Over the last couple of weeks I've been reading Enid Blyton's "The Enchanted Wood" to Lauren at bed-time. She's loving it. I realised a few weeks ago that I've not been borrowing 'chapter books' from the library specifically for her, and Robyn's choices are a bit too advanced for her to appreciate. She's been loving having her very own bed-time 'chapter book'. Anyway, one of the presents she got for her party was another edition of "The Enchanted Wood". So, I thought she might like me to read the rest of the book from her birthday copy. Imagine the kids' horror when Bessie and Fannie had suddenly become Beth and Frannie. Now, there was a good deal of merriment when we first starting reading about 'Fannie', but the kids are unanimous that we must continue with the original version. Did a bit of surfing about abridged versions of the series. Apparently Dick becomes Rick. And there are even some versions with some of the more exciting (guess you have to be under eight) chapters omitted.

Fannie -> Frannie (Can see they have a point)
Dick -> Rick (Ditto)
Bessie -> Beth (Now am I naive here? What's wrong with Bessie?)

Lauren's chefs' party went off wonderfully well, despite the fact that we ran out of time and had to omit an entire activity (DIY ice-cream sundaes complete with little umbrellas from Milky Lane - guess I will keep it for another year). Now I am tempted, as usual, not to write about this until I am organised enough to put some photos up, but since it seldom happens that I am organised, I will do that another day. Perhaps.

On arrival the kids each made a chef's hat, and after a group photo of all the chefs, we set about making the gingerbread with the kids in three groups of six, each group with their own bowl, mixer, and set of ingredients. It was chaotic but such fun. They took turns to put ingredients in and to mix. Each had a sniff from the spice bottles before putting in the cinnamon ("Mmmm, yummm") and the ginger ("Peuw, yuk!"). I guess neat ginger is quite strong. Some very enthusiastic spoonfuls of cinnamon and ginger went in - some of the dough had quite a kick to it.) They decorated their gingerbread creations with bits of cherries, sprinkles, and shiny balls. Helpful grandparents baked them while they were having their treasure hunt.

My amazing mum painted a huge picture of the garden for the treasure hunt where you could see all the landmarks like the jungle gym, the pool, the trampoline, the trees, etc, and we made it into a 20-piece jigsaw puzzle the night before the party. (An actual jigsaw or a craft knife would have simplified this task, and due to lack of planning we were fiddling around for hours and hours and hours with a pair of scissors.) The pieces of the puzzle were hidden around the garden and I handed out clues to the kids (photos from the garden) for them to track the pieces down. Then they had to assemble the puzzle and locate the treasure on it by forming an X on the map by joining two pairs of dots. The treasure was located up a tree and Lauren had to climb up the ladder to reach it. This was one of the most successful treasure hunts we've ever had as everyone was very involved. Sometimes with a traditional sequential group treasure hunt the fast kids have all the fun.

There was just time for Lauren to blow out her candles before the end of the party. She loved her cake (little cooker top with hot plates and knobs and pots and pans). She's so incredibly enthusistic about life. Came bounding down to the kitchen on the morning of her party, saw the cake, and simply stared, and said "Wooooooowwwwwwwwwww."