windy day

Crazy weather here lately, masses of rain and wind. There was a brief break from rain this afternoon and we made the most of it down at the park alongside the river.

exhausted

The kids arrived home from an overnight stay with their grandparents happily shattered. After attempts at playing with lego, colouring in and race tracks, exhaustion overcame them and they propped themselves on the couch under a blanket with a bowl of strawberries and cup of milk.

it's beginning to feel a lot like christmas...

Father Christmas arrived at the shopping centre this month so we took the kids for an early look. Sam has been very wary of the man in red since the beginning of time and this year proved no different. These photos basically sum up the kids' personalities - Emily is up close and personal while Sam holds back and warily checks things out.

wonderful #33

I was in Adelaide over the weekend and the jacaranda are blooming. I have decided I want to use the American term 'hometown' with all its connotations. While Adelaide is no longer home there is no other word I can think of that captures what it is.

Amber's mother has revealed an unknown skill - a cathedral quilt, handquilted and stunning.

wonderful #32 ....roadtrippin'

At the halfway point between Adelaide and Geelong, paddocks bursting with wheat under a perfect spring sky.

RSD (road side delivery) boxes in Northern New South Wales as Amber heads South towards Geelong.

this weekend I...

spent hours at Michael's work. An Open Day and a big event, usually it is all top secret and hidden. This was the first (and probably only) chance we have ever had to see where he works. Exciting stuff. The highlight for all of us was driving around the race track, zooming around on an angle we all squealed like children (actually the children and I squealed like children, Michael drove like the nonplussed pro that he is).

slept for three hours on Saturday afternoon. A friend enquired if I was sick? No, just lazy.

read the latest Isabel Dalhousie novel. Reading Alexander McCall Smith slows everything down in a very pleasing way.

shamelessly sat on the verandah while Michael weeded the front garden.

took the kids into town for their first glimpse of Father Christmas.

updated the blog (with intentions of returning to my more regular pattern of posting rather than the feast or famine rate I am engaged in currently).

Successful. No?

highlights

Currently starring in the back garden. Clematis, Leeks, Echinops, Cardoon.

sms beauty

From Kate this week, this photo with accompanying message -

Hey. It's peony time. Get to your florist!

turn off the telly and look what happens

Good Grief, is that my children, engaged in cooperative creative play?

Actually, a more significant 'good grief' moment is the close up of their bathroom that this photo provides - get paint, new light fixtures, new door - and quickly.

news just in

I have just returned from a night drive with Sam to look at the freshly hung Christmas stars in the main street of town. Sam and I drove spotting stars, tinsel, lights, flags and snowdrops. Suddenly apropos of nothing he announced...

"Rosie showed me her kickers at Kinder".

I wonder if there is a space in the baby book for this? First tooth, first haircut, first steps, first gratuitous flash of the knickers?

For the record - white, with rainbows.

2nd forty days of spring

Another 40 days and it just keeps growing. This week's heat has curled the edges somewhat but also brought out the yellow of the Achillea and turned the Stipa Gigantia seedheads golden. The Stipa is in fact now gigantic and is currently taller than me. The Drumstick Alliums are going to flower soon. The second, later flowering and darker bloomed variety of Papaver Orientale is flowering but on stumpy and sad stems, the papery flowers are buried down in the foliage - sigh. Nasturtium has burst from our compost and so far I have been loathe to weed it out, but I think it is time to remove it as it as the hot orange is just too much of a diversion.

and the winner is...

Every spring we plant radishes and then give them to Tim who is the only person in the family who eats them. This year we kept them growing and had a competition to see who could grow the biggest. This is Sam's winning entry. I imagine it would have the culinary appeal of a piece of balsa wood but it is very large.

etc.

I have finished my Christmas shopping.

The purpose of declaring this is not to gloat, I promise, just to set the scene. Margaret did some intensive babysitting for me - Thursday afternoon and then again on Friday morning. This gave me hours, literally hours, to spend roaming the shops. Michael and I decided that the Christmas offerings for the children would from this day hence be 1 toy, 1 book and 1 game. As well as the ethical, consumerist advantages it also made shopping incredibly quick and this meant I had time to spare. The best way to spend this was obviously on the hunt for Christmas presents for myself. Sure, they may never manifest themselves as clumsily wrapped parcels under our tree, but it was most definitely a lovely way to spend my child free time.

I found etc. by Sibylla Court. It is the most beautiful production, linen spine, velum inserts, muted tones, clever typeface, cardboard dust cover, and the treasures inside abound. Her aesthetic is lovely and while embracing it completely would lead to a more cluttered life than the OCD in me could abide, there are elements that just speak to me.

Lately I have been buying balls of tatting cotton (fancy string really) and pairs of old scissors. Lo and behold she devotes time to her 'bower bird' tendencies with just these items mentioned. Perhaps a kindred spirit? It ends at our styling aesthetic however as I really look nothing like her in my jeans and boots. Bah, perhaps she has been hungry for the last 15 years?

After the bookshop I went to another favourite shop, Lilypond, a Francophile's paradise, receiving containers from France every couple of months. But the discovery of antique silk bobbins and linen is another post altogether.

screen time

My kids spend a lot of time watching television. Way too much time. More time that I like. Definitely more time than I would admit to in a parenting survey. I have a fear that at the current rate of viewing Sam will start school in three months and then spent almost all his waking hours in front of a screen. So now it has come to an end. The new rule is two shows each per day per kid. The rule was instigated three weeks ago and so far it has been great, I expected pain but they adjusted pretty quickly. It has helped that the weather is great and they can spend time outside. They have been doing all the stuff they do most days, just a lot more of it - colouring in, puzzles, lego, hide'n'seek, painting.

But the mess. Good Lord - The Mess. Kids sitting passively on the couch watching television is very neat and contained. Kids playing and dragging stuff from toy boxes, games cupboards and the craft drawers is nothing but MESS.

Perhaps the upside of this is that next year Sam will request a Peter Pan or Treasure Island birthday party rather than Ben10. Television program themed birthdays were definitely not the stuff of dreams when he was in utero.

oh dear

I was correcting some student work today at school and came across two of the most amazing examples of incorrect spelling I have seen for a long time...

cyciadres & egnolge

ANY IDEAS??? psychiatrist & acknowledge

Frightening isn't it? Even more so when you consider they are from two different students.

new iPhone app

My new app makes my photos look like old grainy polaroids; and you can scribble on them. I love them. This shot is of Milly at a local bakery drinking her favourite treat - pink milk !!

wonderful #31

About a year ago he went through a stage of thumping her and there are still episodes of frustration at her lack of cooperation or understanding but mostly Sam is incredibly patient and kind to his sister. At his birthday party he went out of his way to make sure she was included, even when some of the more boisterous five year olds were oblivious.

halloween

This year we did Halloween for the first time. The day before, the kids and I baked and iced biscuits in the shape of ghosts and pumpkins. In keeping with a spring Halloween rather than autumn we carved our watermelon (which was a lot easier to carve than I imagine a pumpkin to be) then pigged out on the flesh until we were stuffed, covered in sticky watermelon juice and had to give the excess to the chickens (I imagine in the northern hemisphere they make pumpkin soup?).

On the day we took the kids to a Halloween themed 4th birthday party to get us in the mood (and gave them a sugar high that was almost our undoing). For the evening we set up our watermelon, a tray of biscuits in the hallway and waiting for the trick or treaters. We got some but the kids were long in bed by the time they arrived so Michael and I were left to dispense the treats.

cupcakes

Week one of the cupcake course was a success. Lots of sticky buttercream icing and changing of couplers and tips; learning the difference between a star and a flower; a number 3 and a number 18. The kids were pleased to devour the fruits of my labours on Thursday morning.

birthday party

Lots of fun was had by all. The highlight was freeing the alien from the frozen iceblock. A game which involved carrying small cups of warm water across the garden and trying to melt the huge block of ice which had a ben10 alien suspended in it. This took about twenty minutes and let us catch our breath. The Omnitrix cake was a hit as was the McDonald's food (erk - but at least better than having the party AT an actual Mcdonald's). Sam concluded that birthday parties were pretty good and was quite pleased to know it was only 363 days until he could have another one.