Happy Birthday to Cliona!

April is always a fun month in our house. Stephen's birthday is on the 11th followed by Cliona's on the 20th. This year my Mam and Dad came out for the birthday celebrations. Cliona got to make cupcakes with her Nan for Stephen's birthday. Then Stephen and I took off to Paso Robles in the central coast area for some wine tasting. We met up with Chris, Kathy and Scot and had a brilliant time. The wineries were great, the scenery fantastic and the weather was unusually warm. Chris and Kathy are expecting a baby in September so it was fun talking about those early days again. Seems like it was ages ago that we had a newborn. One evening we drove out to the coast (Cambria) and had dinner outside at sunset. It is lovely there - the coast is a lot more jagged than southern California which give it more of a wild and unruly feel.

Mam and Dad had a great time with Clio all to themselves. They set up a little wendy-house in the back garden for Clio and really helped digging out our flowerbeds. Now they are all ready for planting. On Wed Dad and I spent the day up at Gamble house in Pasadena. It's a 100 yr old craftsman house with as Asian influence and the tour guide was really good. It was interesting to hear how people used to sleep out on veranda's, thinking the clean air would prevent and cure respiratory aliments. To think LA was known for it's clean air only 100 years ago ...

And so it was time for Cliona's 3rd birthday. She knew it was coming up. I had told her when it was way back in March. She'd ask 'Is it April yet?' and then when it finally did get to April, I taught her the date and then she was really proud that she knew when her birthday was when people asked her. She knew she was having a party and at first she just wanted to invite her teachers but after a while she got into the idea of inviting school-mates and was delighted when some of her friends turned up at the house on party day. Cliona was not interested in getting anything except 'lollipops and cake' for her birthday. Anytime I asked her, that's all she wanted. She sure loves her lollipops! We decided to get her a tricycle and surprisingly she got the hang of it first try. We brought her out in the neighbourhood where Stephen taught her how to stop with her feet. Well then she thought she was the greatest. Able to stop and go all by herself. And play with all the bells and whistles that come along with it. She loves her Dora tricycle.

The party went really well too. We got a bouncy again and this year the children were old enough to be able to bounce around happily by themselves. And when they started to tire, it was pizza and cake time. It was funny - it was like a switch had been flipped. No sooner had they finished but it was off to the bouncy for another hour of fun. It was really nice to be able to have everyone over in the garden. And it was great having Gk, Kerry,Avery and Katherine there too. Mam and Dad had not seen them since our wedding and had never met Avery or Katherine so it was a bonus for them to see Cliona and Avery play together.

I posted all the pictures on snapfish as usual. HERE's the link!