Mia's Birthday

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Happy Birthday to our beautiful friend Mia! I love any excuse to make a cake, so this one was a vanilla cake with buttercream icing and some little decorations. Mia is always smiling and happy so I thought sunshine yellow was a perfect fit.

With rainbows and flowers 

We went for a swim at The Vines Resort pool first then enjoyed cake afterwards. A great afternoon!

❤

Alexander is 4!

FOUR YEARS OLD! 

How I've actually managed to keep this one alive is a mystery to me. He is fun, full of giggles and the cuddliest. I must admit that him being 3cms from me at all times is not always my favourite thing, but we roll with it.

He loved opening his presents yesterday

 including this gorgeous personalised Alex blanket

and of course more Bluey clothes. Just for something different. Haha.

I love his whacky sense of humour and hearing his little laugh.

But most of all his little smile 😍

There are always plenty of Alex selfies on my camera roll, including this one which was definitely worth preserving.

He's our little nutter and we wouldn't change him for anything.

So, so loved by his big sister - and he would follow her anywhere she wanted to go.

The cutest little man. Our Alexander James. ❤

Happy birthday to my littlest love! 

Maddie is 11!

Today this amazing girl turned 11! What an absolute joy it is to be her mum and I really, really mean that. She is so much fun, literally a miniature version of me personality wise - and I can genuinely say I enjoy hanging out with her.

She loved all her gifts - a new underarmour purple backpack for school, a longline black cardigan, a boba tea Stitch pop vinyl and a few other bits and pieces 

including yet another hairbrush, because no matter how many she has, she can't find one!

Her absolute favourite gift though, was being taken to have her second set of earrings done. She has been asking me for months and my response was no, no and more no, because my mother hit the roof when I had a second set done at 16 years old. I even made jokes about it being a "gateway drug" to more piercings as she gets older and even tattoos one day. Hahaha. She told my mum a few weeks ago she wanted them and my mum was like, "Oh what's the big deal, who cares?!" It's a completely different story when it comes to grandkids isn't it! Anyway, after that, I decided what the heck, let's do it and off we went to get them pierced. She was so bloody happy, you could not wipe the smile off her face.

Just before lunch, we headed off with her besties - 5 of them, perfect to fill my 7 seater, to go horse-riding in Bakers Hill... which is yet another reason Jen and I had tested it out last week.

We stopped off in the Bakers Hill townsite first to get lunch at the Bakers Hill Pie Shop...

Then walked with them over to the picnic area just off the highway to eat and have cake before we headed to the stables.

After realising we didn't have a lighter and borrowing one from the local Pharmacy (this mum has no shame and it was the closest store) we attempted for a few minutes in the wind to light the candles to no avail, so instead snapped this shot and gave up, before getting into the cake.

Cutest girl I know! ❤

The had the absolute best time on their trail ride and loved every minute. 

Waiting for their horses to be ready and head out.

Maddie and her horse.

She loved it so much and was so so happy with her birthday party! It was awesome for me too and actually a lot lighter on the pocket than I had imagined. A friend had told me recently that they had been trail riding at Green Gables Stables a few times and tagged me in a post on their Facebook page- the very day they released their end of financial year deal, 10 hour long rides for $145 each. It's normally over a thousand dollars, but once a year they bust out these deals. How perfect that it happened to be right when I was looking. They happily let me use 6 at once for her birthday, 2 for Jen and I last week and I have booked mum and dad in for a ride for mum's birthday at the end of this week! WINNING!

Our birthday girl with bestie Madison.

The happiest horse lover there ever was!

I am so glad they had such a good time. 

They were happily chatting about it all the way back to Ellenbrook.

One final stop to drop off Madison, whose lovely mum is Madeline's birthday twin.

Before coming home for dinner and another mini cake from Woolies. 

Spoiled rotten!

Funniest part of the day, our super lovely next door neighbour Sammy always laughs about how much time Madeline spends in her pyjamas, so for her birthday she bought her a pair of Peter Alexander PJs and a matching mug for her to bring over when she wants a hot chocolate. So flipping cute!

What an awesome day. ❤

Ohhhh duck cake!

When I was a kid in the 80's, everyone had birthday cakes from the Women's Weekly Birthday Cake book. We would flick through and choose one that we loved and our mums would get to work. Joseph decided he wanted the duck cake and I was going to make it happen, no matter what! He looked through it over and over, but was hell bent on the duck cake. 

I baked the vanilla cake I used for Ross's birthday cake here and then cut it to shape and used skewers to hold it as necessary- with a few tips from this handy YouTube video here. 

The icing was the scariest part, following the decades old instructions and hoping that it would work out! Thankfully it did and we were good to go!

Just the bow was remaining - and we didn't have any orange ribbon... so guess who cut the handle off a reusable shopping bag and used that for the bow. That's right, this girl hahahah. No complaints at all, it worked perfectly!

I was so, so happy with this cake. Joseph nearly died with excitement and I was so thrilled. 100% worth the effort. 10/10 would do again just for that kind of reaction.

The book is incredible and I know so many people have wonderful memories from it. The most beautiful video that you can watch here, was made with the author 38 years after the book was released and it's so worth the watch. Australian Women's Weekly, you are amazing. Thanks for the memories!

Joseph's twos-day party

This year there was a really cool day in the calendar. Twos-day. 22/2/2022 which fell on a Tuesday, so it was affectionally dubbed TWOS-day all over the internet. Joseph's birthday is on the 20th, so he decided that Twosday was 100% his and he was having his birthday party that day.

We had the party after school and knowing it was going to be hot, we organised with the parents to send some extra clothes and started the afternoon with a big waterfight. I spent the last half an hour before everyone arrived filling water balloons so they could go wild.

They had the best time! There was so much laughter and squealing in the street while they had their waterfight and funnily enough, Maddie ended up being the one who copped it as all Joseph's friends ganged up on her and soaked her, then grabbed the buckets and tipped the rest of the water on her too.

The best was yet to come though, as we headed inside once they dried off and came inside - we had hired Joseph a mini claw machine! When it got dropped off, he nearly died with excitement and I'm pretty sure it was the absolute highlight of his life. My friend's boyfriend owns three of them and hires them out for parties and events and oh my goodness was it a hit. The kids spent all afternoon playing it and refilling it over and over until it was time for pizza and cake.

Joseph has been on about wanting the duck cake from Bluey for months since he saw the episode where Bandit makes it for Bingo, so he insisted he needed it for his party. So, I made it happen and his face was so worth it. I have never seen him happier in his life than when he walked in the door and the duck cake was made and waiting on the kitchen table. Life, made.

Made every single second that went into it, worth it.

Joseph declared that this was by far the greatest day in his entire life and did not stop smiling once. I feel like we absolutely nailed this party. He and his mates had a ball. ❤

 

Joseph turns 8!

Joseph turned 8 today! I can't believe he made it to 8 and I haven't killed him yet. Baha. 

He was so stoked with all his gifts and I was too... I did so well, he got a brand new in the packet sloth oodie that I found on marketplace for a fraction of the new price - $50 that Uncle Isaac kindly collected one morning on his way to work at the crack of dawn. 

Rubber ducky socks that I found at Spotlight, when I was buying him a beanbag that was on half price sale as well as using my $10 Spotlight birthday voucher...

He desperately wanted a Mario Lego set that was freaking $150 recommended retail price. I was like holy heck, I'm not paying that - so I got looking for the lowest price I could and found one on marketplace for $75. Woo!

We also found him a $90 Switch backpack brand new in the bag for $40 which was a huge win. So here is some proof that you can get amazing gifts without paying full price for them!

The most special gift was a jade carving from the otara markets that Grandma had bought herself when Madeline was a baby and we went to NZ for Doug's grandparents unveiling. She only wore it once that I can remember and when we cleaned up her house, I found it carefully wrapped in a bag in her bedroom. It was a perfect baptism gift from his grandparents who I am sure will be watching over him today. ❤

The most special part of his birthday of course is that he's going to be baptised today - on his actual birthday which very few people get. We spent last night blowing up balloons to make this beautiful rainbow garland which I barely managed to fit in my car... and we are all excited to go back to church and be a part of his extra special day!

Here we go! ❤