July 2004
lost jumper
there were jumpers and coats all over henley this evening. here is one example.
tea in henley
for esther’s final birthday treat we went to a restaurant in henley which was very nice.
i was particularly interested in their henley 10 commandments:
convenient carry handle
what a simply brilliant idea. a handle !
Communion
it was communion this morning which meant bread and wine for all. esther and kezia opted for a post-service bag of quavers, prefering their cheesy crispness to the sliced white communion fair. the chap behind them is Ian. he’s actually tidying up, but looks more like a child catcher in this photo !
we’ve been studying Samson at church for the last three Sundays. Even if you’d never dream of going to church, i highly recommend you read Judges 13-15 to read this story of sex, violent and nagging wives/girlfriends. (Don’t forget it’s old testament so stuff like forgiveness and loving your enemies aren’t high on the agenda.)
the cake
cake built by jane:
and extinguished by esther:
music
many party games involve music. and the choice of music is very important at a party. we got the party going with Lou Reed’s Transformer. once the masses arrived i upped the funk with Supa Funky Vol 1
for the games we had a Boney M compilation. the kids loved it. and so did we.
blutack the tail on the donkey
pin the tail on the donkey is a classic game. this year we decided against hammer and nails, and used blu-tack to stick the tail on. esther managed to stick the tail on our coat rack rather than the donkey, which was quite impressive as it’s on a different wall.
official archivist
our friends tony and tanya helped at the party along with jane’s mum so there was a good ratio of kids to growned-ups. tony agreed to be the official moving images archivist. i remained still-image archivist and as far as possible maintained artistic control over the proceedings.
tony wasn’t that bothered about our furniture as can be seen here (he’s standing on the arm of a chair). it turned out he wasn’t too bothered about the carpet either as later he chucked a cup of tea on it.
we’ve yet to see if his footage was any good so i don’t know whether to thank him yet or not.
UPDATE: we watched it and it was quite amazing. especially the top of the pops 360 degrees rotation bits during the musical games.
cake decorating
cake decorating was another activity at the party which everyone enjoyed. some of the designs were amazing:
(click cakes for bigger version)
twister
esther is now at the age where the game twister is of interest. so is tony. he played it lots, even on his own with me doing the spinning.
i wasn’t particulary comfortable with this arrangement. and neither was he. especially when his daughter jumped on his back.
(notice kezia going against the tide on the picture on the right. she’s wearing a red t-shirt and shorts)
t-shirt painting
t-shirt painting was a party activity, supervised by jane’s mum.
honor went for it with bright colours:
catherine decided on an elephant print which she named Cat:
After painting they were hung up and left to dry in our garage:
mysterious
part of the party fun was searching for monsters. they were hidden all over the place. this one looked particularly good.
party update 15:56 chaos
just popped up to get something for the party and it’s so much quieter up here than down stairs ! lots of pictures coming soon …
party food
one hour and counting. the food is all nicely prepared and wrapped …
