BIRTHDAY EVE

On this Thursday night, the eve of Elsa's 2nd birthday, here I sit procrastinating while the mouse needs a second ear, the cat needs a tail and the basinet needs a ribbon...and then the gifts need wrapping. I should get to it...

HALF WAY THERE

Well, very close. I had an ultrasound today (19 weeks!). It was absolutely lovely (and amazing and extraordinary!!) to see the baby moving about a little (but mostly sleeping), scratching his/her ears and performing some very energetic nose-rubbing that left me wondering whether our whole family is suffering from allergies this week :). We left with a DVD of the scan and a few photos, one of which has made it to the fridge, which is a bit like the 'pool room' in our house (i.e. quite a compliment to the little one).

Elsa provided one of our favourite moments of the day when Dino showed her one of the photos and said "see, there's your little baby brother or sister Elsa" and she responded "I not see it" while shaking her head. So she's either in denial about her upcoming (slight) fall from grace or far more honest than most adults when they're shown the same thing...really, isn't that what people would love to say to doting parents sharing murky scan images of their beloved baby? At times it takes plenty of imagination to make the baby out but today the images were pretty amazing - spoken like a true doting parent!

Worlds Biggest Morning Tea

On Friday, we celebrated the Biggest Morning Tea at Dana's from Twiglet. Thanks Dana for hosting the gathering and inviting us along. It felt good to contribute towards such a worthy cause, particularly one so close to home. Dad died of cancer last March and I did spend a great deal of the morning thinking of him, in between sips of tea and nibbling scrumptious sweets (I can just see him rolling his eyes at me!). It was also nice to put more names to familiar faces from the park and village! And to meet Leslie from onegirl because it's just to much fun to meet creative, interesting people and because she's Canadian of course! (nice for Elsa to meet another part-Canadian little girl living nearby!). And, I won the lucky door prize/raffle prize. Wow, Dana put together such a fantastic package with items from Aunty Cookie, Gemma Jones and (of course!), Twiglet. It was such a treat to win the package and I know I'll enjoy every last bit of it.

We enjoyed making some scones to take along too. To do so, Elsa simply HAD to wear her Dada's favourite golfing cap - her favourite.

Another Special Birthday

Today is the birthday of my only nephew that lives in Melbourne; he's now 6!!! And yesterday we joined my sister and co. for his birthday party. Elsa is in-love with this particularly cousin (and his sister) and thinks that just about everything he does is THE BEST! So, after a week of talking about his upcoming birthday, a morning of gift-wrapping and dropping into Queen Vic. Markets to buy the remainder of his gift on the way to his party, she was already very excited. Queen Vic. Markets is about a 10 to 15 minute drive from home and though we were only there for 45 minutes or so yesterday morning we were reminded of why we should make an effort to get there more regularly. Anyhow, my nephew has just started playing soccer so we grabbed an FC Barcelona outfit for him and some lollies to aid the cake decorating. It's our job to decorate his and his sister's birthday cakes each year (well, it used to be our job to make them too but since Elsa was born, decorating is about all we can offer!). This year we worked off the jungle cake from the Women's Weekly Kids Cookbook. It seemed to go down okay. And the soccer outfit fits! He also enjoyed the new book we gave him; 'Cowardly Clyde' by Bill Peet.

Markets, Peas and Ponchos

Elsa and I made it to South Melbourne Market this week (very early one morning!) to exchange Dino's birthday slippers (they were too big), buy some fish (got some beautiful flathead and salmon) and share a 15 minute respite over chai and 'baby coffee' (as Elsa calls it) before dropping into Wool Baa to grab some knitting needles that I need to make a cotton hat from Last Minute Knitted Gifts.

This week, Elsa also discovered the joys of peeling and eating fresh snowpeas. She ate an extraordinary number of them. Love it! And she wore the poncho that Yiayia made for the first time. Initially she really enjoyed "twirling" in it but it eventually became too restrictive and she asked me to take it off. By lunch time as we were leaving play group, she wanted it back on...she's slowing wearing it in it seems!

POST-BIRTHDAY RECOUP.

After a busy birthday weekend, our household woke to find that Dada is under the weather. While he spent the morning in bed, we made (more!) rice pudding (another double-batch), some turkish-style wholemeal bread, that took the day to rise before being baked and another cake. Yesterday, we made an ouzo cake for Dino's birthday and today we made what we've called "cake for the day after a birthday" :). It's actually the vanilla cake from Apples for Jam, which has become one of our favourite cookbooks. The vanilla cake is lovely and moist and set to be a staple in our birthday (and post-birthday!) celebrations.

BIRTHDAY HAT

A hat for Elsa made from 'Opal' yarn. I like the way it comes out in pattern, making it look like you put alot more effort into it than you did! I made Mum socks from a different colour combination for her birthday last year and she likes wearing them. The hat is a 2nd birthday gift for Elsa and I can't wait to see it on her in a few weeks. I did sneak it on her for a quick photo today and hope that she'll enjoy rediscovering it on her birthday. The pattern is free here.

Mum's birthday socks