A Weekend of Parties

Kiddy parties. 😛

J’s friend B and his sister F both have birthdays at about the same time so it was F’s party on Saturday and B’s on Sunday. F’s was a family affair, so we all toddled along there and spent the afternoon playing (littles), chatting (bigs) and eating nice food (all) – including delicious chocolate crispie cakes with a distinct caramel flavour (reminiscent of Mars bars or Creme Eggs 😕 ) due to being made with lots of golden syrup – must get a recipe! F being 4 and girly, the cake was a triumph of pink, sparkly icing 😉

In the evening we did the second great Coke Fountain experiment, with some success 🙂

Today was B’s party, which unfortunately clashed in timing with church. J was very excited, though, as B had told him about a wonderful science man who would be coming to entertain the children, so we arranged to drop him off early, en route to church, so that he wouldn’t have to miss anything.

Sadly, after this masterstroke of organisation, the science man had cancelled, so the children were left to entertain themselves 🙁 which they did with great aplomb and a bit of good luck on the weather front 🙂

Sunday school was small (just two children, aged 4 and 9, so interesting from a differentiation pov!) and brief as we went back in for communion. K was listening very hard to the words which accompanied the bread and wine and repeating them after the minister. He opted to take wine (the children normally have only bread and a blessing – their choice) and seemed to get a lot out of the experience generally.

After church Bob dropped me off at B’s so I could bring J back at the end of the party and brought K and L back home for lunch and a quiet afternoon. This meant I got to chat and eat nice food again 😉
In fact, I did so much chatting and eating (and washing-up, of course) that J and I ended up outstaying all the other guests, by which time B’s mum and I were into deep philosophical and personal discussion and soul-baring (there’s nothing like washing-up to get you into counselling mode!) so we persuaded the children that they would like to watch a video and sat down with a pot of tea and a slice of birthday cake (chocolate biscuit refrigerator cake – mostly sugar, held together with fat!) to set the world to rights. Oh, and also arranged to go to the film festival at the Arts Theatre on Tuesday to see the John Shuttleworth film “It’s Nice Up North”. I’m really excited, not least because I can’t remember the last time I went to the cinema!

Got back home to find L fast asleep in Bob’s arms 🙂 which of course means she is now still up and playing with toys even though Bob and I are flagging fast and would love to be either in bed or at least doing worthwhile jobs 😆 The boys, on the other hand, were in bed and asleep (after a few chapters of MNLS) by half past six and seven o’clock!