Happy Birthday Mum!

Happy Birthday to my beautiful mummy! Hope you have a lovely day mum and get thoroughly spoiled. Sadly this won't be the year that we all pop out of an over sized cake and suprise you....perhaps next year!

As ever, if i grow up to have half the patience and generosity that my mother has i'll be a very happy person. She takes confusing or difficult situations and puts them in perspective .......pregnant at 19? "Babies are wonderful"............ moving to NZ? "It'll be a good experience"!......... She gives me the strength to believe in myself and my ability to deal with things that i think i can't. I'm so proud to have her as my mum and everything she has achieved; she's the best grandmother and mother in the world and we all miss her every day and love her to bits :) kisses all round from all of us mum, we love you!

*Right, wipe my eyes and compose myself*

Am slightly alarmed by the fact that i have taken to putting beetroot on all my sandwiches; a practice i was rather disgusted by when i first arrived and now find myself doing???? Adrian is delighted that i have moved away from the rigidity of having only 2 sandwich fillings as per my English roots (you know, cheese and onion, ham and tomato, tuna and sweetcorn........bacon lettuce AND tomato on special occasions!) and embraced the kiwi way of doing things. Whatever. When i start putting egg with beetroot on all my sandwiches, THEN i'll worry! Do you know they actually have a Kiwi Burger at McDonalds that has egg and beetroot in it? My delicate English palate hasn't quite caught onto that one yet!

I have started to plan the girls birthday party; given that their birthdays are 9 days apart i am going to be a wuss and do a joint party for them; they have decided between them that they want a dinosaur party, so we've been busy planning all the things we're going to do. Leah found a stegosaurus cake in a party book that she wants me to make - not too complicated then!! We're going to chalk dinosaur footprints up the driveway to the house and have a fossil treasure hunt in the sandpit, pin the tail on the longneck and some more to be arranged; i may try to make a dinosaur pinata if i'm feeling creative enough. We have lots of dinosaur cookie cutters and loads of plastic dinosaurs - Leah is really into them if you hadn't guessed! And it's only 5 weeks away, which sounds a lot but i know it will fly, especially as she'll be starting school the following week and i haven't bought a single thing yet! Must get organised.......

Anyhoo, love to all, especially mum ( and of course dad, who is equally fabulous but who will get a special mention on his birthday!) xxxx Oh and my baby, who's 7 months old today xxx