Birthday season!

I love birthdays.  Especially my kids birthdays.  Its the one day a year that you can really celebrate who they are as people.  So often as a mum I am focusing on how I can help my child grow and improve upon the things that they may not be doing well (listening, sharing, etc).  Birthdays are the one time I put aside all of that stuff and just celebrate them for who they are and who they are becoming.  They are a wonderful reminder and to be honest I should be doing it all of the time.  It is so easy to criticize your own kids when you see things that you don't like in them and not just let them figure it out on their own sometimes.  I so often have to stop and remind myself to just "be" and just enjoy watching them and enjoy them.   I also think that sometimes I am so worried about sounding like I am boasting about my child that I forget to lift them up and talk about what they do so well at.

My daughter turned four this week and I will stop and tell you what I love most about her.  Maybe as a reminder for myself and also for her to know as well. She is my bright spark, incredibly enthusiastic and encouraging with an incredibly thankful spirit.  Just on her birthday morning she looked at me and said "thank you for my birthday mum".  It melted my heart.  She is one of the boys most of the time, loving to run around and get dirty and willing to give most things a go.  She is a little artist and loves building with blocks, especially LEGO.  I love watching her concentration when she undertakes what she loves to do. She shares so well because she just wants people to be with her and have fun with her.  My dear girl is an incredible older sister.  She adores her younger brother and they are the best of mates.  She loves to teach and to help other kids.  She fills my heart with so much joy just being with her.  Happy Birthday to my little buddy!  Mummy loves you dearly. xx  

What do you love most about your kids??  Stop for a minute and think about it and maybe write it down.  They love to hear it and will love to read it one day. 

Here are some photos of the birthday party (a joint one for her brother and her) as well as the cake made for kindy!  Enjoy. :)

Homesick blues

Homesickness has a way of sneaking up on you out of no where.  For me it always happens in a public place which makes it somewhat worse.  Years ago it was the supermarket.  All I wanted was a specific ingredient to make a special recipe my mum always makes for Christmas and when I found New Zealand didn't carry it I was a mess.  A couple years later it was the post office when I was told I couldn't mail peanut slabs to my mum for her birthday.  Yesterday, it happened to be the post office again.  I wonder if the post office has many cases of the homesick blues but somehow I think I'm probably the only one that's broken down over not being able to send cookies.  I am pretty sure the lady thought I was crazy.  I mean cookies?  But these were very special cookies.  Time and love went into these cookies and I was SURE I was able to send them.  I had done my research and was sure it was OK    A lesson very much learnt as next time I will phone before I get so excited.  What I have figured out is that its OK to bring baked goods into the country but not to send them.  Next time I will have to hop on a plane to personally deliver them.

After my breakdown I decided I had to give these cookies away.  They were making me too sad.  I was almost very tempted to give them to the ladies in the post office to show them the love that went into them, BUT they delivered me my very bad news so decided it wasn't in me to make their day.  In the end I decided to deliver them to one of my aunties (the next best thing, or third best thing after Grandma).  This particular auntie had had a birthday in the weekend and was burgled twice in the last two weeks so thought she could use some extra love in her day.   It made me feel much better visiting her and I am now only tearing up mildly as I write this (I might have been a blubbering mess).

Anyway, HAPPY BIRTHDAY Mum.  I was sending you these cookies but some mean people at the post office said I couldn't.  Something else is on its way but no where near as exciting. Love you heaps!