Michael turns six

Yesterday Michael turned six and we had (another) party at home for him. Last year was his first birthday that he actually seemed keen on - although even then he took some time to warm up. Yesterday he was on song right from the start.

He actually slept in. When we snuck in to check on him, he threw back the covers and said "Aha, I am six!" Due to our busy night on Friday we had not really organised anything, so we had to get presents opened and breakfast into everyone with a bit of haste. Elf (our presents-meister) had got him a book on Egyptian archaeology, and a book of very detailed classical paintings, where you have to find particular things in them. (Elf's mum Felicity pointed out that in general, no-one bothers with detail in paintings these days).

Around ten, visitors started arriving - we had six of Michael's schoolfriends with their big and little siblings and parents. We had a treasure hunt which somehow involved making animal noises - that seemed to go off OK. While Elf was hiding things around the garden for that, I supervised the destruction of a dinosaur piñata. I am not a big piñata fan to be honest, but this one went off reasonably well. Apart from that everyone just amused themselves. There was loads of very low-effort food, although Felicity made a beaut strawberry volcano cake to a design dictated by Michael. In a minor brain-fade I ordered 2 doz sausage rolls from the bakery, even though I KNEW they were the big ones. $48 worth of sausage rolls.

Michael scored some more nice loot; everyone seems to shop at the same two or three shops. Renee and Sophie made a great card - it featured two of Michael's favourite things: scorpions crawling up a volcano. Scout brought Michael a pot of carnivorous plants - they have already started taking their toll on our flies.