Kittens and cake

Saturday 16th: Asher enjoying the kittens.
Sleeping in a row.

Sunday 17th: 1 month old and getting so big.
Puss doesn't often feed them in the box now, but there are times that she does enjoy being all cosy.

Tuesday 19th: Learning to play on the cat tree.

Just starting to show interest in water. No interest in food yet. I keep putting some soaked kitten pellets down, and Puss keeps eating them as the kittens show no interest at all.
Wednesday 20th: It's a bit of a tradition in our home when Brendon is home in the morning (when he is working he is up at 4am and off to work before 6). Once Asher is awake I will call Brendon (if he is already up) and then Hezekiah will hear us talking and he will come and join us. This morning Hezekiah and I sang Happy Birthday to Brendon and then Hezekiah asked him what cake he was having. Brendon told him he wasn't having a cake, but he kept asking what he wanted. Brendon teased him and said "a pink elephant" and Hezekiah was sure he was being serious. :-) I told Hezekiah that he was joking, but perhaps I should make dad one of his favourite cakes. A chocolate mousse cake. The only non FAILSAFE ingredient being chocolate. So I thought we could give it a try and see how we managed.

It's a time consuming cake and will only be ready 4 hours after you start (with all the chilling time ect). Ruth had asked to spend our "parent child outing" making something in the kitchen with me, so this worked out as a perfect option.
This cake always facinates me. It has 3 main parts: cake, mousse and ganache (the icing). The cake doesn't have any flour at all (just chocolate, butter and eggs being the main ingredients) and then the mousse and ganache are almost the exact same ingredients (chocolate and cream) but prepared in such a different way.
We only did half the recipe this time. We didn't want too big of a test on the chocolate.

If you want to have a try yourself, the recipe is here. Be prepared though, the full cake takes 1kg of chocolate and 1 litre of cream.
Ruth wanted to put candles on, so we counted what we had and I said she could put one on for every 2 years. So it is a special birthday: 21 twice over.

Happy Birthday Dad. We love you so much.

Asher was watching the fan slow down. We realized as we were lighting the candles that it was on - as it was blowing the candles out.

We all enjoyed the treat for afternoon tea. Unfortunately it affected Asher and Hezekiah rather quickly - through the night. Hezekiah had a nightmare and Asher had a horrible night. She woke 3 times and was so restless the rest of the time.

5 weeks old and grown so much. I noticed that the black one was in the middle and Brendon said they probably have their set place (I checked previous photos and he was right). The grey and white one (we call her Little Miss as she is the only girl) was most likely born first and he says she has the best teat. She has been the first to do things and was very adventurous quite a while before the others started venturing out. So it's been interesting to watch.
Thursday 21st: Ruth enjoying having a kitten sleep on her nap for a bit.
We enjoyed the last of the cake for morning tea today (all but Asher and Hezekiah). I thought I would include this photo for anyone who was interested in what it looked like inside. It is a very hard cake to cut. :-)
Unfortunately Hannah didn't cope with the chocolate and got very angry in the evening. It's so hard to see her like this because I know it's not the real Hannah. She struggled a bit for the next two days, but it gets better every day.
Enjoying a little afternoon nap together. We are so pleased Shadow has finally relaxed with the kittens. Before she would just want to lick them all the time. She is obviously finally happy with their cleanliness. :-)

Friday 22nd: Ruth and Hannah have been a part of the library summer reading program. I took them to the library this morning for their 4th and final check in. At each check in they tell the librarian about 2 books that they have read. And each time they get a little reward. So it's been really fun for them.
As they have now finished the program, they are invited to the party next Saturday in Amberley (the biggest library in our district).
They saw some boys playing on the Wii while we were there, so after lunch they headed back to the library to get some time to play themselves.

Brendon has been working this week and clearing out. He helped the older girls clear out in their bedroom, and then they helped him clear out the garage. Brendon had some wood to collect for the container today, so he went past a Recycling Plant on the way and dropped it all off. So even though nothing actually happened on the container this week (as we had hoped) at least we have a bit more of the material we need, and some much needed sorting got done. So Brendon can still feel pleased about getting things done this week. Back to work tomorrow for him. I'm glad he has had a relaxing and productive week off.