Tag Archives: birthday

This Boy

Posted on December 31, 2008 | 3 comments

Finn's Birthday 2008

Is pretty great, actually 🙂 I still can’t quite work out where I misplaced the last six years, but just look at that – we have a six year old! Happy Birthday Mr Finn!

The last couple of school weeks were pretty full-on for the boy. He was thrust suddenly into the world of car-pooling after I broke my wrist; he was one of the narrators in the Prep end-of-year concert (amazing me with his stage confidence – such a different boy from way back then); sickness descended once twice more upon the Sugarlemon household; as did headlice (blech); mid-illness, we survived a whirlwind (early) birthday party (tenpin bowling again this year, since *someone* (cough) didn’t manage to book the swimming party in time); there was a flurry of excitement over a Student Achievement Award; two days were spent at this swish school learning Chess and geometry and other fun stuff; then finally there came the last day of school for 2008, which ended with a bit of a teary meltdown (as Claire can attest!) Not surprising, really. (Thankfully, Santa drove our bus on the way home, so all was restored.) Then came the anticipation and actuality of Christmas, which as always is a story unto itself.

(Actually, all of those should have been stories unto themselves, but as usual, I’ve been a bad blogger, and this is the seriously condensed version. With many parentheses.)

But today, finally, a day just for Finn. And it was pretty excellent. Low-key, just the four of us, but with the requisite amounts of sugar and fun, I think. Still transport-less (cast comes off in 5 days, hip hip hooray), we took a train into the city for: Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Myer Christmas windows, Madagascar 2, Sushi, Pork dumplings, and Max Brenner hot chocolate. Thoroughly exhausted, we staggered home, where Niamh and I had to sleep it off for a while. Later there was some of this, lots of this, an excellent round of this, then early fireworks (televised) for the kids, and finally, blessedly, they’re asleep, and I’m just trying to keep my eyes open until at least the first few seconds of 2009. Happy New Year, everyone 🙂

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Posted in Family, General Ramblings

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Welcome to Two

Posted on June 3, 2008 | 9 comments

The big day. It dawned misty and magical, so after packing Daddy off to work and Finn off to school, Niamh and Mummy walked down to the reserve to get some Birthday Girl photos.

But. Hmmm. There was a lot of this:
Birthday-Grump
(She’s about to yell!)

And this:
No-Wotos
“No Wotos Mummy”

So Mummy took a photo of Niamh’s beautiful Soulemama-birthday-crown on a magical and mystical log, instead.
Birthday-Crown
(Note – I made this yesterday. So much fun – It took me about an hour (and only that long because I was messing around with elastic casings). Niamh does like to wear it about, honestly. At her convenience, not mine!)

Then Niamh had to try out the very wet playground (of course she did):
Birthday-Playground
(At least we got to show off the new shorter ‘do’)

Then we found out Mummy forgot to pack a playground snack. (Ouch). Whereupon we went home, and Niamh had a nice long kip:
Sleepy-Doll

And Mummy got the kitchen ready for this afternoon’s cupcake fest:
Kitchen-Doll

Finally… proof that there was both smiling and crown-wearing yesterday:
Birthday-Crown-Tryout
Happy Birthday beautiful girl!

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Posted in Family, Other Craft, Sewing, The Kids

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Too Late?

Posted on January 7, 2008 | 6 comments

Is it too late yet to say Happy New Year? And, uh, Merry Christmas, as well? (I don’t do ‘Happy Holidays’ – despite my pagan leanings, I’m pretty firmly in the ‘Merry Christmas’ camp!)

I kept meaning to blog, truly I did. I missed so many important moments. Here’s the ten-second run down of that-which-was-never-blogged:

  • Finn’s birthday party (Ten pin bowling, wheeee! The birthday boy bowled 96 to take the game – never mind the assistance of bumpers and a ramp!)
  • A little bit of frantic pre-Christmas crafting (Bags, bags, bags… I do promise photos, once I liberate them from the various cameras about the house)
  • Niamh deciding a week before Christmas was a good time to start climbing out of her cot, thus introducing us to a whole new set of bedtime challenges
  • Christmas itself (Cue yet another emotional meltdown from moi – 3-days of family festivities (his family/ my family/ my other family) is just a wee bit more than I can take, apparently)
    Finn turning 5
  • Finn’s NYE birthday (My boy is five! Last year Scienceworks, this year the Museum. Lots of fun, but I wish we hadn’t been so rushed)
  • NYE party and overnight stay out of town (Thank goodness – we were about an hour and a half out of Melbourne, so no overnight low of 30°C for us – we had a pleasant drop down to 17°-ish)
  • Resolution making (Yes really – me! Never mind that I apparently jinx myself out of achieving goals – I’m quite determined that two-oh-oh-eight is going to be a whole different story. Stay tuned)

So Happy New Year then. May it be a wonderful and productive one for all of us. Also, may it bring more blogging and less blah-ing for me. Back soon with those photos, and not far around the corner, a name change and a facelift.

Erm… for the blog, that is, not me 😆

6 Comments

Posted in Family, General Ramblings, The Kids

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Thirty-two

Posted on October 11, 2007 | 9 comments

brthday-gifts
Yes, it’s true. I’m another year older and another year wider wiser. Happy Birthday to me 😆

For my inner-hippie, Dermot and the kids gave me a permaculture book. For my inner-geek, a GPS navigator (also from Mum and Stepdad). Actually, perhaps that’s for my inner-hippie as well. To, you know… “find myself”!

Anyone who knows me knows I have the World’s Worst sense of direction. Absolutely shocking. Thankfully I married an excellent navigator, but now, when he’s not available, a lovely man named Tim is going to tell me exactly where to go :giggle: Hooray for birthdays. Now, can someone tell me exactly when I am going to feel like a grown-up?

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Posted in General Ramblings

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Later That Month…

Posted on June 19, 2007 | 9 comments

The Blogger’s block continues. But I have been stitching. A few secret things – more on those later. And, surprise, surprise, I dragged something out from beneath the mountain of unfinished-finished-things:
Bookmark-1

I stitched this Teresa Wentzler freebie bookmark back in 2004. Finally, I actually made it into a bookmark! And used it, what’s more:
Bookmark-2

I used this stuff to fuse the fabric together:
Bookmark-3

I don’t know how kosher that is with regards to longevity of the stitching, but watch me not care. Also not caring about the lumpy seam up the back of the bookmark. The front looks good, and it does what it should, and that’s all that matters 🙂

Also in the interim since my last post, I spent a lovely afternoon meeting some fellow Melburnian stitchers – Junette, Anne and I descended on Tannia’s house where she plied us with food and wine, and we whiled a few hours away chatting and getting in some quality kitty time. Niamh came along, and made short work of befriending all and sundry, except perhaps Banjo, who remained unconvinced. It was lovely, and I hope we do it again sooner rather than later.

Then, we spent this weekend just past away for a couple of days with Dermot’s (large) family. Annually, on the weekend following Queen’s Birthday, we hire a school-camp facility (dorm rooms, communal showers and kitchen – you know the kind of thing) and spend two days eating, drinking and being generally merry, all in celebration of his grandmother’s birthday. She was 87 this year, and we all had a wonderful weekend. Here’s to many more like it 😆

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Posted in Counted Stitchwork, Family, Finished

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The Birthday

Posted on June 5, 2007 | 7 comments

   “Will report back with photos, hopefully.”

That last word of the last post may have been a bit premonitory! Important events in this family’s life seem to be marked by a distinct lack of decent photographs. (Don’t even ask me about our wedding. Just don’t.) In this case, as with Dermot’s 30th birthday three weeks ago, we were so busy trying to keep people fed and happy that neither of us got behind the camera much. We did, however, have a really lovely time, and everybody was well fed and happy, so that and the memories really are all that count. I did manage a few photos – this first one is on party day – the day before her birthday.
Niamh-Birthday-2
Legwarmers, courtesy Babylegs. These things are great!
Cute red dress, courtesy my wonderful friend Jane
Wiggles DVD, courtesy Uncle Stu
Dinky red cap, courtesy Grandpa
Backwards-cap-wearin’-style, all her very own 🙂

And here we have our gorgeous 1 year old and big brother on her birthday – note the Russian dolls we gave her. I must get a good photograph of these to show you, they’re beautiful.

Niamh-Birthday-3

And then there’s this last one – which is something I wouldn’t normally show you, as it is such an unattractive shot of myself (note bags under eyes, and yes, my eyebrows need serious attention – and yes, if you look closely, you can see Niamh has inherited those same crazy eyebrows, poor girl!) But something about this photograph really works for me – it was taken the afternoon of her birthday, after we experienced a pretty rough night following the party, and I think it sums up the feeling of the last year pretty succinctly, don’t you?

Niamh-Birthday
For what it’s worth, she went on to sleep eleven hours that night, so all is forgiven again 🙂

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Posted in Family, The Kids

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Milestones

Posted on October 12, 2006 | 1 comment

One year ago today, I discovered I was pregnant with ‘Small’. Today, I watched that same small baby rolling over and giggling with delight. It was wonderful.

She learned to roll over yesterday, after struggling and struggling to get there for several days. I had made the mistake of thinking she would go from tummy to back first, but when I finally figured out she looked like going the other way, I started putting her on her back again, and over she went. When she did, I lay there chatting with her for a few moments, then reached around for the telephone to call OtherHalf and let him know. In the two seconds my back was turned, she flipped over onto her back again! Mobile baby – scary :giggle: Today she’s been perfecting the roll with nappy on – a cloth nappy presents a slightly bigger obstacle than a bare bottom!

Finn acheived his own milestone yesterday as well. We’ve been putting off night toilet-training for ages now, but on Tuesday night we found ourselves unexpectedly out of pull-ups, so undies for bedtime it was (I couldn’t be bothered going out to buy more at that time of night, plus I’ve been getting irritated by the expense of them and was planning to look for a cloth alternative anyway). Anyway, surprise of surprises, he had a dry bed yesterday morning. Whoohoo! Unfortunately we weren’t so lucky the second night, but we’re on the way now.

We made a wonderful discovery last night. I decided I was in the mood for sushi for dinner, so Google found us a great little takeaway sushi place about ten minutes away. They make up sensational platters for a very decent price, so we came home with a small party platter of nigiri and made gluttons of ourselves (all three of us – Finn loves sushi too). Yum. Topped off with chocolate cake courtesy of OtherHalf, it was a most excellent birthday meal 🙂

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Posted in Family, General Ramblings, The Kids

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Birthday Bling

Posted on October 11, 2006 | 5 comments

Heh. I typed the title quickly and it came out Birthday Blong. That sounds kind of less appealing :giggle:

Thank you all for the birthday wishes. Yes, it’s true. I am now ‘in my thirties‘. Do you know, I think that sounds much older than just ‘30‘! I still feel like a babe in the woods (though I must say I think the last four months have aged me a bit).

What I wanted for my birthday: a night’s sleep and a day off. Hahahahaha. Niamh decided to wish me Happy Birthday at 11.45pm, 2.15am, 4.15am and 6.15am. Such a darling.

Here’s what I did score instead:
Birthday Bling
I must confess, I picked this out. That’s the only way to get exactly what you want, after all! Note it feeds my dragonfly habit :smile:. This has amethyst and fluorite stones on it, and as the woman who sold it to us waxed lyrical about the properties of the stones, and how I should ‘cleanse’ the stones by ‘bathing them in healing light’, I couldn’t help but think ‘yes, but I just picked it out because I think it’s pretty‘! It has a nice bit of weight to it, which I like, too.

OtherHalf, Niamh and Finn also gave me seasons 3 and 4 of Will and Grace on DVD (to go with seasons 1 and 2 from last birthday). And… what could possibly be inside here?
Lookie...

Only the most beautiful hand-made chocolates I have ever seen 🙂 Too stunning to eat, I think (yeah, as if!)
Yummy

Also, my Dad arrived home from Canada today. He came bearing a boxload of Canadian treats – maple syrup (of course), tea, coffee, maple butter, hard and soft maple-leaf lollies(/sweets/candies – the hard ones are wonderful – think barley sugar, made with maple syrup. Yum!), chocolate, apple-saskatoon jelly (whatever a saskatoon is – sounds like some kind of bird :giggle: ), and smoked salmon ‘candy’. I don’t know about that one – fish marinated in syrup sounds a bit suspicious to me!

No special plans for tonight – I am not quite ready to leave my baby to a sitter yet. Perhaps Niamh will grant me that night’s sleep tonight instead. (I won’t hold my breath though).

Clarification: I read this again and realised it kind of sounded like I turned 30 today, but actually, I’m 31. Hence, ‘in my 30s’!

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Posted in General Ramblings

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I’m All Grown Up

Posted on October 11, 2005 | 7 comments

Happy Birthday Me 🙂

Finn decided I was in fact turning 88 :giggle: So sweet.

I feel that at 30, I should probably feel like an adult. Normally, no, but this week, with pressures from all directions, I think I do. Reached my goal of no grey hairs though!

Because of said pressures, there will be no big celebrations. I’m not a big one for parties even on a good year, but this year it’s just impossible to stop and breathe, let alone party. I’ll be spending this evening writing sql and php, and if I get a chance, a Usability report. Joy :yuk:

However – once the next few weeks are a mere memory, I plan to sit down with my brand new Will & Grace DVDs (Seasons 1 & 2)… and STITCH! That will be sweeeet 😆

…

PS. I decided I was not allowed to be miserable and stressed on my birthday (well, not all day anyway), so Finn and I trundled up the street for coffee and cake. Orange flourless cake, to be precise. Ooooh. My body, having become accustomed to high protein, low fat over the last 3 months, has a little bit to say about that kind of abuse. But heck, it was worth it! Now… I hope Mum doesn’t decide to bring cake over later :giggle:

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Posted in Family, General Ramblings, Postgrad Study

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