A busy birthday

Well, our little Mitch has reached 12 years old. Although he may look young for his age, he has always been very grown up. A day before his birthday, the YM were going away on a canoe trip and overnight camp. Andrew took two days off work and was going as a leader. Mitch was able to go because he was turning 12 during the trip. It was great to have Andrew go along with his 3 sons and it left Bailey and I some time together.

I used the opportunity of having Mitchell away to redecorate his bedroom as one of his birthday surprises. I painted, made decorative art for his wall and assembled his bed and new linen, a bedside table and a lamp to give him a more grown-up room. He has had our original bunk beds which were looking really old and he had been asking for a while if we could decorate his room.Mitchell is very in to dirt-bikes, but not wanting to have his room covered in ugly motor bike pictures I had to come up with a decorating idea which we could both live with.

I painted one wall navy blue and then bought some blank canvases and painted them a base colour of the other walls. I then went to our local motor bike shop and explained to them what I was doing. They were super helpful and I came away with two tyres (free), which was great as I was hoping to keep to a reasonable budget. I painted the tyres with black paint and then rolled them over the three canvases to give a tyre mark. I got covered in paint, but I was really happy with the result.

Anyway, I had planned to hang one tyre on the wall and had bought cork board to fit inside it as a pin board for Mitchell, but Andrew was concerned his room would look like a pit stop and was also nervous about drilling holes to hang a heavy tyre on our new walls so we decided against it. I had it finished just in time for them to arrive back from their trip by 3pm. I waited in the room with the camera for Mitchell's reaction.

Before bed time though, Emma, Josh and Maya came over for dinner and cake. It was a fun night, but after racing to get it finished in time, I was ready for an early night too.

Andrew managed to get a shot of me with my phobia about blowing out candles... yes I am a germ freak! I hate birthday candles on cakes because I think it is disgusting to blow (or in some cases spit) all over a cake that everyone else then has to eat.

All trying to claim the biggest piece...

Mitchell is well aware who has that priveledge!

Josh and Joel (Mitchell's friend) showing a little more patience.The end of a big birthday. Mitchell was really happy with it and even wanted to get to bed early to sleep in his new bed.