BP#2 Am I a Kiwi or Am I an Aussie? At least I know I'm turning One!

This was Naomi's first birthday. Fairly specific, but there are a number of families who would have a similar situation, with parents born in a different country to the kids or kids living in different countries to which they were born in etc.

Invitation: Was a photo print of Naomi, with NZ and Oz flags on it and the text.

Decorations: Thanks to when my parents had visited just after Naomi was born, we had a packet of Australian flag balloons, we then got some black with silver fern balloons from the $2 shop here for the contrasting NZ theme. We hung them on the curtain rails and light fittings inside and around the edge of the market umbrella on the deck (The black NZ progressively popped over the morning as they got too hot in the sun!).

Food: For food we served food which BOTH Aussies and Kiwis claim to be theirs: lamingtons (the first time I've ever made them - apart from some fuzzy memory of making some in class at primary school), meat pies (the mini party variety), BBQ sausages on bread and pavlova.

Drink: We served 'Lift' (the aussie lemon soft drink) and 'L & P' (the kiwi version of the lemon drink).

Cake: It was two simple rectangle chocolate slab cakes, one was iced as an Australian flag and one iced as a New Zealand.

Activities: We had a gumboot (for the Kiwis) and thong (for the Aussies) throwing competition. It wasn't a distance competition, it was the person who got it closest to the target.

BP#1 High Tea in the Park

This is what we did for Ben's first birthday. We held it at Roma St parklands (on the grass between the lake and the ringroad - for Brisbane people), and had people bring their own picnic rugs/chairs to sit on. As with most first birthday parties, it was a mainly adult gathering, with a group of one year olds, as well as a group of toddlers.

Details of the party plan are a bit sketchy as it was a while ago now and I didn't record my plan like I do now. But this is what I do have:

Invitations: We think it was a photo print with text on it. It asked guests to bring a plate of food to contribute to the 'High Tea'.

Decorations: We strung a few balloons in the trees we were sitting under, mainly to help people locate exactly where we were in the park.

Food: As I said we asked the guests to bring a plate of food, so I didn't actually make anything. I did get my mum to make some smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches.

Drink: There was hot water in a thermos for the adults to make tea (a selection of fancy flavours), as well as juice for those wanting a cold drink.

Cake: It was a Noah's ark cake. I got the directions from here. Instead of baking the cake myself, I ordered slab cakes from Woolworths and cut to the appropriate shape (I used 2 layers of cake for the ark). It was a pretty ambitious cake to make, the royal icing animals were a fair bit of work - lots of different colours and detail.

Activity: For the older kids we had crayons for them to draw/decorate their party bags and then filled them with a small ball and a small box of dried fruit.

Party thank-you: As I said, each child got a small ball and box of dried fruit.

Finally starting the series

After promising a few weeks ago to do a series of post on my party plans that I've done for the kids birthday parties, I post the first few today. The earlier parties don't have as much detail or pictures as the later parties, but I hope people still find it helpful/inspiring.

Tax returns done!

The usual fiddling around because we have stuff here and there, but only took a couple of days. Just in time for me to pay more tax and wait another year to get it back.

Fashion marathon

Got both the girls to try on all their clothes for this coming summer...worked out what fitted, so now I can choose what stuff to pack for our holiday!

Can finally do my tax!

Got the last piece of paperwork I needed in the mail yesterday. Now I can do my tax and Peter's tax and then look forward to the nice chunk of enforced savings to show up in my bank account!

All chooks on the lay!

We have collected 5 eggs the past 2 days, which means all 5 chooks are laying! (we had been at 4 eggs/day for a month or so) This means eggs are well and truly on the menu at our house. I made a savoury bread and butter pudding last night with the leftover pizza bread that I'd made for our snow holiday lunches...I used 12 eggs in it! And we still have 10 eggs in the fridge today.

Busy busy busy...

I haven't posted for ages...been busy with Joanna's birthday party, then getting ready for our snow holiday (post to come) and Joanna's actual birthday. Now trying to recover and tidy up from birthday stuff and snow holiday before I have to start packing next week for our trip to Brisbane.

I just saw snow falling outside our house!

It was only a few flakes which melted before they touched the ground, but it was still snow!

(Hamilton is not suppose to get snow - ever!)

Day has gone well

Everything has taken as long as I expected it to take. I would have liked it to be quicker than I expected.

Only stress was when I couldn't find the figurine that is the centre piece on top of the cake. But I found it after 20min of looking.