The view from the front door.

Every time I step out the front door the carpet of jacaranda blossoms covering the lawn takes my breath away.  The contrast between the purple of blossom and the emerald green of the grass is divine.  Reminds me of playing with my beloved box of 72 Derwent Pencils as a child, I used to love re-arranging the order of the pencils trying to decide which colours best complemented each other.

The little one is in flower heaven at the moment, the garden is in full bloom and he spends ages examing and gathering flowers.  Fla fla (flower) was one of his very first words and his favourites are the yellow ones.  Lellow being his favourite colour and all!

He is itching to get his grubby paws on some of these and keeps asking me to go "cut some flowers for the house please mumma" but I am loving the gardenias and their glorious fragrance so much that it is towards them that the secateurs are headed:

Lastly Julia... I can't find your email address (or your blog?) to send this to you but I have been wanting to show it to you for ages... just couldn't find my high school year book in the chaos of the renovation!  Very boring for everyone but Julia... anyway see arrow below!

Thought it might amuse you!

Photo Challenge - Day 15

"Silhouette"

The (Baby) Pirate who would be King... of his blankie!

Photo Challenge - Day 14

"Eyes"

This weekend I painted the front door gloss black.  It looks amazing!  I helped husband put the gyprock walls and ceiling into the new living/dining room.  It looks ok!  Once the plasterer has been I am sure it will look amazing too.  Back breaking work though and why I am running so far behind with the photo challenge!

I am also considering re-qualifying as a plumber.  They are obviously making way too much money.  Any pumbers out there?

Photo Challenge - Day 5

"From a high angle"

Who am I kidding... I look at everything from a high angle!  At 180cm tall I tower over many.  I snapped this photo only minutes ago when I went in to check on the little man.  Poor wee chap is sick at the moment so am a bit worried about him. He is tucked in with "big Richard" his lion, named after Richard the Lion Heart.  We also have a small Richard, but he is on an extended holiday down at the beach house at the moment. (I know, bad parenting moment # 792).  The Wind in the Willows sheets are vintage, they date back to a family holiday to the UK in 1980.  I adore them and are so pleased that my mother saved them for me.  Get well soon little man. 

Photo Challenge - Day 2

"What I wore"

Cardigan,  possibly my favourite item of clothing, frequently worn in the evening on the couch - Country Road

Peasant Blouse - Country Road

Singlet top, I love layering, (not that you can really see the singlet top in this photo, but for accuracy thought that it's presence should be noted)  - Petit Bateau

Scarf (our house is freezing!) - Country Road (can you tell I love their basics?)

Jeans - GAP

Shoes - very dusty Campers (have had this pair since university and they are still favourites!)

Accessory - the Captain's scooter (these scooters are so cool they deserve a blog post of their own one day!)

Location - the new living room (perfect for scootering in)

"What he wore"

Cargo's - Country Road (love their kid's clothes too....)

Vest - Baby Gap

T-Shirt - Hand me down

Model's own scooter!

The Joys of Boys, Part 2....

               A few snapshots highlighting some of the pleasures of life in a male dominated household...

Emptying the pool skimmer basket you find various random objects (I could actually devote a whole blog post to this subject):

Be prepared for the suprise gifts:

And you will be on a first name basis with the local hospital Emergency staff (That would be the remains of a black eye, a scab on his nose and you can just see the stitches in his chin... there are four of them!):

Ah, my rambunctious little rascals, I love you both so much! xx

The Apprentice

There is a new apprentice working on the decking around the pool...  I so love his choice of workwear.

Mr Mischief (aka baby Pirate)

When your children are born you imagine that one day with your loving and nurturing care they will grow up to be Noble Prize winning authors, eminent surgeons, you know pillars of society types! Then gradually your ambitions for them start to disentegrate and you realise that all that really matters is that they grow up to be happy and in this one's case... we are doing our best to prevent him from spending some time at Her Majesty's Pleasure.  Yes we have a two year old delinquent Chez Pirate. 

Vandal?  Check!  Indeed, this one has a future career as a graffiti artist.  Most significant crime?  He walked up the hall with a purple crayon and left a line running the length of the hall and the very large, rather expensive painting hanging in the hall?  Yes, went straight over the top of that too. 

Thief? Check!  Twice now we have found him harbouring stolen goods in his pram.  He lunges for anything in reach and then hides whatever takes his fancy.  We now have to search him and the pram before leaving any shops.

Identity theft?  Check! He raided my purse and ran off with the drivers licence.  Who knows what he was planning to use it for?  When we finally found it, he had somehow snapped it in half.  The mind boggles just thinking about it!

Here he is perfecting his break and enter techniques.  Note the collection of tools at his feet:

Hmmmm.

Have a nice day then!

Conversation with the little one at 7pm last night, moments before bedtime:

LO: I am going out.

Me: (grabbing camera off kitchen bench to fire off a few snaps quickly) Where are you going darling?

LO: (Smiling beatifically for camera) To work.

Me: Really?  Are you sure you should wear the bunny ears to work?

LO: Yes, dadda always wears bunny ears to work.

Me: (Laughing, all other photos now blurry)  Does he now?  I must have a word with your father about that then!

The Gruffalo

This morning I took the pirates to see the stage production of The Gruffalo.  The Captain, who can almost recite The Gruffalo in it's entirety, just loved it and the baby watched wide eyed and adored roaring when the "mouse" requested that the children in the audience roar!  To anyone who is unfamiliar with the books and has young children, I highly recommend all of Julia Donaldson's books but in particular The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child.  Written in rhyme, the story will appeal to most children and is so clever that I actually don't mind reading it over and over again!

It was far too quiet...

I was on the phone to my husband, discussing the necessity of my latest nursery order (as in garden nursery, yes it is a weakness.  Note to self:  think about making NYE resolution preventing future nursery purchases!)  Anyway, during the course of the phone call I suddenly noticed the absence of the little one.  Wandering through the house looking for him, I spotted this:

That would be a 2 kilo jar of sugar next to his feet.  I hastily said to my husband. "Um... I need to go.  Bye!"  I grabbed the camera, as I really regret not taking the photos of this child covered in permanent marker aged 3 months (didn't find it that funny at the time... unfortunately!).  Licking his lips:

Quickly shovelling in the last mouthful whilst Mummy snaps a few more photos:

Mwaaahhaaaahaaahaaaaaa!!!:

I recall saying some time ago that this child has a sweet tooth!

Addendum: all nursery purchases for CURRENT garden need to be completed by Christmas 2010

Pirates, and a pool update.

I have always been fascinated by pirates, ever since I can remember. As a kid we used to go camping on remote islands off the coast of Malaysia and I can still remember my parents and the friends we often travelled with discussing what to do if we were attacked by pirates. We would travel out to the islands on rickety old wooden fishing boats and all the kids would be crowded around the bow, scouring the horizon, desperately hoping to spot an approaching pirate ship. We really had no idea of the the true dangers associated with a pirate attack! Now as an adult and the mother of two pirate obsessed boys I wonder who the pirates employed to do their PR and marketing? What is it about plunder, pillage and rape that is so glamourous? Is it simply the idea of the individual living outside of society's constraints? Seeking their fortune and sailing the seven seas? Hmmm, it does sound glamourous when you omit the villainous aspects!

Number 1 pirate attended a pirate party on the weekend and also celebrated International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sept 19th if you fancy celebrating next year) at pre-school. He LOVED it! His birthday is approaching and he has asked to have a pirate party, of course!





Meanwhile, the swimming pool renovation continued. As the Captain was off at pre-school, the little one sat by the pool mesmerised:



Or if the tile cutting machine got too noisy, he relocated to the chatterbean:

The coping is now finished:

Tiling has begun:

Hopefully photos of us swimming in it to follow soon!

This child...

Every night before I go to sleep I go and check on my sleeping babies. The slightly damp curls and the soft peacefulness of their faces and breathing normally generates surges of love that overwhelm. Often I even feel guilty for whatever punishments have been actioned during the course of the day. Last night at the bedtime check I found him like this:

Yes. Completely. Naked. Apart from his muslin blankie that he had somehow managed to artfully drape in order to preserve dignity. Oh he looks like an angel, but the mischief of this child!

Lamingtons and the Garbage Truck

This morning we made Lamingtons. It was a first for all of us. I have a very clear memory of watching a lamington drive as a little girl. I watched mesmerised as a group of familiar mums worked at unfamiliar speed in a factory line baking what seemed to be enough lamingtons to feed the population of a country town or in this case a school fete.


There is a reason why people do it in drives... it is quite a messy and fiddly exercise. However, for two tactile little boys... they loved it.

CWA standard they definitely were not! Nevertheless, we had fun and I even had 5 minutes peace and quiet to enjoy mine with a coffee whilst they were busy eating theirs!

Sadly said peace and quiet was suprisingly short lived. Today is garbage day and, as is a long standing tradition, the boys kept an ear out for the noise of the truck winding it's way up our street. As soon as they can hear it they both race out of the house, screeching like banshees "garbage truck, garbage truck" and then stand at the top of our driveway in relatively quiet anticipation. Normally, the driver waves at them and he and I exchange a "boys will be boys with their obsessions with large machines" glance and then he continues on his way around the neighbourhood. Today was different though... maybe he smelt the lamingtons baking? He stopped and asked if the boys wanted to have a sit in the cab?

They loved it... he let them press the buttons, move the seats up and down, and the highlight of the experience was a demonstration of the bin collecting arm grabbing our recycling bin off the nature strip and "emptying" it several times!

That driver made their day with this small act of kindness!

Ping Karrots and Bumbaids...

My little one just turned 2... and I am heartbroken! The baby years are over... he is thinning out everywhere and I miss those rubberband wrists and baby legs. He is playing actively with his brother rather than just following him around (this is good I know). Most of all I miss his baby language. He used to mispronounce so many words in the most adorable ways, my favourites would have to be bumbaids (bandaids) and Ping Karrots (King Parrots). Happy Birthday my gentle little one!

His birthday present? A teepee with the most divine cowboy print!

The school holidays so far...

We have had a fairly quiet holiday. R (husband/dad) has started up his own business so we don't anticipate travelling anywhere anytime soon. Instead we have had lots of play dates and pottered about at home.

The pond yachts in these photos are family heirlooms! We were in London in the early 1980s on a family holiday and my father bought them for me and my brother at the most extraordinary and amazing toy shop...Hamleys! It was basically a toy department store, I think there were 7 different floors of toys. I can't remember what else we bought but these little pond yachts have lasted well and are now close to 30 years old! The boys have been playing with them in our almost empty pool (it is about to be resurfaced) every day.

The Captain is growing up so quickly. We have completed his school enrolment for next year. It hardly seems to be possible that he could be heading off to big school in six months time! We have chosen a very small (120 students in K - 6), slightly alternative private school that I am confident is perfect for him. They teach meditation (perfect for his somewhat volatile temper!) and provide a hot lunch (hooray no school lunches to pack and ideal for his endless appetite!) and teach classical languages and literature! The whole school even performs in an annual Shakespeare festival, including the lower first , as they call kinder! So looking forward to that!

To assist with entertaining the boys these holidays, R built the boys a fabulous sand pit. In the centre of which is a lovely old wooden row boat that was destined for the tip. It now has a new life as a pirate ship, police boat, naval aircraft carrier, submarine and even occasionally fills in for the Manly ferry! We have all sorts of sand pit toys and endless trucks but the Captain's favourite sand pit toy? Some old wood off cuts that we made into a wooden version of the northern beaches!

Ah yes, Manly Hospital... been there a few times with my rascally boys!