Birthdays x Four!

From September until November life in the Davies Tribe seems to be dominated by birthdays galore! First AJ's (see here) followed by Jordan's (see here) two weeks after hers & then my Mum's two days after his! This year I made my Mum some special 'grown up' cakes with lots of lemoncello in them! They were delicious! I also made some fairy cakes for Lee & the kids.

We spent the day over at my parents house to celebrate. It was lovely. We arrived laden with gifts & cards a plenty. We even got to spend some time with my sister, Helen & her three dogs. Ian had to work all day so rode up on his motorbike after his shift. He got caught in traffic but we just saw him driving up the road as we were driving away in the early evening so we nearly didn't see him! Lee turned our car around & we headed back to my parents house where managed a quick 'hello' & a chat from the car which was great!

The next birthday was my Dad's last week. We headed over to Oswestry after church last weekend. This time it was our turn to get stuck in traffic so we arrived later than we expected. When we finally arrived we ate a lovely lunch including my Dad's homemade bread & a delicious chocolate birthday cake made by my Mum. Then we headed out for a walk in the countryside which was very pleasant indeed. In the dusk on the way back we met two HUGE Irish Wolf hounds out with the farmer- they were taller than AJ! When we got back to the house we ate a wonderful meal cooked by my Dad before heading back to the Davies residence. It was a very relaxing & pleasant day. Thanks Mum & Dad!

Next up in the birthday extravaganza was Timmy & Luke's 8th birthday on Sunday. Their celebrations spanned the entire weekend as Luke wanted to go to the cinema to see the new Tin Tin film. However, it's rather expensive for a family of six to go to the flicks so as a compromise we went to see Cars 2 on the Saturday morning £1 a ticket showing with some friends. It's a great way to enjoy the Big Screen although we have to wait a few months to see the latest releases (but nobody minds so that's good!). We took cake to share after church which was really lovely. Jordan played Happy Birthday to his brothers on his cello during the service. He did brilliantly for his first solo public performance even though he was nervous. We were so proud! After coffee & cake we headed off to Frankie & Bennie's for a special birthday meal with one of the twins' friends & Nanny & Grandad too. Got a special offer here too thanks to Lee's iphone app! Yay for bargains eh?

 AJ enjoyed playing snap with Nanny......

 ... Tim, Luke & Elias had a lot of fun playing with their new Toy Story lego figures, which I have been buying little by little on eBay for months. Who knew it would be so hard to find three lego aliens & a lego Bullseye at the right price? Totally worth it though! They are having SO much fun & playing so creatively with them all!

I tried to take a lovely group photo of the four boys while we were waiting for their ice cream to arrive. I had just got them all looking the right way & posing together when they spotted the ice cream coming! I got a great 'WOW! Ice cream!' faces instead which is fun!

In Frankie & Bennie's if it's your birthday they turn down all the lights & play 'Happy birthday' & 'Congratulations' for the whole restaurant to hear. It's really quite exciting! The boys were very pleased to be made such a fuss of! And they especially loved their Moshi Monsters cake as they are Moshi mad! (Note that the cake is shop bought! Having made three lots of birthday cakes I ran out of steam in the baking department! Nobody minded though- it was really a very tasty shop cake).

Managed to get Timmy's 'blowing out the candles' face while Luke gazed lovingly at Diavlo & the other Moshis on the cake.

They had a wonderful day. They both declared it 'The BEST birthday EVER!!' I still can't quite believe that they are eight years old already. How the time has flown! :o)