Piper is in her element ... she's playing hostess to all her brothers' friends and enjoying the attention! Cameron has been particularly good with her, so gold stars to him :)

I've spent the morning clearing up whilst the boys game and Piper flits between them all... I'm amazed at how few of them eat breakfast, though I suppose the distraction of the Xbox360 and PS3 aren't helping.  I figure there's no point in forcing them, after all you can lead a horse to water.....eh? ;)

 

 

I'm also making my first cupcakes from the hummingbird bakery book ... Isn't it fab when you've started a recipe then realised you are missing a vital ingredient, with no hope of getting out to buy it?  ''Use what you've got and you'll not want,'' was a phrase that was heavily used in our house, so a tub of cream and some lemon juice later and voila, buttermilk :D Jiggery pokery aside, this recipe is much more frugal on eggs than the one I am used to, and the mixture was much thicker than my normal result as well but yielded 18 good sized cakes and would have stretched to 20 had I been willing to rake out another six hole tray! The mixture also resembled something out a horror flick, the 20mls (almost a full bottle) of red colouring created a rather evisceral looking mess in the midst of my kitsch old Kenwood! I should have taken a photo....it certainly impressed the boys! Now the cupcakes are out and cooling, they've risen in a very pleasing gentle dome and had I overfilled the cases, I'd have had a very successful muffin shape!  I've never before managed to have that rise and fill without a lot of spill! 

I shall do a photo post later to show the final results!

I shall also be going to bed early tonight, as I think my eyes look as if they are about to disappear under the luggage that they're carrying ;)