Birthday Party.... with cousins!

We decided to postpone Rafi's birthday party and wait for Freya and Rory to be here. We're so glad we did as it was lovely having my sister and Raf's cousins here for a celebration. It did mean that some favourite people couldn't attend, though, and that was a real shame. Nonetheless we had a super, super time.

We'd been worried as the weather looked very hit and miss and mostly it looked as though it could be a drizzly and even wet affair but we were absolutely blessed with beautiful weather. And added to that lots and lots of dragonflies turned up and dealt with most of the mosquitos in the garden. We were really feeling lucky.

We had a bit of a breakfast birthday with bagels, quick breads, fruit, and of course CAKE! As we were preparing for the big day Raf kept singing "happy birthday to meeee", and was very happy with himself. He was really anticipating the day and truly had such a fun time. He was also lucky to receive some very thoughtful gifts from all his friends; lucky lad.

Freya getting ready to greet all the party guests!

Rafi spies his first guests... Addie and Calla!

Shy cousins saying hi to "American Rory" (not to be confused with English, cousin Rory!)

Bouncing with old friends Sawyer and Colby!

We had a great set-up in the backyard with Raf's new play-set and water play things.

Fearless cousins...

Singing, loudly, "Happy Birthday to meeeeeeeeeeeeee'!

Not my finest moment in baking but time was limited so a simply chocolate cake with frosting. You'd not guess that it was vegan!

Raf just loved everyone singing 'happy birthday' to him. 

Happy, happy!

Melissa and the kiddos.

Enjoying cake with P!

We found a quiet spot to open a gift... a Thomas Game! Someone was super, super happy... We opened most of the pressies later in the day to avoid lots of cousin fighting :)

The party carried on upstairs in Raf's room... below is Sawyer, who looks a lot like Raf. Yesterday they even wore very similar swimming costumes!

A really, really nice day, and we finished it off with a walk on the beach, and, you guessed it, a streak down the sand....