13 posts tagged “birthdays”

Today my baby is 17. I said to Daz, I guess we should stop treating her like she's 13, she's almost an adult. The years have flown by.

So what was going on 17 years ago that I remember. Well I was enormous because I'd put on 25 kilos, and I spent amost every day in a pair of green bib and brace overalls. I had a four year old and a two year old and we drove around in a 1964 Valiant station wagon that broke down so often the NRMA man showed me how to fix it myself. Lloyd wet his pants at playgroup, I left Kimba there, drove home to get him some clean ones, the car broke down and I sat down on the step and cried. Thats when I knew I was having going to have a baby that day.

Sure enough at 3am I woke up Daz and said lets go to the hospital. Then we stood on the front verandah and had a fight about what car we were going in. I refused to get in the Valiant. He wanted to go in the Valiant because his mother actually drove to the hospital to have him in that very same Valiant. Cheryl came out and said - for gods sake kids, just get in a car and go to hospital. We didn't go in the Valiant.

I don't have any photos of Lizzie now. She refuses to have her photo taken.

So here she is when she was little and sweet.

 

 

And here she is when she used to let me dress her up and take photos of her. God knows what the neighbours thought if they were looking over the fence.

 

 

And here's a sneaky one I got recently. Now she's sort of sweet and sour.

 

 

And here we have Jem and myself celebrating last night. I think we thought it was our birthday.

 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY LIZZIE.

MWAH, MWAH

So at about this time, 21 years ago, I was standing in a maternity ward surrounded by babies, one of them belonging to me. My eldest daughter, Kimba, had her 21st birthday yesterday.

We would have been taught how to bath them by this time. Bath them without letting them slip away. Because they're slippery little buggers babies. You always hear a lot of talk about how babies find baths very relaxing. But I never found it to be that way. From the moment you took Kimba's singlet off to the moment you put a fresh one back on her, she screamed and thrashed through the whole bath experience.

But she was a nice little baby. Didn't need to be constantly amused or entertained. Was just happy to hang around with me and the cats and dogs.

Here she is with her father and uncle at about 4 weeks old. Sharing some ribs and beer. (Where's docs when you need them!)

 

And here she is pretty in pink

 

And playing it cool in the frog dress and some cool sunnies

 

 

So we had a bit of a party last night. And let me just say that Jem and I went off on the Singstar. Expect to see us soon in a town near you in our FABBA tribute band. Isn't it funny how all those ABBA lyrics have stayed in your head just waiting for a chance to get out.

Jems son celebrates his birthday today, he's 11. So last week I said - ok, we'll get a dually cake for them. And everyone went - who's Julie? So thats why the cake says to the julies. Well actually it says too the Julies.

 

And as you can see she has grown into a charmer.

So happy birthday to Kimba. Hope the next 21 years pass by a bit slower than that lot. Really has flown by.

 

I'm off to poke about the fridge for a while. I'm very lucky that I have one friend who makes the best potato bake you'll find and another who makes the best caesar salad. And there are big plates of both in the fridge.

Cheers.

My mother had a birthday on Saturday. She turned 76.

Here she is as a baby with her mum, my nan, who pops up every now and then in papa's slidebox photos.

 

And here she is with me at the beach. I guess she was about 35 here.

 

And here we are yesterday. We went over and had a bit of a shindig as my sister turned 50 a couple of weeks ago as well.

Holding up well for an old girl. And still got all her marbles.

Happy birthday Jude, hope there are plenty more to come.

 

Well I'm back, and I'm 45. Which actually doesn't feel much different than 44 did.

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes - much appreciated.

I am only slightly sunburnt. That bit in the centre of your back that you can't reach. You sort of get sunburnt with scraggly finger marks on you.

We went with Jem and her crew because her husbands birthday is today and my husbands birthday is tomorrow, so we try to make a weekend out of it each year.

This is the beach we were at, it's good for kids. We were at the central coast (about an hours drive south of Sydney).

 

 

Now I know it looks like you have to swim half way to China to get some water past your knees, but when they take a couple of more steps they'll be in over their heads. Drops away very suddenly to deep water.

 

 

Here I am with Lloyd. Who has turned into some kind of camera slut. He just can't have enough photos taken of himself. A couple of Jems gang in the background.

 

 

Then we went to the pub for lunch. Where several people walked past and said - Do you own that little boy out there?

 

 

Thats Jems son,  he was wet and cold so we told him to go out and sit in the sun to warm up. But we were told that The Bar Staff said he couldn't sit there on his own. Well he wasn't really sitting, but we could see him and he wasn't running around. Actually the way she said it we thought she said The Master said he couldn't lie out there. But we went and joined him anyway.

 

 

Then I don't know what we did. But we went out for dinner that night at the Club. Here I am with Lizzie ready to roll.

 

 

And here is Lloyds pizza. It was called the Outback Meatlovers. But when I was reading the menu I thought it said Outback Leftovers. Thought it was some kind of roadkill diner we were in.

 

 

And to wash it down, some slushies. I think they were blue lagoon, margarita and fruit tingle. Mine was the margarita, I always try to go for the least colourful drink - not so sweet. They weren't bad actually, except there were a few brain freezes.

 

 

Then we ended the night on cake. 

 

 

The next night we had curry for dinner. Daz tried to be a smarty pants and ordered his curry extra hot. This is him when he was eating his dinner. After he went blind.

 

 

Kimba couldn't come with us this year. She had to stay home and look after Chicken Little. Seen here realxing upside down on the lounge.

 

So its out for dinner again tonight, then dinner party here tomorrow night, then we're all done and dusted for another year. 

 

 

 

And don't forget it's national Hoodie Hoo day everyone. Yep, Later on tonight I'll be waving my hands in the air, like I just don't care, hoodie hooing.

I'm off for what looks like it could be a wet weekend by the sea. But that doesn't bother me because I'm more of a walker by the sea and a watcher of the sea than a swimmer in the sea.

Off to buy snacks.

Hip Hip Hooray.

I went down the street yesterday to pick up Lizzies birthday cake. An icecream cake. When I said I was there to pick up the cake the woman said to me - I'll just get you to mind the shop while I go and get it.

Umm, ok, sure.

Well it was 9am so I wasn't expecting to be rushed off my feet.

So she brings back the cake, looks good, I take it home then go about my day. I pick Lizzie up from school at 3.30 and when we get home she says can I look at the cake. I say, sure, and get it for her to have a look. And she says

WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?????

And I say - what?

And she says - WHAT IS IT DOING IN THE FRIDGE???

Oops. So thats six and a half hours in the fridge. I was hardly game to open the box, but it wasn't running out the sides so that was good. We opened it and I said - DON'T TOUCH IT! Just in case it was barely holding together and one finger poke sent it into a slow collapse. So I put it in the freezer for four hours and it was fine. Anyway the one I had last year was so bloody frozen I just about needed a chainsaw to cut it. Now I'm not a huge ice cream fan but it wasn't bad.

 

 

 

 

And Kimba made a suprise visit which was good of her,  seeing as how it meant being on a 6.40am train this morning to get back home in time for work. And she also arranged for flowers to be delivered to Lizzie yesterday.

 

 

 

Lizzie turns sixteen today.

Happy Birthday Miz Liz.

Funny how the two older kids just sort of get older and you don't think much of it, but when you realise The Baby is old enough to drive a car, well thats just come too fast.

Of course I remember the day she was born, because Daz and I stood on the verandah and had a fight at about 3am in the morning. My friend who had come to stay with Kimba and Lloyd had to come out and say - now now kids, just go to the hospital. Which was what the fight was about. Daz wanted to go in this old sixties model valiant he had. And I refused to get in the heap of shit. We went in the work truck in the end. Of course when we arrived at the hospital we had forgotten the paperwork so he had to go home again and now I think about it, I bet he drove that bloody valiant back again. Just because he could.

So Lizzie was born at 5.04am and last night she asked me if she could white out that off the record and write that it was 4.04 am, so she could say she was born at 4.04 on the 4th. But that seemed kind of wrong.

Anyway she has bronchitis and an infected ear, her friends are all away at a school excursion and her brother and sister are both away.

She was such a sweet little girl.

 

 

Still is really. Most of the time. Don't worry she still has her 16 year old girl moments but on the whole she's a good apple.

 

A big HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Emjay

If I've figured correctly it should be about 7 am (ish) where she is and she'll be up getting ready for work. Ready to struggle off to work on her crutches in her smelly cast. No doubt she'll have a bitch and moan about it here later. Some problem with her foot tendons, I don't know, I didn't pay attention. Honestly since she hit 50 it's just been one medical drama after the other.

Or maybe she got the day off and she can lay around and eat chocolate all day. Hopefully someone sent her some cadburys. One of the negatives of living in the USA - no cadburys.

More photos that were coloured by mum.

Happy birthday.

 

So my eldest daughter, Kimba,  turns 20 today.

If you ask me what sticks in my mind from that day I'd have to say - The Lamb Chops.

I'd had a long day of labour, just over, Kimba had been taken away for the weigh in, clean up and I was lying there feeling the way you do after giving birth. Bewildered and overwhelmed. Then one of the food ladies walked in and handed me a plate full of lamb chops and mashed potato. It was so far down the list of things I would have liked right then that it was one of the funniest things I'd seen.

So that sticks vividly in my mind. And the screaming lady next door. Nothing quite like trying to mind your business and have a baby when someone is screaming their head off in the labour ward next door.

So the lamb chops and the screaming lady. Oh yeah, and the poor woman with the enormous breasts. She had a problem with excessive milk and a couple of times a day they'd hook her up to a machine to drain some out, take the pressure off.

So the lamb chops, the screaming lady and the woman (who we named Maria) on the milking machine.

So twenty years - even though that time has passed quickly, when I look back it seems like fifty years ago.

To think they start out so sweet

 

 

 

And so another 16th birthday party comes to pass.

This was another of Lizzies friends - who lives across the road actually. Actually they live in the house that the old lady lived in of The Missing Cat/Police story.

So, Mum says to sweet 16 -

You can invite 30 people.

Sweet 16 thinks that what Mum really means is - You can invite 100 people. And off she goes to print out the invitations. Sweet 16's friend thinks what Mum means is - Hey, why don't you post it on My Space and make it open house.

Mum gets wind of these plans and decides the party is off altogether.

Daz and I were going out that night, so out we went. A while later we get a phone call from Kimba saying -

Our house is out of control. It is full of kids, there's alcohol in our fridge and the police are parked out the front. Oh yeah, and there's some 18 year old girl who's going to come around and bash someone up.

Hmmm, I say to Daz, do you think we should go home?

I'd just like to point out here that the police car was totally unrelated and I didn't lie to them at all. They just happened to be driving by and pulled over a guy on his pushbike who wasn't wearing a helmet. Of course if they knew what a den of eniquity it was just a few metres away they could've had a field day.

Lizzie rings me and tells me that yes some of her friends are there, not a house full, just that teenagers are big these days and they take up a lot of room. And yes there was alcohol in the fridge because as usual some parents had supplied alcopops to their kids to take to the 16th party. Which they musn't have mentioned to the parents was called off.

As for the 18 year old basher, I'm not sure what that was about. What I do know though was that 10 kids (including sweet 16) had given her $40 each to buy them alcohol. So she had $400 worth of grog that she kept in the end as there was no party and she's a nasty bitch I guess and didn't give them the grog anyway. And I guess they couldn't go running to Mum and Dad and dob on her.

$40 worth of alcohol is a fair slug for a small 16 year old girl. What happened to a $2 bottle of passion wine. Or blackberry nip. That was classy.