A Week of Celebrations

Well, forgive an absence of several days but this has been some week on the celebratory front! We went out for a lovely meal on Valentine's Day (Peter and Robin, do you remember last year :) ?!) then it was straight into preparing for a Big Day - the birthday of my dearest hubby. The boys were extremely excited about it and I have to say, did really well keeping all the secrets! They even feared I might spill the beans "Shhh, don't tell, Mum!"

In our house, it is almost illegal to not have at least one handmade present (I think I get the better part of the deal being married to a silversmith!) So this year, the boys made their papa some Porridge with Honey Soup - I will post a how-to for it sometime as my MIL wants to know and it was easy peasy - except one small boy kept trying to lick his spoon - too much like flapjacks I suppose. We tried some lavender too, but it came out looking rather vile - a little too much enthusiasm with the colouring, ahem. Still, Papa was very gracious about it.
This was one of my handmade gifts - a little wool and linen wrap filled with writing things and some of my photos made into postcards....

And a book of stickers, all from this lovely company. So, you may find some winging your way!

But presents are not the only ingredients for a good celebration. As Derek Thain of L'Arche Inverness says, birthdays are about saying 'thank you' that a person was born. So birthday prayers and blessings are a vital ingredient, and saying what we love about that person.

Of course, a party is most important, and the boys were there to make sure we had all the neccesary balloons, flags, flowers, candles etc. And a cake! Well, I'm not sure quite what happened this year, I'm usually pretty good at making a mean chocolate cake, but this year - it came out a little...thin. And of course, no cocoa etc left to make another one in time. But hey, a good layer of cream and raspberries (hence the rather alarming pink colour - but DH isn't too worried about such things) and all was well. And our Polish friend Ania came up trumps with this amazing cardamom cake - I totally love cardamom, it's definitely my favourite spice. So with two cakes in hand we were saved.

It was also the birthday of my youngest nephew this week, pictured here in France a year or two back - he's even bigger now. Can I just say that he has the best ever insult - "Cold Carrot", I mean, how offensive can you get? We did slightly forget to get his birthday package in the post on time - but our local post office is only open Thursdays 2-4 pm. Honestly. We still love him. I have suggested he might like to move his birthday to March next year, as there is just too much going on in February for him to get the attention he deserves.

And lastly, but not least, today is the birthday of Jackie, a fellow member of L'Arche, who showed me what it really means to be a truly beautiful woman.

Phew, almost at the end of this mega posting, but just to let you know that I have taken over the administration of the L'Arche blog which will now be coming out of a wee patch of hibernation. You can get our news and pictures here: http://larcheinvernessblog.blogspot.com/