A Very Horsey Kind of Birthday

Our little girl turned EIGHT a few days ago. Man, that 8 years has gone fast!

At the moment she's absolutely, completely and utterly obsessed by horses and ponies.  She collects toy horses, she reads horse books, she requests a pony of her own on a daily basis (sometimes hourly) and regularly dreams of ponies.

This has been going on for months - it's not just a passing phase.

So, this year we gave her a completely horse-themed birthday!

It all started with the cake, as it usually does on Molly's birthday. She always invents something in her head and asks me to create it for her - and I always seem to do so at 11pm the night before her birthday. Over the years we've had sharks, chocolate cats, trains, Dora the Explorer and Barbie cakes.

Every year I promise myself I'll be more organised next year, but it's so hard to find the time and the opportunity before the kids are in bed.

This year she was (as usual) very specific about her cake. First of all, it had to have horses doing show jumping on it, in a grassy and muddy field with daisies in it. (Do you like my giant yellow daisies? I didn't have white icing!)

Next, it had to have a "surprise" inside filled with M&Ms, so that when you cut it open all
the M&Ms spilled out. How she knows about these cake trends I have no idea??

Anyway, with a little bit of help from the internet and a little bit of help from a genius friend, I managed to bake a couple of layers (each one a different flavour of course), scoop the middle out, and pack some M&Ms in, then stick it all together with icing and hope for the best. It didn't collapse overnight and I am still amazed that it worked! 

Once the excitement of cake and presents were all over, we told the kids we were going on a secret mystery trip in the car. Both kids were fairly convinced we were going to meet our new kittens (this is a whole separate story, but for those who haven't heard yet, we have two gorgeous little kittens joining the family next week). 

In fact, we'd arranged a secret birthday horse riding lesson for both kids! When we pulled up outside the stables the look on Molly's face was completely priceless! 

A few nerves kicked in as she got kitted out with a helmet...

But once she was up on the pony she relaxed and had the best half hour ever!

Each of them got a private lesson on a pony called Billy - he was very gentle and lovely - and they both learnt heaps. Molly mastered the art of getting him to trot and halt within minutes, and just loved it all. Of course the instructor picked up on this and managed a hard sell at the end to try to sign her up for regular classes!

At $55 a week, we unfortunately had to say no way, as we'd have to re-mortgage the house - or live in cardboard boxes.

So she worked out how to do it herself instead! For all those UK relatives who sent her birthday money, just to let you know she's decided to put it all together and use it to continue with riding lessons (and when that runs out we are in big trouble!)