Birthday Musings

I am not one to make a big deal of my own birthdays, especially when it means moving from one decade to another. I have to admit waking up to a headache from the day before, which immediately made me think it comes naturally when one gets to a certain age.

I was going to say that I didn't like the attention, but to be honest, I am missing the "bless the birthday celebrator" tradition I grew up in with my friends. I just made up the name of course because we never called it anything - where there's a birthday celebrator, friends just tend to gravitate and it always seemed natural to end up in conversations that lead to blessing the person, mostly where we thought of one or two things, depending on the number, we love and appreciate about them and we told them in the group's presence. It probably sounds corny but for some reason, whether as a birthday girl or one of the friends, we all leave encouraged and blessed. Maybe it is just me, but quality time being my top love language and words of appreciation coming close second, it really makes me feel really special and well, LOVED. Don't get me wrong, I appreciate presents, but it is probably in the bottom of the love language scales and even if I don't get one, it doesn't make me feel loved any less.

This year, friends thought of surprising me with a birthday lunch, but because I was so "clever", I figured it out. Instead I invited them over to my house along with a few other friends without mentioning that it was my birthday. I thought if I didn't want to make a fuzz out of it, why should they? So lunch it was, and what a good time to catch up with some friends that I hadn't seen for a while.

I woke up to a very nicely made birthday card with some carefully worded note including something to the effect of looking younger than my age. It was a stretch but hubby did volunteer to wait til 9am to drive our little mister to preschool, saving me a total of 40 minutes to an hour of walking, so I was happy to let it slide.

I am tempted to make a list of forty things I am grateful to God for, but we all know that when a girl says list, it is a list of words per item and I did want to make this short. I must

Photo Credit+flowers: Tess Colgrave
Thanks, mare! Rachel Kelly for the cake

say I am very thankful for the life God has blessed me. He has blessed me with the most amazing husband and two awesome kids. I thank God for our families. While they all live overseas, distance doesn't seem to hinder the close family ties that connects us. In the absence of our biological family, God has connected us to a great local church family where we got to meet like minded individuals and families in similar season in life like us. We are blessed that we still get to honor God and be a part in advancing His kingdom even in this season, and not be hindered by it. I thank God for the friends He placed in our lives, for the opportunity to make sisters and brothers by choice,  and for the many blessings that keeps coming our way.

You know how I started my day with all sorts of body pains? Let me just say that when I started thinking and thanking God for everything I was grateful for, it all just went away - and I must say, it was a happy birthday indeed!

He is FoUR!

All the waiting has finally paid off. He is four by himself, not three, like his sister, in the past four weeks! Four. How fast time flies. It seemed just yesterday that we brought home a little over 2 kilos bundle of joy after staying for nearly 5 weeks at the hospital.

He was fast asleep but we brought his cake to the room to wake him up so dad can leave for work. As we sang  happy birthday to the top of our voice, he simply opened his eyes to acknowledge us and went back to sleep. He eventually woke

 

up because we kept on singing. As we lighted the candles on his cake, we found out that the fire starter has stopped working so we had to console him that he can blow his cake again later after going to the shop. After cutting and seeing the beauty of his cake, he looked up  with grateful eyes and gave away the biggest cuddles.


 
As he celebrates his birthday, I can't help but think of the times that he  made our family really proud. It's a bit tricky because if truth be told, he doesn't really need to do anything to make us proud - just by being himself, the special gift that he is from God - is more than enough! 

If I do have to pick a few though, I can't forget  that time when we were in an indoor playground and there were two girls shouting "no boys! no boys!" at the jumping castle. I was so impressed when he replied - this is for everybody - and went on playing! What a brave thing to say to two older girls at that by a then three year old! He loves playing with older kids and at times it doesn't turn out very well. One time these boys were picking on him and I was so proud of the way he pretended and played along with them that the boys had no choice but to play with him. I wasn't there when that happened so when I was told about it I asked why he didn't tell an adult. He replied, "I'm telling you now, mum!"

Every time we go to the park, he would get drawn to the disabled play area because it is locked and he wanted to go inside. One morning he was on to it again so I had to explain that it was only for special kids, thinking that it would be harder for me to explain disabled to him. He surprised me when he replied - "but I am special too mum!" remembering most likely the time when we had a follow up conversation about how we are all different but God made us special and he loves us very much, thanks to a Noah's Ark lesson at church! Naturally, I groped for words to explain to him in a way that he will understand and after a while he did, thank God!

Happy birthday little mister! We love you and we thank God that he choose for you to be part of our family! We are honoured and blessed that we get to share your journey!

On Motherhood

Whoever said motherhood is easy is either lying or had others raise her kids for her. After only a few years into this 'job', I find that no amount of 'preparation' ever really gets you ready for your 'role'. By preparation, I don't just mean the insights I get from the books I  read and the seminars I have attended. Although I must say that a course on motherhood would come in handy but as all mothers will agree, you sort of wing things as you go and do things by trial and error. It doesn't help that all kids, even twins who share a womb, are different, making it hard to create a curriculum.

I suppose I am talking about the kind that I saw as modelled by my own mama. And on that note, can I just pause and brag about her for a bit? I have to say she is one tough cookie, having given birth to six kids, losing her firstborn after a few days due to sickness, and then two years later giving birth to me and four others while holding a full time job as a school teacher in a local public school. Sure she had people around her helping her out but to juggle raising a family and keeping a job, let alone doing it full time, seems unthinkable to me. And then add to that raising me, being the stubborn child that I was, giving her enough challenges probably from the time I started talking. I thank God for her patience, wisdom and humility. She did the best she can. Not even her humble origins can stop her from getting educated, and making sure, along with Papa, that we all get our degrees so all five of our diplomas get prominently

our youngest sister has yet to request for her diploma from school

displayed on the "wall of  fame" at  home. While she feels that us getting educated is her biggest legacy, I feel that it was her getting up early to pray, and teaching us about God that helped me make the right choices in life. I feel that the things she showed us and taught us about God made it so easy for me to have a relationship with Jesus.




My mother in law is another worthy example. While I have yet to meet her in person, her warmth,  compassion and genuine love breaks all barriers including distance. I loved how she encouraged and prayed for me, along with the rest of the family, when I was back home waiting for my visa grant. One can't ask for a better one and I am blessed . I can't wait to see her and everyone in the family and I look forward to the seafoods feast she promised when we visit.



I think about mentors, friends and family who  provided me with Godly example of motherhood and living life in general. From those who discipled me, believed in me before I even believed in myself, and trusted me. When I stop to think about how much they have helped me become a better person, challenging me to grow and mature in my relationship with Jesus so I can help others the way they have - it makes me thank God for the company of women (and men) that He has placed around me and the awesome privilege of being able to travel with them in this journey called life.

I feel that motherhood can be a really tough gig, especially if one is on their own. But if the saying that it takes a village to raise a child is true, then we are not really meant to raise our children by ourselves to begin with.   Having all our biological families on the other side of the world makes things even harder.But we thank God for our church family - we don't feel alone and we don't feel like we have to figure things out by ourselves or get things together, we are allowed to be ourselves, we can ask for help and it was never taken against us. All the encouragement and prayers we get showered is just amazing. We have also made friends, who have become our families by choice

On a personal note, for mother's day this year, I thought I'd save my husband the trouble of  figuring out what to get me  by telling him exactly what I wanted. I even volunteered to pick it up myself to make sure there are no mix ups. At our little mister's preschool, they organized a mother's day  afternoon tea with a fun activity for mum and kids. I was so pleased when I got there with the little miss to find him finish the sandwiches I made him for lunch for the first time since early this year. As we worked on the mother's day card, he wouldn't let me touch it, except for some help from his sister. While he took the activity seriously, he also got distracted a few times with all the toys and other kids to play with. I feel like after nearly two hours, it was the little miss who had fun the most. She was able to play all she liked without me rushing her like I always do everytime we drop her brother off.

The shifts  life make as we enter into the season of motherhood! As the more seasoned mums will tell you, while changes take place as the children grow older, it never really ends. It is always tempting to focus  them and make them the centre of our universe! But if we are wise, we will look up to a POWER bigger than ourselves, even bigger than our families and friends.

Happy mother's day to you - whether  you are a mother celebrating for the first time,  desperately praying to be a mother, one that have lost their mothers, mothers who have lost a baby (or two) or are assuming the role of mothers in others' lives. Thank you for all the hard work you do. I hope Psalms 121 of The Message version will bless you -

^1-2 I look up to the mountains;
    does my strength come from mountains?
No, my strength comes from God,
    who made heaven, and earth, and mountains.

^3-4 He won’t let you stumble,
    your Guardian God won’t fall asleep.
Not on your life! Israel’s
    Guardian will never doze or sleep.

^5-6 God’s your Guardian,
    right at your side to protect you—
Shielding you from sunstroke,
    sheltering you from moonstroke.

^7-8 God guards you from every evil,
    he guards your very life.
He guards you when you leave and when you return,
    he guards you now, he guards you always.

DiY Birthday Party!

It all started when we all got talked into throwing her a birthday party. Perhaps she remembered when we said we will alternately  have one party for them being born only eleven months apart and they have the same set of friends and this year, it was her turn. Maybe it did not help that we got invited to parties and she saw how fun it was. From the time we said YES, we were asked nearly every day if it was her birthday yet.

Gunnamatta Park
 photo pinched from here

She chose  Gunnamatta in Cronulla after we went for a  day to relax, she decided that she will have her party there.

view opposite the park 

We even made up a song to the tune of five cheeky monkeys and it goes like this:

z wants a party
she gets it on her birthday
she loves it is gunnamatta bay
so she can play, swim and have a barbie

We did not end up having a barbie because we thought it was better to have everything ready by the time we got there, but that is going ahead of myself. Choosing the venue was easy because the birthday girl knew what she wanted and we can't help but agree. With a park and a beach in one place, we didn't have to do anything to entertain the kids. We did have a few other decisions to make -

1. Pick the Date. Autumn this year is a little bit tricky because some days feel like summer, while other days feel like winter. We had to consider people's schedules too but after what we thought was carefully thought and planned date, we still found ourselves in a bit of a bind, what with our chosen date being in conflict with another activity, or some friends going away. However, we had to make a choice. When we decided on the date, the forecast was a high of 20 degrees with expected showers. Our toddlers prayed every night from the time we decided on the date for a change of weather and every few weeks we checked the forecast. And what do you know, on the day itself, it was a high of 27 degrees, not windy and certainly no showers, just perfect for a park-beach sort of weather, thank you, Jesus!

2. Invitation. When the date was sorted, it was too close that we did not have time to make the invitations. We resorted to emails and facebook, and it all worked out fine. I have to say I did try to get all the materials but in the end it was rather late.

3. The Birthday Cake.  The m & m and kitkat cake looked very attractive so I thought I'd give it a go. I have seen a few tutorials on youtube that looked really doable. I made my tried and tested cake recipe base 

my test kitkat cake

from 4 ingredients called the 1,1,1,1 cake and found a delicious and easy to make chocolate frosting recipe  from google to decorate. When we tasted out test cake, it was okay. However I thought it might be too much sugar so I decided to use marshmallows to keep up with the pink motif. Also, I decided to stretch 

>myself and make it a two-tier cake - it impressed my darling husband so much he wanted to marry me again if he could. My timeline -

6 days before the party - made a triple mix to make the two tier cake. let it rest.

5 days before the party - wrapped the cake with cling wrap and freeze

2 days before the party - decorated frozen cake with a double chocolate frosting mix  and marshmallows. let it sit at room temperature til the party

4. Party Menu. We decided on a very simple menu, but it might look  massive only because our friends had different dietary requirements. Maybe I got carried away too but I was very sure that it could be done without drama. In the end I had to drop the vegetarian spring rolls that I had already began cutting and only because I thought it might be too much work having to soften the wrapper with hot water, etc. I also made big plans to make drinks for the kids but in the end had to let it slide. 

Friends brought some yummy fried spring rolls as well as chips and drinks. This nut platter, inspired by a friend who posted a picture on instagram, is a mixture of ding dong from the Philippines made of cracker 

nuts, beans, peanuts, corn and green peas mixed with tropical nuts and m & m was an instant hit with the kids.

5. Party Favour. Being the anti-lollies that I am, (and only because I know that my toddlers will not stop eating til they turn blue) I thought I'd make some cookies. I have seen a friend do it and it looked really beautiful. However I have to admit that my icing skills is very limited that as early as Easter week, I tried and failed at it miserably.  I thought maybe cutting the cookies into beautiful moulds would make it look better but that did not work too. In the end, and at the encouragement of a friend, I opted for the tried and tested crisp coconut cookies in a nice looking cd envelope inspired by this post. I made two double mix of the cookies 

three days before the party and wrapped everything on the cd envelope with the thank you label at two days before.

6. Party Supplies. I cut out some templates for the party hats from here and here for the kids to decorate. I had stickers, foam letters and shapes as well as ribbons for them to use, but alas, it was not very popular as 

the park and the water was beckoning them. For buntings, I had some fibre cleaning materials that looks like felt from a few months back. I picked pink, cut it into bunting flags and pasted it into a string. With pink balloons on the sides, it makes up all  the birthday decorations we had. Our birthday girl choose the pink and purple plates for the little ones with bigger white plates for the adults. The same color goes for the plastic cups and cutlery. We also picked the pink and white plastic table cloth.

On the party day itself, we spent the morning cooking, packing  and taking everything  to the venue. We are blessed to have friends who helped us with a back up table in case we couldn't get one by the time we got there. They also came to pick up some of the things that wouldn't fit in the car. I have to admit we were running late, arriving there at 12:30 PM but thank God for one of our friends who arrived early, because of them we had one big table perfect for the occasion.

At the end of the day, we had one happy three year old. I overheard one mum say it was a highlight to the kids' school holidays. We thanked God for everyone who celebrated our little girl's birthday with us.

We left the place at 6 PM. Needless to say, she slept in the car and slept thru til 6AM the next day. She also had to wait the next morning to open the rest of her presents.

PS. for a very detailed checklist, I found this and this really helpful.