Another year has flown by and Miss Astrid is now 8! Where has the time gone? She is looking so grown up all of a sudden. She has been growing like a weed and is no longer looking like a little kid. I don’t think she has changed that much and then I look at the photos. I can’t believe how much more grown up she is looking even since her birthday last year. Here are the pictures taken on her birthday this year (8 years) versus last year (7 years)…….

Astrid’s 8th year has been a pretty big one. A little less travel than the previous years but still plenty of adventure. She still loves school, and is now in Year 3. She spends her spare time bike riding, dancing, crafting, cooking and reading. Reading is her great love, devouring chapter books by the hundreds and often busted reading when she should be sleeping.

Her bike riding is going great guns, growing out of bikes and now racking up the 25-30km rides with regularity. After years of waiting her swimming is now good enough that she is finally able to go to swim meets, and so it began the start of probably many years of her poor parents (and grandparents) trooping to the pool for meets!

Probably the biggest adventure for Astrid in the past year is becoming a big sister again. She was thrilled to learn she was getting a much requested baby sibling. Both her and Soren were beyond excited and couldn’t wait for the growing bump to turn into their little brother or sister.

When the baby arrived in November, they were even more thrilled they got a sister, as a definite preference had been put in! Both kids have been amazing with Zinnia and love her to bits. Even 8 months later they still are smitten with her and love to entertain her and give her cuddles and are very helpful with feeding and chatting to her. Zinnia absolutely adores her siblings, so I hope the love affair continues. Astrid doesn’t remember quite as much about Soren as a baby, so being 7.5 when her sister arrived has been a wonderful experience for her.

When you were born on the Winter Solstice, like Astrid, and you live in Canberra……your birthday is generally a very cold affair. As luck would have it, we had planned a holiday to Vanuatu which happened to be around the time of Astrid’s birthday. The the lucky girl scored a warm and tropical birthday this year.

We’d already had a couple of days of warmth and sunshine at the Ramada, Port Vila, before it was birthday time. Swimming, snorkelling, kayaking and eating was a pretty great way to round out being 7. Astrid had been very excited about her birthday, counting down the days and hours for many weeks!

She was up bright and early on her birthday morning and luckily we’d managed to take a few presents over with us……. as a birthday isn’t a birthday without a few things to open. New books, clothes, stationary, a toy Llama (as our real ones were back home) and the hit present from Granny, a Garmin junior.

The new 8 year old pretty much skipped down to breakfast and feasted on all manner of croissant, eggs, pancakes and fruit with her siblings.

We were blessed with beautiful weather for Astrid’s birthday. Unlike the usual 7 degree days at this time of year in Canberra, it was sunny and 28 degrees. Perfect weather to swim, snorkel, go for a kayak with Dad and feed some tropical fish.

We surprised Astrid with a chocolate cake we’d organised from the resort. She was thrilled, as she thought she wasn’t getting cake til we got home. Zinnia was also thrilled as she somehow conned her first taste of cake ever! In a weird 8 year old compliment Astrid did mention the cake was a great surprise but it would have been a more impressive cake if we were home and I’d made it….

We finished off her birthday with a play in the sand, a beautiful sunset and dinner at a local French restaurant (and pizzeria).

It was a pretty special birthday. Definitely one to remember. We were in Vanuatu for a bit over a week and Astrid’s first few days of being 8 were spent enjoying the rest of our holiday, before it was back to cold Canberra and school!

When you are 8, there is a full birthday festival, so the celebrations continued on our return. There were a few presents that hadn’t made the trip over with us …….. we had enough luggage as it was with all our dive gear and a certain baby who requires plenty of stuff!.

Astrid was keen on present round 2, and also scored a few more from friends and family.

I thought being away for her birthday was enough of a treat in lieu of a party. However, apparently we were still obligated to make a cake. Astrid being Astrid, she requested a white chocolate mud cake with raspberry filling. She also wanted an alpaca cake. So a white chocolate alpaca was somehow whipped up amongst all the post-holiday washing and unpacking.

The very pretty alpaca cake was adorned with sparklers and Astrid got to distribute more calories to a few friend and family in celebration of her birthday.

Zinnia and Soren, ever the food monsters, were rather pleased that there was more cake to eat (not to mention the tray of home-made cinnamon buns and cheese platter). Somehow Zinnia conned both more cake and cinnamon bun out of her grandparents. She couldn’t figure out why we’d been withholding all this good stuff from her!

Finally the birthday festival was done and dusted, with 1 very happy 8 year old Astrid.

It’s been an other amazing year for Miss Astrid. She is already reminding me she is now closer to being a teenager than a baby …..how did that happen? Having a baby in the house has certainly reminded us of what she used to be like, what seems like not so long ago. Gee the years fly by…… You go from a tiny baby to this amazing person with so many questions, opinions, dreams, memories and plans in the blink of an eye! Happy 8th birthday Astrid Élodie