Happy Birthday to ME!

Hello!

I haven't had a lot of time to blog recently, what, with hospital appointments and other stuff. Earlier this week, Mum and I attended the funeral of our former priest, Fr Tony Pelan at Aylesford Priory. He was a very good parish priest; an energetic and funny man. He married Hubby and I and baptised our Honor-May.

Yesterday was my birthday. My 40th birthday! I don't look it... do I???!

Here I am at the medieval fair again. We went there on my birthday last year. I think that I am even wearing the same top! It's well worn.
Just enjoying a Pimms while we watch a bit of archery and combat.

Hubby bought me a new coffee table. It is very nice, but the best thing about it was the box!

Look what we did with it...



Hours of fun has been had in this box by both young and old.

Honor and I made decorations for the gazebo.
This ribbon chandelier was made by covering an embroidery hoop in ribbon and tying lots of lengths of ribbon to it and I made the bunting from scrap fabric bundles that I bought on the local haberdashery market stall.
The flowers are a mix of supermarket and garden flowers. Hubby did order me some flowers from an on-line company but they haven't turned up yet. Neither have some birthday cards that family members posted days ago.

My friends, Glenn, Jancy and Lisa came for dinner which was the Aldi 3-bird roast, cooked by Hubby. It was fabulous. And we had the Eton Mess in brandy baskets that we had last year again 'cos they were great. Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Life begins....

Henry's birthday.

So it's been a busy weekend. Hubby returned from two weeks away in Alaska for our 'obese' son's 6th birthday. Henry was born on the 11th of September 2004. The midwife commented that this would be a date to remember for obvious reasons. But like any other day, births are celebrated and the departed are mourned. This weekend we celebrated and counted our blessings. This little man is growing up fast and is a little guy to be very proud of.

We had a party for him. Godmother Lisa came with one of her nieces but the rest of the guests were boys for a traditional boys party. Lots of rough n tumble and climbing and swinging on things. Er, yes, Hubby, but I meant the little boys!

I split them into teams. (I like a bit of competition.) The green arrows and the blue arrows were given numbers. They were not allowed to speak or hold up fingers but get themselves into numerical order. The green arrows stood around looking bewildered but before I knew it, the blue arrows had completed their task by stamping their feet to each other.

Hubby took over the next bit... making bows and arrows and having a bit of an archery contest.

We had a pass-the-parcel (I think the grown-ups enjoyed this bit the most - see previous post), some food and Henry received some fabulous presents.

Now, Ma and Pa are getting over it with a kebab and glass of wine. (And more you-tube clips... Hubby is on to Charlie's Angels now. Sooooo intellectual!)

Wizard of Oz party.

Today I took the children to their friends' Wizard of Oz party. We had to rustle up costumes at fairly short notice. Witches outfits were already available in our dressing up box but Henry wanted to go as the cowardly lion. So his Nana very kindly burned the midnight oil last night to make him this wonderful costume from a brown hooded top.

The ears have cardboard in to make them stand up,

and the fur came from a wig she had!

At the party, the props came from a drama set for a Wizard of Oz theatre production, donated by a friend.

There were a few 'Dorothy' outfits. They were ready made ones. I think Rosie's (in picture) was bought on Ebay. One boy came dressed in a brilliant tin-man costume, though it didn't take him long to pull it to pieces - what a shame. And there were a good mix of good witches, bad witches, munchkins, scarecrows and lions. I didn't find any flying monkey outfits but I found a bat costume in Mothercare which was only £3.99 for my little baby boo!

When I got there, I was asked to help think up some games for the guests to play. We came up with a kind of musical statues game except when the music stopped, the children had to pose as a sleeping lion, a rusted up tin man or a scarecrow. My daughter, Honor, was a bit shy to start with as she did not know many of the children there. So we divided the kids into 4 teams to do an 'Oz has got talent' activity. The groups had to work together to perform a short scene and song for the rest of us to watch. This was a great ice-breaker. The little shows were very good and by the time they had finished, the kids knew each other better. After the food, I had to come up with another game. As my kids love it when I hide snakes in the garden for them to find (this activity originated on St Patrick's Day) I got the birthday girl to collect up as many toy dogs as she could find in the house. She had a lot of them! Then while the guests waited in the living room, I hid the dogs around the garden. The children then played 'hunt the Toto'!!! They seemed to really enjoy that one and wanted to play it several times.

My birthday

On Saturday it was my birthday - and one of the best so far! We went out for a lovely cooked breakfast, had lunch at a medieval fair and Hubby made mexican food and margaritas for our friends later that evening.

Here I am having my lunch at the medieval fair. Not the usual burgers and candyfloss (though they were available), but lovely trout with pearl barley and yogurt. It was delicious. The baby thought so too!

Henry LOVES bows and arrows. He waited very patiently in line for a long time to get a turn at the archery with this very nice dutch man.

And later, Hubby bought them these wooden swords.

I got some lovely things too. Lots of beautiful flowers...

some towels from Mum and Hubby bought me and old 1950's style kitchen cupboard which I've been busy painting. I'll post a picture of that later. I got a few quid, too. That is going in a kitty to pay for a badly needed new shed for the garden.

My friends came over for some fab food, margeritas and.... some karaoke!

A very lovely day.

Thanks everyone... especially Hubby xxx

Little House links.

http://homeschooling.suite101.com/article.cfm/little_house_on_the_prairie_art_project_ideas

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/56505/planning_a_themed_birthday_party_for.html?cat=25


http://www.makingarrangementsblog.com/party-proposals-little-house-on-the-prairie-party/#more-2593

For anyone thinking of doing a similar party, I am posting these few links to the websites I used to help me plan Honor's party.

Little House on the Prairie birthday party.

Today was Honor-May's 'Little House on the Prairie' birthday party. My first tip for a successful childrens party is to hire a couple of flippin' brilliant adult helpers. In this case my good friend Lisa and Zoe the local Supernanny voluntered to become Mrs Oleson (actually Lisa was not very happy about that!) and Miss Beadle, the levely teacher of Walnut Grove. I, of course was Ma and Hubby was Pa... and we wore badges to prove it!.

Of course Ma and Pa were busy preparing for this for at least, hmmmmm 10 days beforehand. We put an advert on Freecycle for some hay bales and luckily a kind chap donated some which served very nicely as seating. The table is a pasting table with the legs cut down. We also had a CD of fiddler music playing in the background.

We started the Party with 'school' - groan! (You should have seen the kids faces!)

We have had a LOT of rain the last couple of days. The first activities were indoors. After being divided into two teams - the Lauras and the Nellys - the children were sent to school to do a wordsearch and a spelling bee. A spelling bee (for the English) is a spelling competition. I do not know why it is called a bee! The Nellys won.

After school the children had to do their chores. Well, that is how it was in 'Little House'. So far there were quite a few bemused faces as they wondered 'isn't this supposed to be a party?' but as they got stuck into making butter (shaking whipping cream vigorously in a lidded container) and washing very dirty baby clothes with bars of soap and a scrubbing brush it did look as though most of them were enjoying themselves. The competitive spirit had certainly kicked in and strangely enough the Nellys seemed to be the most determined to win. I was also amazed at how clean those girls got the baby's clothes. The Lauras only lost a point because there was a slight stain on one of the jumpers. But otherwise the girls got some very dirty clothes spotless!

After the 'chores' the teams did crafts - making peg dolls and lemonade. By now there were a few cries of 'is it time to eat yet?' Well, yes - nearly. The lemonade was put on the dining table. I had a box of Capri suns ready for those who might not like the lemonade but I think only 2 got used... and probably in addition to drinking the lemonade. I think kids are more likely to enjoy what they are eating/drinking if they have made it themselves.

After the food I announced the winners...

The Nellys! Typical! The losers, however, accepted their defeat (and their booby prize of a lemon) with good grace. The Nellys got a kit-kat!

I think everyone enjoyed themselves - I know I did!


Ps. I have some much better, really fab, pics than these but as I don't have parental permission to post them, had better leave them out. Must say though that I loved the outfits that the girls wore and one of them even came with the Nellie ringlet hairdo. Cool!