Esther's 4th Birthday party.

I can't believe that Esther has had a birthday party because she is turning 4. It doesn't seem 5 minutes since I was at the park with some friends on the bank holiday weekend in 2004 over pregnant with Esther! And now, here we are, living in Issaquah, with an articulate, funny, cheeky and sometimes very difficult 4 year old. Ah well, she is lovely and although at times I would love to change her, I wouldn't at the same time if you know what I mean!!

We had a busy day yesterday, as you can imagine with 11 children and their parents for a couple of hours. The party was good though and certainly our children had a good time! It was harder work than I had hoped because it rained and so we couldn't play outside at all but that was fine, we had lots of games instead as well as making paper hats and a short time to play downstairs too. We played all the usual games, which needed explaining to the guests as most of them hadn't played them before!!

Our girls were very good hosts, I have to say, even if I am a little biased! They welcomed everyone and Esther was good at saying thank you for her presents and saying goodbye to everyone at the end. They both were good at not wanting to win at the games and were happy when others did. I was very proud of them; it is great when they can have a fun time too.

Silas was funny and was trying to join in with the games at his level so he was stomping around when they were playing a game where they have to move to a mat, he was trying to help the girls pin the tail on the donkey and he was so eager to pass the parcel that poor Katie barely got a look in. However when Katie did then win a small packet of sweets, Silas promptly took them off her! Poor girl! We quickly found him some too and that kept him occupied for a while!

We had birthday tea and the people admired the cake. The cake was a mermaid (Melodie) sitting on a rock and it looked good! Esther and I were pleased with it, which was what mattered. IT took a while to make on Friday night but it was fun! It impressed the parents yesterday too! One of the mums even took a photo of it!

This evening we went to see some friends in Redmond for dinner. Tim works with the Dad and I used to see the mum regularly but not very often these days so it was lovely to be able to have dinner together. The children all played very well together which was good too! The family have 2 boys, a similar age to our girls.

Our duck is still with us, although I thought it would have given up on Friday as the children went to play out in the garden and Silas gave the duck a fright when he went to investigate! To be fair to the duck, the duck gave as good as she got as Silas was also scared when the duck took off suddenly! Anyway, she did return and in some ways it was a good thing that the children didn't play out yesterday as it would have been a bit too much for her I think! I am feeling very responsible for this duck, which is ridiculous I know but I can't help it!!

Silas is rather fascinated by the duck and likes to look out the window at it after each meal time. He was also rather fascinated by the cake and I found him in the nick of time yesterday as he had dragged over one of the little blue chairs to the side and I found him poking the candle holder into the rock / cake! I stopped him from doing any more damage just in time!!

The girls were entertaining this week and performed a rendition of Sleeping Beauty for me one lunch time. They took it very seriously and had costumes, props and a rehearsal! It was very funny and they did a good job!

On Thursday evening I was browsing the Seattle Times newspaper on-line and there was an advert for the Cirque Du Soleil on the site that had a short video of the show. Well, Naomi and Esther were rather fascinated by this and wanted to see more of it and so I found some more videos on the Internet of it all. In the video I found the man was walking in and on a large hamster cage which concerned Naomi greatly as he didn't have anything underneath him. I explained that he would have rehearsed just like she rehearsed her Sleeping Beauty play and she said "yes, but he must have had a sheet underneath him in case he fell when he was rehearsing!" It was very sweet and good logic! Esther was watching another couple in the show with great interest and thought that they looked very beautiful (they were wearing silver costumes and had lots of silver make up on). It wasn't long before she had them married off, with lots of children too!

Well, that is about all our news here. I am looking forward to a slightly quieter week in some ways but also to celebrating Esther's birthday on Friday. Bye for now!