Birthday Scorcher

Hello blog-peeps :) We've had a scorcher of a weekend here and I'm feeling ridiculously relaxed and happy. It's been my birthday and the weekend has been filled with all my favourite things - cards, presents, crochet, food, cappuccino, cake, sunshine and, last but not least - in fact most importantly - family.

The Little People were up, awake and raring to go, desperate to sing happy birthday, at 6am .... lovely as it was, 6am is still the middle of the night as far as I'm concerned .... but how can you say no ? I was allowed another 10 minutes of peace while they all scurried off with hubby and busied themselves in the kitchen. Little Miss came in, pinny on and notebook in hand, to take my order for breakfast ...

Another 10 minutes and they all appeared, one after another, singing Happy Birthday, bearing gifts, and delivering breakfast :)

Wow WoW WOW was I lucky - so many lovely presents...
.... 17 balls of yummy yarny deliciousness, the Lucy from Attic24 Stylecraft pack  ...

.... a set of Clover Amour crochet hooks ....

.... a flower-press - I've wanted one of these since I was 8 years old ....

... and this fabby book ....

I'm of the opinion you just can't have enough books. Of any sort, not just crochet. Well, maybe you can have Enough, but you definitely can Never have too many. I was after this book mainly for the pattern for this shawl that I'd seen on Chrissie's blog "Chrissie Crafts" here ...

... yes yes, bit of an extravagance to get the entire book for just one pattern, and a veeeery simple one at that, but there are worse vices to have, and as it turns out the book is FanTASTic. I reeeeeaaaaally wish I'd had this book about 18 months ago when I taught myself to crochet from books and the interweb. No single book or website seemed to have it all.

I think this book would have done the job though, and anyway its nice to have on my bookshelf - my very own copy in all its glossy glory  ...

And that still wasn't all. I've been saying that I would love to take better photos, and had at one stage mentioned a new camera, "for Christmas" I said. Well my lovely hubby, in his usual generous way gave me a new fancypants camera too .... aaaaah he is the best :)

As I mentioned it was roasting hot the last couple of days, so we decided to keep the celebrations simple and low-key. Little Tomboy learned to ride her bike this weekend, so we cycled (me and the older two), freewheeled/stumbled about (Little Tomboy) and ran after/supervised Little Tomboy (hubby) to our local Italian restaurant....

.... the restaurant has a lovely garden area and is right next to a great park ....

.... plenty to keep the Little People amused at the table ....

.... yummy food and drinks - cheers ....

.... a very civilised single candle in my tiramisu "Make a wish Mummy!" ....

.... a play in the park and then home via the californian poppies .... I'm sure they get brighter every day ....

I must confess to feeling veeeeery sleepy when we got home, wine in the afternoon does not a wide-awake Mummy make :) I may or may not have had a mini snooze ..... My mother-in-law "Grandma" came round later on with yet more pressies ... ooh goody !! The butterflies are the lid of a beautiful glass trinket box ...

.... and my friend dropped off a "voucher" for some "Fancy Cameras for Dummies" tuition from her photographer husband .... and some strawberry plants she'd planted up for me ....

.... squash and cake in the garden for dinner ....

.... and a sneaky cappuccino and Yet More Cake before bed ....

Long gone are the days when birthdays meant partying late into the night in a crowded pub, or even a couple of bottles of wine and a dvd with hubby in the evening, and probably a very fuzzy head the next day. No, these days a simple bike-ride, cheeky glass of vino, play in the park and squash and cake for tea is much more me, time spent with my lovely little family, making memories to treasure.   Bliss :)