Birthday Boy.

That's what I called this post last year, and it seems apt, so I'll stick with it.
Four years on. Every now and again, I try to think what I was doing four years ago. I have to say, it's got less pleasant as the day's gone on, but the outcome was ok :) Still can't believe it's four years. (I know, a bunch of you say the same, but with bigger numbers!)
We had a party today, which was more low-key than last years mammoth. No inflatable ball pool for starters! We did, however, have a cake. This time it was Rex, and I've written all about it on the other blog, so won't go through it all again.
There were no friends from nursery this time (he's increasing his time at school, so nursery will be finished at Easter). One from church, a couple from (his) school and a bunch from (our) school.
Anna did loads of amazing stuff for it - craft table, biscuit decoration, huge spread of food, pin-the-tail on the very old donkey, pass the parcel. Everything to make the perfect party.
Once again, we failed in the 'blowing out the candles' shot. We have a before shot, an after shot, but no 'during' shot. Oh well. Maybe next time.
Today I've been more conscious than I think I was last year of the blessing of having him at all. After the horrendous first few days, it seems all the more precious to have time with him, and to celebrate birthdays and other big events. He's amazing, and such a gift. Thanks God for giving him to us, Anna for having him, God again for keeping him with us, and Joshua for being him! Love you all.

Fresh start.

Had a lovely birthday on Monday down in Worthing (thanks to everyone who helped make it a great day!). Great time catching up with friends too - here are a couple of pics from our trip to the beach with some friends ... The first one is the classic 'sun in the background over the crashing waves' shot. And believe it or not, this is not very long after Joshua's had his haircut. That's as short as it's been for ages!



The second is a wonderful picture of my brave little boy (!) running away from the waves. I know it's a fun game to play, but he's clearly a little less hardy than his mate, who's still ten foot closer to the sea than he is and hasn't even started running yet. Having said that, if you look closer at the photo, you'll see that Joshua's already failed dismally in a previous attempt - absolutely drenched trousers! His mate's mummy wasn't overly impressed with me either ... I was taking photos of them (as you can tell!) and saw a wave coming in. I legged it up the beach, staying perfectly dry, but leaving them to get wet. Oops.

Great to catch up with people at Worthing High too! Lots of new faces though ... weird. I now don't recognise half the school!

Then we got back home and I discovered this:


Yes, a tree fell over in our garden while we were away. Well, there's a bit of a 'did it fall or was it pushed?' debate, but the less said about that the better. It's funny, I was stood there thinking, 'oh no, that's our best cropping plum' (ok, call me sad if you like). And then I looked up at the sky, saw what a great spot the tree had been planted in and immediately started thinking, 'I wonder what else we could plant here instead'. If only all loss was so easily dealt with! And of course, there's the other advantage that we've now got more wood to burn!

I'm also now trying to work out what things need to be planted in the next couple of weeks. Our new fruit trees are on the way, so they'll go in. But I've got serious amounts of seed to go in, with what is currently quite limited planting space. I think more stuff may have to come out... Oh dear. Joshua and I planted some more tulip bulbs (WAY too late!) and some dogwood cuttings today too, so hopefully they'll make it... If not, it doesn't really matter, they'll just compost down over time!

And last but not least, we had a lovely lunch today with friends here. They introduced us to a game called 'chairs'. There are 24 little (like, two inches tall) plastic chairs that have to be stacked in a tower, with only one touching the ground. It's more fun than it probably sounds (think Jenga, but building from scratch, with plastic chairs...) and I spent some time crafting the amazing tower below ...

Little things please little minds ... as they say.

Birthday boy.

He's only three, and yet the preparations for his party were on a par with preparations for a royal visit. We also had as many guests as you might expect to a royal banquet. Thankfully, some of the guests were very helpful indeed, or our survival would have been in real jeopardy.

The second parent who arrived asked whether we wanted parents to stay or not. I assured her that parents were MORE than welcome to stay (please!). I was on the fast track to cardiac arrest with that comment! Thankfully, all parents stayed, and were very well behaved (on the whole).

The hired inflatable ball pool (indoors, given the weather) was a real hit. Thankfully, the only actual hit that took place (and it was accidental) was sibling-on-sibling, so there was less explaining to do to parents. It was great fun watching the kids throwing themselves into it ... literally. (And great fun testing it out in advance of the party, too!) Sadly, the balls were all wet when it arrived, so Joshua's aunt and I had to crawl around in it with a couple of towels, but that was quite entertaining anyway... You'll be pleased to know that Joshua was unharmed in the making of this photograph - this is him having fun ...

Another highlight of the day was when one of the guests arrived and, on being told who was already there, announced that he didn't like one of the other guests. Oh dear. They all seemed to have fun anyway. We played the classic pass-the-parcel. A timeless game that takes as long to prepare as to play, and is bound to leave some people disappointed. Pin the tail on the donkey was also popular, though I think may have been beyond some of our younger guests... Joshua got it somewhere near the poor creature's head. Not likely to make a very good vet I'm afraid. (Though maybe the present of a vet's practice from his godmother will assist with that...)

The cake was a pirate ship (well sort of ...) on request of birthday boy himself. Sadly, the only writing icing we had was Barbie glitter icing, which didn't really seem to be quite right for a pirate cake, but I used it anyway! As soon as he'd blown out the candles, he said, "I want cake first". What a gracious host he's turning out to be! Unfortunately, it was as I was holding the cake in front of him, and we were all singing, that I realised I didn't have a camera (not that I could have taken a photo with the cake in my hands!) and therefore we were liable to miss out on the classic "blowing out the candles" (a.k.a. "spitting at the cake") shot. To my relief, I saw a flash go off during the blowing/spitting process and managed to nab the friend who'd taken the shot, so we didn't go without after all.

We had a craft table to welcome the children (so to speak) which was nice for a chance to calm them down a bit after the ball pool. Notice the concentration on Joshua's face as he works on his masterpiece, with snowman looking on. This was before he got hold of the fancy wiggly scissors and cut his paper into lots and lots of little pieces (with very pretty edges!). We will, of course, be hoovering glitter up from the entrance hall for weeks to come, but that's life.
We had cupcake decorating (a good way of clearing out that Barbie glitter writing icing), which seemed popular too. More popular than the craft, but then it's nicer to eat a cupcake than a drawing, so maybe that's why...

All-in-all, a largely successful party, and our guests seemed to go away happy. Joshua was so tired that he was falling asleep as granny was reading him his bedtime story. Granny and Pops get a special mention, as do Tammie and Ben. They all worked their socks off to help provide a fantastic day for the boy, and to look after our hordes of parents. (Hordes in number, that is, not in temperament...)

Today has been somewhat quieter (though it's actually today that's his birthday). We popped into mini carols this morning (though were so late we actually missed the carols altogether) and then provided lunch for the staff in the house. 10 grown-ups are much easier to cater for than 18 children! We're spreading the present opening over a period of time, so that he doesn't get overwhelmed.