Happy Australia Day

Happy Australia Day.

We had an eventful Australia day, spotting all the Australian flags in shops/houses windows and and having a very typical Aussie BBQ which we were to tired to fully appreciate after the mammoth day we had. I began the day with a walk on the beach with the kids and their cousin Mia (who had a sleep-over) and Kooly, followed by a visit to the library with Myles and his two cousins. After foolishly suggesting we visit the art gallery and when I say foolish I mean taking three kids under the age of 6 into an art gallery where the words 'quiet' , 'don't touch' and 'stay with me' mean nothing and to top it off loosing the 5 year old for 5 minutes, which seemed like 5 hours. However, once we located the missing toddler, I was still feeling amazingly energetic and patient, and we ended up on adventure around the city.

The art gallery was featuring an exhibit by one of the artists involved in a public art event 'Back to the City' which started this weekend. It is a collaboration of artists and designers, featuring 16 works scattered across the town in prominent and obscure locations alike, all commenting on the city as a living environment. It was great and so wonderful to see our city embracing art and the best thing was that the kids enjoyed them all, particularly the ones they could touch or sit in. This one was my favourite, "Second Nature" , by Nicola Xavier and Adrian Hill. The fabric is stencilled with a William Morris wallpaper design impregnated with wheat grass seed and will be watered daily. I cant wait to see what it looks like once the grass grows through the design. After our little adventure I couldn't get the energy to take them to the carnival (as promised) and decided it was Daniel's turn to take on the tribe. So today he took them on rides as promised and spent a small fortune in space of a couple of hours. Oh well it was worth, to see their smiling little faces and hear their colourful stories.

After The Rain

Today we spent the day at grandmas with my sister and her kids. It was a hot, muggy day with hot and bothered children and adults all suffering from the heat. The kids were in the pool most of the day and when they weren't they were consuming ice blocks or milkshakes. Its amazing the way an ice block can change ones mood. So when the rain thankfully came down this afternoon and cooled everything and everyone down, including withered moods, we headed outside as soon as it stopped, the kids in just their undies to cool down in the puddles (oh how I wish I could of been jumping in the puddles in just my undies) and to see what other creatures were enjoying the cool air, remaining rain drops and puddles.

With great delight and squeals of excitement we discovered that there were lots of other critters out enjoying the aftermath of the downpour, including a family of grasshoppers (mummy, daddy, baby and grandma) who were clearly having a family meeting on a leaf or as suggested by Myles, they could of just been sun baking, a shy snail that wouldn't come out of its shell (particularly once it was picked up by the kids), and a beautiful yellow ladybug on her way to eat the aphids on grandmas roses.

One of the kids asked where all the grasshoppers came from and another replied "from another world". How right they are, these little alien looking creatures, with huge eyes and long legs get such a bad wrap. We watched and observed them for a while, checked out how many legs they had, how many different coloured ones we could find, and held them in our hands feeling their little hairy legs tickling the palm of our hands.

Vege Patch Update

Well we have had some success and failures in the vege patch this past year with many lessons to be learnt. The best growers were the cabbages, leeks, pumpkins, cucumbers, chilli's and cherry tomatoes. The regular tomatoes were very unsuccessful, dying off from the base up and full off fruit fly that I just couldn't get control of, so I have pulled them out along with the last of the pumpkins and cucumbers that developed some sort of leaf mould and in there place I have just planted some new crops, including, rockmelons, beans and watermelons. I'm crossing my fingers with the melons as the kids love to eat them.

The eggplants that went in about the same time as the pumpkins have only just started to fruit. I never knew that the flower of an eggplant was so beautiful and I feel really stupid not knowing that it was purple. All we have to do is keep the chooks from eating them - they seem to be a favourite. However, I have the kids onto it and they shoooo them out of the garden for me whilst I weed and water it each afternoon. Yep I have even taught a 15 month old to shooo chooks - its hilarious to watch.

I would really like to plant more pumpkins, we all love eating them and they add such a beautiful display of green to the garden. The leaves of a pumpkin plant are amazing, shaped like huge funnels, taking water down the stems to the roots, capturing sunlight and protecting the fruit with their rough surface from insects.

We have had a lovely surprise appearance from a single sun flower magically emerging from the soil and has just this week begun to bloom in all its yellow glory. We have no idea how it came to be in our little suburban garden, but have theorised that it could of been from a bird or perhaps something in the chooks food. Anyway, its beautiful and I plan to plant lots more.

The chooks have been a great addition to the family and also to the garden, providing a regular supply of rich fertiliser, keeping the lawn trimmed and eating lots of bugs. We recently moved the chook coop and found the soil that it had been on was beautiful and healthy full of worms, ready for planting. So we have planted two olive trees in the soil in the hope that this rich fertilised soil will help them provide us with some delicious olives. All we need now is for the chickens to lay some eggs, I'm beginning to wonder if we have barren hens or perhaps roosters?

A Girls Night Out

Friends......Meg, Karen and Me.

This week I had a girls night out , a night away from home, the kids and the hubby, in the big city to do a spot of shopping, see a band a do lots bonding as we girls do. It was fabulous, the band"Kings of Leon" was great, even though I did have a slight toe bleeding incident from being to far up the front amongst die hard rocking fans and getting my feet jumped on. However, once I moved back a little from the front, (after realising I was not up for being amongst "the pit") I enjoyed a night of dancing, sweating and jumping up and down like a mad woman.

More than anything though I enjoyed spending time with my girlfriends whom I love dearly, and don't get to see enough. However, I know it is a great friendship as we can not talk to one another for extended periods of time and when we do get back in contact its just so natural, no bullshit, and I can feel totally myself.........I love them.

Thankfully though we now have a permanent night organised each month to have dinner and catch up - it is one of those essential things in the routine of my life I need, enjoy and love to do. I think time to do things like this is so important in keeping your sanity sometimes.

Left to their own devices

I love to sit and watch the boys when they are absorbed in their own little worlds enjoying what each loves to do in the time/stage of their development.

Fynn is happiest outside in sand/dirt and especially loves to play in water. His little senses experiencing the simple pleasures of water running through his fingers, mud squelching between his toes and tasting anything and everything he can fit in his mouth. He gets very excited at the sight of puddles, dripping taps and swimming pools - flapping his arms around and trying to dive bomb from our arms into the nearest water body. He placed himself in the bowl of water above and sat or ages playing - so cute.

I think I have mentioned before that Myles loves constructing things, he is a natural with a hammer and nail and can hit a nail in a piece of timber straighter than I can. It is the one activity that can keep him utterly absorbed for longer than 10 minutes. With all the construction going on around here he is kept occupied by constructing things with all the scraps of wood, metal and nails and never ceases to amaze us with his structures. The only problem is keeping our resident demolition man - Fynn - away from the long enough for Myles to perfect and balance every last piece just the way he intends it to be.

Thumbs up for a day at the bay

A day at the Bay with Nanny and Poppy and Uncle Todd who visited from Melbourne was a highlight of the holidays for us all. Myles was in his element when all "the men" went fishing on the boat and came home with fish and crabs for dinner.

The next day was spent on the beach where we started off building a castle for sea creatures to visit at night. Myles constructed a seaweed path for them to follow from the water so they knew exactly where to go at night.

And we even saw our own little sea monster, who Myles delightfully helped dress up in seaweed...

Later, Myles and I went for a walk and ended up on an brilliant adventure on 'rock island' (termed by Myles), a place for pirates, pirates treasure and even mermaids.

After following lots of secret paths, discovering loads of treasures we knew the pirates who inhabited this island had been stealing from mermaids, as we found a mermaid's earing,

and a mermaids necklace.

The pirates, unhappy with us taking their treasure, eventually caught up with us, put us on their boat and made us walk the plank..................................

After a lot of "ARGHHHH me matey, shiver me timbers ya scurvy dog", we fought off the pirates, and escaped with the mermaids treasure. What an adventure, an adventure full of magical, dreamy moments that I certainly wont forget in a long time.

A Magical New Year

What a Magical New Year it is going to be - new adventures to be had, new lessons to be learnt and taught and endless possibilities for the future. More than anything, more enjoyment of watching my three beautiful boys - all with beautiful, affectionate, cheeky, gentle souls that bring me more love, joy and anxiety than can ever be expressed in words. Reflecting on the past year with my little family, the serious lack of sleep, trying to be a domestic goddess, hormonal madness, moving house (again) etc....and finally coming out of the post-natal cloud that consumed a lot of the year, I have really learnt to start to enjoy them again, watching them grow and learn, watching Daniel and myself grow and learn more about one another, and seeing the beautiful friendship and love evolving between Fynn and Myles. I have also discovered the true gift of great friendships and family. I have tried to learn to be more content and mindful that I really do create my own happiness and not to forget the happiness that the simplest of things that can make me, like being in the garden and getting dirt under my nails, or when I'm having a bad day to get on the floor with the kids, let them crawl all over me, tickle them and take joy in the best sound of all - their laughter.

So my resolution this year is to work on keeping balance in my life - between the spiritual and the material.

"May this year be magical"