Birthday girl!

Esme is 5 (since yesterday :-)

I was up and downstairs pretty sharp this morning to get the chocolate onto the caramel and shortbread base to complete the Millionaire's shortbread.  Also got Esme's pressies wrapped up (lots of craft and art activities, which she loves, and a gift voucher so she can have a shopping afternoon with her mum) 

We were supposed to be at Andrew and Nikki's for 3pm but it was nearer 4pm as there was some drama on Lola's dog walk!

D was just heading back to the car with Lola when they met a woman at the start of her dog walk with her own dog and her son's dog.  The dogs played together for a little while and D chatted to the woman then they went their separate ways.  D was almost back at the car when he he heard the woman yelling "come back" over and over again.  He assumed she was talking to one of the dogs but she kept calling and realised it was him she was shouting to.

He turned and headed back to check she was ok.  Turns out she'd dropped her phone and couldn't find it.  She'd definitely had it when they'd started chatting but at some point it disappeared.  They looked all around by no joy.  She gave David her number and he rang it about 17 times but no luck.  She said she would go home and ask her neighbour to keep calling the number while she returned to look for it.  She left a glove on the ground to mark where she'd been.

Meanwhile I was removing the Millionaire's shortbread from the tin only to discover something had gone terribly wrong with the shortbread base.  It was rock hard, and I mean teeth-breaking rock hard!  I had to use all my force to get the knife to go through it as I cut it into squares.  What the hell?!  Thankfully it tasted ok (once you managed to get your teeth through it!) as did the caramel and the chocolate.  No time to worry about it though so into the tin it went.  D returned from his walk and we left half an hour later than planned.

We were 15 minutes into our journey when D's phone rang and it was the woman from the dog walk to tell him she'd eventually found her phone and thank him for his help.  Glad it ended well for her.

When we arrived at Andrew and Nikki's Esme was absolutely hyper!  Running about screaming I AM 5! and that was before she'd eaten her own bodyweight in sugar!  lol

The next five hours went by in a flash of singing (one of her gifts was a karaoke mike!) playing with balloons, wanting to open all her birthday toys (she was distracted away from that idea with the timeous appearance of the sun and a session on the trampoline in the garden)  She played really well with a family friend's 18 month old daughter, (Esme would like a little sister apparently :-) 

We all slowed down for food (lovely buffet :-) and I am happy to report that no teeth were broken in the eating of my Millionaire's shortbread! I steered clear!  :-))  Esme had a caterpillar cake and her Papa had a cupcake with a candle in it (it's his birthday tomorrow) so we sang Happy Birthday to them both.

Esme was still hyper at 8pm but was persuaded to put her PJs on.  We left just after 8.30pm as knew she would never calm down while we were there.  Got lovely hugs from her and she is excited to be coming to ours to see Anna and Faith when they are here in October.  Thankfully I found all the Halloween party stuff when we were clearing out the linen cupboard yesterday.

Once home I had the chance to try to find out what went wrong with my shortbread.  Turns out I misread the recipe and added 175g sugar instead of 75g!  Serves me right making it so late when I was really tired.  Won't make that mistake again!