Bunnies and Birthdays

It has been so long since I posted that Blogger revamped its format and it took me forever this morning to figure out how to do a new post.  But I did, finally!

First, let me take this opportunity to introduce you to our new bunnies, Madeline (in white) and Beast (black and white), names courtesy of K.  Madeline is a female young adult and Beast is a teenage male so yes, it is quite possible that they will do what bunnies do and we will soon have several more bunnies.  But, these are yard bunnies, meaning they live outside, eat whatever vegetation they can scavenge and generally are only marginally cared for by us so I am assuming that through a combination of nature taking its course and the occasional donation of bunnies to someone else we can keep the population to around 5 or 6 total in the long term.  Originally, the plan was that the bunnies would just have the whole front yard in which to romp, and I had the gardener put up chicken wire on the fence thinking that would be sufficient to keep them in place.  Little did I know that I was dealing with very creative and very greedy bunnies!  They keep escaping into the back yard which is, of course, where the vegetable gardens are.  Now, I don't mind so much if they nibble on my garden as we never manage to eat everything out of it anyway, but they are also terrorizing the staff garden which is much more obnoxious and unacceptable so on Monday I will have the gardener build a large pen for them and they will have to stay in there.  How we are going to catch them to put them in said pen I have no idea, though I suspect the pool skimmer net may be involved...

Madeline and Beast being naughty, greedy bunnies and hanging out in our garden.

K and T are both doing well.  School is wrapping up over the next week and a half and K had sports day on Friday.  While the school provided a very elaborate and fun set up at a certain point the kids discovered a hill and realized that rolling down it was a lot more fun than anything else.

T is finally starting to use words to articulate thoughts which is making life somewhat easier, though frequently her requests are for things she just isn't going to get (most frequently juice... she is a little juice addict).  She also mimics absolutely everything K does, which is cute about 80% of the time and incredibly annoying the rest of the time.

T modeling dressy shoes with pj pants.  Quite a look!  And she makes that face almost every time anyone points a camera in her general direction.

In other news, K had her 4th birthday party last weekend.  No, her birthday isn't until July but since almost everyone leaves either to move on to their next post or to go home on R&R at the end of this month she would not have had any friends with which to celebrate.  I suspect this may quickly become a theme of life overseas with lots of early birthday parties.

We went with a dragon and unicorn theme, complete with two cakes, big chalk dragons and unicorns sketched on the playhouse (by someone with more artistic talent than I), a dragon and unicorn pinata and other assorted stuff and things.  Plus, as it was brunch, lots of mimosas and bloody marys for the adults. I think everyone had fun.  At one point we had a swirling mass of 30 or so kids in the back yard, which was a bit chaotic but mostly in a good way.  

K about to blow out her candles.

One of the rare "family" photos in which I am actually included.  Unfortunately, T's nanny was doing such a good job of keeping her entertained and out of the way we had no idea where she was so she got left out.  Poor second child. 

But, this is photographic evidence that she was present at the party!

The dragon- red velvet cake inside so he was nice and bloody when we cut into him.

The unicorn- made by using a silicon mold so the external shell is a mix of peanut butter edible clay and marzipan, decorated with edible luster dust and the inside was chocolate cake and chocolate pudding.

The calm before the storm.

K attacking an innocent, but candy filled, unicorn... I am note sure who thought it was a good idea to arm children with sticks, let them take swings at something, and then have them trample each other in a quest to gather fallen candy but who am I to mess with tradition.