School celebration

It was just time after the busy morning at the sports field, to bring some cupcakes in to Lucas' class mates. It's a bit of a tradition for us. I think it's quite nice, since he doesn't get to invite the whole class anymore to his parties - this way everybody gets to celebrate a bit anyway.

He got sung to, but as we hadn't brought any candles he got to "blow out" a balloon instead!





Since the Yellow House had won at Athletics Day, we got Lucas' team mates to pick cupcakes first.





One of his best mates, George:



The boys comparing cupcakes!

Junior School Athletics Day

Yesterday wasn't just a double birthday, it was also a busy day at school - Junior School Athletics Day.
This year was the first year Lucas took part in the Athletics Day out on the field. Whereas the younger year groups just perform different sports disciplines for fun, year 3-5 compete properly, with ribbons for 1st, 2nd and 3rd place in each discipline plus cups for the overall best performers of each year group.

I'm not quite sure how they decided, or got decided for them, which disciplines they were participating in, all I know is Lucas didn't do all of them.
Here he's running 400m, he's in a yellow shirt since he's in Yellow House:





He also did long jump:







And here he is on 100m. He didn't win any ribbons but at least he was smiling and seemed to enjoy himself! Yellow House did win the overall competition though - go Yellow House!





Linnea was inside the gymnasium. She did the "running around the post as fast as you can and back":





Time to go around for the next discipline:



Cheering on their friends:







Throwing animals into rings...



... and sacks through hoops:



That's it! Athletics Day done for another year!

Birthday morning

Birthdays are a big thing in our family, well maybe mostly to me - and the kids of course, but they are kids and all kids like birthdays! I especially like our birthday mornings!
We always sing to each other, this birthday morning we woke up Lucas as usual with birthday song and presents:





Lucas got lots of great stuff, Ninjago Lego, books, Star Wars Tech Deck, a new bike helmet, a Lego Sorting Head, more Lego, a Halvan book, a Swedish DVD, Zumba clothes, an All Black wallet and much more.

















I got sung to too! In Swedish even, lucky me!



I got Zumba clothes from the family in Scotland:



And a beautiful ring and two charms from Pandora from my darlings:



Birthday people!



Then we watched two video greetings from Aberdeen:



Time for breakfast at the birthday table, before heading to Athletics Day at school for the kids, and Zumba session for me!

Birthday dinner

Since we were having Lucas' birthday party on his actual birthday this year, I didn't think I would be up for much later that evening. So instead we went out the night before my birthday for a bit of a celebration.

Misuzu and I:



Nicole and I:



We had so much yummy food, here's Nicole's chicken...



Misuzu's tenderloin...



Jeremy's two-way lamb...



And, here's the chef cutting up the rib-eye for two that Nathan and I ordered, yum yum!



Then I got to blow out a candle on my chocolate dessert!





It was a really good night, with a few too many bubbles..! But hey, if not on your birthday, then when?! :)

Kids CNY Hash

Ok, so a lot has been going on this week - all good, but not much time for blogging. I'll try to bombard you now with a few big posts though! Brace yourselves!

First out the Kids Hash from last weekend. One of my favourites of the year, the Chinese New Year One (on Monday we enter the Year of the Dragon!).
This year we were promised Lion Dancing again, so I was very excited!





The hash itself wasn't very long, about 25 minutes, and the kids did really well. I took some photos in the jungle for a change:









Back at the tent, all the kids got t-shirts for the run, and then they attempted a group photo:





Then the lions came and there was an enormous amount of fire crackers set off at the same time as the drums started - so noisy!!







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After a bit of "dancing" and a lot of acrobatic moves, it was time for a "snack"...:









They eat the oranges for good luck, what the other part of the snack means... I'm not quite sure! ;)
Lastly, it was the kids' turn to touch the lions for good luck, and feed them the Ang Paos (the red envelopes with money):





Such a great afternoon!