Floriade

We went to the last day of Floriade 2006 yesterday only to discover that after a two day heatwave had faded the flowers, the brightest objects in the park were very expensive rides that simply weren't in our limited cash budget much to the childrens' disappointment.

But we did find a great Kids Carnivale tent which let the girls make their own masks, while the boys learnt circus skills in another tent. 

Back to school lunch

Term four began today and so begins the morning lunch box ritual. Today, Briar Rose has taken an organic fruit spread sandwich on home-made whole-wheat bread, rice crackers interspersed with cheese, a raspberry and apple Fruit Smash (a special treat with fruit puree and no added anything) and an apple juice.

Last term, she took a home-made yogurt each day, but has suddenly decided that she hates home-made yogurt and only likes yogurt in a nasty disposable commercial containers. Hence no yogurt in today's lunch box. 

Book binge

Dh flew interstate from Thursday lunch til 11pm Sunday night, leaving me with four children, their assorted playmates and a rather unpleasant cold and headache. So I ended up reading...

• 3 novels from Marion Zimmer Bradley's Darkover series
• 2 novels from Kate Forsyth's Witches of Eileanan series
• Dick Francis' Under Orders and
• Mungo Macallum's autobiography.

I've ended up with a slight hangover due to the late nights required to get through that volume of junk reading while taking children out to various end-of-school-holidays activities, but it was worth it :).

Cluck cluck

What lovely hens we have! They have been laying beautifully - there would've been a full half-dozen eggs in the nest if I'd waited another few minutes.

The weather is truly scary - hot and blowing a gale, real bush fire weather and it's only the second month of spring. Summer is going to be terrifying.

I have some new straw to mulch the vegetable garden with, but it's too hot to be out there now! 

A visit from Grandma

Somehow I forgot my camera when it counted so don't have a good visual record of this visit - but here is Grandma inspecting Briar Rose's end of term school portfolio.

It was a good visit - though poor Grandma's tongue must've been bleeding by the time she left! She did a very good job covering up her horror at our lax parenting practices, and was very gentle with us!

She also spoilt us rotten, with dinner out at a Thai restaurant (actually not that relaxing with a 2yo but worth a try) and a girls' trip to the theatre to see Peter Rabbit. 

Spring is in the air

Despite horrible colds, coughs and conjunctivitis running through the family dh simply couldn't resist the lures of the DIY steam cleaner - doesn't it look beautiful? And how many minutes did it take for the toddler to sneak food into the food-free room?

Of course cleaning the carpets also involves some serious furniture moving. The children were thrilled with this exciting use of their holiday time :). 

Baby loves her 'cino

Hmmm - see what happens when Ginger Rose spots her share of the morning coffee! Probably not the healthiest habit to instill in a 2yo! But isn't she cute?

 

Possum's in his prime

Possum celebrated his 11th birthday with an extra six children sleeping over last night. Rather pleasingly, they did all sleep. Last one was asleep by 10.30pm, with the first one (Ginger Rose) awake at 5.45am. We still had 50% of chidlren asleep at 7am, which I thought was a good sign for ten children sleeping together!

We took them indoor rock climbing for a couple of hours, before settling them down in front of a good movie (Howl's Moving Castle ) which we projected onto the dining room wall.

Possum seems to be enjoying his party, and with time to blog with one hour and forty minutes of party still to go, so am I! 

Postcard from the trenches

It's been one of those weeks - or two! We were all home sick last Monday for the first time ever! Of course, the Ginger Ninja, not having to go to school, wasn't at all unwell, and Possum could've gone to school except that he thought he might be missing out on something!
Poor Ginger Rose, apart from being badly in need of a haircut, fell and bruised her face. After a week, she still has a chesty cough and has now passed conjunctivitis on to DH and I.

I have also included a gratuitous nappies on the line shot - just to demonstrate the glorious spring drying weather :).

Oh, and the oil burns on my arm - I have six rather nasty looking marks from splashing oil on myself! It was a very good reminder to me - I often cook dinner with a toddler on my hip, but have now realised that I need to be more scrupulous with my kitchen safety.
A friend offered me some cream to prevent the burns from scarring, but I am pleased to say that I have now reached that stage in my life where scarring concerns didn't even enter my mind! The burns have been surprisingly painless so have been rather good value from a shock perspective!