Happy Birthday Brendan, by Brendan and Mummy

In his own words...
I woke up in the morning and played playmobil with Tadhg. Then I opened some presents upstairs on Tadhg's bed. I got a lego x-wing fighter, a pirate island playmobil and some books from Uncle Phil.

 My mum took a picture of me and Charlie. He wrote 'me and Brendan' on his T-shirt. I got some lego ninjago and more lego star wars with snow troopers on Hoth, and a game called Rummycub and some drawings and some science stuff.

Mum made a smurf birthday cake for me. I invited Jeremiah, Charlie, Theo, Liam and Abigail, Hannah, Esme and Ira and Evan.

 I blew the candles out. Then we went out to play.

 I had a good day.

This is me building my lego.

 And that's it for words from Brendan, he's gone back to play with one of his presents. It was a lovely day, with minimal fuss, lots of adult company for us too. I'm loving this phase of being able to huddle with adults in the relatively peaceful kitchen while letting the kids take over the rest of the house. All the play was peaceful (at least peaceful enough to not need any parental intervention!) Tadhg decided to have a bath at one point and so didn't have any clothes on for a while, after some extended quiet time a bunch of kids came downstairs all dressed up, some had a go at decorating a T-shirt, one child and a group of parents played a game of rummikub, the cake was a hit, the sun was shining and it was a balmy -12C when we went out to play.
Happy Birthday to our lovely Brendan, who has proudly told anyone and everyone that he is now 6 at least 20 times today. What an awesome 6 years we've all had so far!

First stop on a European adventure

Good friends but not enough time. But we'll take what we can get! Lindsey and Matt are in Europe for a few weeks and we were their first stop. It was lovely having them here-we were so busy just being and chatting together that we took very few photos.
The kids having porridge in the morning.


We went to Parc Paradisio one day. We didn't do anything touristy and maybe we should have, but I think it was a nice slow intro to their European adventure, that I hope set them up for the next couple of weeks of travel and hotel living.

And here are a few photos taken by Brendan.




Lindsey is starting midwifery school in September. We snatched a few hours here and there to share our thoughts about birth and midwifery. I'm a tiny bit jealous but can't wait to hear how it's going when she starts. She is going to be the most wonderful, calm and caring midwife and I love thinking about all the lucky women who are going to have Lindsey around to help them have empowering, gentle births.