Another year has flown by, and my favourite son has just turned 12…… It’s hard to believe in a year we’ll have 2 teens in the house (Zinnia still has awhile to go!). The baby and toddler years seem like just the other day and now he is a big kid and in his final term of primary school! High School and all the excitement (and homework) awaits.
The 12th birthday celebrations….. and Robocup!
After his big One Piece party the previous year (and he is still obsessed with One Piece, and is making us sign up to different streaming services to watch all the 1140 episodes), this year had to be a quieter affair. Like his big sister before him, Soren has requested to do his Open Water Scuba course for his 12th birthday. That’s booked in for a couple of weeks time. He also wanted his room re-done into a more teenager friendly haven. The room is almost complete, so photos to come, but some more low-key celebrations had to occur for his birthday.
Soren did convince us that low-key meant I took 2 of his best friends to i-Play and lunch during the school holidays. The boys all had fun and we finished up in time to make it to the first session of the Robocup National competition that was running on his birthday weekend. His team of 4 were competing in the ‘On Stage’ competition and having already competed in the regional finals they got a shot at the Nationals along with other teams from Canberra, Australia and Asia-Pacific.
The team of 4 had been building their boxing kangaroo robots and had them compete in a boxing match for their performance. After setting up on Friday, they had competition all day Saturday and Sunday. Getting to watch on-stage performances from other teams as well as teams competing in the Line Rescue and Robot Soccer comps was very interesting, and they all had a great time.
Croquembouche desires….
Soren may have been slightly shattered after his Robocup weekend. As were we from all the driving! In between dashing out to watch Robocup and ferrying children around Canberra, we had to whip up a birthday cake for Soren. He had requested a croquembouche. Sadly for him, we refused his request to make the ‘level 3’ croquembouche from my French Patisserie cookbook.
Anto did however, whip up some sugar plates to build the croquembouche from, as well as some excellent choux pastry and crème pâtissière.
The final assembly had toffee coating, sprinkles and silver dust and hardly any adults were injured in the production of hot caramel!
Dinner and cake to celebrate…..
We decided to head out to dinner to celebrate Soren’s impending oldness on the Sunday night, after Robocup. We figured he’d be so tired that calories and sugary drinks were in order. Soren’s dinner of choice was Caribou, the Canadian pub. So there was plenty of fried food and poutine to go around!
Then there was the croquembouche to eat!
Soren was pretty happy with his cake of choice!
Apparently it definitely passed the taste test!
Then it was off to bed for a much needed night of sleep before he was officially 12 in the morning……
…… and then he was 12!
Luckily for Soren, despite being the first day of term 4, it was a pupil free day, so there was no need to rush around for presents and breakfast.
With the dive course and room make-over it was only a few small things to open. Mostly sugar based treats from his siblings!
Breakfast followed the sugar theme, with panettone French toast with caramelised banana. The kids are all fans of this one!
The rest of us head out to the annual Floriade ‘bulb dig’ to get rather filthy in order to populate my garden with more beautiful things. Soren decided he was a bit tired after his huge weekend (maybe his age was catching up with him? 🙂 He had a relaxing day with just his saxophone lesson and plenty of tidying up of his room.
We did get time to take some birthday portraits. He still definitely loves his bright colours!
Soren, you are still a cheeky monster. There are always never ending questions that come out of your mouth. You could talk underwater (and apparently do at swimming training) and are never one to sit still. We are still telling you to ‘stop running in the house’ every five minutes and you come home from school injured more days that not!
You definitely enjoy life and pack plenty in. Now playing 3 instruments, swimming in squad, and ballroom dancing along with every extra-curricular school activity possible (chess, choir, band and Robocup and every sports gala day) I pretty much spend my entire day driving from one activity to another. Luckily you enjoy them all and have a great group of friends to share all these activities with.
Soren still loves his pets. Every chicken is loved beyond belief, as was our precious alpaca Inti, before his passing earlier this year. Soren kidnaps our friends cats every time they are away and like me never tires of animals. He does even sometimes clean the chicken coop!
Definitely still kind and polite (at least outside of the house) we hope this continues into High School. He definitely still gives pretty good cuddles but will probably soon be embarrassed to be seen with us, once he’s an official teenager!
Bright colours, loud music and binge watching every TV show are some of Soren’s favourite things. He is also quite fond of leaving dirty socks on the floor, not wearing his glasses and negotiating bed time every day!
Happy 12th birthday Soren…. The next year will be full of new adventures and we sometime in the next year or go you’ll go from pint-sized to a giant!
Soren’s 12th year!
It was a big year of adventure for Soren…… travel, swimming, music, dancing, being a big Year 6 and plenty of food. He is a lover of the giant meal, bigger than his head. We don’t know where he puts it. Plenty of countries were visited, snow played in and fun had!
