Now James is 2

 My baking skills are coming on in leaps and bounds.

This is the third time I have attempted this cake. Once as a trial for Liams birthday, then as Liams birthday cake now as James's birthday cake. Each time there has been a different variation.

This cake was still a luxurious chocolate sponge with a chocolate fudge frosting. Yet it differed since it was filled with whipped double cream and decorated with shavings of dark, milk and white chocolate.

Yum yum.

Needless to say the birthday boy enjoyed a HUGE slice. He appeared to really enjoy it.

As I always say, my birth stories are perfect birth stories and therefor are far from entertaining but should be a message of hope for all mums to be.

James was born early morning on November the first. The day before we had been out shopping, had a busy day and took Matthew trick or treating. I went to bed around 10 as I was tired,

I woke up for the normal toilet trip around 4am. My waters broke whilst I was on the toilet leading to immediate contractions. I arrived at hospital around 5am, he was born before 6am. We left hospital at 8am and at 8.30 I woke up Matthew telling him there was a surprise waiting for him downstairs. He was amazed to find he had a little brother.

James has been more or less perfect since then. We have no signs of the terrible twos just yet. He is the most gentle and loving little boy. He is always first to give things to his little brother and is the most cheerful little soul.

He had a great day yesterday with toys, cards and lunch out with a cheese spread and ham sandwich followed by a big cake for tea. He even got to stay up late.

We didn't do anything for Halloween at all this year. We always allowed Matthew to dress up and go trick or treating previous years but since we only really know where 2 families live, we decided to give it a miss this year. Only 2 groups of kids visited as well, so since we're the quiet end of the village, we didn't get many roun either only the really local kids.

Rosie is coming on in leaps and bounds. She isn't nipping quite so often and responds well to my "No" command and has begun to sit out the way when she gets told off. She will also now use the paper we put down for puddles and best of all, she will go to the toilet outside. I try to get her out for 5 minutes every 2 hours to get her used to it. As soon as we get up, she goes out and last thing before bed she does too. She is getting the routine of it which is really good. We just need to get her to tell us when she wants to go out.

Whilst the nipping is getting less, poor little Liam had a rather nasty scratch last night. She did get hold of him and he really was hurt. The cut wasn't that bad but I got him seen at the doctors surgery this morning just to check he was up to date with all his tetanus and so on. The nurse just said to keep an eye on the scratch for signs of infection. We're back there on Thursday as it will be time for Liams MMR jab and then he's finished with jabs until pre-school.