Tilly gets a bigger present than expected...

Momentous occasions down under!  Tilly turns 2 and gets the entire contents of a 3 bedroom house all wrapped up in a big steel shipping container.
So our second family birthday out here.  Tilly turned 2 on Wednesday, but she's not showing it and really she doesn't look a day over 23 months.  We had a celebration on the Sunday before, and in the morning I (Dave) took Tilly and Reuben off to see 'The Three Little Pigs' at a nearby theatre.  Reuben was captivated and joined in at every available moment with very enthusiastic audience participation, Tilly was a bit bemused by the whole thing, but was perfectly happy looking at all the bright sparkly things happening and munching on raisins (we don't leave home without them).  Rather ironically, hot dogs were being sold outside the theatre doors as we left, but such subtleties were entirely lost on the children, so we all tucked in and as it was such a glorious day had an ice lolly for pud.  A brief walk and we were on a beach and a few moments later the two of them were splashing in the waves.  Tilly was particularly entranced with digging her toes into the wet sand at the water's edge.  Not bad for what's effectively the beginning of February!

After lunch we had friends round for a birthday tea and very loud party games.  Luckily at this point we still had no furniture so there was loads of space for a small hoard to rampage.  I'm not sure that Tilly really understood that this was all in her honour, but she had fun.

Wednesday was her real birthday and the day started with presents and several renditions of Happy Birthday.  This time she definitely got the idea and asked for 'songing happy song Daddy' many times throughout the day.  Reuben was very good at 'helping' Tilly open her presents.  To make it even more exciting, this was the day that CRXU9358170 would finally arrive on our doorstep...  Although as we live about 25m down a 1:2 gradient hill, it arrived at the end of the drive and about on a level with our roof, but hey ho.  Six trips with a transit van and a morning's work by four men and we had our possessions again.  Actually we had 244 boxes and not a lot of floor space any more, but hopefully it was our stuff inside.  To further commemorate Tilly becoming a big girl, she is now sleeping in a bed.  Until we locate the stair gate, we're barricading the children's bedroom door with a couple of boxes of books at night to prevent her wandering off.  She's fallen out of bed once each night so far (into a carefully positioned beanbag) and has appeared at the barricade announcing 'I got up!' in a very pleased voice at something past 5 each morning, but has gone back to sleep without much protest each time.

Since then we've managed to unpack the bulk of the furniture and kitchen stuff.  Amazingly we've found nothing broken, deformed, mildewed or even scratched so far.  We've yet to try any of the more sensitive electrical stuff, but the fridge works which is fantastic after making do with a 'teeny tiny one' (to quote Tilly's way of referring to almost anything on the small side) and Hannah has now been able to satisfy her craving for mashed potato and has pounded some spuds with the masher.  Despite the piles of boxes all over the place, the house now feels much more homely and we're not rattling around anymore.  Reuben and Tilly have loved unwrapping their old toys again.  Just about everything has been played with for a minute or two, so it's going to take them a few weeks to settle down again and let us put anything away I think.