I’m not big on buying commercial content for Poppy – although we did travel to Christchurch to see the Disney Princesses on Ice – and we’ve been to a Dora the Explorer party etc…. When Poppy was a baby I decorated her room with some Buzzy Bee items – but I call that Kiwi Spirit rather than commercialism!

There is one thing I did buy her recently – a Strawberry Shortcake magazine from the bookstore that included a little wooden rolling pin, a shortcake pan and a colourful plastic plate.  The marketing for this is fantastic – the first magazine issue is only $3.99 – then the second is $9.99 and all subsequent issues are $16.99.  Needless to say, I’m not encouraging Poppy to collect the whole set! Poppy has some Strawberry Shortcake computer games and has seen a couple of the movies so has a great love of all the treat-themed sweet characters.

The magazine we bought is full of stories, games & colouring-in as well as a recipe for Strawberry Cream Pie and we just had to have it. After dinner tonight we set to work with Poppy ‘reading’ the ingredient list and doing all the preparation for her special treat.  The pastry came out beautifully and was cooling while Poppy was stirring the custard cream – then it became too tempting to wait and went through a sampling process!  The finished product was all Poppy’s own work (except for the separated eggs) and she was very proud. “Delicious!” she said.