Our baby turned three on Friday. Lil made him a special birthday crown.
I love it when the kids finally “get” their birthdays. Tommy was so excited all week, telling everyone he was going to be three and have a pig/dinosaur cake – he couldn’t make up his mind which one he wanted more!
Having a birthday in the school holidays is fun because it means he has company all day long!
The dinosaur cake won in the end. A family favourite black forest cake decorated with new dino toys and dinosaur ‘eggs’.
Happy birthday to our sweet, loving little boy – just stay that way, okay? xx
Did you miss me? My blog posts are so sporadic at the moment that I bet you didn’t even know I was gone!
I’ve just spent the weekend in Sydney for my little sister’s baby shower! Isn’t she the cutest?! And at 35 weeks has the best little bump ever!
It was so lovely to spend the weekend with my Mum and two sisters. We are all so alike, yet very different and our personalities definitley compliment each other. I remember when Dad had a stroke (which we thought was a heart attack at the time) and we were all at Mum & Dad’s house for the Christmas holidays. Mum went to the hospital with Dad, leaving us girls at home…it is hilarious to look back at our coping mechanisms: Carli – non-stop talking, making absolutely no sense. I whipped out the vacuum cleaner and proceeded to clean the house from top to bottom because I didn’t want Mum to have to come home to any housework and Filipa sat on the couch and cried! See what I mean about complimenting each other beautifully – at least we weren’t all fighting over the vacuum cleaner! Filipa is a pure delight and always has been the lovely one of the family. And you could tell just how many people really do love her from the large gathering and lots of hugs and laughter at her baby shower.
We were graced by lovely live music, a special speech and fun socialising. The games were kept to a minimum (because you know how they can drag out!)
Particularly entertaining was making Fil’s baby out of playdough – see that looong purple one in the middle? Michaela made that one because she thinks the baby is going to be super tall like 6’8″ Uncle Chris!
Apart from the baby shower, we also went out for a delicious “girls only” dinner and ate way too much in our three course dinner that finished off with musical plates circulating around the table so that we could sample each others dessert! On Sunday night we visited the spectacular light show, Vivid Sydney and were awed by the amazing artistic transformation of the city. And Saturday saw us taking a trip to North Head lookout. The view of the city was out of this world.
And I’m not joking when I tell you it was one of the most windy days I’ve experienced in a long time…
It made us all go a little crazy!
Now, before I forget – I must share the winners of the Creative Card giveaway…
Congrats Melisa and Amy! I’ll email you with more info 🙂
I don’t care much about fancy gifts for Mother’s Day. I really, really look forward to the cute handmade gifts that my children have made me at school or church. It is so sweet – especially when they run into their bedrooms after school to hide their special presents from me until the big day! This year I got lovely pasta necklaces, a collage, a masterpiece on a canvas, some delicious homemade biscuits and more.
The biscuits came with a copy of the recipe so that the kids could make them with me. So last Monday we got cooking and made a big batch for the week.
These are really yummy. I decided to sandwich them together with homemade raspberry jam – yum! We left some plain with only icing and no jam too. We wanted them bite-sized so used the little measuring cup that you get with kids panadol as the cutter. It was the perfect size, especially for the kids.
Kiss & Cuddle Biscuits
250g butter 1 cup icing sugar 1 egg 1 tsp vanilla essence 1 cup SR flour 2 cups plain flour
Cream the butter and icing sugar together. Add the egg and vanilla and beat well. Add the flours and mix until a firm dough forms. Roll out to 5mm thick (I like to do this between two sheets of baking paper). Cut into shapes using cookie cutters. Place on baking paper-lined trays and bake in 180 degree celsius oven until lightly golden. When cool, ice with icing and sprinkles. Sandwich together with raspberry jam, if desired.
Last month we had a super fun visit from the Jeffrey’s. I so wished they lived closer. The kids love their cousins to bits and are instant friends every time we get together.
Micah and Tommy hit it off in the bath
Cute kids turn cuter with a bit of face painting
We took a road trip down south, stopping at the beautiful Richmond and then adventuring onward…
…to beautiful Port Arthur…
…on the most AMAZING adventure cruise you could ever imagine. Make sure you pop over to read all about our fun times on Carli’s blog here – it was definitley one of the best things I have EVER done!!! Every Tasmanian should do it and everyone who visits Tasmania should do it!
When the Jeffrey’s were here, we played at the beach
had cousin sleep-overs
massaged, manicured and pedicured Aunty Sam – ready for her due day
we did rock climbing
painted little girl finger nails
celebrated upcoming cousin’s baby arrival
we took crazy photographs with people we love against the green wall
and tested Uncle Cade’s strength in a piggy back ride for 6…ending up in a big sprawling mess of laughter. And that’s how it usually ends up – sometimes with a few tears, but mostly good belly-aching laughter. Come again Jeffrey’s!!
We have two baby girls joining our family over the next few months and we celebrated the anticipated arrival of the first with a baby shower for Sam.
We decided to go with a “picture book” theme as Sam is a complete book worm. Leanne made us some prints using some of Sam’s favourite quotes from picture books. We used them to decorate around the room and I printed them out and stuck them to brown paper bags which we used to hold all the bits and pieces the guests would need for games and activities during the night.
As a thankyou for each of the guests, I also printed them out and mod-podged them to little squares of chipboard with a magnet on the back (and some chocolates of course!)
Sam made some cute Charlie & Lola signs for the food and drinks table. We served strawberry and chocolate milk in some of the jars saved from Sam and Ty’s wedding.
There were lots of games – including this wacky baby face prediction collage…some of the combinations of Sam and Ty’s features were very scary (including a little baby that looked just like Ian Thorpe!)
It was a lovely night, fun to be with the girls and help Sam get ready for her little. Just a couple of weeks to go and we will get to meet her!
