family

who’d have thunk the ice would have been slippery

i took the day of work yesterday to look after the girls as they had an inset day and jane was working.  so we went ice skating in the morning then headed to a transport cafe for a greasy slippery fry up.

happy wedding anniversary to mrs funkypancake who i married 12 years ago. great stuff !

kezia became a year older yesterday and said she felt like a completely new person.  i asked what was different and she said her age.  so that’s that.  here she is playing a birthday game with poochy.

it was kezia’s birthday party yesterday and i’m exhausted.

about the only think i had to do was to cut this banner so it would fit on two lines.  of course i chopped it at the wrong bit and we ended up with ‘happy birth’ on the second line.  ooops.

for the first time ever with our girls we got an entertainer in (as we weren’t sure if our house would be up to the job this year – in fact it was, but hey ho).

the entertainer chap was very good and at one point got the kids to wrap jane and tanya up (it was going to be me, but jane kindly took my place). 

big shout out (as they say) to jane’s mum, tanya and julie for their massive helpage too.

here’s jane’s mum in the giant kitchen

and here’s the pink lady bird cake that jane built

and here’s a picture from before the party where the girls were blowing up lots of balloons

here is my bother-in-law kev who has been staying with us for a couple of days.  they head back north tomorrow and i’m back to work tomorrow so the normal mundane funkypancake will return, rather than the recent geocaching and family/friends pictures.

as with all good marbles games, some became lost under a chest of drawers.  here is kezia and thomas attempting to retrieve it.

here’s my mum and the raclette machine

my mum loved listening to esther playing christmas carols on her (esther’s) violin.

so much so that she phoned her parents (my grandma/pa and esther’s great grandma/pa) and put them on speaker phone so they could hear. esther’s first live performance ‘down the wire’.

kezia’s reaction to seeing a crocodile

this punch and judy was part of kezia’s home learning.  i videoed the performance for posterity.

great stuff.  and very funny to watch