woo hoo

Oh, wow!  Always appreciative. 

My clever friend made Woo the most lovely present. 

 I'll show you another day!

Time to eat.  I'm sure it's just  me but I always think I've captured more of an event than I actually have.  There were scrumptious little crustless sandwiches &  Korean snack foods  - Pockys, Corn Claws, Peach Aloe Drink in tiny bottles, that didn't end up making it to 'film'.  Nevermind.  I think you get the  picture.  Cute.  Pretty. Pink!

Teeny, tiny cupcakes.

The birthday cake.  Honey joys and big cupcakes. 

Super, super easy to bake and I think they look so sweet piled up on the stand. 

Plus the cupcake 'cake' reduces the spray effect, and thereby the spread of winter lurgies,

when it came time to blow out the candles.   

Dear little friends

Just the perfect sized bottles. 

I know you can buy these gorgeous little vessels online now.  But I can let you in on a little tip.  Go to your local Italian delicatessen.  Purchase a six-pack of apricot nectar.  Share the nectar with your family.  Wash out the bottles and there you have it. A cute set of bottles plus a yummy drink. It seems like madness to me to buy the empty bottles for more than the cost of them full!! 

Ok, that was the practical, sensible, thrify me speaking.  The ridiculous, attention-to-detail-at-any-cost me told me to purchase 25 super-cute paper straws for $8 online.  Actually it's now $10 for 24!  Hey-ho.

Some more of the decs

And here's to my baby girl.  I hope you have a wonderful year being 3!

party prep

Thank you presents for Woo's little friends

Handmade flags to decorate 'things'.

Cupcake toppers ready to top cakes!

Lanterns above the children's table.

Half set table .  I can't believe it but I missed taking a couple of crucial shots, like fully set table - never mind.

In the absence of a fully laden table here it is from a different  angle :)

Simple, healthy, fun food.

Woo was very beautifully dressed by me - you'll have to take my word for it. 

The Barbie gown was deemed essential by Woo.

She had such a wonderful party.  And it was super fun to pull it all together. 

It was a vision in girlie and sweet.

And the three little boys didn't seem to mind a bit that they were sitting within a cloud of pink.

I'll come back with more soon.

Thanks for popping by and I hope your day is sugar and spice and all things nice.

E x

3

My precious girl.

Just look at her.  I know she's mine and I'm supposed to love her more than words can say.  But she's such a joy and so sweet and fun and wild and clever and chatty. And so completely lovable.  It's almost embarrassing the amount of attention she gets when we're out and about. 

And if you haven't met her let me assure you she'd sweep you off your feet too.

Tigs is careful and considered with his present opening  and very sweetly always opens the card first and thanks the giver.  Not so Woo.  She's just in there and at 'em.  All presents were ripped asunder within a minute or two.  Only this little scene remained intact for a while.  Tigs spent an age 'setting the scene' the evening before her birthday.  He wnated her to be able to play with something immediately.  The house they live in took some time to put up.  Not quite sure there's enough room for two on the sofa though :)

I mean look at that hair. 

 It is always in her face and sticking up at all angles and

it just makes my heart melt into a little pool more and more each day.

Her birthday fell on a Friday which meant it was a bit of a non-event.  Greg was at work all day, Tigs at school and I had to go to work in the evening.  In fact as Greg walked in the door I plonked my paltry effort of a cake on the table.  We sang, she huffed and puffed, I cut, we ate and I left.  And just look at her smile.  Did she care?  Not a jot.  My happy, appreciative, easily pleased little one.

Tomorrow we are having a little party for Woo and 5 little friends.  Tigs will stay home from school to share in the fun and is going to be the co-host of the day.  I um'ed and ah'ed all evening about whether to send him to school or not.  So I took my mum's suggestion to flip a coin.  Heads it was! With a healthy whack of inspiration from the most perfectly pretty party I've seen in a while we will celebrate tomorrow.

Happy, happy 3rd birthday my darling girl.  I love you to the moon and back. 

You fill my days with happiness - ok and sometimes a little frustration ;)

 Love Mummy

x

wrap rap

what's the best part about presents? the wrapping!
she stamped and jumped and hopped and popped, until it popped no more.
what fun!

wootwo

  

yahoo, woo's two!

unfortunately she was so unwell and the entire day/evening turned into a non-event. poor baby,
we love you woosie, although, on a daily basis you drive me mad, around the bend, up the wall, into a nut house.  and then you say or do something deliciously you and i forgive you the makeup all over the chair (and you), the ongoing fascination with all things toilet related, the sneaky chocolate spread on tiggy's bed, the gouging of his arms and face, the foot stamping tantrums.

you had "pecil" on your "mingers" the other day (you know, on the ends of your hands). you love "shiclate" (not on tiggy's bed though). you have the most extraordinary vocabulary and are able to speak in full sentences.  you love to sing and dance - yesterday you danced as you painted.  you care for your dollies like they are living, breathing babies. you love tigs even if he's being yuk to you. you are persistent and persuasive. you are the most flexible child i've ever met and can do the splits in any direction, a back bend and you love to be swung through the air upside down. you have a perfect pencil grasp, albeit as you're drawing on yourself, the walls and the furniture.  when you wake you're always happy.  daddy says you smell like heaven when he cuddles you and snuggles his nose in behind your ears, after you've been sleeping. 

you are all this and so much more.  more than we ever dared to dream about.

we love you little girl and are so happy that you are ours, and we are yours.

happy birthday darling, here's to turning three!

camelia + cupcakes

my baby - 1

How has this happened? Twinkle has only been in our lives for a 'blink' and she's already one! Last week our precious baby girl, our long awaited daughter, had her first birthday.

dodgy self timer family shot!

me and my dream baby

In Taiwan tradition we had a HUGE shebang, a zhua zhou, yesterday, hence my blogging absence over the last week and a half. I have been in serious preparation mode.

table centrepiece


I was quite pleased with the way it ended up looking. Luckily Flossy has a beautiful, if destructive, twisted willow tree in her garden and I gathered the branches last week and painted them white. She's threatening to have it removed and at this stage I seem to be it's only friend, if only for it's pretty branches.

Initially, I was unhappy with the way different areas of the bark literally drank the paint up, but I later realised that it actually looked just right with the cute polka dot lanterns. Too white and they would have looked stark.

I wanted the party to be very crisp and pretty with out being too, too frou-frou. I really couldn't get a good shot of the bunting but it lent the perfect amount of crisp and pretty.

I think I made about 15 meters, maybe more. And the pompoms (from good old Martha) added a little dreaminess to the room.

Robyn and Lizzie

I must learn how to photoshop that beer bottle out. They will want me to say that it was neither of theirs!

'Aunty Annie' with Flossy and Me.

The party was held at my parents house in 'the bush'. So the setting was wonderful, the day magnificent, in spite of earlier forecasts, and the guests all so important in our lives.

Chinese tea house lanterns were strung up along the driveway to welcome the guests. A little hilariously actually as half of them were hung upside down!!

Hmm-hmm, Sweetie, any idea how that happened?? I wonder what it says this way up?

I do hope it's not offensive.

My parent's place is filled to the brim with quirky and historical features. The front gates and fence was originally part of the Melbourne Cemetery.


I'm not sure of the history of this old fire alarm that sits outside the gates. I know it has some and I'll have to find out.


Looking up the driveway. It almost looks as if there are candles in the lanterns, with the lovely light of the early afternoon. The lantern says 'tea house', when it's the right way up, like this!

children's buffet, before it was laden with food and ravaged by hungry little boys

I created an enormous candy bar which was a huge hit with the children and the adults! So many of the grown-ups commented on it being the first time in years they'd had musk sticks or raspberries or sherbet bombs! They all left with bags filled to the brim with sweet treats to make the long drive home. I had such fun seeing them fill their bags and feeling like children again themselves. I make no apology to the parents who had seriously hyper children as a result of the sugar rushes in those little bodies. It was a party after all!!

candy bar closed

and open!!

jumping castle, the perfect place for boys to go mad

The Candy Bar coupled with the jumping castle and five acres to run around in and I think there were happily sleeping children all over Melbourne last night. Tiggy slept like a log as did Greg and I! He sobbed though, when the man came to take it away. Something tells me there was a little bit of sugar, over excitement and exhaustion in the equation!

Dziadzui with Twinkle

Babcia & Momo with the party girl.

Boo-Boo and Momo

Without Boo-Boo and Momo the party would not have been as special. They let their house become overrun with 60 odd people, provided food & drinks for all, gave the children a wonderful time and some good country air and gave their precious grand-daughter, mmm, photos of a party she won't remember!! Isn't that odd? Twinkle won't have a clue. But we know and appreciate the fact that her first birthday was marked with such splendour.

Thank you BooBoo and Momo from the bottom of our hearts.

Flossy & her favorite niece

Babcia

The catering was brilliant, we had my parents favourite bush cafe,Watsons Creek Cafe, do the food for the adults and I did the children's. Greg's mum, 'Babcia' was amazing and had said she would bring a huge vat of soup but arrived with her famous chocolate logs and spinach dip, pavlova rolls, meringue kisses, apple slice, Polish donuts - ponchki, and on and on and on. We were more than amply fed!

The traditional ceremony in Taiwan , the Zhau Zhou, is not dissimilar to the Korean Dol ceremony. With the 'First Grab' which is said to foretell the child's future. Twinkle grabbed the brush, symbolising a future of creativity and scholarly pursuits. Interestingly, she would not let go of the brush at all and cried when we took it from her to see what her second choice would be. She poked the brush at the rice - for prosperity, but was absolutely certain that the brush was most important!!

Twinkle wore her traditional costume, her cheongsam, and her little silk embroidered hat. Babies wear this hat on their first birthday in order to catch, between the tiger's ears, all the heavenly goodness falling from the sky. The tinkling of the little bells are said to ward off evil - but I don't think there's much evil around this baby. She's just so sweet and happy and easy to love and to live with. I'm so thankful that she is ours and we are hers.

Happy birthday Sweetheart, I thank God everyday for blessing us with you.