Eight days ago we celebrated Baby Sister’s Fake Birthday. As opposed to her Real Birthday, which was a week ago, and her Birthday Party, which was on Saturday.

We had a fun and very low key time. She was delighted with her presents and cake and all the attention and … everything.

BTW, I have been reading up on how to take good snapshots. I have been learning lots of great, easy to follow rules. The kind of rules anyone should be able to remember, even in the heat of the moment.

For example, Rule Number One: Prepare your Scene. A rule covering everything from ensuring you have good lighting, to clearing background and foreground mess, to asking the person sitting for your portrait to please remove the chocolate cake from between her teeth.

Ignore the disastrous photos. I promise, a good time was had by all.

So, being a total glutton for punishment I spent last week making preparations for the party, which took place in our yard.

Just don’t ask for party photos. I was in charge of decorations, cleaning, food preparation, table laying, child wrangling, game organizing, adult social relations and repeatedly calling all the girls down from Baby Sister’s bedroom to please come bounce on the Bouncy Castle because I paid a lot of money for it to just be sitting there making a whooshing noise and swaying gently in the breeze.

The Daddy was in charge of Band Aids and photos. First he had to be reminded to get out the camera for the candle blowing. Then he decided to capture the moment with a blurry  iPhone video instead. Well, one candle blowing is just like another right? And we still have our memories…

I did get a few dark, blurry bouncing photos after the party was over!

So all is not lost