Wednesday 15 June 2011

Teenage Drama!

Rebecca turned 13 last Friday! 13!!! I am the mother of a teenager - eeek! This prompted my forgetful brain to do a reflection on birthdays gone by with our beloved Daddy Richie:-


Age 4 2002
Becca’s fourth birthday party was a traditional at home party with a bouncy castle in the garden (albeit in my Mum & Dad’s garden as mine was resembling a jungle at the time!). This was only a short period of time after Becca had met Rich with her introductory kick on his shins (mentioned on previous blog posts!). Egg sandwiches, party games, bouncy castle and obligatory party bags for all the mini-guests! Once all the children had left and Becca was tucked up in bed, myself, Katy and Richie tucked into some Smirnoff Ice (classy!) and took over the bouncy castle! Luckily breaking no limbs in the process.
We also took Becca out the following day for an additional birthday treat for a trip to Legoland. At this point Becca still had a very much love/hate relationship going on with Richie – jealous of anyone taking her Mum’s attention! We had a nice day at Legoland up to the point of exiting the amusement park. Anyone who has been knows that there is a fairly steep climb to reach the entrance and out into the car park. Richie therefore took the helm pushing the buggy much to Becca’s disgust. Who shared her distaste by screaming and putting her feet to the floor to make pushing her as difficult as possible. With grim determination Richie would not be beaten, and gritted his teeth, laid the buggy backwards and carried on pushing! Slightly stressful experience at the time but no doubt highly amusing to all the passers-by!

Age 5 2003
For Rebecca’s 5th birthday we decided that as a grown-up school girl she could invite her entire class to a party at our local village hall, and we hired an entertainer to look after them all – sounds easy! Add in a few ham/jam sandwiches, crisps and some cakes to sugar up the kids! The party was a roaring success aside from one of her little friends complaining about the ‘cheap’ ham I had put in the sandwiches – who knew that 5 year olds could be so precious about a slice of ham!

Age 6 2004
Rebecca’s last birthday as an only child J
We had moved to Maidenhead at this point so we felt it was important to do an invite the entire class again! This time we made it easier on ourselves and booked Cheeky Charlies and associated catering so it was easy peasy!
Worst part was burning my elbow on the slide on the way down and the majority of the kids freaking out when ‘Cheeky Charlie’ (Large yellow and green dinosaur!) comes to say Happy Birthday!

Age 7 2005

With a small infant in toe you would think we would go for an easier option again, but no alas not! We booked the local church hall and a DJ for a fancy-dress disco! Myself, Katy and Richie frantically making sandwiches to cater for the masses and my bright idea for cutting the sandwiches into animal shapes was very much being frowned on by us all mid way through the catering process!
Bex was dressed-up as Cinderella and Harry a frog! We have lots of video footage from the day which Harry loves watching – especially seeing his Dad and hearing his voice.
I very much remember at this party beginning to panic about Harry growing up as we watched the 7 year old boys have ‘play’ fights with lightsabres and swords etc!

Age 8 2006

Back to good old Bouncy Castle in the garden. School friends invited over and we had to extend the time they could stay so we didn't clash drop offs or pick-ups with the England game that was playing that day! It meant we had a house of 8 year olds for 4 hours!!!!


Age 9 2007
Argh memory blank on this one (I told you I had the memory of a sieve!). When it comes back to me I will add on the detail. I know that we were pretty tight for cash as it was less than 2 weeks to our wedding date so there was definitely no party but I cannot remember how we celebrated.

Age 10 2008
How one year can make a massive difference on your life. Rewind one year and not only were we celebrating Becca turning 8 but me and Richie were very excited about our upcoming wedding celebrations and honeymoon in Thailand, and now we were faced with cancer.
We planned Becca’s birthday celebration around Richie’s chemo regime and hoped that he would be strong enough to celebrate with us. We booked a day at Thorpe Park with Becca’s extended family and her cousins. Unfortunately Richie never made it as his treatment had made him weak and unwell so we had to go without him. Myself, Harry and Becca met with her Dad and his family at Thorpe Park. We had a great day, although Richie was sorely missed – especially as we loved going to theme parks together and have lots of happy memories of our numerous theme park outings.


Age 11 2009
The first without Richie, just 6 months after he passed away. It all seems like a long time ago, and not the situation we had envisaged the year before. This year Rebecca had a party at Spa Kool a local spa salon. Her and 5 friends made bubble bath, soap, had their nails done and glittery temporary tatoo's (which were pretty cool and secretly I wanted one too!)


Age 12 2010
Pink ugg boots was the theme of this particular birthday! The much wanted boots went down a treat when they were unwrapped! We celebrated with dinner at TGI Friday's with all of the family. Rebecca has 9 cousins - all boys - so it was an extremely noisy affair!

Age 13 2011
And now she's a teenager argh! Birthday celebrations covered a plethora of things, sleepover, dinner out, BBQ, hottub with her friends and then Chessington World of Adventures. Needless to say that we were exhausted by the end of it!

Rebecca with her Daddy Richie:-

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