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All things Dad

September 11, 2009 by Jen

Last Friday was dad’s 70th birthday. It was great that he’s made it this far as we had a scare a couple of years ago but he’s pretty well recovered now.

As it was also Father’s day on the weekend I went over to visit them and we all went out for dinner on Saturday evening. It was a flying visit because JJ had his last game of football for the season and I wanted to get back earlyish on Sunday because I’ve got some extra work on. As it turned out we didn’t get home until mid-afternoon but that was okay in the end.

It’s good driving out in the country this time of year because all the crops are in and everything’s beautifully green and lush. In a couple of months it will be a completely different colour when everything starts to dry out.

Amongst all the green paddocks (fields) are yellow ones – canola crops. They look spectacular.

Canola crop

Barbed wire

And here we are at dinner.

Playing Pokemon

My niece and I. She’s now 17 and driving a car.

Penny & Jenny

Party hats don’t really need to go on the head. I get photos of my son whenever I can these days because he doesn’t always like posing for me.

Party hat

And last, but by no means least, here’s dad after they’d brought him out a cake and a sparkler. I think he was a bit embarrassed. But hey, it’s not every day you turn 70. Hip hip hooray.

Happy 70th

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Birthday extravaganza

June 29, 2009 by Jen

On Friday morning I heard him get up, go to the toilet and go back to bed. I lay in bed for a bit and then yelled out ‘Good morning birthday boy’. He came into my room and when I asked why he hadn’t come in earlier he said that he didn’t want to wake me. It doesn’t bother him most other mornings and his birthday is one of the rare days in the year that I don’t mind if he does wake me.

I gave him his presents and he read the card first.

Birthday card

He then opened the main present.

First look at Nintendo DSi

He then realised what it was. He’s been hassling me for a Nintendo DS for ages and I finally caved in. I even bought the DSi.

Realisation sets in

He opened the second part of the present which included a game.

And the DS games comes with it

And before too long he was occupied playing it. I realise that now that he’s got a DSi he’ll be hassling me to play it all the time. It’s not one of those things that he can have whenever he wants and so far I think he accepts that. He asked me today if we can take it away with us, and of course we will be.

Just a small technical note about the DSi. It accepts an SD card so you can store music and photos on it. I would have expected that you could put the SD card into the slot and it would be recognised straight away like in a camera but this isn’t the case. You have to connect to the internet before the DSi will recognise it. I’m fairly technically savvy but I had a bitch of a time trying to connect it to the internet using my wi-fi broadband at home.

I’ve got my security setup with WPA and the default for the DSi is WEP – ie two different kinds of security. The documentation I found said that you could setup the internet with WAP security but damned if I could find it. The manual didn’t mention anything that I could find and then I finally (after nearly two hours) found that if you used connections 4-6 on the DSi you could select more than just WEP security. Finally I connected to the internet which I hadn’t really wanted to do anyway. I just wanted the thing to read the SD card.

Playing Lego Starwars

My lost two hours could have been much better spent organising the birthday party for the Sunday. JJ hasn’t had a birthday party since his fifth birthday and that was a huge one number wise but this one felt more stressful – probably because it was at home and probably because I wasn’t quite sure how I would entertain these children for two hours.

Nearly half an hour after they arrived I was still the only adult there and I was starting to freak out. My friends were supposed to be there for two o’clock and they were seriously late. One of the fathers offered to stay but he had to go on a quick errand before he came back. By the time he did come back my other friends had arrived but he still stayed.

We started off with Pass the Parcel which was surprisingly hard work. The kids (five boys) were really over-excited and very hard to control. It was JJ times five. Note Monty in prime patting position!

The birthday party - Pass the parcel

We then did musical statues outside which was great to get rid of some of that energy.

I found a game called Mummy Wrap on the internet and I really didn’t hold out much hope for this game because it required standing still. The boys paired up and had to wrap each other like a mummy.

To their credit they all did a really good job with a bit of help from some adults.

Mummy wrap game

Here’s one nearly completed.

Finished mummy wrap

Here’s me directing some toilet paper pickup after the first round. The toilet paper I got came apart quite easily so it was a little bit hard not to rip it.

Picking up the rubbish

They then swapped and we judged the best wrapper, although they nearly all won a prize.

To get the toilet paper off they had to do star jumps.

Breaking free from mummy wrap

And then wrestle each other to the ground.

Now they can move

After some food, some more jumping on the trampoline it was time for the birthday cake. JJ wanted me to make my cheesecake (the Superb Cheesecake from the Quick and Thrifty Readers Digest recipe book). I bought some Smarties so the boys could decorate their piece.

Birthday cake (my superb cheesecake)

And then they all left and I sat down and breathed a big sigh of relief. It was all worth it though because JJ had a great time and I’m pretty sure his guests had a great time too.

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Cup of tea anyone?

October 18, 2008 by Jen

A while ago I read a recipe on how to make teacup biscuits on Planning Queen’s blog. JJ and I put it down as one our things to do during the school holidays. We finally did it.

I saved it for an occasion where we weren’t left to eat all 26 by ourselves – that would have been a bit piggy. We visited a friend who has three kids and it was one of those kids birthdays the day prior so we took most of them there.

JJ also had some left over for his lunchbox for a couple of days into the school term.

As the recipe said, we used lifesaver lollies for the handles and I had trouble cutting them in half properly. Someone mentioned to me that you could use fruitloop cereal so this might be worth a try next time.

It was a great little activity to share with my son, and quite easy to do.

On another note stay posted as I’m going to be doing a giveaway here. It will be a good one.

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Last couple of days

October 15, 2008 by Jen

It’s been a full-on two days so this will be quick as I still have loads to do and it’s already 9pm.

On Monday and Tuesday I handed over the job I’ve been doing for the last year to the person who was successful in applying for it recently. That’s been kind of weird. I’m now back in my substantive position which is kind of good because I’m really familiar with it and I’m in a space where not too many challenges at work is good.

It was also my birthday yesterday. So while I was trying to hand over this job I was eating cake, getting birthday phone calls, having happy birthday sung to me, going out for lunch and also having a very quick hand over from the person who’s been acting in my job.

All of this meant that I was only able to leave work ten minutes earlier than normal to get home, and drive to dinner and my usual monthly ukulele practise where I was sung happy birthday yet again and received lots of lovely birthday wishes.

I enjoy birthdays.

So this morning was a bit of a comedown until a girl in JJ’s class who I was reading to examined me and told me that I looked pretty today. I think I’ll go back and get this girl to read to me again.

Oh, and JJ asked if he could please have Google on his computer.

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