I like birthdays...

I like a good birthday, and am regularly trying to squeeze an extra few in for myself during the year. The girls have grown wise to my tactics however, and are becoming a little more date savvy and aware that technically you can only have one birthday a year. Still when Emily read me a story the other day I was more than delighted to know I had another birthday. Her reading is coming on apace – it’s incredible the speed at which young children learn. Their grey matter is just so malleable that the neural pathways connect in record time. If you tried to learn to read as an adult it would take you so much longer in comparison.

Birthday 6 year old

Not birthday 3.5 year old (but growing up fast)

One excited unicorn pre-sleepover

Unicorn cake

Videoclip: Reading

On the subject of birthdays Emily has just turned 6. This was ‘celebrated’ in some style with her first slumber party involving another 6 friends. It was all their first sleepovers and inevitably chaos ensued, but I think everyone had a good time. The next day felt somewhat like New Years Day after a mammoth party the night before - except without the party bit. The girls didn't sleep (which also meant we didn't) till approaching midnight - and were up again just after 7am. Which when you consider Emily normally has closer to 12 hours sleep - it didn't make for a pretty day after the night before. Still, nothing like a good old birthday party.

And we’ve also been celebrating the pumpkin. With a harvest this year of 5 pumpkins we’ve had somewhat an overkill on our gourd delights. I decided to avoid having to carve them all for Halloween and went to cook one of the larger ones. I discovered a quarter was enough to make lasagne for 12; and another quarter made soup for 8. The remaining half is now in the freezer, and with another 4 to go it is quite likely we’ll discover you can have too much of a ‘gourd’ thing (boom boom). Pumpkin soup, pumpkin pie, pumpkin lasagne, pumpkin tagine - the list of delights goes on. And talking of good things, we’ve just had a few days of clear, sunny skies and frosty mornings – a chance to escape out to Loch Ardinning and to the Colzium for some fresh air and fine scenery before winter finally bites.

Halloween moon

 Scary daughter

 Scary face

Scary cat

 The lovely ladies

 Following big sister

 An unusual shot of the 4 of us

She'll be comin' down the mountain

Still adventuring

 Autumn fun 1

 Autumn fun 2

Autumn fun 3