From Frosty England to Sunny South Africa

Top of the ladder

Can you imagine the excitement and pride in our household when Nicholas came home with a real proper trophy.  He was at the top of the chess ladder for his year group for quite a few weeks and every Friday we waited with baited breath to hear if anyone knocked him off.  What we didn't realise was that there would be such a smart trophy for the overall winner!

Big Star

Nicholas' Christmas Play was called Baa Baa Bethlehem.  The year 1 boys were the night sky, dressed up as stars, they sang their songs beautifully.  Unfortunately they didn't do any of the acting because the year 2 boys did that part.  It was still great fun watching Nick taking his role very seriously and singing wholeheartedly.  He was in the back row because he is one of the tall boys so he was hardly visible in the action shots of the group.  As you can see all the boys felt a sense of relief when it was all done!

Little Star

Daniel's Christmas Play was called Whoops A Daisy Angel.  It was so sweet watching these little tots prance and perform.  The songs were lovely and Danny spent the passed few weeks singing them at every opportunity.  At the performance he was a bit bewildered and it took him a while to warm up and get going.  By the end he was in high spirits and beamed at us as he sang and danced on stage.  We were so proud of him!

A fly on the wall

Every term Danny's nursery has an excursion and this time it they went to watch Too Many Penguins at the Polka Theatre.  His teacher asked me if I would like to be a chaperone.  This is not something I've done before and I must say I quite enjoyed it because it was like being a fly on the wall.  It was interesting getting some insight into the dynamics of managing 30-odd little kids and it was great to get a glimpse of Daniel's relationship with his peers and his teachers.  He sure is a cheerful and confident little guy!

How can it be?

That my boys beat me hands down at Monopoly on their first go ever!

Indefinite Leave to Remain

At last we have our ILR!  It's a long and complicated story that I don't really feel like going into but after many months of gathering a whole pile of documents and trying to get 4 consecutive appointments we ended up at the Home Office in Cardiff a couple of weeks ago.  The photo is from the 8th floor of our hotel room in the city centre and if you look closely you can see the Millennium Stadium in the background.  Anyway, the end result, one step closer to 'no more visas'!  

Birthday Boy Nick

SIX!  I can't believe Nicholas is already 6!  He is such a special little boy with a wonderful wonderful personality.  He makes us happy and proud in so many ways.  I wanted to spoil him for his birthday.  It's tricky on a school day but luckily it was mufti (civvies) day at school and Mr Grimmer, the chef, always makes a cake for the birthday boy.  Conveniently, his birthday was also followed by an inset day, and a day off is a special treat for everyone.  At home we showered him in balloons, post and presents and sang happy birthday to him as many times as we could.  For breakfast he wanted pancakes and for supper he wanted lasagne followed chocolate éclairs.  I think we succeeded in making him feel extra special!

Birthday Balloons

Scotch Pancakes for Breakfast

Lasagne for Supper 

Chocolate éclairs for Dessert 

Presents and cards in the post

Uncle Pete always comes bearing gifts


More presents from friends after the party

And even more presents from Mom and Dad

Enjoying all his new things


There's a whole lot of posts following this one
about Nicholas' birthday celebrations!

Inspired by Einstein

The party theme was inspired by Nicholas' obsession about volcanoes and his desire for a volcano cake.  A mad science party was one of the themes that could facilitate the volcano cake and when one of our friends told us about Science Wizards we thought it would be a great way to entertain 25 six year olds.  And the rest was history!

The Invitation

Dad designed the funky invitation. We always like to personalise our invitations with a photo and let them give a hint as to what the theme is going to be.  I thought Dad's idea of using the periodic table, although way over the children's heads, added a great touch.  You should have seen Nicholas' face when he saw it! 

  

The Cake

The volcano cake was pretty simple to make. I made one normal round cake and another dome shaped cake using a glass bowl.  Together these made a reasonable volcano shape. After covering the cake in chocolate icing we made the lava with different shades of red and orange icing. Heating it in the microwave until it melted and letting it cool slightly before drooling it over the cake worked pretty well.  We finished it off with sparklers to give the effect of erupting.  I don't think anyone noticed the coloured flames of the candle because of the sparklers but that was an added sciency touch.  Nicholas was very impressed and that's what mattered most of all!

Décor and Party Food

I decided to stick to simple party food and décor but I did try to add a bit of mystery to make it a bit sciency.  For decoration we had some bulb shaped test tubes filled with multi coloured water beads.  I found some marshmallow lab rats and I made some marshmallow 'atoms' which I sprinkled along the table.  Candy floss and popcorn added to the idea of weird and wonderful things we eat.  The fruit on my fruit sticks were all round - meant to imitate molecules.  The rest of the food was just regular party snacks.  For the drinks we made coloured ice cubes out of cordial and the children could choose what combination to add to their sparkling water.  We also had a 'Guess the number of Jelly Beans Jar".  We had a big bowl of Wonka Gobstoppers and Jawbreakers on offer.  Anyone remember fireballs and sourballs?  They really surprised the children!   

The Party Packs

We had fun making the party packs.  We decorated the brown paper bag with science themed cut outs and an Einstein inspired photo of Nicholas and he wrote a thank you message on them.  They contained: a test tube filled with Wonka Nerds, Fizz Wizz popping candy, sherbert straws and rocket balloons. During the party the children also got to add the helicopters, rockets and slime that they made.  Based on the feedback they were all very well received!

Thank you letter to his class mates

Einstein

Nicholas