Birthday rain

As well as raining presents there was so much rain falling down from the sky this morning in Canberra that we had to relocate Abi's 1st birthday party, at the last minute, from the local playground to our place.

Abi couldn't care less about the change, especially when she opened her first present and saw her pink floral "Rock Your Baby -Mad Men" dress, complete with pink tulle petticoat!
 

 ...and then her first pink puffer jacket present. Jody's decided to get over her gender stereotyping pink aversion for the girls.  Abi already shows a definite preference for pinks and reds so we are allowed now, in our present choices, to "let pink rule" for however long Abi prefers it.

All the kids were restricted to playing inside the house - for over four hours of very rainy weather. Ollie played games of Scrabble with Great-Granny K and Josh - beating them both soundly of course. Angus and Ella were great mates today, working up a sweat on the dance floor and then spending ages doing beautiful drawings with Rob on his vintage Parker study table. There was some unintended collateral damage to the vintage table - all fixed now...but it was worth it to get their drawings for the "pool room" collection.

This was Ella's drawing of Abi's birthday cupcake tower, with a bowl of Ottolenghi mushrooms beside it (sublime pairing).

 ..and this was the actual cupcake tower.

Luckily Abi didn't know what she was missing and only got to try the cake component, and not the icing.

Angus was looking pretty sweaty in this pic. He'd just spent the past hour or so moonwalking and jiving with Ella.

He ended off the party quietly playing chess with his Pa. Pa says Angus is a natural and has mastered the basic moves very quickly.

The birthday girl had a sleep mid way through her party, but woke earlier than usual a little tired and emotional - as you'd expect.

But all in all she seemed very satisfied with her party...and we all counted ourselves lucky to be there.