Cake for Nan

Yesterday morning my beautiful Nan passed away suddenly after having another stroke. In February we were wondering how long she would last without having Pop around and hated to think of her being alone without him, for too many years.

Nan suprised us just after Pop passed away and seemed to be doing really well. We knew she missed Pop so much though and every time you would mention Pop's name she would have tears well up in her eyes. She hasn't been able to communicate very well since her first stroke, but it was obvious how much she loved and missed Pop. Whenever they were together they would be holding each other's hands.

The way I remember Nan the best is when she lived at their house in Dunorlan. She absolutely loved her garden and we would often go up there to say hi and to play in the yard, picking and eating all their fresh vegies straight out of the garden, and popping Nan's flowers (which she hated us doing!).

I'm actually really happy for Nan and Pop as they are now together again and no longer in their frail old bodies. When Dad told me yesterday morning I felt sad that I won't see Nan again for a little while, but so happy that she is again with Pop. They are amazing examples to me and I love and will miss them both so much. My boys are so blessed to have known their great grandparents and to know what amazing people they both are.

Chrish reminded me yesterday of Nan's carrot jelly which we weren't too keen on, but one thing which we did LOVE was her sponge cakes. She usually had a sponge cake on hand and if you came to visit she would pull it out. There were many times when we would visit just to have a piece of Nan's famous sponge! :) When I told Harri yesterday that Nan had died he said straight away 'oh she's in Heaven with Pop now!'. When I told Jalen he had a few tears and after school he told me that he had to go to the toilet during class time to have a bit of a cry. When he got back his friends asked him what was wrong and he told them about Nan. They were lovely to him and he said to them 'just don't mention the words 'Nan', 'sponge cake' or 'biscuits' or I will get upset again!'. The boys used to love visiting Nan and Pop at their home in Deloraine and having a piece of sponge cake and raiding Nan's biscuit container.

While the boys were at school yesterday I decided that we should do something to celebrate Nan's life, so I whipped up a sponge cake using Nan's recipe. It was no where near as good as Nan's would've been but the boys were very excited to come home to have a piece of cake for Nan.

Sheila May Memorial Sponge Cake Bake-Off

Last year I went to three funerals and at every one, my cousins and I talked about how lovely it was to catch up, but how sad it is that we always catch up at funerals.  We always say we  need to make more of an effort to get together, and my cousin Ty is always the one to organise it for us. 

Not long after my cousin Jarom's funeral Ty put up an event on Facebook called the Sheila May Memorial Sponge Cake Bake-Off. He'd organised one a few years ago, and I was sad that we were in Sydney when it was on, as we missed out on it.  I was so happy that he was organising another one, and that we would be able to make it this time. 

Sheila May is my Nan's name and she was well known for making amazing sponge cakes.  When you went to visit her, you would be guaranteed to be offered a piece of sponge cake. She always had a fresh or frozen one on hand, and she would share her recipe with anyone who wanted it.  

My sister in law Steph actually has a hand written copy of the recipe in Nan's handwriting, so Eden and Steph brought it along in a frame on the day of the bake-off. The bake-off was at Port Sorell, which is where a lot of my extended family live.  Ty made a hilarious video depicting how our Pop might've felt about having it there, instead of Dunorlan or at Pop's river, which is where most of our families grew up together.   

It was such a fun day. We had lunch and Ty organised a family quiz on Kahoot and also had lots of old family photos online for us all to see.  My sister in law Becky won the last bake off, which was a bit controversial, as my cousin Toni is known for being an awesome baker.  Everyone had a big laugh that Becky won as she's not a blood relative of Nan, but  hers tasted the closest to Nan's sponge.  

The competition was really on this time, as everyone was keen to beat Becky and to make sure Toni didn't win it!  I'm not a baker at all, but thought it would be fun to join in and give it a crack.  Kobe had stayed at Mum's the night before, so he 'helped' Mum by lining the tins and licking the beaters :) There were some amazing looking cakes.Aunty Wanda and Uncle Tom were the judges.  Because there were so many cakes, they had to choose three each to taste.  They then had to do a blind taste testing and choose their favourite. These are the videos of them testing them (they can only be seen on web version). 

Auntie Wanda chose the sponge cake made by Aunty Deidre and her granddaughter Sophie (it had passionfruit icing) and Uncle Tom chose his daughter Carli's, which also had passionfruit icing.  There was a bit of controversy as Carli admitted she went away from Nan's original recipe, so she was disqualified!

It was such a fun day, and I'm sure Nan and Pop would've loved that we were all getting together for a sponge cake bake-off.  I feel so lucky to have grown up with such a big family, who all lived close by. 

These are some of the great grandchildren of Nan and Pop. There are many more, who couldn't be there that day. Simone worked out there are 90 great grandchildren all together. 

These are my cousins who were there.  There are 27 of us all together (or so...I need to do a recount to check). 

My Dad had 5 siblings.  His brothers Howard and Chayne have both passed away, so now only Uncle Tom, Aunty Wanda and Uncle Kim are left.  

I'm sure the Sheila May Memorial Sponge Cake Bake-Of will continue on in the future. and hopefully I can perfect my cake before the next one ;) Thanks so much Ty for organising it for us.  

40

I joked with my brother tonight that birthdays are better when your husband isn't around, because everyone tries to make it extra special for you.  Today is my 40th birthday and it's actually been a lovely day.  The last two birthdays without Aaron and Noah have been really hard.  The first one after they passed away I dreaded, but my beautiful friends made it special by surprising me with a lovely cooked breakfast.

This time last year I was really struggling and I had thought that the grief had really caught up with me, but I now realise that I was severely depressed.  I remember my birthday last year, and how hard it was to just get out of bed and to have lunch with my friend Simone, and go out for tea with my boys and Mum and Dad.   I just wanted to ring them up and tell them to not worry about it, as I just wanted to stay at home in bed.  I remember forcing myself to go out for them, because I didn't want them to worry about me.   Last year I dreaded my birthday and tried everything I could to make it okay.  I even went out and bought myself a birthday present, thinking how depressing it was that Aaron wasn't here to do it for me.

This year I hardly even thought about my birthday.  I wasn't looking forward to it, but I wasn't dreading it either.   Every six weeks or so I go out for tea with my girlfriends Pip, Bec and Lynne.  We went to school together, and love catching up regularly.  The best thing is that I now have a live in babysitter as Jay is old enough and happy enough to look after the boys for me when I go out.  The girls and I arranged a night out for my birthday, and decided we would go out the night before my birthday, as I wanted to spend my birthday night with the boys.

Last night Bec and Lynne picked me up to go out for tea, and we went to meet Pip at the restaurant.  When we walked in I saw a table full of people with some helium balloons and flowers on it, and it took me a few seconds to realise that the table was full of my friends and Mum and sister in law Steph! I felt myself go bright red and can't even remember what I said, but it was a lovely surprise to have so many good friends there.
Mum organised a beautiful cake for me.

 Thanks for letting me steal your pic Alison :)
My cheeky cousin Toni always calls me Nan because she thinks I look like her, and she put this photo up on her Instagram last night. Aaron used to love teasing her that she looks like her Mum and used to call her Aunty Ann all the time. 

 I felt so blessed that everyone gave up their night to come and celebrate my birthday with me.  It was a lovely night with lots of laughs.

This morning Jay left to go to school, and a minute later he came running back inside yelling 'there's a sign at school for your birthday!!!'.  I straight away yelled 'Lisa!!!!' as I guessed straight away that it was my friend Lisa who would've done something so cheeky.   Kobe and I walked to school and saw this huge sign out the front.  Kobe thought it was awesome and was so excited to read it to me.  I started to rip it down, and poor Kobe was devastated :)  The damage was already done and I had students and teachers all day saying 'happy birthday Mrs King!.  

The Prep/One class that I work in a lot, made me a special card and sang 'happy birthday' to me, and one of my colleagues organised a birthday cake.
A lovely teacher organised for my EAL (English as an Additional Language) students to sign a birthday card for me.   We have been talking about birthdays a lot over the last couple of weeks as they have never celebrated a birthday before.  I told them that in Australia your birthday is a special day and for one of their birthdays, we had some cake and I gave him a present..   It was lovely to have them come and say 'happy birthday' to me this morning when they got to school.

I said to one of my students today 'I'm 40 today! I'm soooooo old!'.  She looked at me with a funny look on her face and said '40!? You're not very old!'.  I told her that I loved her :)

I finished work at lunch time, and just as I was about to leave and she came up to me with her class teacher, with a big smile on her face.  She yelled out 'Mrs King!' and handed me this beautiful card that she had spent all morning making.  I love it so much, and told her it was my favourite card I got all day. We are wearing some pretty groovy clothes!  I love that she has her headdress on. 

I had lunch with my friend Simone and she gave me some lovely presents, including a very special video that she had made with the help of my cousin Levi. On the video were some of my beautiful and very special friends including Naomi (who helped fund raise for us when Aaron passed away) as well as friends in the USA who I haven't met yet, but feel very close to for different reasons.  My friends Becky and April were on there - both of them have beautiful boys who both had hydranencephaly like Noah, but they have both passed away.  Other friends who were on the video were all of my widow friends in the USA, who I dream of meeting in person sometime.    It was SO good to hear and see them all 'in person'.  Simone and I kept commenting about how stunning and beautiful they all are.  It's so hard to believe that they're all widows too and hard because I know what they're going through.  It was such a special, thoughtful present.  I have watched it many times tonight and love hearing them all talk.  I just hope we can all really meet in person someday. 

On the weekend I gave the boys some money and told them to go and buy me some little presents.  I don't care at all about presents, and I didn't even buy myself one this year, but I knew the boys would want to get me something.  I told Jay to not worry about what the boys wanted to get me, and to just let them choose something.  Harri asked for some suggestions so I told them that chocolates are always good or some nice warm slipper socks. 

This morning the boys came in with their presents and I got chocolates from Jay, slipper socks from Harri and Kobe came in with a 10 pack of soap behind his back.  I couldn't help but laugh, because it was exactly the same present he bought me for Mother's Day! He obviously thinks I smell or something ;) He asked me if I loved it, and I of course told him that I do and he was so happy all day saying 'you love the soap I gave you don't you Mum?'. 

Tonight Kobe said 'I wish it was your birthday every day Mum, because it's so relaxing'. I'm not sure what that meant, but it has been a very nice day.  I had to work till 5.30, so we got take away for tea and had a quiet night at home. 

I have been very spoilt with lots of lovely cards, messages, texts, calls, flowers and gifts from so many people.  Another special gift was a present from my friend Reeve. We were friends as teenagers, and when he went on his mission for our church I wrote to him at times, and in one letter I mentioned meeting Aaron and how he was a 'cool guy'.  Reeve cut out that part of the letter and put it in a frame with a pic of Aaron and I at our engagement party.  It was such a special gift - thank you Reeve. 

I've decided that being forty actually isn't that bad. I think it hit me more when I turned thirty.  I definitely don't feel forty, and they say it's all down hill from here, but I feel like I've definitely hit the bottom of the hill already, and am hopefully on the way up.

I wish so much that Aaron and Noah were here every day, but I'm sure they were so happy that this year was a lot easier for me, and I know they would be so grateful for beautiful friends and family who helped make my day very special.  Aaron is probably up there right now stirring me that I'm now officially older than he was.

12!

Today my baby turned 12!   When Jalen was a screaming newborn with reflux I never could imagine that he would one day be such an amazing young man with the funniest sense of humour.  You always know your babies are going to grow up, but can never actually imagine what their personality is going to be like, and with Jay we couldn't have asked for a kinder, funnier, cooler, and more helpful young man than he is today.

Jay loves that his birthday is always on the school holidays.  He is so devastated to know that next year is going to be the last year that his birthday is on the holidays though, because of the change in school terms in Tasmania in 2013.   We aren't into having big birthday parties for the boys every year.  Jay has only really had two bigger parties with his friends, and Harri has never had one so this year we told them both that they could have a combined party.  They both decided they wanted to have it at Treasure Island, so last week they both had some friends join them for a play and food.

Jay has the loveliest friends at school.  They are all so fun and also really polite.  We are so glad to know that next year he will have some good friends going to the same high school as him (high school!!! I can't believe my baby is going to be in high school!!!).

This morning Jay set his alarm to get up at 5.30am. He came into our room and I said 'don't you dare wake up Kobe - oh and happy birthday!'.  He laughed and then asked if he could go on the computer until everyone else woke up.  Finally at 6.30 am he got to open up his presents.

The best thing about having your birthday on school holidays is that it means you get to choose something fun to do for your birthday.  We were going to go to Crazy Golf like last year, but a few days ago we heard that Zone 3 had opened up in Launceston.  For years Jay had been saying how much he would love to do laser tag and had even asked us if we would take him to Hobart sometime, so he could try it.  As soon as Jay heard it was finally in Launceston and not far from home, he decided that we were definitely going there for his birthday instead.   We scheduled In Home Support with Di so we could leave Noah and also Kobe at home with her.

 The boys had fun playing a few arcade games before our game of laser tag. 

They were so excited and couldn't wait to get in and be briefed about what to do, and get the vests on to play.

 

Jay absolutely loved it, and so did the rest of us.  We paid for two games when we first arrived, but it was so much fun that we ended up paying for a third game after playing the first two.  It wasn't much more to play a third game which was good - it was only $8 a game, 2 games for $14 or 3 games for $17. The games are only short - they run for 15 minutes, but it's definitely worth the money and we will be going back for sure.  The boys are already begging us to take them back tomorrow, and asking if they can use their pocket money to go back and play again.  Harri still gets to choose something special to do because his birthday was on a school day, so we still get to go to Crazy Golf this week.  It's so nice having so many options in Launceston now of fun things to do with the boys, even if the weather isn't great.

During the week I asked him what kind of cake he wanted and he said he wanted 'Nan's sponge cake' as it's always his favourite.

Jay loves the show 'Glee' so one of his presents was Glee Karaoke for the Wii, which the boys had lots of fun playing during the day.  It didn't sound pretty! :)

Mum and Dad came to visit in the afternoon. Kobe was hanging out all day for them to arrive and kept saying 'Mama and Grandpa coming 'day!'.

The boys were begging us so much to let them use Jay's birthday money to go back to Zone 3 again tomorrow, that Grandma ended up taking them down again, to have a game with her! What a cool Grandma!

We then all went to the casino for tea.   The boys always get to choose what they have for tea on their birthdays, and without fail it's always Maccas but because Jay is 12 and it's an extra special birthday, we talked to him about how it would be fun to go somewhere special instead.  He kept saying a while ago that he wanted to go to the Prickly Cactus for tea, but the buffet desserts enticed him to go to the casino instead.

He cracks us up so much.  He has the funniest sense of humour and comes out with funny things all the time.  This was him at tea giving us a birthday speech- as you can hear and see we are all 'weirdos'! :) 

After tea we ventured out in the cold to take a few photos out near the fountains.  Kobe was more excited about the fountains than he was about tea!

We feel so blessed to have Jay as our eldest son.  I know he was sent to our family first because of his beautiful nature and caring personality. He makes us laugh every day, and cares so much for his little brothers.  He never complains with how much he has to help us, and always knows how to make us laugh.  He is the kind of kid that could never do enough to try to please you and therefore it's so easy being his Mum as you have no doubts that he is going to make good choices, and do the right thing, even when you aren't around.

We love you Jay and look forward to the next twelve years! We just hope they don't go as fast as the last twelve years did! :) 

Jalen's 8th Birthday

Today is the big day! Jay finally turned 8. He has been so excited about this birthday. Lately he has been sleeping in till about 7.30 or 8am but this morning at 6.20am he came straight into our room with a big grin on his face. He jumped into bed with us and I told him to wait fifteen minutes and we would wake up Harri.

Harri was dead to the world when I went in, but was very excited when I told him we were going to unwrap Jay's presents. Jay was a very good brother and let Harri help him open the presents. Sometimes it surprises me how patient he is with Harri.

For a couple of years now Jalen has been begging us for a Nintendo DS Lite. A few years back he got a Gameboy Advance for his birthday or Christmas. I have no idea what the difference is between the two, but supposedly there is a BIG difference (I'm definitely getting old!). Supposedly all of his friends have one and he kept trying to talk us into it by telling us you can still play the Gameboy games on the Nintendo DS. We decided that this year he could finally get one - I grabbed one on sale at the Target toy sale back in July, as well as a Pokemon game that he has been wanting for a long time too.

Jay was very good opening his presents - taking his time reading the cards that people had sent and when he opened a couple of other presents he acted grateful. I know that deep down he was dying to just rip everything open as he was hoping that he was getting the Nintendo DS. When he finally did open it, he just kept smiling and smiling. All day he has been saying 'thanks for my nintendo DS'. He is very grateful. For the first time Harri was allowed to touch his Gameboy which Harri was very excited about. Jalen has now passed it down to him and they have both been having fun playing with their new toys together.

Another present that he got is a toy radar gun - it is like the ones the police use to see how fast you are traveling. This morning Jay put on his police shirt that is in his dress up box. It was given to us years ago by Simon. He then stood out the front and pointed the radar gun at different cars to see how fast they were going. I'm not sure what they were thinking :)

For morning tea Aaron's Dad, Step Mum and Nan and Pop came around again.

After lunch we had the 'bike centre' booked for a party. We don't have big parties every year - but this year he was due to have a party with his friends. Jay had seven of his best friends from school come as well as some of their little brothers and sisters so Harri had some kids to play with too. The bike centre is a great area which is run by the City Council. You can hire it out for two hours and it has real working traffic lights as well as a little playground area and a BBQ and tables etc. We were lucky with the weather as it has been raining the last couple of days. Today was so nice though - on the way to the bike centre the guy on the radio said it was 19 degrees - a heat wave for Launceston :)

The theme on the party invitations was Pokemon. Jay and his friends are always talking about Pokemon and go on a website where they can battle each other and trade Pokemons. I have no clue about Pokemon either, but we made up the invitation with Pokemon pictures and Jay wanted a Pokemon themed cake as well as games to do with Pokemons. We decided to do a 'Piplup' cake - neither Aaron and I knew what he was, but we found a picture on the internet and copied it. Aaron cooked the cake and cut out the shape and then as he was leaving for basketball last night he told me to feel free to ice it. I have never done one of the boys cakes, so I thought I'd better give Aaron a break and ended up icing it. Jay was very happy with the result.

We took the radar gun to the party and all the kids had a great time seeing how fast they could run. Jay definitely was not the fastest - only going 14 km an hour. His friend Scotty won with 19 km hour. Noah and I had a go, but also only went 14 km an hour. Noah had a huge grin on his face, but probably has whip lash now as his head was bopping around the whole time I was pushing his chair!

The kids had a great time riding around, playing games and eating. Jay got some really cool presents.

Whenever it is one of our birthday we usually get to choose a takeaway meal for lunch or tea. This time I was lucky as I got to talk Jay out of McDonalds and into KFC :) It has been a huge day. I'm glad we don't do big parties every year - it is exhausting!