Happy birthday to me...

Wow, its been a busy couple of weeks!  I've been very busy at work but also busy at home…. Doing what?  I couldn't tell you!  Just one of those periods where time goes into hyper-speed and you keep running out! :)

On Friday, I finally had a day to get things organised…  I busied myself by visiting a friend who was recently in hospital, doing some washing, cleaning out my car, and a bit of cooking.  Because… on Saturday…. It was my birthday!!!  Yes 21 again… plus a few more…. Lol.  And my birthday was very exciting :)

Boofy and Alex let me have a little sleep in, but I'd forgotten to mention this to Mum so she rang and woke me up at 7am!  D'oh!  Oh well....  Mum had sent me a present, so I opened it while she was on the phone and found this:

::  A gorgeous blue wrap

::  A Masterchef magazine subscription

::  Some money to get my hair done :)

Once Alex heard my voice it was all systems go, he was very excited :)  Boofy decided not to give me a treasure hunt this time (as he did on Mother's Day) which was very much appreciated!  So I finally got my cup of tea in bed - hooray.

We all sat in bed and opened presents - there was a lot of help from Alex!  I was very very spoilt and loved every present (Boofy did extremely well this year), and after all was said and done, this is what my haul looked like:

In it was:

::  A pair of earrings

::  Villeroy & Boch hurricane lamp I'd been eyeing off recently

::  2 complete seasons of Roseanne on DVD (I love this show, very funny)

::  Bruno Mars CD (friends of mine remarked recently on Facebook that someone should call his bluff and pull the pin on that grenade, but I still love him!)

::  Jamie Oliver's 30 minute meals cookbook

::  A cute little eggcup (because I love googy eggs on the weekend!)

After unwrapping my haul, I promptly made myself some of those googy eggs so I could use my new eggcup (any excuse) and then opened a present my mother in law had sent up for me - sooo many presents!!!  Inside her package was:

::  An owl Pandora charm

::  Owl travel mug

::  Owl notebook

::  Owl salt & pepper shakers

Did I mention I love owls?  Lol…  They are all so cute aren't they :)

After my present frenzy, I sat myself down at the laptop for a while and checked my favourite blogs….  Nice!  Then set about getting ready for the rest of the day… because something very special was about to go down… my Sista (aka sister in law Nadine) and my gorgeous niece Ella were about to fly in from Sydney!!!  Even more excitement…  Could this day get any better??

Alex and I decided to make them a sign to hold up at the airport…  I stupidly forgot to take a photo of the finished product, but here is what the during looked like….

Mostly it was just an excuse for Alex and I to do some finger (or full hand!) painting together :)  We roped Boofy in to make the actual sign (since it had a hand print of each of us waving hello) but it was under duress… and he washed the paint off his hand straight away - spoilsport!  Never mind, we still had fun!

Shortly after, Alex had a little rest for a while with Daddy, then we set off to the airport to collect Nadine and Ella.  When we arrived, their plane had already landed (oops!  Although to be fair it was a little early) so we stood at the doors outside the secure area and Alex held up the sign to welcome them.  It wasn't long before they appeared, and of course there were massive hugs all round.  Its been more than a year since we've seen them so we were very excited.

We collected the luggage and headed off home - Nadine had not seen our house since its absolute original state (they came to visit about 2 months after we'd moved in and we hadn't lifted so much as a paint brush!) so she was pretty eager to see the house and all we done…. And we didn't disappoint, which was nice :)

Not long after we went out for dinner to Fasta Pasta (again!) with friends Jackie and Sam, then cruised around in search of rides for the kids... here they are having a great time on the Steve Irwin safari ride!

Afterwards we came back to our place for the cake that Sam had made…. OMG the cake!!!!  It was absolutely divine… check it out:

We dug up a candle and put it on top, and put both the kids on the bench near it.  I think I did get to blow out the candles once, after the kids had blown it out about a hundred times and we'd re-lit them!!  Lol… Alex couldn't wait, he had to have a little taste...

After that we put the kids to bed and enjoyed a few drinks and a good catch up.  It was a great end to a great birthday.

Next day my friend Ernie came over for brunch, and we cooked up a feast…. Scrambled eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes, haloumi and toast.  (Wish I'd taken a photo now... there is rarely a decent excuse for a feast of these proportions!) We were so full we could hardly walk afterwards, but it was really nice.  Ernie adopted my cat, Bluey, a while back when she took exception to us bringing Alex into the household.  (It wasn't pretty)…  Ernie and I don't do gifts, but she is a fantastic honourary Aunty,  so Alex always finds nice things for her :)  It was my loophole until she turned the tables on me this birthday and bought me something from Bluey - very naughty!  I forgot to take a photo, but she bought me 2 sweet little printed canvases to put in our outdoor area.  They are out there now, looking lovely - there will be a post on that area sometime soon, so you will see them then :)

For the rest of the weekend we just kind of hung around and enjoyed each other and the kids, it was really lovely.  Alex and Ella got on like a house on fire - they had lots of fun playing with Alex's toys, deconstructing my lounge room (cushions everywhere!) and playing a fishing game I made a while back with plastic tubs, plastic fish and magnets :) 

All in all it was a fab birthday weekend - one of my best ever!!!!  Thanks Diney and Ella for visiting!!!!  And for my lovely pressie... which was a beautiful glass turquoise bowl, I love it!

The photo doesn't really do it justice unfortunately, but it looks awesome in real life... and it goes perfectly with the ceramic plates I painted - but more on those another time.

Sorry there aren't really any photos of the kids together - my bro would prefer Ella's photos be left out of the blog so I have to respect that.  But trust me when I tell you she is a gorgeous little girl, inside and out - I couldn't adore her anymore if I tried!

On our way to the airport we stopped in for a quick shop at Robina.  My friends Jackie and Sam gave me a Visa gift card for my birthday, and I already mentioned Mum gave me some money to get my hair done... oops!  I walked into Virtu and found they had a sale on tops, 30% off the total if you buy 2 or more tops....  Well I fell in love with these ones and they had to come home with me....

Obviously these are photos from the catalogue and not of me (I wish!)  So anyway it looks like a new hair style will have to wait!

Bye for now :)