Our Littlest daughter Sabrina just turned three, along with Fish Berries and chocolate (her vitamins) all she asked for her birthday was Doctor Who. I thought about getting her one of the figurines but she loves to cuddle her toys and I wasn’t sure how well the small plastic Doctor would fit that bill. Unsnugglyness aside I was pretty sure she’d break it too so I decided to have a go at making Mr Eleventh myself. He’s only the third doll I’ve made and I don’t know how to follow patterns, I just wing it so it was anyone’s guess how he’d turn out.

Sonic made from toothpick, some string and a bead.

Dolls clothes are soooo hard! I have never even made adult clothes so that didn’t help and way to late I realized with a bit of tweaking barbie clothes patterns may have worked. I used a pattern for the pants but the rest I just guessed at which is the main reason there are no collars on anything.

Her big brother told me he needed as fez.

close up of sleeve detail, it may not be perfect work but I used press studs so she can totally undress him if she wants to.

One very excited little miss three.

She recognised him as Doctor Who straight away and started a little conversation with him so I know she likes him.

The location of the girls party was originally the park out the back. I was going to set up a simple party table under the great old Gums and let nature do most of the decorating for the animal theme. But choosing the wettest March day in the last 70 years to hold the party on put an end to that. So the day before I raced around gathering as much animalyness as I could find. The Table is decorated with placemats made from wrapping paper I found at the reject shop, a table runner from another dollar shop and a selection of the kids Schleich animals.

I found this pretty little twelve piece tea set at an Anglicare shop years ago when the girls had a tea party birthday. I choose to believe it fitted the theme well and made up for the lack of trees in the house, also I like to have little traditions that make the girls feel special like using the birthday china.

Food was a little tricky because we are on a gluten, dairy, colouring and preservative free diet at the moment so I had to make everything by hand. I think some of the party guests were a little sad not to have the usual sausage rolls and frankfurts but…meh…what can you do. 

After the kids finished with the hot food I told them that we were all going on an animal safari and that we needed to play pass the parcel to help us on our adventure.

It wasn’t as much a parcel as a giant sack because the gifts I had chosen were so large. When the music stoped they could stick there hand in and pull out a little parcel of their own. Can you believe these binoculars were only a dollar each at Big W and are loads of fun especially if you look through them backwards.

So armed with their binoculars and Fredo Frog I sent them off on a safari around the house to find the hidden animals.

Which turned out to be Tails that I had made (sorry about Lilly’s face apparently excitement makes her tongue swell up)

When all the children had their tails on we transformed the party table into a craft station so that they could make a headdress to go with their tail. (see in the original outside plan I was going to have different stations set up that they could all drift between, this was a little more cramped, chaotic, totally mad. In fact it only worked out because my wonderful Dad spent the whole time in the kitchen washing dishes and my Mum herded children and played tag team with my friends to keep Sabi from dancing on the table.)

Then I disappeared into a corner for the rest of the party and painted hundreds upon hundreds of faces…well about twelve, but it was a big twelve.

Can’t you find our safari animals now? do you need to borrow a pair of binoculars?

Cake time! it was interesting but not impossible to make a natural birthday cake. We found natural coloured sprinkles and food colouring that was made from things like turmeric and concentrated spinach extract…mmm….sounds yummy doesn’t it?? don’t worry they don’t add flavour just colour. The natural colours are very muted compared to the food colouring we have been using, take a look at the green butterfly wing for example but I managed to get around that for the lion cake by painting the details on after the white icing had set. The lions mane is plane veggie chips and the line work is string liquorish which does have gluten in but we just kept that part away from Sabi.

They passed the test though, the girls were thrilled by them and people came back for seconds so that spinach flavour can’t have been to strong.

I love this last photo it reminds me of an English war movie. They always have those scenes with poky little rooms crammed to bursting with friends and family celebrating around a cake lovingly crafted out of whatever they had in the cupboard. I’m starting to believe that thrown together moments as long as they include those special few who have a home in our hearts are often the best moments. That said I hope it doesn’t rain for the next party.

Happy 9th Birthday Little Miss Lion and Happy 6th Birthday Green Birdie Girl. May God open your eyes to the joys of this life and may you always know your Mummy and Daddy love you beyond words, even beyond parties.

She’s been hoping all week that she would get a ribbon on a stick after seeing Lilly get hers. You didn’t realize did you that a ribbon on a stick is the most exciting present ever, see all that wasted money on talking robots. Don’t worry I’m not getting preachy on you, it’s just been really funny all week to watch her ogling Lilly’s stick ribbon and declaring quite mater of factly that she should really get one too because “I did really want one the most and for a longer time, even before Lilly did”

And yes I fully admit we are becoming THOSE parents, you know those weird people who have multiple children in quick succession home school them by choice and horror of horrors tell their grandparents to buy them MUSICAL INSTRAMENTS for their birthdays. I’ll let you know how my eardrums are holding out by the end of the week.

Cute photo hey now picture the bitter sweet jail house lament harmoniously filling the room, got it? Good, now I’ll have a go too as I shove these balls of cotton wool in my ears.

We let Lani open her presents the night before her birthday as the day itself was full. We had church in the morning and then we went around to my good friend Jo’s house to celebrate Finn the birthday thief’s birthday. Finn stole Lani’s birthday two years ago today so I probably should stop calling him a bubby but it’s so hard not to because he’s just so tidgy and cute.

Finn is about to go into hospital for 6 weeks in isolation to receive a stem cell transplant as part of his treatment for Neuroblastoma cancer.  He’s going to be very sick during his stay as they blast the kids with very high dose chemo before the transplant. But there will be time on either side of that yucky three week mark where he will be well enough to sit up a bit and play with toys in bed, we hope. So I had a go at making something that would be entertaining in a bed and easily transported to and from the hospital. Only I forgot to take photo’s before I gave it to him and I’m in trouble from Glenn again because I never take photo’s of the things I make, apparently.

So this one I found of Sabi and her cousin road testing it will have to do (get the pun, ha, ha it’s a little road see). There is a painted scene on both sides of these flat boards the other sides have the ocean on one and a car race track on the other. I bought little animals and a few tiny cars and sewed up a couple of pouches to keep them in and a bag to hold the boards and pouches so the theory is that it’s easy to pack up and carry around anywhere. And when Finn is feeling up to it he can take out the little cars and race them around the tiny track or take his tiny animals on a jungle adventure.

Both birthday kiddies seemed to have a great day only I forgot my camera (do you see a pattern forming in this post?) so I have no photo’s to show for it. I’m very annoyed, I think I’m going to make a DO NOT FORGET YOUR CAMERA sign and stick it on the front door.  I missed some beautiful photo opportunities. Like when Finn and Sabi were playing so nicely with each other, and also some really funny ones when Finn was running away from that annoying girl baby that kept following him into his cubby house and onto his trampoline and even had the gall to sit on his chair.

It was one of those special days, memory making days were the sun shines and the kids run free showing off their cheeky smiling faces, high on life. I’m going to hang onto the memory of today when Finn and Jo disappear into the hospital for 6 weeks and I carry on with normal life worrying about how they are going.

Miss Lilly Pilly’s actual birthday was yesterday and I know I probably should have posted this then but really by the end of it I was just to exhausted.

Now I don’t normally go in for the whole hacking on your own child post but seriously sometimes you just need to vent. I had a whole day planned, I was going to seriously spoil this child. See she’s had a little few issues since the bubby has become upwardly mobile and I wanted her to feel special. I imagined taking them out to lunch, maybe a café anyone for giant chocolate milk shakes?? not this one apparently.

From the moment she woke up and became 5, something she’s been dying to do all year, she became little miss I Don’t Need To Do What You Say And You Can’t Make Me. The more I reminded her of my set in stone policy of not going out for special lunches without some proof first that the children I take with me wont set fire to the table cloths, the worse the behaviour got.  In the end we didn’t go anywhere and Lani spent the afternoon screaming “Why can’t you just behave so we can go out” at her sister.

I know it was probably all my fault, it always is right, always blame the parents. But things in my world seem a little full at the moment and I’m fighting sadness and not too good at the pre-emptive strike on potentially explosive behaviour. Meh, you live and learn I now know the third one in line does not like to be the centre of attention (she’s been fine today and actually improved yesterday after all talk of spoiling Lilly was put away). The day ended well though. When everyone came back from all the places that they go during the day we rang my sister and opened presents and Lilly even remembered her manners.

The beautiful bracelet my sister gave Lilly with a tiny pink teddy on it.

Fairy staring.

This music box also from Jill has been carried around and wound up and wound up all day today. In fact it has been played so much that at one point today I found Eli under the table bashing his ears saying “make it stop, make it stop!”

Jill didn’t leave out the other two either sending them the tiniest ever game of connect four which they love and look, what’s that on Eli’s head? Yes a black beanie. Just what you need in an Aussie March, but he’s thrilled now he’s even BLACKER!

The girls had a blast, all the colours of the rainbow, music, games, food but most of all friends. Those special people that make our eye’s sparkle and our hearts leap whenever we see them. Sharing lifes moments with those ones, some so dear to us that holding them in our minds and chattering about them daily is a natural as sucking the air in and out of our lungs. That is what birthdays are all about.

And a chance to express ourselves, that’s what birthdays are about. A day were we are aloud to paint the world the shade we want it to be. When you are 5 and 8 that colour is dazzling.

oh and don’t ever forget the cake, birthdays are about cake. This common desert becomes a testament to the desires, dreams and fascinations of the year gone by. I can’t wait for those future conversations with Lani  the ones that will go like this “look there’s your rainbow cake, I remember when you were hooked on rainbows. You should have seen the socks you made your grandma buy you”.

Birthdays are also about change. They are a moment in time when I, the mummy, catch my breath and panic a little inside. Look how big they have grown, how long those legs are how mature those faces seem. Have I really been blessed with such an amazingly fantastical job as to help this bunch become big?

Birthdays are about family. Birthdays are about friends. Birthdays are about people, and people celebrate.

So to my darling girls I say this. Don’t ever forget the joy, don’t every lose the sparkle you are amazing creatures celebrate who you are. One gentle and mothering one spirited and adventurous, don’t change, don’t ever be afraid of you. Find your trail and follow it and take all of us along for the ride.

And to my God I say thankyou, thankyou for naming me Mummy.

Alanah and Lillian are March babies the same as my sister and I, what can i say it’s just the best month ever. Also as you can imagine a very full one. The only blessing in all this March madness being that the girls love the idea of combined parties. Which is the reason I am still sane because I could not do this two weekends in a row.

This year the girls have requested a rainbow party, which doesn’t sound to hard till you sit down and work out how many little plastic garden pots need little wire handles. All this fiddly wire twisting is because, as all good fairy folk know, you can’t have a true magical rainbow without a pot of gold at its base.

Don’t worry I whinge in jest, I actually find repetitive monotonous craft preparation soothing, sort of.

Besides how many of you out there can say in all honesty that you have all your smarties in order.

Eli turned six last Wednesday. If you were to look at this blog as a record of love and attention it may appear that the dreaded sin of favouring one child over another has its terrible talons dug deep into this family after 12 straight days of posts leading up to and then a long post recording Sabrina’s first birthday and absolutely nothing, not even a mention of Eli’s change in status.

Let me reassure your gentle hearts right now by stating that. I HAVE BEEN PLANNING THIS LITTLE GUY’S PARTY FOR A WHOLE YEAR NOW and the only reason I haven’t mentioned it on here is because for the last week I have been up all hours of the night sewing costumes making tiny swords and shovelling sand all in the hope of achieving the ultimate, a happy boy.

He is an odd one with birthdays, declaring at the conclusion of each birthday the theme he has chosen for next year. Then as the year unfolds never wavering from his choice only adding to the expectation of how the day will unfold with every mention of his topic. Then when the day is over all enthusiasm for that particular interest goes away. For example last year’s was Dinosaurs, he fell asleep each night reading a dinosaur book, watched dino movies, dressed up as a dinosaur or at least had one on his shirt and insisted that his party must include "A dinosaur that had come to our house and laid eggs and we have to go on a dinosaur hunt." (I take his challenges seriously, its always a thrill trying to figure out a way of realizing the crazy imaginings of a child and I just love throwing myself into their fantasies) But has he mentioned a love of dinosaurs since then? No, not even a growl. The books have not left the shelf, the movies, unwatched. He will play with his plastic dinosaurs but this year the thrill has gone, they are just toys, because this year he is no longer Dinosaur Boy. 

So before I let another day go by I am recording his birthday with a photo from the moment he turned 6 I will write a post soon to show you the party, when I recover.

p.s. you may be thinking, what sort of a mother post a photo with her daughter looking so mongulated in the right hand corner. Let me tell you now it is the type of very tired mother who doesn’t want to listen to the torrent of tearful sobs that began the minute she realised she was being cut out of the photo. "Even looking that silly??" YES! even looking that silly" "Fine, just don’t blame me future Lani"