Mum's Birthday

: : Present from Maria : :

On each of our birthdays, Mum makes us a 'birthday dinner' (in past years we have chosen what to have, this year Mum just made something she knew we liked), dessert, a cake, and gifts (everyone gets to give something). For the last few years, I arranged something for Mum's birthday. This year, though, her birthday fell on a Wednesday, meaning I was at work, so Monique decided to coordinate something (as a surprise for Mum), with help from the little ones. Dad and I received numerous emails and calls throughout the day, with various questions. I received one email asking, "Bianca, how do I hide the emails from you so Mum doesn't see them?" A call involved talking to me from a bedroom, hiding the phone and running to the kitchen to check the instructions on the roast chicken packet, then back again to the room to tell me what they were. I think the girls learnt a lot that day (lol) but they did quite well, considering. :)

After work, Dad and I made a rush trip to several shops to buy presents. Then came the task of smuggling them inside and getting them wrapped, at the same time dodging children who wanted me to help with dinner and make dessert.

(Mostly) The girls made a roast chicken, roast potatoes, veggies, and gravy; for dessert I made blueberry crumble cake. When Danielle called me earlier in the day, I told her to make a quadruple batch of chocolate cake and put it in a large dish. Unfortunately, I didn't think to specify to use the one egg chocolate sponge recipe, so she followed the one titled chocolate cake. Basically, one dozen eggs were used, instead of four individual eggs. lol.

: : New cake server! : :

: : Presents : :

We gave Mum her presents after dinner, then had dessert. The cake had been made at the last minute so wasn't out of the oven until quite late; we left it for another night.

: : Blowing out the candles : :

Jarrod's 13th Birthday

Nice one Monique...

Jarrod turned 13 on May 10th...yeah two teens in our family now...freaky!!! lol Anyway here are some pics from the night we celebrated his birthday - dinna, presents, and dessert. 

Maria

Lovely(!) pic of Laura

Opening his presents

Dessert time!

Monique's Pressents



Lined up to watch and participate in the
gift-giving ceremony!



We gave Monique her pressents on April 7th. We had planned to do them sooner, but we didn't have many until then, and in fact we still didn't have them all! But one of them had a fast-approaching expiry date, so we couldn't wait any longer! lol



Pressent from Maria (2yrs)





Enthusiastic hug for Diana! (6yrs)





Hug for Mummy...




New handbag





Who doesn't get excited over chocolate? lol

So...she got....a Bubbly chocolate bar (which Bryce had already sampled...but that's another story!), a handbag, mud cake (!) (yeah that's the one I mentioned previously! It worked well for the rest of us, cos we all got to help eat it!!! haha), a gift card to choose her own watch, and SS necklace with CZ, 2 Winnie the Horse Gentler books, chocolate edition Scrabble, horse stickers, and a smiggle mechanical pencil.

And I hadn't manage to find anything I really wanted to give her (as had happened with Danielle), so I gave her an Urban Angel top and a Toblerone, at a later date. =)

That's one great thing about having a higher-than-normal number of children(!), it means more pressents, because everybody gets to give one!!! haha :P

Monique's Birthday



Monique with her cake



My sister Monique turned 11 on April 3rd, here are some pics of the cake (which she made herself!); we gave her pressents to her on a seperate occasion.



She made a banana cake and put a filling in it.
(the way Aunty Yvonne had done it in a cake we had been given recently.)






Maria (isn't she cute?) ;-)




Danielle (9) with Laura




Banana cake and ice cream



Maria's Pressents

One of the girls iced the cake,
then I attempted to put some
kind of design on it!

Later on the 24th of March, we had Maria's birthday cake and gave her pressents to her.

   



New book!

 

She loved this doll, but didn't want
anything to do with the smaller
one that could laugh!



Diana and Maria with pressents.



Danielle's Birthday Party

I organised a birthday party for Danielle this year, which we held on February 23rd.



Food



Pass the Parcel - I did it a bit different this year; as can be seen,
everyone stood in a line and passed it under and over, under and over, etc.



ok this is more of a line..
I actually let them start with one parcel, then after a little
while gave them the second one. hehe before I wrapped the
parcels up  I was worried I didn't have enough 'fillers'!!!




Pressent table, er, desk




Writing a story for the story competiton.
I split everyone into two teams and got them to write
a story about Danielle. They had a 10-minute time limit.
Afterwards they had to read it aloud and Danielle judged them.




Judging the stories




Yeah, we played Twister




In each of these bowls, there is a lolly under the flour.
They each had to get it with only their mouths.
Lol a couple were blowing the flour off before picking the lolly up in their teath!



Flour everywhere...



The Chocolate game!!




One of her pressents




Friends and pressents




Cutting the cake



Bryce's Birthday

My brother Bryce actually turned 4 on December 24th, but because we were going away that day, we celebrated it on the 21st. I'm not going to do a big write-up, but here are a few photos:



Yummy present!



Cake...

Birthday Boy

Hip-hip-hooray!

Life

Hey Everyone,

A few of my friends keep asking me not to try and post about all the things we've been doing in the last few months, but instead to post about what we're doing now. Although I won't make any promises about not still trying to post about the rest of this year, I will tell you what we're doing now.

Uncle Pete arrived home from his World Trip on the Thursday the 9th of December, and started working with Dad the next Monday.

It is 7:23pm right now, and Mum, Dad and I  will be going shopping in a few minutes for Xmas pressents for Dad's side of the family who live in Wellington.

On Friday we are intending to go to New Plymouth to spend Christmas with Dad's family, and on Monday continue down to Wellington. We are scheduled to arrive home on New Year's Eve.
One of Dad's brothers bought a 4 Square in Eltham which is just out of New Plymouth (sorry I wasn't able to make sense of Mum and Dad's description of how far); and the rest of the family will come up from Wellington so we will all be together in New Plymouth.

Anyway I think Mum and Dad are ready to go, hopefully I can post again soon =)
Cya
<3 Bee

Baking and New Years Gifts

Hey Everyone,

Going back to January, (from where i left off before posting about Maria), first, here are some photo's to make your mouth water!!!Yes, I had a couple of baking days!!

Next, we gave/recieved New Year's Pressents on the ninth of Jan.

Here are some pics of what I recieved.

CYA, Bee