twenteen

Thursday was my birthday. My twentieth birthday.

And I had the whole family make 'old' related jokes;

so I decided it was I was turning 'twenteen'.

Being a teenager has had some downs, but it's definitely had some huge ups.

Waving goodbye to them means waving goodbye to my childhood.

And I need to learn to embrace the fact I'm getting older,

more mature if you will.

Something I didn't ever think I'd do! Haha!

Despite all this, I decided to have a little family get together.

The weather was horrendous in the morning,

however by the time that my grandparents and best friend arrived

it had all cheered up and the sun was blaring!

Mum and Grandma had, without meaning to, coordinated their wrapping paper!!

I love this heart pattern from Emma Bridgewater,

I received the mug in this pattern for my last birthday!!

The presents inside the wrapping were just as wonderful!

I received 6 hearts for my decorative wall (post to come soon),

some beautiful fairy lights,

books galore and a new Emma Bridgewater mug!!

As for birthday cake, we had plenty of choice.

Porscha brought over the little cupcakes that were incredibly sinful!!

And tasted soooo good!!

The big cake was made with a slimming recipe that I got from my class!

And even though I was sceptical at first, it tasted lovely.

And it was filled with tonnes of gorgeous fruit,

so it was very healthy!!

Even though it didn't want this birthday,

I did have a wonderful day with my friends and family.

I didn't want it to end!!

brownie guide campfire

Over the years Mum has set up a Rainbow unit,

then Brownies, Guides and most recently a Ranger group.

She a one woman guiding machine,

and I'm so incredibly proud of her!

Last night was our first annual guiding campfire.

It was with all the girls from all the units.

We set up Nigel's firepit in the middle of the school playground

and kept it fed with lots of logs.

Then we all gathered around with the girls

and sang both old and new Guiding songs,

such as "This little Guiding light of mine"

"Kookaburra" and "High Dee".

We then partook in some wonderful hotdogs,

which weren't cooked on the campfire sadly

but were tasty all the same!!

not so little any more

Not so very long ago, Ollie's little brother had his 18th birthday

which was so incredibly odd,

seen as he was 11 when Ollie and I first started going out.

I've seen him grow up in front of me

just like I did with my own brothers!

He hasn't always been my biggest fan,

as he resented me 'taking his big brother away from him'.

But we've made up now and we had a great BBQ in celebration of his birthday!

We had homemade kebab sticks with marinated chicken, and peppers,

and mushrooms, and courgette, and onions.

And they all looked so colourful on the BBQ.

We also had amazing burgers and sausages from the local butchers!

And an amazing cold feat too of salad, and pasta and new potatoes.

Yum yum yum.

Once all the food had been cooked, we turned the BBQ into it's second function:

A self contained fire!

It's actually a firepit that doubles as a BBQ, so the boys fetched the wood

and Ollie's Mum poked and prodded it into place

to create this perfect fire!

Which was very welcome seen as it was starting to get a bit chilly!

And we sat and ate and talked and drank the rest of the night away!