August Roundup

I think the August-September months are the busiest as far as birthdays go for us (and throw Father's Day in for good measure), seems that we have been to at least 2 birthdays every week for the last month, starting in mid August. If it's not a family member, the girls have been off to school friend's birthdays.

I'll start this month's roundup with the August Project Life Summary Page - as you can see, plenty of birthday shots in here.

Week 31

It was off to a lazy start at the beginning of August.  Eliza attended a birthday party at the CSIRO Discovery Centre, which was a nice change. They got to hold stick insects, turtles, look under microscopes and so forth. Afterwards we picked Dave and Jasmin up from a swimming session in Belconnen, and tried a restaurant by Lake Ginninderra we had not been to before. It was only average, so won't go onto our favourites list.  We also managed to catch Wolverine that afternoon, and had the pleasure of Mel and Kate's company for dinner that night. Friday - the girls and I managed a trip to Jeff and Fiona's for pizza night while Dave had EPIC Friiday with his work colleagues at home.

Week 32 

Eliza's latest school project was to do mixtures in the home - she picked mixtures in the kitchen this week, she also picked this week's helpful homework to be helping with the cooking every night. It was nice to have the hand for the week. The parties started this week - we went back to Goulburn to celebrate Chloe's Wings birthday - she turned 4. My sister did her a Peppa Pig Cake, and we also celebrated Dave's birthday with my family as well. Hellie, knowing how cake cooking is not my forte, baked a chocolate mousse cake for Dave as well.

I did this layout of Chloe's birthday - the only scrapbook layout I have had time to do in the last month and a half. There was lots of fun had at the party including a jumping castle as well as face painting.

The girls and I doned our wings for the party....

 As did their boy cousins:

Dave's Chocolate cake was like death by chocolate, he had plenty of little girl helpers to blow out his candles:

Week 33

This week Jasmin's class hosted the school assembly - she also got an award for "Producing well researched and highly intelligent responses in her homework". 

Eliza continued to do her mixtures project - and made a cleaning mixture from vinegar and water, as well as making some perfume.

Dave turned 45 on Thursday. He is not one to make a big fuss about his birthday, so we decided just to go out to a restaurant for dinner - Belucci's in Dickson. Les and Julie, Arlene and Robert and the kids ended up coming along as well. Julie and Arlene had also made him a special birthday cake - very impressive Star Wars Cake with lego on it (built by his nephew Robbie)!

This week we also had our first Family day with our friends - Kylie and Jason and the kids, Mel and Kate, and Susie and Simon and the kids. It was nice catching up with everyone as it doesn't happen often enough.

Dave's special birthday cake, complete with Chewbacca bobble head on top, and lego on the side:

 It even had smarties in the middle:

All the kids on Family Day - playing on their iPads.

The big kids did craft and drank wine (or cider)!

For dinner the kids had a picnic on the floor, having not tidied the dining table from our crafting activities:

These three cuties all had heart t-shirts!

 Week 34

 This week Eliza had to dress as a scientist for school - she also demonstrated how to make perfume at the classroom showcase day. I couldn't make it this time - but Eliza's best friend's mum emailed me some pictures of them in the class room doing their demonstrations.  On Friday the girls had the Book Week dress-up day. They both decided to dress as Ivy from the "My Sister the Vampire" books - which Jazz has a couple of.

Another picture of my cuties all dressed up for book week:

Week 35 

 I went for the smaller pages for Week 35 and used 4 sleeves, so managed to fit in a lot of photographs. This week was Eliza's birthday - even though her birthday is on 2nd September, she had her birthday with friends on Saturday at Let's Play, and then on Sunday had her friend Kate and her cousins over for a birthday dinner as well.  This week my dad also ended up in intensive care for the week - with a cluster of blood clots in his lungs. We visited on Sunday, and were surprised by how old he looked. He spent almost two weeks in hospital and is now home, and taking it very easy. Unfortunately they also found other issues in the CT scans they did, so he will have further tests apparently this week, to see what is happening. We all have our fingers crossed!

She wanted a vampire cake for her birthday - and not having time to bake one myself, I ordered a create-a-cake from Michel's Patisserie - which had a picture of her dressed as a vampire on it - mission accomplished!

 It was also the girls second cousin - Bailie's birthday on Saturday night, so we went back to Goulburn straight after Eliza's party (which Bailie was also at), to celebrate her birthday at the Workers Club.

Sunday was Father's Day - the girls got Dave a League of Legends gaming mouse, and a new pink business shirt and matching tie. He likes different and unusual coloured business shirts. we also took the girls up to visit Pop in hospital since he was then in a normal ward and not on oxygen all the time. Not the best place to spend Father's Day.

We decided to let Eliza open her birthday presents on the 1st instead of her birthday - as Dad leaves at 6:30am in the morning for swimming and work. She then got to play with her presents that afternoon. One of her presents was a set of roller skates, and one was Disney Infinity the new Skylanders style game for the play station.

I managed to whip up a strawberry packet cake in the afternoon for the birthday dinner that night.

So since Eliza's birthday we have also celebrated Joshua's 18th birthday in Sydney, Cameron's 16th birthday in Canberra, and Annie's birthday in Goulburn. I will post some piccies from these birthdays when I do my next post.

Reading

On the book front, I have slowed down a bit - just not enough time lately with a change in work, and trying to squish business work and just everyday housework in.

edit

These are the only ones I have read. The Company was a massive book - over 900 pages and 40 hours of reading. It was well wroth it though - such an interesting walk through history from the CIA's point of view. An engrossing read once you got past the first 100 pages and the confusion about who was who, and what the point of the book was.  

Both Preston and Child books were good reads - but I don't expect anything less from them. I have now read all the books which my mother-in-law has of the Pendergast novels, so will have to hunt down the only other two there are.

Plague was good as well - it is the fourth book in the series by Michael Grant - it's story line is a bit like The Dome - however this is a bit disturbing as kids under the age of 15 are trapped in what they call the FAYZ, and it deals with their struggle to survive.

I still haven't decided whether I liked Gone Girl on not - I think I gave it 3 stars. It was just plan depressing, and had an unsatisfying end.

Elizie is off to another party this arvo, while Jazz and I go and do the shopping!

See you later.
Di