September is a BIG month for birthday's in our family ... and a few others too it seems! Almost every week this month we've had at least one party to go to, sometimes two!! We've also done our fair share of hosting, with both Mark and Abigail celebrating in the same week!
You have to be a little bit more creative here when it comes to birthday's. Abigail has been to both a butterfly and a pony themed party recently, complete with homemade butterfly wings and hobby horses from locally bought kanga material.
Decorating cakes becomes a little more challenging too ... we tried out an American friends marshmallow fondant icing recipe and were really pleased with the results for Mark and Abigail's cakes. It did require forward planning though, as the marshmallows are not easily or often available here!
Our own super busy party week went something like this ... Mark's birthday party came first on the Sunday, his actual birthday on the Tuesday, Abigail's birthday on the Friday with her party on the Saturday!! Abigail turned the grand old age of 5 and Mark hit a big milestone, the big 4-0!
We had mainly MAF families around for Mark's party (for which Jenny's mum was still here for), Mark like's things pretty low key! We decorated outside with '40' balloons and bunting and then played some lawn games, like Kubb and just hung out!!
The kids kept themselves playing and bouncing on the trampoline and everyone brought some yummy food to share!
Even the wildlife appreciated the snacks ... what a huge and beautiful butterfly!
On Mark's actual birthday we were able to surprise him with a pile of cards and presents that many of our family, friends and supporters had sent after a cheeky email from Jenny, telling everyone it was a special birthday! Thank you SO much to everyone who got busy sending cards ... they are still arriving several weeks later and the count is somewhere in the mid-70's right now!! Here are just a few of them!
Abigail had fun celebrating her 5th birthday ... on the actual day she had school and Bible Club, so we only really saw her for a couple of hours ... time enough to eat pizza and open and enjoy presents though!!
The morning after we had a group of her friends over to celebrate properly ... with games outside and inside, yummy food and of course, a butterfly birthday cake!
Since the girls were born we've always done a birthday measurement, so Mark hastily put the chart up (it was one of the many things still to do since our container arrived!). As you can see Abigail is now only a few inches off 4ft!!!
After all that excitement, life has become a lot more mundane again ... not in a bad way, in a nice, familiar, we're really settled way. Now that all four of us have celebrated a birthday here, we really are 'home'!
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