June 18, 2021

Mia Turns 3

June 18, 2021/ Sonia Nicolson

Dear Mia, our cheeky little monkey. Happy birthday, today you turned 3!!

We have a three year old!!

Wow, what a big girl and you are so excited about your birthday this year. “Happy Birthday to me…”. You love singing and dancing, and asking to see videos from your previous birthdays - watch happy birthday baby Mia. You absolutely love swimming and are very brave with your armbands on so this year we are going to Guðlaug Baths which is a natural pool on the coastline at Akranes.

Watch the video

ROADTRIP

Guðlaug is about a 40minute drive from Reykjavik so we set off to pick up your cousin Kjartan and Auntie Ella Franka before hitting the road. You were so excited sitting beside Kjartan, singing, and screeching. Mummy packed some snacks and the birthday cupcakes for the drive home to Reykjavik, where Pabbi took us all out for lunch.

OOTD

Today you wore your Mickey & Minnie Mouse dungarees and you rocked them!! You hate having your hair done, much to Mummies disappointment.

THE CAKE

This year’s cake was blue and on the theme of Frozen, one of your favorite films to watch. It was a chocolate cake with blue icing and white chocolate stars on top in the shape of a 3. You ate a huge slice of it and then took half the cake to Leigskoli to share with your teachers.

I also make some cupcakes for our road trip - Kjartan loved them!!

MIA’S PRESENTS

A lucky girl, you got lots of fun present for your birthday from magnetic blocks to unicorns, and a huge princess “ballaloon”. You also got the characters from Frozen, some bath toys from Freyja and books sent from your little pal Freddie.

Happy Birthday our cheeky little monkey Mia xx

Happy 2nd Birthday, Mia

June 29, 2020/ Sonia Nicolson

Dear Mia, you’ve turned 2, two, wow!! Happy birthday.

we have a 2-year-old!!

What a fabulous few weeks we’ve had leading up to your 2nd birthday. Those two years have flown by, Pabbi and I can hardly believe we have a two-year-old. You’re just wonderful and we cannot wait to see how this year grows, and the challenges and lessons it will bring with it.

Peppa Pig theme

Much like many toddlers, you love Peppa Pig and so, of course, this became the theme of the celebrations and I had to make you (not one but two) Peppa Pig cakes. This was so much fun and I love making you things that you can enjoy and keep looking back on. The 17th of June is the Icelandic National Day, a day where children get balloons and so your Auntie got us to take her to two stores to hunt down a Peppa Pig balloon for you.

sunshine

Born on the summer solstice (just like your older cousin, Nori), Iceland didn’t fail us with a beautifully sunny day on the 21st of June. We took full advantage of this and went on a road trip to Hrunalaug, a fabulous natural pool and Mummy vlogged the trip.

Watch the video

Road trip

We headed out for the day to Hrunalaug Natural pool, a hot spring on farmland just outside Flúðir. It’s an easy drive around an hour away from Reykjavik. The pool is a little hard to find if following google maps but drive through Flúðir, take the left turn off, keep driving onto the gravel road for 10mins or so and then you will see a small village with a very cute church. Pass by the village and take the farm road on the right, there is a small car park on the left after a few minutes - you will see the car where you pass to go to the pool. This donation helps with the upkeep of the site.

The change hut is basic but authentic. There is a bench and bin, don’t leave anything behind. This is where they used to bathe the sheep so it’s a basic structure and small pool but is fabulous. There’s a chest-deep pool at the end of the turn house and then a larger pool to the side, this is where they use to wash the sheep. The water is a lovely temperature - we got very lucky with the weather.

OOTD

Mia loves a good tutu so naturally, Mummy dressed her in a pink tutu for our road trip and then a light green tutu for her birthday party. She rocked both but look at her in her pink trainers, far too cute.

the Cake

The theme was Peppa Pig and so I got to work making a cake decoration. As fondant icing is hard to come by here in Iceland, I made Peppa out of clay and painted her, this way Mia can keep her and we could use her on both cakes. Yes, I made one for her birthday and then another the following week for her party.

the Decorations

We made it as easy as we could and reused decorations from previous celebrations. The hearts were from a friend’s Hen Party which I held in our home just before lockdown and the paper tassel string was leftover from our wedding. We got the 2 ballon in a local shop and that was the only new item we bought. We tried to be as green as we could and so we used our own plates and reusable straws and used up the paper cups we had.

mia’s Presents

A very lucky girl, Mia got some fabulous gifts and we are so grateful. Due to the fact that there is a pandemic going on, we live on a tiny island with few shopping options and well, it’s only sensible to socially distance from Malls right now - we went down the second-hand route for gifts and actually got some fab things via the local charity shop and Facebook pages. We gifted Mia a trike which she is jet to use. One of those Wheelybug ride-on-toy cows (second hand) which she wasn’t fussed about, toy cars (second hand) which she loves, and a chair for her little table (which I up-cycled both the table and chair to suit our living room and be used as a blackboard - she loves it.

I went to IKEA to get the popup tent and tunnel they have but due to the current situation, pretty much everything was sold out and new stock was somewhere in a shipping container so I turned to Facebook and got a nearly new one from someone downtown.

She also got a lot of great gifts from family and friends including some very thoughtful books, a cute rucsack, and some bubbles.

Happy 2nd Birthday, darling Mia (our little monkey mouse) xx

Mia's 1 Year Old!!

March 25, 2019/ Sonia Nicolson

Dear Mia,

Happy 1st Birthday!! Wow, my baby girl, you are one. A whole year of you and our lives have never been better. We love you so sooo much and you are with us in everything we do. We have traveled and adventured and shared some awesome memories. You came on our honeymoon and we loved it, a family trip which we didn’t want to end…and so we kept on traveling to Scotland and Crete to make sure we made the most of the big celebrations and adventures.

Crete

We celebrated your birthday with a holiday to Crete where we joined your cousin Nori, who has the same birthday as you. We flew out with Gran Roza and Eric and then met up with Nori, Ted, Uncle Rob, and Auntie Amy at their hotel for a fun day and a big buffet meal where you sat at the top of the table and happily cheers’d everyone. We had cake and cake, and sang and danced and swam and had lots and lots of fun in the sun.

Edinburgh, Scotland

We had a lovely little family party for you at Gran Roza’s house, where Mummy grew up. Your cousins, Aunts and Uncles and lots more came to celebrate your first birthday. We played in the garden, ate yummy food, and admired how you’ve grown and changed in that pictures of you over the last 12 months.

The Cake Smash

Well, seen as all the cool kids are doing it, we had to try a little cake smash but it seems you didn’t agree and weren’t all that into smashing up Mummies cake so we just sang happy birthday to you in English and then Iceland, and tucked into the yummy cake.