As you can see by my post below about making Tasty Cupcakes and Delicious Chocolate Cakes in preparation for Children’s Week, I’ve been doing what I can to prepare now for this holiday.  If you have participated in the holiday in the past, you will know that there is a LOT of running around involved, showing your orphan sites in Old World and Outlands, and it seems that there will be yet another string of quests this year taking you around Northrend starting with Orphan Matron Twinbreeze in Dragonblight!  There is a lot you can do in advance, however, to cut down on all of the activity that will be needed to complete the quests and achievements next week.  Here’s the scoop:

Many of the items that you will need to complete Children’s Week quests and achievements can be done before you ever pick up your little wards.  In addition, there seems to be some money to be made on this holiday if you are willing to play the market.  Hooray!

In terms of what you can gather up now, here’s a list of items and where to find them:

Tigule & Foror’s Strawberry Ice Cream – you will need to get two of these if you intend to complete both the Bad Example Achievement and the I Scream, You Scream quest, which is part of the Children’s Week questlines that start in Orgrimmar for Horde and in Stormwind for Alliance.  Although this ice cream will be available for sale from special Children’s Week vendors in Orgrimmar and Stormwind, you can pick it up early from Caregiver Isel Nagrand, the Telaar innkeeper in Nagrand located at coords 54.2, 76.  It is also available in the Shimmering Flats of Thousand Needles from Brivelthwerp at 77.4, 77.  If you miss picking this up early, though, it is not a big deal at all because during Children’s Week you will find it is being sold by Emmithue Smails, a Children’s Week vendor in Stormwind City who you will find in the Trade District of Stormwind just to the right of the large tree next to the mailbox in front of the bank. Alowicious Czervik will be standing near the bank in Orgrimmar during the holiday, and will have this for sale, as well.  A word to the wise, pick this up before you start running all over for the Children’s Week quest chains, whether you get it now or you wait until Children’s Week has begun.  Both the alliance and horde quest chains will have you running all over the place and you will be glad to have saved yourself a trip.

There are a number of food items that you can pick up in advance from Aimee at Pie, Pastry and Cakes, located in Dalaran near the barbershop at coords 51.2, 28.4.  From her you can obtain a Red Velvet Cupcake, a Dalaran Doughnut, a Dalaran Brownie, and a Lovely Cake that can be divided into Lovely Cake Slices.  Go visit her with 4 of your friends who want to participate in the holiday if you can, as most of these items are sold in stacks of 5.  You will need to eat one of each of these confections in front of your orphan to complete the Bad Example achievement. 

In addition, you are going to need to eat a Delicious Chocolate Cake and a Tasty Cupcake for that achievement.  These items, however, cannot be purchased from vendors.  They can only be made by people with the cooking skill who have the recipes.  If you cannot cook or do not wish to gather the ingredients yourself, you can look for these on the Auction House.  If you can find them now, you’ll probably save yourself some gold, as the price is likely to skyrocket once the holiday begins. 

However, if you are a cook, or if you are frugal and want to save yourself some gold, you might want to farm the ingredients ahead of time for these two items. 

The ingredients for a Delicious Chocolate Cake are:

8 simple flour – sold by cooking suppliers in all major cities
4 ice cold milk – sold by food and drink vendors and innkeepers in major cities in Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor, as well as in low level towns on these continents.  Also drops off of low level mobs.
8 small eggs - dropped by low level birds in many areas.  The highest drop rate appears to be from Dire Condors in Redridge Mountains, located both to the north and the south of the lake in the middle of this zone.
Flask of port - sold by many, including bartenders and barmaids in the major cities of Eastern Kingdoms and Kalimdor.
3 mageroyal - available as a drop off of numerous low level mobs (visit link for list) or can be gathered by herbalists.

 Tasty Cupcakes require fewer ingredients:

 2 simple flour – sold by cooking suppliers in all major cities
Northern Egg - drops most frequently from Goretalon Rocs in Sholozar Basin

 If you are a cook, you might consider making up extra cakes and cupcakes for sale on the auction house.  Even if you are not, however, it might be well worth your while to farm the ingredients for these recipes for two reasons.  1) you will probably be able to find a cook who will make what you need for nothing more than a tip if you have the ingredients already.  2)  the ingredients themselves will likely skyrocket in price over the next week as people seek them out to have their own recipes made.  Mageroyal, for example, is already selling for twice its normal cost on my server’s auction house. 

In addition to selling the food items that can only be made by cooks on the auction house over the coming week, and the ingredients of those cooking only items, you might also consider buying up extras of the items sold by Aimee at Pie, Pastry and Cakes in Dalaran to try your luck with them on the Auction House.  There are always players who lack resources, ambition, or time to go seek out items like this.  Not knowing where to find them, or not wanting to bother to make the trip to get them, they might seek them out on the auction house.  Don’t believe me?  Take a look on your local Auction House at the non-combat pets.  I bet you will find dozens that are available from vendors throughout Azeroth.  People buy them from the vendor, listing them on the Auction House for twice their value, and make a profit every day this way.  These food items that can only be found in one shop in the whole game should be no exception.

Lastly, as this is a PVE druid blog, I’m guessing that most readers here are not heavily into PVP.  I know I’m not.  So part of what I will be doing in preparation for Children’s Week is studying up on the battlegrounds that are part of the School of Hard Knocks achievement.  I’m dubious that I will get this one done, but it is possible that I will give it a shot.  Therefore, I’ve done a little work to gather some resources for the uninitiated:
How to capture the flag in World of Warcraft
WOW:  Master of Eye of the Storm
Warsong Gulch Battleground Guide
Alterac Valley Battleground Guide
Arathi Basin Battleground guide
Eye of the Storm Battleground guide 

Good luck out there!  I hope you and your orphans have the time of your lives!

Edit:  although there was speculation that there would be a Northrend component to Children’s Week this year, Orphan Matron Twinbreeze does not offer any related quests.

Just a quick post this morning.  I’ve got another post in the works for later today.  But I wanted to remind everyone that even though you may be knee deep in Easter eggs right now, don’t forget that Children’s Week is coming!  I’m getting ready by farming up the ingredients for Delicious Chocolate Cakes and Tasty Cupcakes to feed the masses trying to set a Bad Example for their orphans.  If you’re a cook, fire up the ovens!  You might make some extra coinage by catering to the sweet tooths and bad habits of your fellow players.  =)