Parties & Ikea

I'm excited about the next week or so now, though it'll no doubt be tough in some ways. Sarah's at the age where she's really looking forward to her birthday, which will be on Monday. We took a cake to her school this week and we're having a party tomorrow which is also a house-warming, and we'll have another party next week with her little friends for her birthday, Lucy's and a little friend's, and Christmas... wow, we'll soon be partied out!

Normally I'm not that fussed about parties, but this year I think it'll be fun because Sarah's so excited. We made her birthday cake today - she iced it with three different colours and put three of each kind of lolly we'd bought. Even though there was a huge mess to clean up afterwards, it was fun to watch her enjoying it so much, and being creative - she did a better job than I would have done myself, I'm not good at creative stuff, I'm too slap-dash.

Yesterday we made some ice-cream cakes for the girls' birthdays and Christmas. Lucy can't have dairy so we had to make a soy one too. They absolutely loved making them - I've never made them before so am hoping they'll turn out OK on the day. Even if they don't, the girls thought it was great... especially Lucy who was completely covered in ice-cream and lollies by the end of it!

Then last night Mum and I went to Ikea to get a cheap dining set for the girls and I, without realising just how painful Ikea flat-packs are! The chairs looked like they'd just fold out and wouldn't require assembly... but of course not, they were from Ikea!! I stupidly thought I'd see if I could do a chair myself... as if! I don't even have a screw-driver which of course I soon discovered you need. So then we asked Dad for a screw-driver, which then meant he had to continue helping... which ultimately meant that he ended up assembling it himself. He's a very good Dad. I watched and felt pretty useless. All I could do to help was bring him a glass of water (after all it was around 35 degrees), make a few jokes about the "Herman" chairs, and take the plastic wrapping off and put it in the bin. By 11.30pm it was fully assembled and we were happy with it. What would I do without Dad?!

Thanks Ikea. I'm sure many people would like to thank you for the opportunities they've had to improve their stress management skills because of your flat-packs.