It's Your Day of Days!

HAAAAPPPPPYYYYYY BIIIIIIIIRRRRRRTTTHHDDDDDAAAAAAAYYYYYY Trinny!

We hope that you get to celebrate it as they do in Katroo,

The sure know how to say "Happy Birthday to You!"

We're very, very glad that you're not a wasn't,

You are You , and that's VERY pleasant.

And now the rhyming ends cause I've only just gotten out of bed and I really can't manage more than 4 lines!

We love you ooooodles and cabooooodles, and we hope you have a smagmiferous day.  We'd love to see your list of 34 things to do before you turn 35, and I'll try to come up with my 26 things to do before I turn 27.

Big, sloppy Aunty Mavis kisses:

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Happy Birthday!

No Elephants Allowed

This was my big yesterday event.  Woooooooooooooow.  Varekai was incredible.  It's a Cirque Du Soleil production and it is MIND BLOWING.  For two hours we sat and gasped and laughed and oohed and aahed.  What a way to end the birth-weekend.

To get a little taste of the show check out this.  And if you type in 'Varekai' on youtube there's lots of amazing clips off the DVD.  But if you're on dial-up, just look at the pictures!

It was sensational.  Magical.  Inspiring.  And incredibly beautiful.

Sleepy Musings

A wise and very knowing person once said, "Sleeping is no mean art; for its sake one has to stay awake all day!" I loved this quote when I read it and it so applies to me today. It was a glorious blue sky and sunshiny kind of day. The kind of day that is made for building cubby houses,
pulling funny faces
and gardening.
But it would have been heavenly to lie stretched out on a hammock in the shade of a big tree and dream away the hours!
Instead here I am tired at 8'o'clock and heading to bed. Once again the pull of the pillow wins over all else. No major blogging from this little bunny tonight. We will see about tomorrow. If not there is always three years from now!

Hip-hip...

Hooray!  My birthday isn't quite over yet, we've got another amazing day planned for today.  It's more of a birthweekend rather than just a day, I like that!  But here's a little peek of my birthday-day yesterday.

Hot chocolate and presents delivered in bed.  Together with a beautiful bird of paradise (reminded me of Mum's that she used to grow by the front door).

My groovy birthday card handcrafted by my even groovier husband.

The chaos after.

Dr Seuss's Happy Birthday to You book reading.  A tradition in the Worthing-Macdonald house, to be read on everyone's birthday with especially loud shoutings of 

'I AM I!  

ME!  

I am I!  

And I may not know why  

But I know that I like it.  

Three cheers! I AM I!'

I really do wonder what our upstairs, downstairs and nextdoor-on-both-sides neighbours think of us sometimes.

Breakfast at the farmers market.  Sundried tomato, goats cheese and pine nut muffins and goats cheese and red onion tartlets.  Wow.

Then beading in the afternoon at Floor's bachelorette party, celebrated mainly in Dutch, Floor said I was very brave to go along!!  And this was my Floor-inspired artwork that we were asked to prepare for her (she had blonde hair the last time I saw her!).  I'll get a photo of the necklace I made later.

Sunshiney walks, present perusing then my requested frozen pizza and garlic bread dinner, eaten with the doors open on the floor.

And my surprise dessert eaten watching Dr Who.  Mmm.  Banana splits.

All ended with a drink of water from the Birthday Tumbler.

It was a beautiful day.  Thankyou everyone for all birthday messages, naked and non-naked.

And in the words of Dr Suess, this is how my day ended:

When it ends,

You're much happier,

Richer and fatter.

And the Bird flies you home

On a very soft platter.

HAPPPPPPYYYYY BIRTHDAY CALLLLLIIIIIII!!!!!

All I can say is from the top of my head to the bottom of my naked heart I love you, have a wonderful day and

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!

Sisters Birthdays

I have so much to write about but I need time to write it properly so I just wanted to do a little tribute to our baby sister who turns 26 today!
C - Calli is creative and clever, crazy and creamy!
A - Calli is awesome and amazing, in Amsterdam and has an aura
L - Calli is likeable, lovely, little and lickable
L - Calli is like a lioness, lamb and a sweet lemon tart
I - Calli is incredible, indispensable and instantaneous

Not the best tribute to an incrediable sister, but one all the same and in my sleep deprived mind all I could come up with.
So Happy Birthday to you Miss Calico MacWorthing. I hope your day is a special one, filled with magic moments and life giving memories.

Counting Sunbeams

I love stolen sunshiney moments.  They seem kinda few and far between at the moment.  Weather-wise and me-wise.  I think I've had enough cold weather for now and I'm not liking the fact that it's meant to be chillier again next week.  And raining.  But I'm looking for the sunbeams that break through every now and then, and there were some beautiful ones today.

This is the main one, because it sparked the rest.  Andrew and I cycled down to the floating flower market to buy me some birthday flowers.  I had to make myself scarce while he went and picked them because I wanted a surprise.  So he got these beautiful red tulips, with a dash of sunshine in them.  Perfect.  And there's one for each 6 months of my life, 50 in all.  Sunbeam number 1 for today.

I sat on a step under a tree and hung out with the pigeons while I was waiting.  I snapped a random picture of the tree over my shoulder and I didn't realise that I had captured a pigeon until I got home and downloaded the photos onto the computer.  That was sunbeam number 2.

This is sunbeam number 3.  It's a bike that we pass when we're cycling down the Single.  Isn't it crazily wonderful?!  I think the owner of this bike shall wear purple with a red hat that doesn't match when she is old.

And my constant sunbeam, so he's number 4 and all the numbers in between.  One bag has my beautiful tulips in it, the other package is a special flower for my day of days tomorrow.  It's in a vase with the wrapping still on, ooh I love surprises.  Can't wait for the morning!

Bikes and Birthdays

Visitors, babysitting and essays don't make for the bloggiest life.  I've been checking here to see what's been going on in the life of my sister's but it looks like we're all off living.  I like that.

I found a blog image as I was out walking this morning.  Unfortunately I didn't have the camera with me so I just had to remember it.  It was an old bike that had been pulled out of the canal.  It was rusty and dirty and broken, but there was such an intrinsic beauty and magnetism about it.  Maybe it's a good thing I didn't have the camera, generally I struggle to capture those things in hardcopy.

Two sleeps until my birthday, YAAAAAY!  I love birthdays.  Even if it means getting older.  The number scares me, but I can't think of a year that I'd be without to make it smaller.  So, here's to 26!

If I were a fruit...

I would be a .....

Pomegranate

Why......

Red...
Interesting...
A bit exotic!!!!!!
Nice and curvy....
A little bit plan compared to other fruits on the out side.....



But.....

A huge big suprise on the inside...

Wild and delicious, messy, confusing, beautiful and complex on the inside.....




Just a little dash of imagination will turn them from onions into me!!!!!!

Life as Usual

Things are busy in the little house on the Brouwersgracht.  We've got Queens Day coming up next week and we decided that we couldn't leave Holland without having participated in the craziest, coolest and most manic Dutch celebration.  We're setting up a stall to sell things, the taxation laws are relaxed on the 30th April and Amsterdam becomes the world's largest flea market with everyone selling everything and anything on the streets.  It's awesome!  I'm making bits and pieces to sell, here are some hairbands that we're selling.

And this is a picture of my bike outside the grocery store this morning, with most of the week's shopping in or on it and a little stool thing that I found for Andrew to sit on at our Queens Day stall (he's selling, I'm buying).  It still continues to amaze me the amount that a bike can carry.

Trying to madly get an assignment done and craft stuff and housework along with having a guest and babysitting.  The cup is full and overflowing!

Brrrrrrr, it's cold

Just a short tribute to Linny Mac because it's way cool that we are now actually the 4 sisters blog.

Will write a big blog later today because Connor and Kenzi are going for a sleepover with Mumma and Grandpa. I can only give them up for 1 night - although Kenzi has decided she wants to stay forever! I think it is all the lollies and icecream that she gets, along with all the love!
Brenton and I will be nanna napping and just generally hanging out. It's a great opportunity to hang out with my amazing husband.
A cool shadow picture down at our crab spot.
See You Then! (This is a face paint that Kenzi did for me)