Time to PARTEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

It's only right that when a lady turns 40 that she should throw a party and my bestest bud Rachel Harkes did just that last night!

Although it's not officially her birthday until next week, she pulled out all the stops and everyone that attended had a great time!

 Rachel and her hubby Iain make a lovely couple (should do, they've been together 20 odd years)!

 Lee doned his best suit and look rather daper I must admit..

 And Michelle let her hair down - lots too!

Rachel has always wanted to jump out of a plane, I have no idea why, there are surely better ways to kill yourself, but no, it's on her bucket list.  So now, not only does she get to do it once, but twice as her family and also her friends all clubbed together and bought her the opportunity to do so...  She was a little surprised by this...

As one of the few sober guests, I was in charge of the buffet (glad it was only a token gesture of nibbles - not)!

And no party is complete without a good ole cup of tea at the end of the evening with Mum (Rachel's Mum, not mine)!

Happy 40th birthday beautiful!

One word for 2014: Grateful....

I'm getting back into my scrapbook challenges and this layout of me (highly unusual) I'm entering into both
SWAT - drill challenge ~23 AND Challenge Yourself, Challenge 2.

Both challenges were about choosing one word which should your be a focus for 2014.  I personally thought was quite hard..

I went for "Grateful" as I am guilty sometimes of forgetting just how fortunate I am to have the life I have with such amazing people in it.  I need to appreciate that more this year and I intend to do just that..

http://swatscrapwarriorsadvancedtraining.blogspot.ca/2014/01/drill-23-one-word-for-2014.html
This is the link to the SWAT challenge, still time to enter, as the closing date isn't until the end of the month.

http://scrap-challenge-yourself.blogspot.ca/2014/01/challenge-2-one-little-word.html
and this is the link to the Challenge Yourself challenge, still time to enter, as the closing date isn't until 5th February 2014.

Almost 8!!!

Eight.  Seven plus one... nine minus one.... however you say it, Nicholas is nearly there.

This year our young man had a pool party at Belfairs Swim Centre with a huge inflatable in the pool to climb all over...  Cake was first and then water fun!

 Nicholas is fast catching Alexander up in height and muscle..

 Even Cassandra got in on the act and was doing rolls off the end of the inflatable by the end of the session!

 

A great time was had by all that attended.  Thanks so much for all his cards and gifts.

More gifts and fun tomorrow when our baby boy actually turns 8 years old :)

She did it!!!!!!

Cassandra has been saying that she wants to ride her bike without her stabilisers for a few months now, but it hasn't really been the weather to encourage this challenge...

 However, last week Lee got her new bike out of the garage, took off the offending extra wheels and our determined little lady gave it a go...

We had tears and disappointment when she fell off (the boys learned to ride their bikes on the grass over at Blenheim park in the summer) but she got back on and tried again..

 and again....

  and again...

And then she succeed :)

At a girl !!!!

A next Masterchef contestant?

Alexander is our budding chef and has been attending Waitrose cookery classes for the last year or so. 

Between Christmas and New Year he decided that he wanted to cook dinner for everyone and I have to say, it was one of the best pizza's I've ever tasted!

What a team!

We finally manged to get a pic of the ENTIRE Leigh Ramblers U8 Tigers team just before Christmas - in their team strip and their away strip too, kindly sponsored by JSL Group.

Ho, ho, ho!

How late am I with Christmas!?!?

It seemed to go on forever this year with the start being on Christmas Eve with Alexander's traditional reading of "The Night Before Christmas" to everyone..

Then comes the milk and cookies (or in this case this year, bourbon biscuits) and a carrot or two for the old reindeers..

 Christmas morning Alexander was thrilled with his Lego mine..

Nicholas with his pro stunt scooter and Cassandra was happy with her "shiny pink car" apart from the fact she thought she would get everything on her Santa list - not!

Lee was rather excited about his Transformer - he's been into them for as long as I've been with him and he only told me a few months ago that he'd never owned an Optimus Prime before (for those not in the know, he's the biggest, awesoemist Autobot there is), so I just had to do the honours for him...

  After we had all opened our pressies, Mum arrived and we started all over again!

 Think Mum was impressed with her "purpley" sweet!

Although obviously not as much as Lee was with Cassandra's pink sparkly shower cap!

 Dinner and games, although Lee wasn't feeling too good and went to bed fairly early on Christmas Day, so after Cassie was in bed too, Mum, the boys, Tony & Christine and I all played cards for ages!  Teaching my kids to gamble at a young age, what a terrible mother!

 Boxing day we did it all over again chez Butler style...

 John's fav gift was of course Bruce - his climbing garden knome!

 

And then on 28th, we all went down to see Lisa and Greg and the twins for more gifts and festivities!

And then the dec's came down!!!!!