to avoid smudging etc =)

Vai happily helped out in the kitchen on the day we baked our cupcakes.

(I used this recipe for the cupcakes, and they turned out well!)

And, … the birthday boy was very happy with how his race car birthday cupcakes turned out! *YAY* =)

We took heaps of photos during our family get together, and here’s one of them : a shot of us five with my grandparents – who are 92 and 88!

It was a simple get-together, but I think it was a nice and memorable one for our little man.

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A little note to Vai :

Dearest Vai,

You’re a cheerful little man who feels happy when you can make other people feel happy. You forgive others easily, and more often than not, you’ll share what you have with others. 

You like to give cuddles, hugs and kisses out of the blue, and I love it every time you do that to us.

God, who has entrusted you in our care, has always watched over you these past six years, and HE will continue to do so till the day you meet HIM face to face.

God is good, very good, and we pray that you learn to put your trust in Him every day, giving your very best in everything you do for His glory, and becoming a blessing to many.

We are blessed to have you in our family, and we love you very much.