Eight

Miss Meg was 8 on Saturday.  We were all prepared for a weekend full of football, 3 matches from early Saturday and probably 2 matches on Sunday.  We had discussed when we would manage to fit in birthday presents amid the rushing and chaos and had settled on a day in Sydney during the week (picked according to the weather forecast, as it happens, very well picked!) and presents most likely Friday night.  As it turned out, we had our day out then all football was called off due to waterlogged pitches.  Result!

Our day in Sydney was based around the Narnia Exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum and Meg's request for Yum Cha.  I had asked for recommendations on facebook and was told Marigold on George Street was the answer.  Having never experienced Yum Cha I did some googling so that I knew what was involved.  It was a great, if not slightly scary, experience!

We'd eaten most of it by this point!

We then had a quick dash to Gap and back to the Powerhouse.  The kids all enjoyed Narnia, Robert insisted on a quick whip around the Wiggles again, then the Lego exhibit before heading out to Darling Harbour where we couldn't drag the kids away from the playground.

Darling Harbour appears to be haunted!

On the way back to the car they were all doing their usual jumping about in fountains when 2 of the boys collided and Jonathan went in, we all laughed, then Meg went in!  We laughed again and then Joseph went in!  I couldn't believe it and couldn't speak for crying with laughter!  Thankfully they were also laughing and not too far from the car to get stripped and cosied up!

When Saturday came around she had requested Lego, which, as you can no doubt tell, is the "in thing" in these parts at the moment, and I was very glad indeed that the Target Toy Sale just happened to coincide and meant I could get both things she had mentioned, from us and on behalf of the "rellies".  Thank you Target!

She did some building, then we had a little Mother-Daughter time at Frankies Place, then friends came for dinner and Sand Castle birthday cake in the evening.  Rachel made flags for the cake and decided on a Saltire for Meg's place of birth, a Tricoleur  for Bastille Day and the Australian flag for our current position.  If there had been room, there would have been a Union Jack.  Niamh was a little disturbed that there was no English flag!  Meg declared it to be the "Best birthday EVER!"

"Happy Birthday to you!"

We Love Lego!

Every now and then there is peace in the house.  More often than not I find this unsettling and go in search of whatever mischief might be happening.  To be fair this is usually unnecessary.

After dinner on Saturday evening the kids disappeared rather than demanding to watch recordings of 'Outnumbered'.   I have now lost count of the number of people who think that Meg is just like Karen, but more worrying to us is just how like Ben Joseph is...  Anyway, I went in search of the aforementioned mischief only to discover this:

The two big boys had spent hours building a Superhero School with speciality classrooms, staff room, Principal's Office and even a janitor!  I love the attention to details like the water cooler in the back of one of the classrooms! 

In other parts of the room there were Ninjago dojos set up and there was some Harry Potter Lego action going on, but a small mishap (aka Robert) had occurred resulting in the Burrow looking as if it had been on the receiving end of an attack by Voldemort himself!

In related news, a lovely mum from school sent me a message during the week to ask if I would be prepared to make another Ninjago head cake for her wee boy's 6th birthday party.  I umm-ed and ahh-ed then said OK.   Here he is.

No 9

No3 Boy was 9 today.  We were due to be leaving the house at 7.30am for football matches in various places around the countryside, but due to the recent rain and flooding in the Hunter all the matches were called off - yay!  We got a lie-in, Boy got to open his presents, play games, build Lego and we generally chilled out together.

Biggest Boy had a piano exam after lunch which he passed.  I have never seen him quite so shaken afterwards!  I don't think even he realized how nervous he'd been.  He has been learning some hard lessons of late to do with working hard and getting out of things what you put in.  I hope for his sake he learns them sooner rather than later.

Back to No3 Boy, we got home and finished decorating his cake.  I had a little assistance from No2 Boy who considers himself an expert in the fields of Lego and modeling.

For those of you unfamiliar with the latest Lego craze, this is Zane from the Ninjago sets.

(Edited to add that I have written up a tutorial for this cake here)

After cake we got (relatively) spruced up (they're a scruffy lot)  and went into Honeysuckle for dinner and the Winter Heat events put on by LiveSites.  These events include fire installations, live music, activities for children and this evening fire-eaters, fire-twirlers and beds of nails!

This one taken by No2 Boy with my phone - I love it!

It's been quite a revealing day for me today, actually.  No3 Boy is always a very sweet, loving, kind boy with a fairly mental side.  While many kids would be possessive of their presents, he has spent all day sharing, giving and thinking about his siblings.  No2 Boy is not known for these qualities but when I told the 3 of them that their sister had gone to the front of the crowd on her own because she couldn't climb up to their vantage point, without being told, or telling me, he went and found her and stayed with her until the end.  And No1 told me in the car after his exam that he was grateful to God for helping him to be calm while he was playing his pieces.
It's so lovely to have a wee glimpse, every now and then, of the decent human beings that they will become.  Bit more of it would be nice...

Happy Birthday Your Majesty!

It's the end of the Long Weekend and I'm watching Heston Blumenthal putting four poor amateur chefs through the wringer on Masterchef while I type. 

It's been a wet, windy and relatively cold weekend, but we're tough Celts and it doesn't stop us!  We've done a wee bit of indoor stuff and the Wii has had a bit of a workout, but Dog and Mummy need to get out for fresh air!  We dodged the showers yesterday and had a good look around the HMAS Newcastle.

 Smallest Boy has decided he would like to join the Navy so that he can climb right to the top of the ship. 

At the end, No2 Boy was delighted to be given some pop out models to make when we got home.  We reckon he'll be an engineer or architect as he loves making/building stuff!

This morning No1 Boy had an extra piano lesson at his teachers house as he has an exam on Saturday.  It gave me half an hour to sit in the car with my crochet, listening to my cd's in peace.  How lovely!  After lunch we rugged up and took ourselves to the beach for, what turned out to be, a very windy walk! 

There was the usual jumping, digging, burying, and racing,  along with some chatting and coffee and ice creams. 

How cute are these two?

And these two?

When we got home we warmed up with hot chocolate and marshmallows - soo good! 


I had to bribe Miss M to do a bit of modelling for me, she was not in the mood and it took some persuasion to get these pics. 

I'm always surprised by how green her eyes are when the rest of us have blue/grey. 

The pattern for this beanie is in The Happy Hooker and I made it a bit smaller by using a 5mm hook.  I have been asked a couple of times to make some beanies as customers at Make Space have been requesting them.  Thankfully they are pretty quick to make - I do love my instant gratification.


And I'd better not forget my "Guardian Alien" built for me by Smallest Boy...

Back to real life in the morning!