My niece turns 6 today.

My shy little niece, Chloe, hiding behind her cake.

This year, she dictated who she would invite to her party. I'm glad I made it to the list.

A few weeks before her party, she sent me a voice message on her mum's phone. "Aunty Liz, can I please have a butterfly cake?".

Then, "Can I please have a pink, blue and purple butterfly cake?". A few days later, "Oh and can it please have ladybugs? Eatable ones of course! Make sure they're eatable."

As her party drew nearer, more and more requests came through in her cute little voice. "Grass", "flowers". "Don't forget the butterflies". "Make the butterflies flying up". "Remember the eatable ladybugs". "Ooooh can I please have glitter? Sparkly glitter please!"

Quite often the start of her message would be truncated because she started speaking too early before the recording began, so I would receive multiple messages with the same instructions. How could I say "no" to that cute little voice?!

So here is the butterfly cake, complete with ladybugs. "Eatable" of course.