Under the Sea

It is no secret that Miss Gaston loves Ariel.  I suspect she may have changed her name to Ariel and just not told her Daddy yet.  Thus it was no surprise that she choose an "under the sea" party to celebrate her 6th birthday.

You know I always enjoy the little details, so here are a few...

Table confetti
(yes, Bea has brought some home)

Little Mermaid toppers

An aquatic feast

Happy Feet and Flippers

Once again we had a fabulous time at a perfect party.  When we arrived home, Bea was gushing in her description of the party to her Daddy, stressing that "I got so much stuff*, look at all the things in my party bag, and this (holds up keyring) and I made an octopus"  The craft table was one of the highlights for Bea.

* YES...I know I have raised a materialist.

Psst...it's an octopus

The huge bouncy slide was also a hit (and thankfully not too many children hit the floor...)  The inflatable whales were also incredibly popular.  

Arriving at the church hall, Arlene noticed something, or rather, she noticed no thing.  There was no giant helium balloon!  Tim was quickly dispatched to remedy the situation and arrived back to the church with an overgrown "6" at exactly the same time that Alana's Granny and Granda arrived with an Ariel balloon.  He found this very funny.

Tim's balloon did cause quite a crisis later though...

Yes...you guessed...

When the six hits the ceiling, it's gotta be time for birthday cake...

I don't know about you, but I think the little icing frill just "makes the cake.

Then the little mermaids pulled some funky moves on the sea floor as they played musical statues.  Which was IMPOSSIBLE to judge!

Thankfully they all managed to earn a prize from Arlene's bottomless pit bag of "ariel" themed gifts.  There was just enough time to pose in the photo prop before I started to deflate the jumpolene.

Birthday Girl with Dad and Mum

Then when it had deflated an hour later, we headed home.

Well done Gastons, a very groovy sub-aquatic shindig!

Footy Fun

Nope...Max is not 10...he is actually 3.  If you would like the proof...here is his actual birthday party.  However, as his birthday fell during Castlewellan, his football birthday party was today.  If you would like to know how to host a super soccer shindig, this event was brought to you by "Shirley's Perfect Parties" (c) 

Firstly, create a blow football pitch using margarine tubs and your old bedroom furniture.  If that seems too easy make some origami players and give them a tray football pitch to play on.

Then have a blindfold, footballer stickers and a pin the footballer on the poster type of game.  Congratulations Miss Gaston whose sticker was stuck in the perfect place.

Then have some relay races.  (Please do not tell Bea that she is all alone on the pitch here as everyone else has finished...she had inherited the Richardson competitive streak and may huff for quite some time)

Have a very cheeky cheer to finish the games with....

(and for the record, Shirley smells lovely)

Have a tattoo parlour for the wanna-be Beckhams (both David and Victoria).

Bring lots of washable markers and football pages to colour in.

I think Phoebe is designing the new Dutch kit.

To begin the pre-season training, have a bouncy slide

and encourage the team to pull some fancy shapes...but don't teach them how to dive.

Then at half time remember that oranges are so passé...

...football shaped sandwiches are the way to go!

Remember to encourage your guests to play with their food.  I particularly like how Zachary has set up two grape teams, ref and linesmen sausages and a chocolate football football.

The birthday cake was quite obvious...and quite obviously Max was delighted with it.

Then to develop upper body strength, get the players to wallop a football pinata. 

and where possible, make sure the birthday boy smashes it.

It is as easy as that ;)

Summer Holiday

So begins our annual trip to Castlewellan. Why, given that the forestry service nicknames the week "Wellys and Bibles" do we attend year after year?  Perhaps the answer lies here?

Our holiday started off with heavy rains, winds which sent my hair horizontal and the laptop refusing to play our dvds...so on the second day of our holiday we headed off into Newcastle to eat some ice-cream and buy a tv/dvd player for the caravan.  We also stopped in at the cutest little toy shop Thumbellina where Bea selected a crazy flipping ladybird.

The November weather didn't stop us having fun though.  We visited the Butterfly Farm at Seaforde which was beautiful (if a touch expensive)

and had many walks around the forest park.  Bea spent a lot of time whizzing about on her bike too.

Watch the first part of our holiday by clicking here.  Slowly our friends began to arrive for the holiday week.  Firstly the Johnstons arrived with their sparkly new trailer tent....

...and then the Glovers pitched their holiday mansion...

The campsite began to fill by Thursday and lost it's abandoned look.  We, being creatures of habit, had pitched in the same site as last year, although Bea did feel the absence of our campsite neighbours the Scarletts who were staying in more palatial accommodation this year.

With the arrival of the castle folk on Saturday, the holiday week finally kicked off.  Every day was filled with club in the morning AND evening this year for Beatrice, plus the afternoon activities.  This year we had a duck hunt, a princess and pirate party, a well teddy clinic, the bug hunt and rugby tots.  To see some of the activities click here

Taking Charlie Bear to the Well Teddy Clinic

As always there was a lot of fun to be had on Open Day with the waterslide followed by Magic George  in the evening.  I suspect more of the adults laughed themselves hoarse at the children's entertainer.  To see Open Day, click here.

Perhaps the Bug Hunt is more your style, if so watch it here.  To view Max's birthday picnic click here

and the final part of the holiday week is here.

Happy viewing.

Silly

This little lady loves her Daddy because he is "silly".  If you ask her why she loves him...that is what she will tell you.  She may add "but he's not the silliest, Granda Robert is the silliest."

How does he express this silliness?  

Well, amongst other silly things he tickles her, throws her high into the air and remembers to catch her, he stands her on the gatepost while I reverse Florence into the drive EVERY time we go out, he talks for her princesses in funny voices, her plays hide and seek, he acts out stories on a loop, he tells her the story of how he met mummy, he pretends to be a prince while she is in the bath parading around in a towel cape, he lets her creep up and surprise him when she has the stealth of a small hippopotamus and every night he plays "flat Bea"

She loves him very much.  So do I.  For many of the same reasons* and more.

* except the tickling.  I dislike the tickling.

Pink & Blue

Poor husband, returned from a nine days of summer camp with the cadets to discover one or two little projects.

I had of course visited the hardware store and bought lots of tester pots to choose a new paint colour for our bedroom.  The very act of daubing them on the wall forces a choice as you can't life with a patchwork of poorly painted blocks for longer than a few weeks.  

The final choice was "mineral mist" aka blue.  I had planned to paint my pine furniture too, but when we moved it back into the bedroom, the orange of the pine looked good with the blue and the lazy girl within me cheered.

The very girlie ornament is one which I bought
Granny for Christmas when I was about 8.

The walls also compliment one of my beautiful mugs and....

....inspired me to bring up a lamp who had been hiding on top of the bookcase in the dining room.  This lamp gives off a blue glow which is much too sad for downstairs, but just perfect in my nbr (new blue room).

As Beatrice headed off to Rascals (on our day of painting) she informed me that she thought my new room would be lovely, but not as nice as hers as it wasn't pink.....

You see....the previous week we had repainted her bedroom.  I was deeply saddened to watch the lovely sunny yellow of her nursery go...but she wanted pink and the huge smile when she saw it was worth my sacrifice.

Bea does have a picture which she printed out of a scorpion on her wardrobe door.  She loves it.  She kisses it frequently before bed.  No, I do not understand why.

When you have a new pink room, it is obligatory to hide in the wardrobe and then jump out....

So, our bedrooms have been transformed thanks to the wonder that is Dulux and we are both supremely happy with them.  However, I did notice that despite resembling her Daddy in all ways physical, Bea is starting to pick up one or two of my traits.  To demonstrate...

I love perfume

Bea loves perfume

Like mother....

...like daughter

A rascal no longer

I have a very strange relationship with the word "rascal".  I have done for as long as I can remember.  Whenever it catches me unawares, the back of my throat dries and I find myself swallowing quickly.  Thus it is a word I have in the main, avoided.  Even finding myself in a que of traffic behind a rascal van caused unpleasant swallowing.  I'm sure that there is some medical diagnosis for this odd response (and yes I'm sure "barking mad" covers it)

Imagine my surprise then when looking for nurseries to send Beatrice to my favourite, by a long shot was Rascals.

Beatrice has been going to Rascals once a week since she was 18 months old.  She has always loved it.  She has been loved and well looked after there.  Every afternoon when I collected her I was told "Bea has had a great day...."  I was also informed that she ate everything offered to her.  I also discovered that at Rascals she would drink regular milk which she would refuse at home demanding formula until she was three!

Today was quite a significant day in our family, because it was Bea's last day at Rascals.  For the next few weeks we will be off at Castlewellan and then she will be starting Nursery School and so she set off this morning for her last day at Rascals.  She came home with a scrapbook of some of her artwork over the years and many hugs. 

She also came home to a new scooter.  I had bought it for her for Christmas, but decided that she had more than enough Christmas gifts and so it remained in the attic until today.  I suppose it is her graduation gift.

And so she scoots into a waiting future.  

Thank you Rascals.