junior chef

Jack and I cooked a batch of black bottomed cupcakes this afternoon. Jack was in charge of stirring and quality control and he did a fine job. The cupcakes turned out well too.
And don't worry, I know it seems that we should be about to explode from all the cupcakes that we consume but these are for other people (don't tell S - he will sulk).

the new deck

The week before my family was due to arrive (or as Garn used to say 'Royalty') S decided that the deck really needed to be replaced. I questioned the logic of this as I has spiders that I had to ask to leave and numerous other things to tidy. But as it turned out S was right in suggesting it. The removal of the boards revealed that they had been supported by, well, nothing. That really is a floating floor. All we needed is everyone to gather at one end of the deck(like they were at Jack's first birthday), make a sudden movement and they'd be propelled into space like a giant springboard. It could have been very exciting.
S removed the boards and did things with joists and cement and bolts and collected his cypress pine boards from Narrandera (what a great smell) and proceeded to lay the boards. He was working with two drills and even so it was slow going and the deadline (ie arrival of guests) loomed.
A drill bit snapped and things looked dicey. They looked worse when he realised he'd miscalculated the amount of timber he needed. But he got it finished and it looks great.

Happy Birthday Lily

My niece Lily is turning one tomorrow. Have a great picnic Lily and don't burn the bacon on the barbie!

Blow!

The reason why Jack was such a champion at blowing out his two (he can now say the word two) candles was because he practised. Firstly with a book called Happy Birthday Maisy. He did try with a whistle that my Dad gave him which activated a Thomas the Tank Engine but he kept on sucking instead of blowing and Thomas was going nowhere.On the day of his birthday Diane produced some party blowers (is that what they are called? really?) and he got the hang of things quickly. Must have been the people teaching him. He now likes to travel with one at all times just in case.

Choo-choo (toot!)

On the day of Jack's actual birthday we had some visitors come over for Jack to play with. I made chocolate butterfly cakes (they were really for us - I used cream and Hank's boysenberry Jam)and little quiches and Elise brought more cupcakes (which proved to be very popular). Everyone seemed to have a lovely time but we knew it was time for a nap when a bit of argy bargy appeared on the scene.
That night we went to Mudgeegong for the official birthday feast. From the moment Jack saw his cake he was transfixed and who can blame him. My friend Nellie made the same cake for J1's birthday but apparently hers ended up looking like a sofa.
Jack did a wonderful job of blowing out his candles (we've been practising).

We weren't worried about Jack being so enthralled with his cake till it was time to cut it and he looked horrified. He did manage to eat some cake (and feed some to Noel) then ran to the freezer to get an ice cream. That ice cream gene is very strong (it comes from both sides of the family).

Simple things

People always trot out the old ," You can buy children expensive presents but it's always the box that they want to play with." I decided to take a shortcut and just go straight to the box (so to speak).
Jack and I selected a box at the Iga then came home and went to town with glue sticks and patty pans. Voila! A car ! and Jack was delighted. Maybe it was the personalised number plates. He drove it around the house and the yard and even took it on the slippery dip.

b

Last year around November Jack abandoned his growing vocabulary and started using the word 'this' for everything. I wasn't really aware that it was a problem (he always managed to get his point across) until my Mum said, "Don't worry, I'm sure when he starts to talk he'll talk in sentences." oh.
Then a few weeks ago he stopped saying this and started saying all these new words but the funny thing was they all began with the letter 'b'. Bath, bed, books, boots, brush, bear, bounce... you get the idea. Why do I feel that he's messing with me?
I'm happy to say that he's moved on from just B words, I think he was worried because the professor wanted him to say binoculars.