Tilly's second Kiwi Birthday

Last year Tilly got the entire contents of a 3 bedroom house for her birthday, this year she got her own 3 bedroom house (well the real estate agent would call it 3 bedroom, but really it's 2 bedroom and an attic conversion).

Hmm, says Tilly, so many interior design possibilities

We're a little late in posting this, but hey, it's still August.  So Tilly turned 3 on the 3rd August - a very eagerly awaited age which seems to have a similar 'coming of age' status for 2 year olds as turning 18 does for teenagers.  I guess it's just the first birthday that they can really anticipate from weeks in advance.

Many thanks to you all for the presents.  Here are a few pictures of here opening them.

As you can see she was very excited by the whole thing and has enjoyed them all immensely. We had a party here on the Saturday with a selection of girls from day care and a couple of boys from elsewhere to balance things up - how does this segregation happen so early?

This round of musical bumps was particularly hotly contested 

True to form for this year, Tilly came down with croup the day or so before the big day (Reuben had chicken pox for his birthday), so was a little fragile to start with, but a decent dose of sugar and artificial colourings soon pepped her up!  

Getting older is an utter TRAGEDY thinks Tilly - 3 is halfway to 6!

However, chocolate cake does provide some compensation!

The party was a little eventful at the end as Hannah ended up babysitting 5 children by herself while I drove one of the dads to recover the family car from the hospital where his wife had been delayed rushing one of her patients of to the high dependency unit.  However, a dinosaur DVD came to the rescue!

Tilly is now over her croup, but Hannah sounds like an adolescent boy whose voice is breaking (much to the amusement of her German class at the uni) as she's 'inherited' the germ and discovered while singing along to the radio in the car that her voice sounds remarkably like Bryan Adams' (although he was better at hitting the high notes!). 

Reuben continues to enjoy school.  They all did a (mini) decathalon last week (strictly a pentathalon).  Both Hannah and I were working for the big day unfortunately and I'm still intrigued with exactly how they did the 'javelin' which was listed as one of the events.  Visions of 30 5 year olds with deadly spears may seem far-fetched, but remember they let them loose with hammers and saws at age 2 in day care over here!  Anyway, he wasn't particularly perforated when he came home.