Just Another Birthday

Well it was my birthday on Sunday, another year older. I really hate how birthdays seem to come around much faster since I hit the 30's, I don't feel like a thirty-something and it doesn't seem like five minutes ago that the thirties seemed to be in the distant future. Well it's not in the future anymore, it's here giving me a good bitch slap and saying "time to buy the anti-ageing cream!"

Now that I'm a mum I have started to think about my birthdays past, when I was a child I had a big party at home for my friends, my Mum would provide enough party food to feed an army and Big Brother would be the DJ. Birthdays as a child were so exciting, gifts were a surprise, there was the party to look forward to, all the fuss at school too. As a teenager things changed a little, instead of parties it became concert tickets for Boyzone every year and a meal out somewhere with family and besties. The excitement for birthdays was still there though, even once drinking age finally arrived... Yes from 18 to late twenties birthdays had become a week of nights out drinking and staggering in and out of night clubs, I have many fond memories and even more cringe some photos to look back on from these days. No I won't be sharing any of these drunken photos! I don't really know what it is that changes inside, but there is a turning point there where we go from all the fuss and dragging out of birthday celebrations to realising that actually the best birthdays are celebrated just one day with the people that mean the most to us and doing something that really makes us happy. Oh, and of course eating cake, cake is the best solution to every problem.

So on Sunday I spent the day with Hubster and Small boy. The day started with our little tradition where Hubster serves breakfast, pain au chocolates warmed and coffee. At lunch time we visited a Victorian market that was in our village that day, it's the first time we've been to this Victorian Market, there is one every Christmas in our village. I don't know why we haven't been before to be honest but it was great, lots of people were there, a good variety of stalls and some great food. Then my Mum made dinner for us, Big Brother & Nephew, which was lovely and then we had birthday cake... Yes you're never too old for birthday cake, everyone in my family gets a birthday cake regardless of their age! This year Hubster wanted to make a birthday cake for me, he's never baked a cake before but was very excited to do this. I wasn't nervous about the cake, just the mess that I imagined in my kitchen! Hubster looked through my baking books and eventually selected a recipe from the Nigella Lawson Domestic Goddess book, he chose the Autumnal Birthday Cake. Hubster chose this cake because he knows how much I love maple syrup and pecan nuts.

The cake was a huge success, despite how Hubster was in the kitchen making this cake until 2am, not only did it look fabulous, it tasted good too. Hubster also cleaned up the kitchen too after baking which I was really thrilled about. Although the down side was that this cake wasn't very good for my diet, but you only have a birthday once a year!

Amongst the birthday gifts were three new books that I had asked for, The Hummingbird Bakery Cookbook; Lorraine Pascale's Fast, Fresh and Easy Food; and National Trust Simply Baking. I had asked for the two baking books mainly for some fresh inspiration, I have flicked through them both to see what I'm going to try out first and quite honestly I can't decide, every single recipe looks delicious! I asked for Lorraine's cook book as I needed one with easy to follow recipes and quick recipes too as most days, like most of us, I'm pressed for time at dinner and find myself in a rut of making the same meals each week. I have over the weekend read this book from cover to cover and can't wait to get started. In fact I've already picked out a recipe to try for Meat Free Mondays!

Once we managed to get Small Boy to sleep the Hubster and I managed to relax and watch a film, Hangover 3. There's nothing like a good comedy on a Sunday to laugh at. To be honest I didn't think it was as good as the previous two films, but it was still very funny and I'm sure we will watch it again. Well that was my birthday, a perfect day for me, which made becoming another year older just a little more bearable...

Getting the house ready

It's officially on, the mad race to get the house ready for the 1st December. The house needs cleaning and the furniture needs reorganising so that we can somehow fit my beautuful 6ft Christmas tree in.  Hubster has tried on several occassions to talk me into having a smaller tree, but he failed, for me Christmas is not Christmas without a big tree. So we will be spending tommorow night moving furniture around in the lounge to find a way to make our tree fit. It will fit, one way or another!

So with Sunday being the 1st of December this marks the first of our traditions...

Firstly the tree goes up in the morning, decorated with love, so many of my tree decorations have a story. I have a selection of baubles that once belonged to my Grandad, some that I brought back from an awesome trip to Canada to visit family, special baubles from my childhood, so many with memories of others, very special decorations made by Nephew and of course Small Boy's additions. Finally there's the fairy, she's a woodland fairy and absolutely gorgeous. I searched far and wide to find the perfect fairy and perfect she certainly is. All this tree decorating is always without fail every year done by Hubster, Nephew and myself whilst singing along to our special Christmas album and scoffing a tin of chocolates! I have to confess this year I'm a little worried about how Small Boy and the cats will behave with the tree! Last but by no means least, there's Small Boy's advent calendar. We decided to buy him a Christmas wooden house advent calendar that he will use every year, we'll fill each drawer with his favourite chocolates, although all chocolate seems to be his favourite at the moment!

Once we've finished we go to Whiteleys Garden Centre to visit Santa, last year was Small Boy's first time meeting Santa and he did really well, never cried once, however he did try to pull Santa's beard off! We have a photo taken with Santa, take a leisurely walk around the shop looking at all the beautiful decorations, maybe even buy some then finally write and post a letter to Santa.  Then we move onto next door, the Whitegate pub for lunch, we love it here, the staff are wonderful and the children's menu is great too.

Once we're back home there's nothing better than curling up together on the sofa to watch a Christmas movie with a hot chocolate, especially a Baileys one!