Skip to main content

Happy birthday Izzy!


Happy birthday Izzy - 8 today!


So, like any dutiful parent I made sure the presents were wrapped and I was available this morning for the grand opening (took about 2 minutes as ever) before heading off for work. Feeling guilty that I hadn't been able to drop off today given it was a birthday, I made sure I was home tonight to do pick up, only for the 2 of them plus Grace to disappear off and I haven't seen them since. I'm clearly no longer required for a special birthday evening! It's our own doing - having both been brought up in families where the focus was always relatively low key for birthdays, we don't make a massive fuss and so neither do the girls. I think that's better than expecting the earth and getting all narked if you don't get want you want.


Not getting what you want is a good lesson to learn, particularly when your birthday list is a Shetland pony, a puppy or a pig (the last one clearly influenced by a big sister!)... As it was we had a chat and agreed that having more 'stuff' was not necessary and so in the end we got her a few new items of clothes and a day at the Hawk Conservancy looking after Owls - that definitely hit the spot, although I draw the line at the request to take her 2 best friends from school and Abi along as well - these things are not cheap!


Yesterday was party day and we headed off to The Jump Factory at Basingstoke for a party with Izzy and 14 friends. It was lovely to see new and old faces - she had a mix of neighbours, St Gabs and Thorngrove there and they had a great time on the trampolines, followed by all the cocktail sausages you can eat, a smattering of salad and cake to finish off. They then pleaded to go back to Mia's (of course!) so I got a lovely long walk with the dogs before we all went next door for a big (slightly alcoholic - not good on a Sunday evening!) birthday tea. Luckily we all had kids to get to school in the morning so the celebrations finished promptly at 8pm, but she did make the most of a long day of fun - no wonder we were all a bit tired this morning.


It is amazing to think how fast the time has passed - it feels all of 8 years and no more then 8 minutes since we welcomed her into the world. I'm so glad I've kept a record of the time passing with the blog otherwise it would all be a blur - so much has happened but she's growing into a lovely young girl, albeit still on the small side.... (the girl who was our party rep yesterday tried to guess her age - her first attempt was 5!). I know I need to make the most of these halcyon years before the hormones crash in and wreck our perfect little bubble. No need to dwell on that now - we'll cross that bridge when we come to it!



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Busy, busy, busy

Full English brunch for these two! Life is VERY busy and I don't feel like we have stopped for weeks (or is that months?) It seems like the 'to-do' list is endless and while I know we don't have to do it all at once, I have taken on the unenviable task of trying to get the Muppet to finish all the work he promised / we have paid for and that has been like pushing a mountain of water up a very steep hill. We've got to the point where I think we have got all of what we are likely to get and the rest we'd rather finish ourselves anyway. The electric gates are clearly a work of his imagination based on the gates / the electric cables he spec'd and the cheapo motor mechanism - there is no way they'll work so we have decided to not bother and source proper gates that do the job and look better as well. Knowing that we are almost at a point where we sever the ties feels very liberating. Looking back this last 6 months has been incredibly stressful and just didn...

Decluttering

Girls buying baby clothes - this could get addictive! It's Easter weekend already and we still haven't completed!! However we have made some progress, most importantly with the paperwork which has not been Steve the Builder's forte throughout this process. Stags finally got their act together and got in touch with the planning office and got an update from the Planning Officer. Apparently she is broadly happy with the application, and is prepared to pass it with only a few minor modifications which we are completely comfortable with. The Building Control Officer also came and did all of what he needed to, which means the final certificate should be issued which allows the warranty to also be issued. On our side we finally tracked down the paperwork (or more correctly got the BC Officer to come out again and do a second assessment) for the outstanding BCC on our windows (which went in 6 years ago but due to an admin error were never registered) - nothing is straightforward i...

Bank Holiday sunshine

Off to meet FiFi and Grumps for a walk  (and yes, she is on the seat) Finally after weeks of rain and cold weather, the tide has turned and we have glorious sunshine for the bank holiday weekend and half term - hooray, it's about time.  Also just in time is half term as the kids were definitely ready for a break. They have both done brilliantly settling into the school, making new friends and finding their feet in an unfamiliar environment. Izzy has just had her exam week and felt it went OK given she hadn't covered all of the syllabus, and Abi's exams start as soon as she is back next week. I hope she's done some revision as she left for Devon with Claire, Adam and Mia today and isn't back until Saturday. There is talk of looking at some of her notes but who knows. My view is that a bit of R&R will probably be at least as beneficial if not more so than cramming all week so she should take the time to relax and have some fun - she deserves it. So we packed Abi o...