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!

 

Ginger Ninja in concert

I missed the Ginger Ninja's first flute recital today because Dh was away interstate, and poor Ginger Rose was too unwell with a cold to come along. I thought it was very brave of the Ginger Ninja to go along and play without his own fan club in front of 10 other families! And I'm very grateful to the parent who took some photos for me!

His teacher was very pleased with him, and I think he'll be much less stressed about playing in the Christmas concert.

Homeschooling has been great for his flute practice, so he was better prepared than he might have been previously. 

Disco queen

We arrived at Briar Rose's school disco a little early - it was still daylight, but that didn't seem to stop them having fun in the school chapel!

This is the second weekend in a row that dh has been away interstate and missing a school disco. And Ginger Rose has a nasty cold and high temperature, probably due to my partying her too hard last weekend - so I think I'll be a little less social this weekend.

Of course, we're already committed to an extra couple of boys sleeping over tomorrow night, so with half a dozen children in the house, I don't think I'll have a problem keeping my social life tame!

I think we'll BBQ. For any doubters, I proffer as evidence of global warming the latest school newsletter which allows children to wear summer uniform for the last two weeks of term. As opposed to the previous system of having a choice of summer or winter uniform for the first two weeks of the following term - so we're changing a whole four weeks early! 

The new sport

Even Briar Rose has decided to join in with the indoor rock climbing fad - and she's pretty good at it! Not to mention thrilled that while the rest of her group, the Rock Rats, have to wait to be belayed by one of the two instructors, she has a big brother on hand to give her extra climbs in between!
 

Grandad's visit

It's been a while since I took a photo of Grandad - he's here regularly, so I'm afraid we might sometimes take him for granted!

As you can see, he and Ginger Rose have a great relationship - even if it's a month between visits, she runs laughing with joy as soon as he arrives! 

A Monday afternoon

Ginger Rose and Briar Rose helped me with the grocery shopping, so we rewarded ourselves with afternoon tea at McDonalds. Yum!

While we were out shopping, the Ginger Ninja and Possum were enjoying themselves at the local rock climbing centre. We recently signed them both up as members of the rock squad - I think they're enjoying it.

Briar Rose was so impressed that she's joining the junior rock squad tomorrow. Thanks to all the basketball finals on the weekend, we have now have time for activities other than basketball training and matches! 

Girls' night out

Briar Rose and I enjoyed her first evening trip to the theatre for a spot of "Swan Lake on Ice". We were very rushed getting there, and my expectations sank when Briar Rose said "Katie fell asleep in the middle of Swan Lake, but she's a real earlybird".

It was a good but not great performance - we had third row seats to the side and were almost able to catch the chipped up ice, but the sound wasn't great - it was my first time at a "ballet" without live music, which I hadn't anticipated.

Anyway, at the end of the performance, Briar Rose's initial comment was "I don't know how Katie could've fallen asleep during that!". I was thrilled that she had enjoyed it so much - until she added "It was far too loud for sleeping in".

Fortunately, she later added that she was looking forward to telling Katie about all the good things she'd missed, so the evening wasn't a total non-event! 

Gratuitous toddler and baby photo

The title says it all :).

Our friends have six ragdoll kittens - that huge monster being strenuously cuddled there is only about 7 weeks old! And cute as a button. The toddler, too!

And perhaps I should just sneak in the comment that this week we brought the Ginger Ninja home from school. We'll be homeschooling him until he learns the skills to learn in a less supervised environment (so, perhaps when he's 21...).

We have had some encouraging words from dh's side of the family, but my family are rather discouraging. About what we expected from them!

There were three in the bed...

I love the way Possum is so good at reading to the girls! Ginger Rose is so keen to sleep in a big bed - and very keen to do anything that her big sister does! 

Market Day

Briar Rose became a butterfly when we visited the markets this morning. Local farmers have been struggling with the drought, so it was particularly cruel to have the markets closed because of raging winds and rain. 

New hens

Today my wonderful dh spent Fathers' Day building an extended yard for the hens. I'm thinking we'll be getting many more eggs in gratitude, because it's 100% better than the old run!

To celebrate, we bought a couple of Eiser Brown pullets, seen eating from Possum's hand. 

My baby's growing up!

Guess who turned two this month? Not really a Bubs anymore . And she can SingStar just like the rest of them!
My little gorgeous Grace :).

It's the first day of Spring, and the weather has been stunning. I went for a walk with some friends and got a little more exercise than I planned after walking down the wrong mountain path - then needing to walk back up again!

But after spending the morning with two newborns I'm definitely clucky again :).

Is this healthy?

At the ripe old age of seven, Briar Rose has attended her first ever makeover party at a local party venue. Just check out their "products catalogue" for some great tips on making your child look like a working girl.

Ugh.

But, of course, nothing could make Briar Rose anything but beautiful - not even an oversized pink suede cowboy hat *with* a tiara attached!

And such a brilliant idea - they hold their parties in their shop, so that when you come to collect your little princess she's ready to present you with her very own wishlist. Really.

And can you believe they ran out of kitten ears with only two children? If you're only going to offer four "looks", surely it's not too much to ask that you actually stock them all in reasonable quantities?

TV is the opiate of the masses

Otherwise known as the July 2006 photo ;).

This is what we look like on a Friday night in winter! Kind of cosy all snuggled up together - as well as the futon couch we're sitting on, the family room has a 3 seater, 2 seater and a rocking chair - so it's nice to know that we like sitting together.

Oh, that's right - the green couch has the best view of the idiot box! Note roomba peeking out from under the couch and a trace of brown dog on the floor in the foreground. 

June - Photo of the Month!

And what happened to the blog, you ask? Mothers' Day!!! My wonderful DH gave me a simply gorgeous tiny compact new digital camera with a simply enormous memory card! So far, so good - except that it took me three months to then work out how to transfer photos from my camera to my laptop!

So, here we are - My toddler with the Ginger Ninja at a hotel in Sydney. A matching pair.