October is a double birthday month in our house.
The month kicks off with Calum's birthday right at the beginning. This year he turned 15.
There was nothing that he really wanted for his birthday, but he has been after a bigger accordion for some time now as the one he had was only a small sized one, with very few buttons for the chords. I had been keeping an eye out on both eBay and Gumtree for months to see if I could get a good one at a reasonable price.
After months of looking, and being outbid every time, I found one the week before his birthday. It was located about 45 minutes away from here and was a collection only. Because it wasn't located in either of the big cities, and the fact that it was collection only meant that I wasn't up against too much competition for it and I was delighted to win the bid just a few days before Calum's birthday.
The accordion is in excellent condition and suits Calum just perfectly. He can be found most evenings playing away and trying to get to grips with all those extra buttons - he has gone from having around 12 to 80! I'll leave the most recent clip of him playing until the very end of the post.
His choice of birthday dinner was Haggis, Neeps and Tatties.
For his cake I wasn't sure what to do for the decoration as Calum had made no requests. I had made a rainbow cake and covered it in white icing but didn't know what to put on the top.
James (17) came through to help take over and was soon sketching this amazing Celtic pattern on the cake with a food colouring pen.
We both agreed that a Celtic pattern suited Calum perfectly.
Three weeks after Calum's birthday it is Fraser's turn.
Here he is on his last night as a 3 year old.
And here he is the following morning as a big 4 year old!
We were on holiday up in Lewis for his birthday, and he had been very excited about the prospect of spending his birthday at Granny and Shen's house.
He has recently been asking if he could go ten pin bowling, after playing it on the Wii with his brothers, and so we booked the two bowling lanes at the sports centre in Ness, at the north of the island, as his birthday treat.
He was so excited about it, and about getting to wear the funny bowling shoes.
The bowling there must have the nicest view of any bowling alley in the whole country. These are the views from the two windows.
Back to the birthday boy.
He took great delight in choosing which ball would be the best for him.
Fraser's bowling style was a little unorthodox, as you can see in this little clip, but it did the job and he ended up beating most of his brothers!
Granny was able to come bowling with us too.
Back at Granny and Shen's house there were more presents to open.
After that Fraser had invited one of his little friends to come around for a play and some birthday cake. She used to live down near us and attended the Gaelic toddler group we go to, but moved back up to Lewis in the summer. Fraser misses her at the Monday toddler group and so was delighted to have a little catch up with her.
Unlike Calum, Fraser had some very specific requests for his cake! He wanted it to be a figure of eight race track, with a tunnel in the middle, and with some of his Cars cars on the track and watching at the side.
He said the cake was exactly what he wanted, that he had had a great day, and asked if it could be his birthday more often!
Finally, here is that clip of Calum on his accordion. He still has never had a proper lesson on it. I've just been helping him with the keyboard side of it and we have worked out the chords as we go along!
