It was my birthday on the weekend and…
Here are the presents my boys gave me! In my last post, I mentioned that I was training my boys to be thoughtful and creative when buying gifts. This is because they will have to go out, find a wife, and keep her happy… so they had better be good at proving they understand her! After all, I want LOTS of grandchildren haha!
Since it was their first time buying serious presents for a woman, I gave them a LOT of hints.
First up, I asked them to buy me a scarf and it had to be a monochrome pattern. I loved their pick!
Then I gave them a wishlist of books and asked them to chose one.
Lastly, I asked for something I could grow. I got something to look at, AND something to eat! Excellent!
They were lovely gifts. I’m super happy!
However, I think my husband won the most points for thoughtfulness and romance with his gift.
Usually I’m really fussy with MY presents bought with his/my/our money. I have told him absolutely straight – don’t buy me jewellery, bags, purses, underwear, clothes. Please. Just don’t. I am so particular with what I wear and carry. And he is terrible at guessing what I want (which changes month by month, or even hour to hour) but hey, he’s fabulous in almost every other way. So I’m definitely keeping him :) But this year…
He gave me a cherry blossom tree!
I love it! I’m so excited!
I’ve always wanted one in my garden. It is currently a dead-looking twig stuck into a bag at the moment haha. But hopefully it will bloom for us this spring, which is in September in Australia.
Anyway, as well as the gifts, my boys surprised me with a secret Masterchef style, 3 course dinner!
They designed the dinner menu, bought all the ingredients, cooked everything (with help from my husband) and presented it to me in a fancy restaurant style.
This is what the table looked like at 5pm. The boys (and my husband) were all cooking up a storm in the kitchen, while I sat back with a cup of tea and painted my nails. Loved it already!
Finally dinner started at 6:30pm. I was presented with the entree, mushroom soup. My favourite! It was made entirely by my 9 year old.
It was actually delicious. I was a bit shocked at how good it was.
It was made from butter, 1 onion, 1 leek, 1L of chicken stock, 500g of mushrooms, some cream and fresh chives. So simple and soooooo yummy!
I raved about it, and my 9 yr old went all shy, “Aww mum, you’re just saying that to encourage me to cook more…”
“No, really, I mean it! It’s very yummy! Yes it was probably a good recipe, but you executed it really well. So well done buddy!”
I had two bowls of it.
For the main course, I was presented with homemade bread sticks and homemade dips. I was going to point out that bread sticks were usually served as an entree, but I kept my mouth shut instead.
I was told that one of the three dips was a pre-made dip, bought from the shop. And part of the dinner entertainment was to guess which was homemade and which was pre-made. How funny!
It was easy to guess, because the herb + cream cheese dip and the herb + oil dip were both amazing! And the shop bought humus was – well, bland by comparison.
My 11 year old was the mastermind behind the main dish and the dessert.
The dessert platter consisted of vanilla ice cream (bought) drizzled with homemade toffee + passion fruit pulp, strawberries dipped in chocolate, handmade coconut balls, and a slice of mango.
Later on, it turned out that my 11yo had planned to make homemade churros too! The kid definitely gets points for ambition!
But it was getting late, and hubby wisely cancelled the dish. The idea of three excited kids squeezing churro dough into 4L of boiling vegetable oil at 8:45pm at night, was not very wise.
I can’t believe my husband agreed to all this craziness! Just one dessert would have been fine!
Ah, I was so loved up by the end of it all.
It was the most adorable thing ever. I am so in love with my family!!
My boys certainly impressed the socks off me for both their thoughtfulness and creativity :)
(I am the luckiest MUMMY in the world!)
