So, my little baby has just turned eight!  I am still struggling to come to terms with it.  I don’t feel old enough to have an 8-year-old! But he’s delighted about it, so I just need to embrace it and move on!!

Last Sunday we kicked Alex’s birthday celebrations off with a party. This year he chose to take some friends to the movies – so we found ourselves responsible for ten seven-year olds at the Peckham Plex cinema ready to watch “Teen Titans Go to the Movies”.  They were all so excited and making so much noise as we waited for the film to start, I feared for my sanity and that of the other cinema-goers sharing our screen.  But thankfully once it got started, they were all totally engrossed.  Phew!

90 minutes later, and with about £25 of popcorn consumed, we piled the children into a variety of vehicles and took them home to our place for a big BBQ.  It was a complete madhouse as they race around playing, competed in Nintendo Mario Kart races and generally trashed the house – but they had so much fun!  They managed to pause in the sunny garden for a few minutes to consume lunch.  It was so crazy that we barely took any photographs – but here’s evidence that they really did sit together for a while (so many silly faces!!)

Despite consuming vast quantities of bbq, crisps and biscuits, they’d all left room for cake – which was lucky as I’d made an enormous rainbow cake (it kept us fed for several days – yum!)

He had such a lovely party, and despite the craziness, it was a real pleasure to spend more time with his lovely group of friends.

His actual birthday was on Wednesday and he was just buzzing with excitement as the day grew closer.  One reason for his great anticipation was that for his birthday he’d asked for a bedroom of his own.  He’s been sharing with Sophie for the past couple of years. They’ve really enjoyed sharing, but he’s starting to go to bed a bit later and was starting to want his own space. So for the past few weeks, Matt and I have been gradually getting the spare room ready for him.  Alex was so good and I don’t think had a peek at all until it was revealed on his birthday morning. Our brief from him had been that he wanted a bunk bed, a desk, and orange decoration!

I wrapped the door, and at 6.45am on his birthday morning he was finally able to open it!  His reaction was something I’ll remember for a long time – total joy and excitement!  It was brilliant.

I took a few photographs of the room when it was a bit brighter for the blog.  We chose bunk beds with built in shelves as his bedside is always strewn with books. We added a lovely IKEA desk and chair, and some John Lewis bedding/curtains. And for some added super hero theming, I found a brilliant wall decal on etsy and some super hero prints.

He’s loving his room so far – but Sophie likes it so much that so far she’s spent every night on the bottom bunk!  So much for Alex getting his own space!

With his birthday falling on a school day, we had to rush a little bit in the morning – but he managed to open all his wonderful presents (thanks so much for our generous family – thank you cards coming soon!).  It was such a good start to his special day!

It sounds like he had a great day at school – he managed to stay on the green good behaviour wall and was elected by his classmates to represent them on the school council!

My parents collected him from school so he had a bit of time to play with his new presents before we all met up in Herne Hill for a bit of an unusual birthday activity.  We took part in a world record attempt for the most number of contributions to a colour-by-numbers mural!  Surreal but true!  The underpass under the station is having a new mural of scenes from Herne Hill – and we all helped colour it in (along with about 2,000 other people from our community!).

Can’t wait to see it on the wall – I’m looking forward to seeing the tiny patch of Half Moon Lane that I coloured so carefully!!

After our world record contribution, we headed to Alex’s restaurant of choice for his birthday tea – Pizza Express!  Much to Sophie’s excitement, two of her best friends from school were there – so we snapped a lovely pic of them. How gorgeous are these little ladies:

We had a lovely meal and huge puddings before we took the children home to bed in Alex’s new bedroom.  It was a great day and i think Alex enjoyed himself!  He certainly looked pretty chuffed reading on the top bunk before I turned the lights out!

So – as usual – here’s my boy on all his birthdays!!