Birthdays and Boys

Yesterday we celebrated Marty's birthday.  My husband is the best kind of man - like fine wine, he just keeps getting better with age.  Last weekend he began a 7 week 'wild alpha' course, getting out on the farm with some of the guys from church, having fun as well as chatting about some of life's 'big stuff', the kind of stuff blokes best discuss over a campfire in the dark.  The fact that Marty even signed up to do this course is a pretty big deal.  It shows me that yep, God is working in his life, and yep, he is pretty amazing stuff.

We celebrated his birthday by going to the same Thai restaurant that we enjoyed on our wedding anniversary.  Marty had to take a night off his new special diet for the occasion, and we were both a little nervous about garlic and onion reappearing for a meal - but thank you God, he wasn't sore or miserable as a result!

The poor man had come home from work after a crazy day - they had new computers installed and it was a bit of a nightmare trying to sort stuff at work.  Follow that up with both our parents, his nana, his sister, our best mates and 5 small and VERY excited/loud children in the restaurant - it wasn't quite the relaxing dinner he probably needed!  I was very thankful that we were the only patrons that evening, the kids were yelling at each other happily at their own table, in between taking turns grizzling and crying over some drama.   Some of the family found the exotic choice of restaurant a little bit much, but coped rather well considering.  The gluten free cake for dessert went down a treat for everyone too.

When we got home, we decided to watch Skyfall, the Bond movie I had brought Marty for his present to complete his full set of 007 DVDs.  It confirmed that nope, I am clearly NOT a Bond girl.  I fell asleep.

NB: the bear on the front of the card was from Rawanda!

Today, Kate received this delightful little card from a wee 4 year old boy in our church.  He got his big 6 year old sister to write it for him as he dictated.  MELT?! Much!!!! She read it, then discarded it in her breezy way, leaving mum and dad to do the gushing.  Meanwhile, Jaimee was in tears because SHE didn't get a card.  (And so it begins.....)

....by the way,check out Luke in his flash new sweater vest, knitted by Marty's amazing Nana.  The girls are attempting to start a 'knitting' journey too, busily at work making pompom after pompom to thread onto a scarf each.  It is quite a 'smile on the inside' moment to see them on the couch together, balls of wool spread out before them, busily working away!