A Tale of Two Birthdays

Isn't it amazing that sometimes the smallest things, perhaps things that we take for granted can bring us the most happiness. It was my birthday on Sunday and I was delighted to be able to spend the day with my family. We didn't do anything other than enjoy each other's company. We all went and watched Matthew participate in Little Kickers, I marvelled at how much he has improved since starting in September.

Then we went for a picnic at a local park, the children had great fun playing on the bits and bobs and running about enjoying the facilities. There were the sounds of people having fun, the day was warm and bright and as I watched Lucy endeavouring to crawl up a grassy bank, grass staining her new shoes I realised that this was what life was all about. My best birthday present this year (other than the new iphone of course) was spending time with the family.

We topped the picnic off with a visit to the garden centre where we all chose new plants for the border in the front of the house. This perhaps was made all the more pertinent when Mr T had to work through his birthday. The children spent time on Monday making him a cake;
I served breakfast in bed and then the cards and presents followed. As he left for work we all felt a little deflated and as we sang Happy Birthday to him as loudly as possible in the vain hope that our out of tune singing was penetrating the office windows. Sometimes we take it all for granted and perhaps the two contrasting birthdays have helped to sharpen the mind.

Bit of a wash out

Yesterday was Heather's party. We were to start at 2pm and have a bouncy castle and ball pool and use her climbing frame, but alas, the British weather put a dampner on things, quite literally.

It started to rain at about 1pm and didn't stop until the middle of the night. Luckily we had a back-up plan having seen the forecast. The previous night I had stayed up until 2am downloading party dance music onto my ipod to ensure that should the worst happen we could do some dancing. We also rigged up the microphone so that the kids could sing, in the end we didn't need these distractions as the 16 children played with the toys in the bedrooms and jumped about.

We had an indoor picnic using the spare tablecloth I had bought (saved on the clearing up as well!). Lucy slept through most of it despite the racket we were making! The kids had a good time at least just a shame the weather couldn't have been kinder but at least we now have a tidy garden and I have reminded myself how to do the cha cha slide, birdie song, agadoo and superman.

Matthew enjoyed the party, he spend most of it eating, as quickly as I could dish out the sugar laden treats and pastry wrapped sausages he was gobbling them down, he did also partake from the fruit platter and seemed to polish off the cucumber and carrot batons single handedly. The horse theme went down a treat but I am glad there are no more kiddie birthdays until March now! (well of mine anyway)

A wet weekend in Somerset

We spent a long weekend in Somerset to celebrate Grandpa's 60th birthday. His Mum and I had managed to cobble together a weekend to Brussles with tickets to the Belgian Grand Prix for him as Mr T turned 30 in april I had paid for him to go as well.

On the saturday we decided to visit the West Somerset Steam Railway, the stations are beautiful and the whole lot is maintained by volunteers. Matthew loved the trains and even though there wasn't a Thomas in sight he insisted that every train we passed in the sidings was a character from the show, the kids had great delight in spotting every cow, sheep or horse we passed. We arrived in Minehead at exactly the same time as a heavy shower, we managed to find a little cafe where we dined unhealthily, but tastily. As the rain was still going we couldn't really venture into town or along the beach as little Lucy would get soaked and the bigger two would moan about being cold and wet so back to the trains we went.

The birthday went by quickly, we had breakfast and then nipped to the supermarket to get some bits that in my hasty packing I had left behind. Cake and champagne were next on the menu and then a roast dinner in the evening rounded off by a healthy dollop of tennis, what more could a girl want?