Megan’s 8th Birthday

Yesterday my little girl turned 8, and she’s brought eight years of joy and delight to our lives.  She celebrated her birthday by having five of her friends round for a birthday party after school.

First, they decorated cupcakes:

Cupcake funCupcake decorating

Next they went on a treasure hunt around the house and garden:

Treasure Hunt Treasure huntTreasure Hunt

Then they each decorated their own T-shirt by creating their own transfers (fear not, I did the actual ironing!)…

Megan's t-shirtMegan’s t-shirt

And, after party tea, there was cake… Megan's 8th Birthday Cake Megan's princess cake Cake from behind Happy 8th Birthday Megan!!

Lots of love, Mummy xxx

Christmas Tree, party, and tablet.

From Saturday:

1) K and the kids brought home our Christmas tree – it sits in place, unadorned as yet, but somehow its piney freshness and luxuriant deep green appearance brighten up the room.

2) We took the kids to K’s work Children’s Christmas Party… they had heaps of fun, running around, playing games, having stunning face painting, dancing, watching the magic show, eating delicious food, balloon art, and a visit from Santa.  A was delighted with his LED Bike Lights, and M loves her Letraset Manga Drawing starter set*.

Aidan**, and Beautiful Butterfly Megan

3) We made a start on some of the Christmas baking…  we feel that we’ve finally cracked our tablet recipe – this batch just melts in the mouth.  I’m now wondering if any will be allowed to find its way to the intended recipients…

Tablet Mountain

* A commented afterwards that he always got such good presents at this party, and wondered if we had anything to do with the choice… 😉

** Just how tall is my boy getting?! 🙂

Weekend fun.

Phew, well hopefully normal blogging resumes as of today 🙂 …

From the weekend then:

1) The kids have loved playing with their new cousins – they all get on so well, it was truly a delight to see.

2)  A big family party on Saturday evening: dinner out, followed by dancing, cake, and party games. Much fun was had by all.

3) Sunday was a quiet day, although M went to a friend’s birthday party at lunchtime. In the evening, we had dinner at my parent’s place, followed by another mini-celebration – an exchange of gifts which resulted in four very happy small girls.

Beautiful weekend

Keith here – Carolyn invited me to do a guest post this week. Last weekend was a pretty special weekend.

A’s cycling club has moved from Wednesday evenings to Saturday mornings to take advantage of the light, and happily this coincides with M’s swimming. So we had a “cycloswimming” morning (at least, that’s what it says on our noticeboard!). M and I get some time together to go shopping, I get some time on my own, and we all get to enjoy the sunshine together as M and I watch A come fourth in his cycle race!

The rest of the day is contrastingly rushed and pressured, and we are so blessed to attend an event for youth leaders in the evening. “We just want to do something for you,” they say, “give you some time and space, feed you some good food, look after you.” We relax and begin to recentre ourselves again.

On Sunday afternoon after church we are suddenly inundated: it’s M’s 7th birthday, and she has invited 5 other girls. In a moment of recession-era bravery we have chosen to have an at-home craft and Wii party, and it is a glorious success! The girls pour custard into the icecream churn, then each prepares their own mini pizza for later. The major craft is decorating a papier-mache letter with crepe paper, cut-out flowers, and stickers. Despite glue and paper galore the chaos is contained and the girls are enthusiastically focussed. Wii Party provides endless hilarity. And the butterfly cake brings genuine sparkles to their eyes. Our wee girl had a fabulous party.

Chocolate fudge cake with Italian meringue topping and handpainted sugarpaste butterflies.

Butterflies detail.

–KW 8-)

Birthday, patch, and WIP Wednesday

It’s good to be back online again, although I’ve really appreciated a couple of computer-free weeks.  We had a fab holiday camping on the Isle of Skye – it was one of the few dry places in the UK while we were there, so we felt very blessed!  We’ve all come home feeling much more relaxed and refreshed now 🙂 .

So on to today’s Three Beautiful Things, with a bit of today’s Works-in-Progress on the side!

1) It was my not-so-small boy’s 9th birthday last week, and today we celebrated by taking him and eight friends to the local ten-pin bowling alley. There were lots of laughs, and smiling faces, and much fun was had 🙂 .  

 
Aidan’s Draughts Board Birthday Cake, and Birthday Party Tea

2) To sew a butterfly patch on a favourite pair of trousers and make a small girl very happy!

3) Here’s my third beautiful thing of the day – I don’t think the fact she is wearing a half-knitted Big Sister Dress detracts from how cute she looks with her face painted!!

I made significant progress on this garment while we were on holiday last week, and it’s nearly long enough (it’s curled up at the bottom, so it is actually longer than it looks). It will be good to get this done – the yarn is lovely to work with, but the endless rows of knit stitches is getting a little boring!

For more of today’s Works-in-Progress, please check out Tami’s blog here