Party first, birthday second...

So, today is Lucas' actual birthday, and despite a fairly agressive campaign of pleading and whining to the parents, we held out on giving him his "Mum and Dad" presents until this morning. He wasn't too happy prior to this morning, but the annoyance quickly melted from his face once he saw his gargantuan pile of presents!

He was up at about 6:30am, but we managed to hold him off from opening the presents until about 7:00. Alicia doesn't normally rise this early (ever), but was coaxed into coming out and helping with the unwrapping.

Alas, he still had a day of school to go to, but he did get choice of tonight's meal (spaghetti bolognaise), and we topped off the evening with the remains of Saturday's birthday cake. It was going a bit green, but we just assumed that was mostly just the coloured coconut topping...

A slumber party!

Lucas had a slightly different sort of birthday celebration this year - his first ever slumber party! He was quite keen, despite being duly informed by his parents that it would necessarily mean a drastically reduced invite list. So, we had Lewey, Evan, Connor and Toby over on the Saturday afternoon, and they (mostly) stayed over until Sunday morning.

After critiquing Dad's soccer-themed birthday-cake-making efforts, it was off to sidetracked for an afternoon of fun and games. The boys played on the dodgem cars...

... and on the laser force.

At the end of both activities, they were given a choice: $10 worth of tokens each to spend on the arcade games, or another session of laser force. Have a guess what they decided. Go on...

After a fun time shooting each other, it was back home for some pizza. Home-made? Oh, no - Lucas was the boss for the evening, and he explicitly wanted delivered pizza. Fine by me...

Then, we burnt off a bit of energy by having an evening run-around in the park with torches and sparklers, then it was back inside for the birthday cake.

After that, we watched a LEGO DVD movie, and then it was bedtime!

Lots of fun, and a great day's worth of activities! Sadly, we lost Toby before the sleep-over started (he had to be up early for a footy game on Sunday), and we also lost Lewey, who really, REALLY likes his sleep, and was unable to get any with all the giggling and whispering that was going on. They eventually got to sleep, but the three remaining survivors were rather bleary-eyed the next morning!

New bed(s)

Remember this?

I do: it was Lucas' first "proper" bed, and he was so chuffed to help Daddy assemble it, and of course to sleep in it for the first time. Truly, he thought himself a big boy.

Well, times have changed, and we've had to farewell the old, and bring in the new and improved. Behold, the bunk!

No, we're not expecting another (phew!) We really love it when visitors come over, but the only annoying part was continually digging out the mattresses, and then putting them away again. So now we have a permanent spot for visitors to sleep, in the most space-economical fashion we could find. Many thanks to Granddad, who did most of the work putting it together (we figured he'd already done it once before, so he was the best qualified).

Lucas is of course over the moon with his new elevated status, and has settled in quite firmly on the top bunk.

Healesville getaway

The Bird clan went away for a little break this weekend, to catch a glimpse of the autumn foliage around Healesville. We decided to go back to the Healesville Sanctuary Cottages, because we'd had such a fun time there before, and because Mummy is such a huge fan of wood fires.

As before, the kids had a lot of fun at the park, particularly on the tractor (which, at some point in the proceedings, became turbo-boosted with laser guns attached).

We weren't really all that busy on this mini-holiday, it was more about taking it easy, and enjoying the (beautiful) scenery. And feeding some goats. Alicia was quite keen on feeding the goats. Well, actually she was quite keen on watching someone else feed the goats while she watched on and giggled.

One of our two main excursions was the Hedgend Maze, where we went around collecting clues, and attempting to solve the puzzle of the maze, one letter (clue) at a time. Well, Mummy and Lucas did most of the legwork in that department, Alicia was more interested in being the Leader (with Daddy as the Follower) and singing out Eenie-meeny minie moe at every fork in the maze (there was a lot of singing). And the solution we came up with to the Maze's clues was the well-known saying: "gr8w rkfl g2 nyup-nyup". Hmm, perhaps we'll have better luck next time...

Aside from the maze, we also visited the gorgeous Maroondah Reservoir, and we even managed to complete a 2km "bush walk" without too much complaining - a very good effort from the kids, Mum and Dad were quite proud.

A fantastic and relaxing time in a beautiful location. This Autumn getaway is fast becoming an annual tradition in the Melbourne Bird clan!

Birthday Girl

Well, Alicia's 5th birthday has come and gone, and she's had a marvellous time.

First of all, there was dinner with the Hohwy-Barclays (special guest: Uncle Pat) on the Saturday night with yummy pizzas on the menu.

Sunday morning was the official "party day", with a special pyjama-themed celebration held at Kids Space. We invited lots of friends from Alicia's daycare centre, the vast majority of them turned up, and all present had a fantastic time.

Sadly, this occasion saw the demise of Cedric the snake, who was utterly unable to defend himself from the ravenous hordes. Still, he died in a noble cause...

Of course, once the dust had cleared and we'd all gone home, there was the small matter of the mountain of birthday present to unwrap. A dry and very tedious activity for any five-year old to perform, as I'm sure you'll agree.

 

 Last but not least, today, being the actual day of her birthday, saw the presents from family and friends being rolled out (in one case, literally), yet another party at child care (with a special ice-cream cake taken in), and a meal of her choice for dinner (being, of course: Mummy's home-made burgers - yum!) She was also inundated with phone calls, and was looking quite pleased with herself, chatting away on the phone to all the well-wishers.

 

Three parties, a whole weekend (+1 day) of celebration, and a heap of cool presents makes for one very happy five-year-old girl!

Help! There's a snake in our fridge!

Today was spent preparing for Alicia's big party celebration tomorrow.

A big part of that preparation was the baking and icing of the fast-becoming-traditional themed birthday cake. This year, Alicia decided to go with Cedric, the rainbow snake!

Cedric was not too hard to construct, but he nonetheless commanded quite a bit of real estate in terms of icing, and fridge space! Hopefully he'll be a big hit at the party tomorrow...

Muffin watching, and a Jedi warrior

A couple of photos of recent highlights in the kids lives:


Alicia has recently acquired one of those cool kid-sized comfy chairs. Her most recent use of it was to watch a batch of muffins get baked in the oven. It's up there with watching growing grass and drying paint, but at least it doesn't take as long!










Also, Lucas was absolutely chuffed to get a REAL lightsaber - one that actually lights up. It also makes the cool sound effects, the low-key buzzing, and the "ching" sounds when you hit something with it. It has not left his sight, except to go to school.