The red bed...

We had the Captain's old iron bed powder coated red and I can't begin to tell you how thrilled I am with the end result.  I wanted the bed to be a little pop of colour in amongst everything else and it most definitely is!

The powder coat guy thought that I was crazy choosing red.  He questioned my husband when he dropped the bed off and even rang me to confirm that I was going to spend "good money powder coating a bed lipstick red."  Oh yes I happily reassured him, although I do prefer fire engine red as a description for it!

Now I just need to hang some art on the walls... what to do, what to do...

I seriously can't stop grinning at how good that bed looks and I have now got my beady little eyes fixed on the bed in the spare room!

The Captain's Bush Detectives Party

So.. this was a little while ago, but for the sake of posterity I thought I should document the event with a few photos:

Yes... they came across three of them during the course of the party and yes... it is a Red Belly Black Snake.

Happy Sixth Birthday Captain!  At six years old you are a passionate Lego engineer and can spend hours either creating a masterpiece of your own design or following the instructions to build the model.   Playmobil, Superstructs, the vintage Thunderbirds toys, craft and reading are your other biggest passions.  Your favourite books are The Secret Seven series, The Magic Tree House, The Famous Five and more recently the Just So Stories.  It started off with me reading to you and now we are taking turns at reading pages to each other. 

You love school and regularly tell me that you are friends with everyone in your class.  You often play goodies and baddies and divide yourselves into Teams which you refer to as the BB Team and the Fairy House Team.  You leave the house for school looking pristine and come home filthy.  At school this year you have learnt how to play chess, the basics of fencing, about respect, to recite verses of Shakespeare, about friendship, the Pause and you earnt so many Merit cards that I could probably wallpaper a wall in your room with them!  Your buddy Ethan from the sixth class helped you settle in and was a great role model for you.  You will miss him next year when he goes off to high school.   

At home when you are not busy destroying our backyard with your brother creating dams and construction sites, you love to swim in the pool, swing on the swing out the front (you both LOVE that swing), have your dad (not so much me) throw a cricket ball for you to bat and throw paper planes off the deck.  You keep pestering me to get you some more tadpoles.  You are onto your third Venus Fly Trap plant, you solemnly promised not to feed this one any insects and so far so good.  I think it is about 4-5 months old now!

Your favourite food is pizza made by your Dad.  Your favourite DVDs are The Thunderbird Movie, The Adventures of Clutch Powers, the Lego Megafactories Documentary, Tom and Jerry and Miniscule.  I am pleased to say that you really have no idea about computers and certainly have no clue what a DS or Wii are.  Please let it stay that way for as long as possible my darling! 

You told me once that you are my precious and it is quite right, you truly are my precious boy.

Photo Challenge - Day 6

"From a low angle"

We stopped off at the playground on our way home.  He started  off dressed like this.  By the time he got to the top he had discarded his blazer and cap... Did anyone else read Richmal Crompton's brilliant William books? 

Clearly, the Captain's school uniform assists with the resemblance, but their personalities are uncannily similar as well.  I need to start doing yoga or something.

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 Captain starts School

Last Friday my darling Captain started school.  We spent a great deal of time preparing him for this new adventure.  For instance,  I let him accompany me on many outings dressed like this: 

Yes, that would be an old silk tie from the mid 1970s that belonged to his grandfather, his new school shoes and a hat from his old pre-school.  I know, he looks so handsome! 

The school was very specific about hair.  Short back and sides apparently.  This was harder for me than him.

We read an awful lot of these and that is exactly what they were, awful.  Can anyone recommend a good book about starting school?  Luckily, the school had made a fabulous book that included photos of his teacher, photos of the school itself and many details about the school's daily routine.  We read it many times in preparation for this momentous event.

So proud to be wearing his new uniform!

Not a tear either.  From him or me!

My darling boy, I am so proud of you and wish you all the best on this new and great adventure.

Happy Halloween and out first Jack-o'-Lantern

This weekend was rather frantic,  on Saturday I drove down to Canberra to attend my 20 year school reunion (yes, I am that old!).  On the way down, just as we were passing through the Southern Highlands there was a serious car accident right in front of me.  Literally, the car in front of me lost control and ended up swerving across both lanes twice and crashing into the median barrier.  Fortunately, the driver was uninjured and I was able to stop in time and thankfully the car behind me also managed to stop in time.  I was driving with my oldest and dearest friend who is pregnant with her first baby and also my not so little baby and I am so grateful that we are all okay!  Anyway, the school reunion was fabulous and it was a lovely opportunity to catch up with friends that now live overseas or that I had lost contact with. 

After a wonderful night out, including dinner at Ottoman!  I then got up early on Sunday morning to drive home as I had promised the Captain that I would be home in time to help him celebrate Halloween.  Halloween, although not typically an Australian celebration, is taken very seriously in my neighbourhood.  A letter was deposited into our letterbox, instructing as that Halloween was appproaching and that if we were interested in participating to please tie the attached balloon to the letter box.  The Captain was entranced!  During the week we had purchased a pumpkin with the anticipation of making a Jack-o'-Lantern,  never having made one before I was not sure how difficult it would be.  Luckily, it was quite straightforward!

We started by carving a hole, to make the lid, in the top of the pumpkin.  Once the "lid" was able to be lifted out we scooped out all the seeds and excess pulp.

We then used a pencil to draw a face onto the lantern and I then used a small paring knife to carve along the lines we had drawn.

A candle popped inside and it looked fantastic!  The Captain was delighted with our efforts.

Sitting out on the front porch.

The Captain  Bat waiting anxiously for Trick or Treaters.

Happy Halloween!

Happy Birthday Captain - The Pirate Party

I woke on Saturday morning to the Captain standing next to the bed, fully dressed in his pirate outfit.  It was 6.03 am and the first thing he said was, "how long until everyone gets here?"  Blinking in the light shining in through the shutters he had opened, I was so thrilled to see it was a beautiful day. 

A sign outside the house welcoming our guests!

Eye-patches, bandannas, cutlasses and hats ready to hand out to the little pirates.

Warning sign on the pool fence.  As the decking is still unfinished we wanted to avoid anyone going into this part of the garden for safety reasons.

Baby Pirate.

The ship cake.

Cup-cakes.

The "thank you for coming" favours.  We wrapped little chocolate bars in gold paper as "ingots" and the skull shaped cookie cutter I found on the Thurs at Aldi of all places, after trying all the more obvious baking suppliers unsuccessfully!

Finally, some pirates arrived and so did Pirate Peacock.  From the moment these little pirates spotted Pirate Peacock sauntering down our street, lugging his pirate chest full of treasure, they were mesmerised.  Apparently he had docked his ship nearby and was looking for some buccaneers. 

Pass theTreasure Chest.

Tug-O-War (the little pirates LOVED this activity!)

Even this super-cute Pirate Princess had to walk the plank for being rude to the Queen.  (Pirate Peacock was also very funny!)

The Treasure Hunt

Where is that treasure?  The X is on the ship wrecked dinghy!

Finally they found it and had to whack it open with their cutlasses to get to the Pieces of Eight!

The Captain and his cake.

Thank you for coming to my party! 

For those that have asked about Pirate Peacock contact:

 http://www.fairycrystal.com.au/

He was absolutely fantastic!  Brilliant at keeping in character and entertaining the children, I could not recommend him more highly!

Pirate Party - Preparations Continue.

Preparations for the Pirate Party this weekend are well and truly underway now.   So far we have made the treasure map,  as you can see the Captain got into the spirit of things:

The clues for the treasure map are stored inside these little pouches I found at a $2 shop.  The sword is the final clue and is the weapon to "open" the Treasure Chest pinata:

Filling the pinata full of "pieces of eight" (chocolate coins):

Making the pinata shell, hopefully when it is finished it will loosely resemble a Treasure Chest:

I am making 21 of these newspaper swords, see Alphamom for the tutorial: 

The Captain's hearty approval:

Lastly I chopped up the sun-shade umbrella to begin converting the outdoor table into a pirate ship.  Do you think my husband will be cross?  As he has been in Melbourne, gallivanting about and wining and dining with friends and I have been at home, alone with two children.  Left to deal with amongst other day to day things, a rogue snake (eeek!) and a broken dishwasher (gah!), he had better not say anything:

More on the rogue snake and other recent domestic issues tomorrow!