Party, party, party

We have been in celebration mode all weekend - Father's Day today, the boys' cousin's 3rd birthday party on Saturday and my cousin's 21st on Friday night.

Father's Day
We took time to spoil a very special dad, Mr Fixit. Here's the booty from the boys, including the lovely message that the Climber wrote all by himself at school. Mr Fixit was let sleep in (very rare because like all men should, he brings me a cup of tea every morning while he runs the breakfast shift with the boys), then was showered with presents and hand-made cards, and then fed pancakes. Afterwards the whole family went to the Melbourne Museum. I've posted the pictures here.

The 3-year-old's party
A bouncing castle and oodles of yummy kids party food. Need I say more.

Here's my little Dame Ednas on the way home, modelling their party loot.

My cousin's 21st.
She is addicted to fake tan, so the theme was "fake tan formal". Actually not a lot of formal (especially the men) but quite a few funny takes on the fake tan theme, including someone dressed as a carrot, and somebody completely blackened. It's been too cold for me to think about exposing any flesh so I left the fake-tanning to the young 'uns and just went formal in my friend Nell's frock. It's an Anthea Crawford which has only been worn once and Nell felt sorry for it, moping in the cupboard, never getting out to be admired. Which it was.

Food, delicious. Alcohol plentiful (sadly I was the designated driver) and company excellent. But the speeches ...

My aunt made a thoughtful and loving speech. The boyfriend (absent, in China) sent through a pre-recorded thoughtful and loving speech. Both of which were touching and entertaining. But then the mates of the birthday girl got up and proceeded to give hilarious speeches, depicting my cousin as a drunken, bad-tempered slut. All the family and family friends were exchanging looks and shaking their heads but the young 'uns loved it. Must be the done thing nowadays ... who knew? Not me, that's for sure. I was pursing my lips with the best of them. Take your place, Stomper Girl, its official, you are now one of the oldies!

Anyway, it got me thinking about speeches, and whilst of course, I am still in my thirties and important birthdays requiring speeches are ages away, this is what I request:

• Make it thoughtful and entertaining, but not at my expense.
• Don't try and embarrass me with stupidly amusing things I've done, doesn't matter how young I was at the time, because I will hate it and it will be all I remember about the speech and will probably make me wonder if you've always hated me (was that the thing about me that you feel needed bringing to public attention?) It may even make me cry.
• Make sure you've put in preparation and research. In return I promise to give you due warning that I'd like you to speak. (Unlike my Mum at her 60th saying to me 15 minutes before the speeches that actually, she did want me to speak. Now all the family & friends think I suck at speeches, which is not necessarily the case.)
• Make it about me, not about you.
• Extravagant compliments rather than insults, please.
  

And fingers crossed, if the youth of tomorrow are still making hilarious speeches when my kids turn 21, I hope that I'm extremely hard-of-hearing.