Doctor Who birthday

A friend's daughter has requested that her mother make a Dalek cake for her fast-approaching birthday, which reminded me of a birthday the X-man attended in November.

Love the Chupachups and candles on the Daleks :) The signs and windows on the TARDIS were laminated print-outs. Love it!

I have an 8 year old. How did that happen?

Miss Tizz turned 8 on Friday. We had an early morning of opening presents on our bed, passing phone calls to the birthday girl, and then the usual mad rush to school, leaving behind a mountain of wrapping paper ...



After school there were presents from Nanna, and then we headed off to see Night at the Museum 2 at the movies. We all enjoyed it, although I suspect the kids had no idea who half the historical characters were. Hmmm ... maybe there's opportunity for a history lesson there (even if it is US-centric) ...

And then there was cake:



Yep - the birthday girl is wearing a sundress in the middle of winter. I swear that girl has her thermostat set to something completely different from the rest of us.

But check out the candles! They have different coloured flames!

It's birthday season again! (and a hair colour update)

The season for multiple family birthdays has arrived again. My mother turned 70, one of the husband's aunts had a birthday, the youngest cousin turned two and the X-man turned 6, all in one week.

We were in Sydney for his actual birthday, and he shared an enormous Black Forest cake, made by an octogenarian (although you wouldn't know it if you met her!) neighbour with his grandmother. Then there was a chocolate mudcake, from the local bakery, at home the day after we got back:



There was another mudcake yesterday, when we got together for lunch with the other side of the family to celebrate the three cousins' birthdays that fall within three weeks. After gourmet pizza and chocolate cake, we rugged up and headed out to a local park in the cold, so the kids could run it all off.

The X-man was pretty keen on the flying fox, but not so Miss Tizz:









Note: the X-man's Ben 10 obsession shows no sign of abating, and Miss Tizz chooses her own clothes. I take no responsibility :)

Hair colour update

I'm blonde again, at least temporarily. We (the hairdresser and I) were aiming for white (nope - not white-blonde, pure white), but my hair apparently 'throws a lot of gold' (I love my hairdresser for not calling me brassy ;) ), and after two lots of strong bleaching and toning (and the best part of four hours) this is how it ended up:



There's still too much 'gold' in it, but we're going to have another go at it when it's had a few days to recover.

Speaking of birthdays

I know what the husband's next birthday cake will be:



From Chocablog

School holidays - Day 10: Birthday celebration

Yesterday (Day 10) was the MIL's birthday, so we collected her and headed off to meet BIL & family for a leisurely lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Strangely, no-one was interested in trying the duck's feet, black fungus or jellyfish, although reading about them in the menu elicited some interesting reactions from the four children under 10 with us. Heh.



I had offered to make MIL a tiramisu before I knew we were going to a Chinese restaurant, but we decided to head back to her house and eat it anyway. I'd taken the kids into consideration when making it, and left out the brandy, completely disregarding the fact it was full of coffee and they wouldn't touch it anyway. Ooops. They were quite happy to demolish the chocolate mudcake from the local bakery instead though :)



* Please note: The candles are not a true representation of MIL's chronological achievement. She is a little older than 12.

The cousins are staying with MIL for a couple of nights. We all wished her luck as we departed. Lots of luck. And threatened to leave our two with her as well ;)

It's been a busy week

Miss Tizz turned 7 on Thursday, so we did the family party last weekend, the cupcake thing for school on Thursday, dinner at McDonald's Thursday night (the birthday person gets to choose - at least she picked one with a cafe), and a movie party with school friends on Friday night (with far too much snack bar food - those kids can inhale popcorn!).

And then last night Guides had a *camp* at Questacon - her first ever night away from us. I helped out with setting up and serving supper for 153 Guides, and I thought at one stage that Miss Tizz wasn't going to stay - she was complaining of a bad stomach ache and feeling sick, but I think it may have been (understandable) anxiety about something new. By the time we'd finished cleaning up and I was ready to go, however, she'd recovered and opted to stay.

I arrived to pick her up about 8am, and it was a struggle extracting her from the place! She had a great time, slept well (although not enough - check out the black under her eyes!), and is far less anxious about the school overnight camp coming up later in the year. Which is a great relief to me ...

One question though - why do sleeping bags never fit back into the bag properly?

Birthday season

Our family has a middle-of-the-year birthday season. My mother's and one of the husband's aunt's birthdays were at the beginning of last week, my newest niece turned 1 on Thursday, the X-man is a big 5 year old as of Friday, a nephew's birthday is in two weeks, Miss Tizz turns 7 in three weeks, and the husband strikes up another year in July.

The big hits this year for the X-man are anything Ben 10 and Lazy Town. He's had TWO Omnitrix cakes (one in Sydney on Friday, and another in Canberra yesterday), and is now the proud owner of a shiny new Omnitrix watch, several Ben 10 toys, a Ben 10 game, puzzle, towel, wallet and (wait for it ... ) Ben 10 undies! Woohoo! Lazy Town got a lookin with a DVD & a Sportacus costume.