A graduate of the one day a week kind

What an achievement for Maya - graduating from pre-school. It must have been arduous, that one day a week, which I know she slept most of the day anyway :) Either way, we're very proud of her sprightly manner, her (over) confidence, her zealousness for life and her amazing and wonderful imagination.

Her little graduate friends...

Only two months until it all starts five days a week for real May!

Cicada and lizard season

Last year Mason's cicada shell collection grew to epic proportions.

This year his living cicada collection keeps growing too - black ones and green ones and orange ones all with red eyes blazing.

The Christmas beetle collection grows too - mostly found dead and then stuck on cardboard and made into Christmas beetle watches. Or put in dioramas in little beds with swimming pools. How nice.

Then there are lizards and skink things like this one who got out of control in Mason's hands and went a running on Maya's head and scratched her face and caused traumatised breathing for half an hour. I had to bite my lip, it looked so funny.

Later when he had been forgiven, foxy gave him a little pat before saying goodbye.

I'm afraid there's no end to the bug and reptile craze which started about three years ago and now, with two new girl recruits, every tupperware container is filled - with bugs and tadpoles and bees and centipedes and ant farms and crickets. It's going to be a long Summer...

When Paulus turned four

it unpredictably reached forty by lunch-time.

And the pool looked more inviting than ever...

Delicious spidery food for a

spiderman loving boy.

It's been a long time

I could blame the blog-neglection on a few things.

Like hot days and afternoons

watering and re-watering the garden,

tomato picking,

beans planting

with varicose veins throbbing.

Like filling and refilling the pool,

reading and re-reading the same books on the couch

crazy-loud visiting teaching outings

prepping for Christmas activities and events

practising and re-practising the piano

dragging the hose through the house for the gardenias.

Like talking on the phone,

finding another tenant for the flat,

putting out all five bins on the right night

mowing the lawn,

keeping the bedrooms in order

teaching Maya to read

and Mason to spell Indigo.

Like thinking of a cool anniversary suprise for Win,

thinking about Dad and his neck,

prepping at least five healthy meals a week,

and fetching Maya from Fil's only five times on any given day.

That's why the blog is so good for me.

Makes me think of the want tos and the happy tos and not the have tos, and sometimes I find the have tos turn into the happy tos.

Like the chair we found and spray painted cherry red. For Christmas. I was happy to do it and happy to be scanning the roadside for another to match. (If only we could have a downpour and give me a week off the watering ritual!).

Luigi

Cade was so SURE the he had made some kind of progress on his Movember Mo that he got Win to mascara each little blonde hair (and then went to church like that!). He had to be careful not to scratch or blow his nose or there would be smudging.

Mum just left after coming to check on Cade and his knee (secretly this was the real reason, we all know the baby is the favourite!). On Saturday night we went to the Ten Virgins musical and dinner - it was really well done and the songs were beautiful (and the womens' voices). I loved it - all of the women were good women trying to live right but some were just better and were focused on the more important things.

Mum couldn't resist the tramp-o-splash, the daily afternoon entertainment in the backyard. You just need a full pool and someone heavy to jump really high for some wet and wild fun! No wonder the grass under the trampoline grows so well.

So true

I've just been reading Lisa's wise words on this week's topic on Creating a Childhood - that children feel our feelings from the womb and forever. It's something that's always on my mind during pregnancy, when it's time to strip away the non-essentials, get the 'have to be done' things done as quickly and painlessly as possible and leave lots of room for calm activities like watching and listening and teaching (with legs up against the wall in my case!).

I'm in to win!

Because it's the AQM this weekend, Toni is having a pattern and clothes giveaway with lots of prizes. Here I am modelling my flirty skirt so you can see how cool her stuff is...

Yesterday I picked up some of Amy Butler's new LOVE fabric for another wrap skirt (great for pregnancy and summer!). I chose the top left corner fabric for the main skirt and the reddy pink dots for the trim.

Le bump

I am wearing le bleu to give a slight clue...

That the ranks are soon to be evened out. And we're all very happy about that (especially Mason!)

(Let me see, let me see. She has to look at every photo we take of her)

Lunch (half as good as Kirt's is good enough)

Ten years ago when I lived in the land of the Little Mermaid, Lego and giant white windmills, I ate rugbrod (how do I put the cross through the o?? Mari?) for lunch. Lunch everyday. At school with herring and nutella, not together. Big family feasts on the farm on the weekends with open sandwiches and different fillings like beetroot salad and seafood and everything fresh. Lots of talking and me listening (and saying a few things). That's where I learnt about listening.

There is nothing like Kirt's rugbrod (a really stodgy almost black rye bread with lots of seeds) here. There's a bakery at Wahroonga that comes kind of close, but the closest so far comes from a box - from Ikea, where you just add water, shake, and pour and bake yourself two loaves. No kneading, mixing, or rising.

And with tomato and salt for lunch, I am almost on the farm in winter with my big family of foster kids and two amazing parents. A man big hearted and a wiry woman, always tired with the hard work of raising troubled children, five of them. And then they added me, they showed such love for a girl they hardly knew.

This is Kirt's comfort food, in the true sense of the word.

home day spa

Earth is one of the five elements (pancha mahabhutas) found in our body. The earth gives vital energy to the body, new life, new health, vigor and strength. So, mud plays a prominent role in curing diseases. Hence, mud packs and baths came into practice. The mud bath is also called clay bath.

The most proven reason to take a mud bath is that it's relaxing. Being cocooned and buoyed up in the warm, soft mixture simply sucks the stress out. The temperature makes you perspire, which cleans the pores. Health benefits are not proven, but a mud bath is claimed to improve the complexion, relieve joint and muscle pain and remove toxins.

Dressing up 2009

Mason and Maya started decorating their room for Halloween about two months ago with pictures and things cut out from the computer. They knew exactly what they wanted to be for this year's Trunk or Treat.

1. A unicorn (costume finally found at Darling Harbour when we got friendly with a toy shop owner while on a date - when we're not with our kids we still hang out at toy shops!)

2. A Pirate. This one has been through the wars - Mason wore it to school for mufti day and came home with only half a costume (he was the only one is a costume!), the more it looks like rags, the more I think he looks like a real pirate.

3. A fairy. Second choice because a frog was too hard to find, sorry little girl!

I just wanted to do my hair for fun - something I saw on this blog. Fil did a great job wiring it all together!

It was a really hot afternoon - next year I'm giving out water bombs! Our Primary did some games to start and everyone had great treats to collect

Halloween cakess...

I'm sure the kids were thrilled to get a scray pet rock from Cade! He told one little boy that he made them by squeezing the rock so hard an eye popped out. Hope no one tried to eat them!

The boy from the bush is back in town (again)

And this time for a whole two months! So far we've put him through a grueling work schedule including fifteen hour flower delivery days. He's a pro at driving around Sydney, parks on the footpath in the city and has developed a great road rage repertoire. We're expecting him to lose his last remaining demerit point in the next month! And right now he's slathered in coconut oil sunbaking on the trampoline.

Life couldn't be better for Clive the Courier.

Dad's big suprise

We've been looking at getting a Springfree for about a year, and I had it all planned for Christmas, but someone else in the partnership couldn't wait another eight weeks! When we walked in the door after coming home from Adelaide, there was something big in the backyard and Maya started her excited squealing. Since then, I've been woken to screams of fun on the trampoline (so glad we don't have neighbours!) and called the kids in when it's pitch-black for bed. Win and Chris are devoted, although they make the kids double bounce way too high.

While I was at a Relief Society meeting last week, Win and Cade put a huge black sheet over the frame and did a photoshoot. They cracked up when they looked at the photos on the computer later on and saw Mason, who got a bit too excited jumping around and forgot to go to the toilet!

The easiest fudge out

What do I do when I need a recipe? An easy one? I call Toni.

"Do you have a really easy fudge recipe? Will it work 100% of the time?"

She said Yes and Yes.

This is the recipe:

375gm choc melts (white, dark or milk - I did dark)

1 can condensed milk

1/2 cup peanut butter

Just melt and mix over slow heat. It gets really sticky and that's when you pour it into a pre-prepared tin. Don't let it boil or anything like that.

If I can find some cheapish metal cookie cutters we'll be making in these in the month of December for people we love and like...

(Cookie Cutter Fudge care of One More Moore)

How can we say thank you??

With red letters of course...

Thank you!

We love you!

Sun yoga

well, at least I think that's what she's doing...

but I do so like a granny silhouette.

botanical gardens swimming

How could you see a stoney creek on a hot, hot day and resist a swim?

For a refreshing swim on a hot, hot day take a fun bus ride (back seat please!) to the botanical gardens.

Watch out for gardening implements hidden in the creek-bed (lucky he felt it with his feet before it pronged him!)

Make sure your great-grandparents are in on such deviant behaviour...

Then gather your wet clothes and wear whatever you fancy on the way home

...stopping to pose in front of the university of course.

Grandad's Garden

Deep in Grandad's garden, where fruit trees mix with petunias and lettuce and broccoli, there are six busy-bustling chooks. I really love it when the kids are making mischief in the garden from dusk to dawn, and in Adelaide outside held lots of promise, even in the rain with a wheelbarrow full of brickies clay, pots and a clothesline with ropes to hold and run. Letting the chooks out for a rummage at dusk had Michaela captivated.

And the other two chook lovers too.

I love Grandad, you're crazy and fun and wonderful.

And your chooks lay yummy eggs.

It is so hot outside

and I need to have a quick break from the sweaty job of oiling the deck (won't Win be pleased!). Took me half an hour to open the stupid can before I had the ever so clever idea of putting a hammer right through the top.

I've just found a very cooling image. Isn't this picture beautiful? Don't you just want to be there today?

Photo care of Sue Southam

Needed: Experienced Florist

Experience in shop display and stock rotation essential.

Must be impeccably groomed and wear appropriate footwear.

Must have a keen desire to work independently and be a self-motivated learner.

If you have a flair for flower-arranging and a passion for creating beauty, this position is for you.

You bless me

On Sunday night I sat in a freshly-cut field on the lower ranges of the Adelaide hills.

The sun sat sensibly and brightly, then slipped down behind the ocean in a blink.

I think of the blessings of generational families... that my children can know my grandparents like I do. I am so happy that they know the taste of slightly salty ever delicious porridge for breakfast like I did at their age. I remember the time at Ambleside I followed Grandad around the chook pen and now I am so happy that Michaela can do the same, her delight in following his footsteps. I think of the impressions which became the pathways of my mind imprinted by an ever-encouraging Granny and marvel when she tells Maya with honest love, "Maya, do you know how amazing you are?". Do you know the depth of safety I feel in you both, faith-filled and sure? You strengthen me with your beautiful legacy.

I am me because of you. Whole and complete and wonderful right then, right now.

You made me believe it.

flying dreads friday

(I wanna write her name in the sky)

he loves me

I can really tell, all because he came home with this.

My thrice-weekly sharpening ritual has just become much more efficient. I feel like a school teacher with my hand winding away. Did you know it stops when a pencil is super-sharp and never get blocks with led? Wonder. See, he really loves me.

Our little (home) school is just burgeoning with wonderful art and books. I love these hand-stapled books with cursive scribble writing! About foxes and birthday parties and crocodiles, just jumping up and down with excitement to show off the newest picture book in the collection, always signed. The way the pastels are gnawed to nothing, the masking tape sticking Halloween and Christmas pictures all over (they start early), the garden rocks painted with metallic symbols (I quite fancy that they look like hiragana).

this one's a mixed bag

sometimes she's sugar and spice and all things nice and tells us she loves us over one hundred times a day... most moments I am entranced by her and believe she is an angel.

But today she resolutely would NOT sit in a high chair at the Japanese restaurant, kicked when I changed her nappy (time to get rid of those), and ran so far away from me in the supermarket check-out I had no idea where to look first (she was in the space rocket well AWAY from the supermarket). Some nights I am so glad she's gone to sleep :)

Lucky and Cloudy's Unlucky Afternoon

Once upon a time there was a big red dog called Kerry who looked like this:

One Saturday afternoon it was raining heavily and Kerry's old man owner on Low Street accidentally left the back gate unlatched. Kerry was positively bounding with energy, and pushed the gate and went for a run. He ran around the school, that was fun, then went sniffing over near the fence. He sniffed something exciting and followed the fence around and around until he found himself in the next-door backyard and there was no one home. Kerry was positively salivating with delight at a smell, he didn't really know what it was, but it made squeaking sounds and he bounded up and down, up and down just to get a glimpse.

This is the point at which Kerry's carnal instincts took over and her made a VERY BAD doggy decision. Kerry decided to break and enter into Cloudy and Lucky's cage. He bit and pawed and dug until he finally undid the door and opened it. As with many decisions in life, once you make a bad one, it's so easy to stay on that fateful path and continue making bad decisions. That's what happened to Kerry the dog. First he wanted to play with Cloudy and Lucky and then he was a bit too rough and all of a sudden Kerry was a murderer. Upon returning home from the supermarket, the cries of horror turned to anger and rage as the children saw their limp and lifeless pets sprawled on the ground and told Kerry what a bad bad dog he was and that he had killed our pets and that was a very bad mistake.

So, children, the moral of the story is, even if something looks exciting and enticing, if it is a little bit naughty and it makes you break the rules, then it is wrong. If Kerry had not have gone out of his own yard, he would not have ended up making a BAD DOGGY decision to kill Cloudy and Lucky.

(Kerry and old mad owner declined to be interviewed for a formal statement).

(We are very sorry Mari and family that Lucky's visit for procreative purposes had to end in such a way.)

a long time ago I cut out circles

after being inspired by the art work in this etsy store. I liked being able to take these little felt circles in the car and on trips - my sewing didn't have to be too neat. My original idea was to sew each circle onto the canvas but I tried sewing one circle onto a canvas with a frame and it was way too hard to manage so I ended up using the glue gun. It would be easier to sew onto a canvas sheet and then wrap it around a frame.

I'm glad I chose a silver paint because it's kind of neutral, but wouldn't a long rectangle canvas look good in these earthy colours...

There is lots of cool felt art around but I these would look great in a window (and could double as a necklace!).

fluffy starts with F

(happy starts with H

birthday starts with B

oscar starts with O

poo poo starts with P!)

Today we did the bay run

and Mason peeled sea snails off the concrete wall and

then Michaela licked the salt from them.

She's quite passionate about eating.

After flower delivering and fertilising the garden

with blood and bone (I stink),

it's time for a glass of cold lemonade,

my second batch in a week (sugar, water, lemon juice)

Creating a Childhood

As I've told some of my blogging friends, there is a wonderful mother of nine in my ward who has been an invaluable source of mothering information over the past few years. She has a relaxed parenting style, with lots of work going on 'behind the scenes' in her home. Recently, Lisa began emailing some advice on parenting, but I'm even more excited because now she's compiling her thoughts into a website, as an invaluable source of information for parents of young children. As Lisa says,

"This is a collection of my favourite mother stuff gathered from other mothers, books, lessons and 27 years of 24/7 experiences. I love the mother job. I hope something here helps you as you create a beautiful childhood..."

The website is called Creating a Childhood (because that's what mothers do!). Every week she has a new topic (this week on handling anger), but you can look through the previous topics (there are a series on obedience which I have found particularly helpful).

There are a few mother 'profiles' where Lisa has asked different mums to tell her about their vision for creating a childhood. Although I thought I knew the vision I had of what I wanted my children to look back on as their childhood, it was a really good exercise to actually write it down and make it something visually concrete for us to work towards. It's just a beginning but this is my vision for childhood (for the ease of writing, I chose to focus on one child, but it applies to all)

It’s going to happen anyway. The days tick by, the weeks, the years. Some way or another, her childhood will happen, it will become a mixture of memories and smells and feelings she knows she had, some vague, some vivid. In those crucial formative years, her beliefs and strengths, and the way she feels about herself, will form, soft at first but cementing, day by day.

What is so wonderful about these childhood days is that they don’t just have to happen. I can weave some magic into tomorrow. I can set the mood for the moment. I can help her discover what makes her happy. I can create a childhood. I can paint the backdrop scene for her time with me. I have a vision of what I want it to look and feel like.

I know what I want it to look like. I want it to be bright and colourful and clear. I want as much time with her in the bush, at the beach, in dark starry-filled nights, in backyard sun. I want her to discover that the love of her Heavenly Father is there in the pink sky and the camellia blooms. I want to see her joy with jars of lizard pets and worm friends and see her making houses for them. I want to introduce her to wonderful people from the world over, to taste foods from Seoul and Spain .

I have a vision of unhurried, unmeasured play. To let her go explore, to protect her gentleness, to lift up her goodness. If it’s able to be dreamed, we can do it. We can swim in a winter’s sea, and catch a possum for a “pet”. Freedom for her innate acts of expression and heartfelt displays of emotion. I wish her to wake to the excitement of every day. To know silence can be joy, and that learning comes from a deep love affair with curiosity. I want her to take time, to be steady, that she isn’t rushed from her naps or her soft toys. I want her life to be filled with that familiarity of all-loving and all-supportive family faces. That she builds memories of special talks and hide and seek games and tickles with aunts and grandparents and cousins. That the playlist of her mind will sound the love of A Child’s Prayer, our late-night lullabies, a repertoire of nursery rhymes and the soothing string-plucks of her grandfather’s Beatles melodies.

Creating a childhood is also about protecting. To be vigilant with what she sees and hears. To turn off the television when her mind doesn’t have the emotional maturity to understand a theme or conversation which could really harm her developing view of the world. I understand that fears are fostered all too easily if I let the news play as her background noise every night. Creating a childhood means making a safe haven from the world. To have the spiritual protection of the Spirit in the decisions I make about the childhood I’m painting for her.

Her mind, her soul, is a sponge today. At four, she can soak up the scripture phrases which will breathe comfort to her for years to come. She will remember my smile when she was so sure she would turn to see a frown. Perhaps she’ll recall the feelings of unabated safety she felt as she rested in my arms. I pray that my vision will expand as I take time to look through her eyes. That as I feel the needs of her developing spirit, I will be able to fill her heart and mind with the tools, the songs and the smiles of a beautiful childhood. It’s going to happen anyway, but with some careful planning, the simple melody of her childhood can sound with the richness of a stunning symphony.

gumboots

With the promise of rain comes the promise of growth in the garden, that the clouds will nurture after the sun sears. I am wearing one very big raincoat and the girls have dry bodies and very wet feet. Three trolleys later and we're home with plants, lots of plants. I am so excited! I can't wait to go back to the nursery for more pots (remind me to take the van).

But for now we're warming inside with lemon butter on toast, The Little Mermaid and candles. There's cubby house building and afternoon cooking and talk of the school holidays and our trip to Adelaide and the whispering wall. Michaela is using the ipod as a phone, her one-way conversations are the best.