Let them eat cake!

I always have to take a deep breath and dive into July, and hope to emerge at the other end with a reasonable amount of sanity intact. Not only is it the month that involves numerous school assemblies, concerts, trips, sports days and open days as the school year comes to an end, but between them my children clock up numerous birthday party invitations (currently they have one every Saturday between now and September) and other events that just fill every hourly crevice of the month. We do our own fair share of filling July with birthdays too: in the second half of July we have three in our immediate family alone - Albert who achieved his first birthday on the 16th, Rufus who turned 3 on the 28th, and Adam on the 30th. Add to that my nephew and my sister and a couple of friends, all in the last week of July, it's quite a celebratory week!

It always amuses me at how a first birthday celebration, those who are the most excited is not the birthday boy or girl themselves but virtually everyone else around them! Hounded by Will Josie and Buzz, we made sure he had presents and cards, and were all up as early as they could be (for that read: as early as Daddy allowed!) to present their gifts to a rather nonchalant Albie who as a typical 12 month old was just as interested in the paper and boxes that surrounded his gift than the gift itself. It was also interesting to note the plethora of noisy musical additions to the toy box...

In contrast to Albie, Rufus was acutely aware of his impending birthday and impressed me with his mathmatical knowledge as he counted down the days faithfully (but only down from ten, he hasn't got the fingers for more than that - or the patience!). We had planned to coincide the showing of Toy Story 3 at the cinema with Buzz's birthday and had the tickets booked. Overhearing a conversation between an excited Buzz, Josie and Will, I heard plans developing for the cinema trip to include what characters they were going to be dressed up as: Rufus as Buzz, (naturally), Josie as an alien, and Will as Woody. I laughed to myself as I listened to the discussion of what Daddy could go as. I abruptly stopped laughing as I they continued on to what Mummy was going to dress up as. Fortunately, Daddy was given 'grown-up Andy'(Jeans and T-shirt, I think we could persuade Daddy to that) and Mummy 'Andy's Mum' (the other choice was Barbie, but I think that may have required a bit too much effort, not to mention plastic surgery).

Big School

I got back late from work on Josie's first day at school. So when I woke up the next day, I asked her to tell me all about it. She did so in her own inimitable way, I'm glad I had the presence of mind to record it!

You join the story a little way in, because that presence of mind kicked in only after she'd begun.

Little English Scholars.

The English language by all accounts is a complex thing for a grown up to fully master let alone for four and five year olds. But they try...

Josie had been invited to a birthday party at 'Jolly Roger's', one of the big foam slide/tunnel/ball pit establishments here in Swindon. A brief, but heated discussion was had when Josie failed to see that clambering about on giant foam blocks was not easily accomplished whilst wearing a long flowing party dress, even for her. The scales were tipped when I informed her that everyone might see her knickers when she was climbing about. But The-Queen-of-all-that-is-pink-and-girly was only willing to compromise to a degree. Hence we ended up with her least best dress that is slightly too small and therefore not so long - with a pair of coordinating leggings on underneath... The party appeared to be a success (food, cake,and giant wobbly slides - how could it not?) and as I collected a rather tired and dishevelled Josie from the party I enquired how it had gone. With a slight hint of wishfulness she told me that Denan (the birthday girl) had been wearing a very pretty dress and had "proper clip clop shoes" and sparkles on her. Not entirely sure what that meant, I asked where she had had sparkles.
"On her arms, her cheeks and on her eye-pods"...

It was rather hot when we got back to the car after church, and since they had been fairly good the whole three hour block AND then sat through choir practice with me, I figured that we would just roll all the windows down instead of just switching on the air-con. As we pulled out they all started giggling as their hair started whipping about and I glanced back at Buzz who was grinning like a Cheshire Cat whilst trying to breathe. Now, there are two routes home - the quick way down the duel carriageway, or the slightly longer route round the houses. I realised as I pulled out that my I'm-hungry-let's-get-home-quickly auto pilot had turned right - the quick route home. As we approached the slip road, Will realising that I was about to wind the windows up before we hit 70mph yelled from the back of the car, "Mum, leave the windows down on the George Carriageway!" And you know what? I did!

Will's Show and Tell Friday 26th June 2009.

When I am a grown up, I want to be a baker.
I am going to give bread to everyone. I am going to bake some bread in my Baker’s shop. I will bake bread every Thursday and cakes every Wednesday.
I have made some bread to show you. To make bread you need special flour called Bread Flour, and you need salt, and sugar, and yeast. Yeast is really special because it makes the bread go bigger and bigger when it gets warm.
I measured the ingredients. You have to let the mixture rise and get bigger and then knead it. When you knead it you push and pull and squash the bread dough. I baked the bread at my Grandma’s house.

Twenty Five Days To Go...

Can you hear that? No? Me neither. It's as quiet as it comes at home this afternoon as everyone is either at school or sleeping!
I've taken this rare opportunity of solitude not to take a pleasant siesta, but to finally get around to packing a hospital bag, as there are indeed only, 25 days until Hurley Baby no.4 (a.k.a "Nono") arrives. In all previous pregnancies I have been packed and ready to go at least a month before my due date, and all that seems to have done is tempt fate and they arrive late. So I'm naively trying to trick fate into giving me an earlier baby by being laid back (to the point of slight panic creeping in)!

We have all been getting excited this week though, as I brought out all of the littlest tiny clothes for Nono from the loft, and Buzz kept attempting to try it all on! It's hard to believe that they were all once that small...

This is the life

I'm sat outside, all I can hear is birdsong and my children playing. Although I'm sat in the shade, it's warm.

I'm sat waiting for the coals to heat up, before cooking a whole chicken on the Weber. I'm also going to be trying to do jacket potatos seeing as this chicken is going to take some time. Later we'll pop on some corn on the cobs too!

Today we went to Bideford, the Barnstaple branch meet at Bideford College. Seeing as we weren't up particularly early, we just went for the Sacrament meeting. It was interesting mostly due to the branch not having a piano or organ, so we all sang acapella. The branch president was very kind, he came up to speak to us after the meeting and offered to have us round for dinner.

I got changed into my shorts and t-shirt in the car park, much to Hannah's amusement/bemusement. We drove off towards Bude looking for a nice cliff to enjoy our picnic on. We ended up at a place called Hartland Point, which had a lighthouse. It was very plesant, Hannah had made up some ham and cheese brioche (something I'd discovered in France a week back).

We packed our things away in the car, we went wandering to see what we could find. We walked along the cliff edge, which provided a nice cooling sea breeze to what had turned out to be a stifling day, without a cloud in the sky.

I took Will and Josie on a slightly more daring path, to see how far we could make it. The drop down was a bum clencher of a cliff, providing magnificent views - I wished I had brought my camera.

We stopped off at the shops on the way home to buy some potatos and boursin for our meal tonight.

The house we're staying in is really nice, it's a converted barn, which sleeps up to 10. We're in the deepest countryside, which is peaceful without being smelly.

If this weather keeps up, this will end up being a very nice holiday!

Best see how that chicken is doing...

May The Force Be With You...

After the blink-and-you'll-miss-it holiday, the summer seemed to crawl along, due mainly to the distinct lack of any discernible length of sunshine. The highlight of the 'greyest August ever' then materialised in the form of Cousin Laszlo's 4th birthday party. Despite only just turning four, Laszlo has a great love for all things Star Wars; he just LOVES it! It came as no surprise then that this should be the theme for his party. Having read the invitation and the fateful words no mother wants to read on a party invitation of 'Fancy Dress', Will declares his immediate desire to go dressed as Han Solo, and Josie as Princess Leia. A few long hours with the sewing machine later, I think we achieved something worthy to fight the Dark Side!
I'm not sure who had the most fun - the birthday boy or his dad!