visitors

These little chaps called in this morning

This one is rather noisy (juvenile? or mother) and makes a sound akin to an alarm clock with a flat battery, every 5 seconds or so. In tree very close to my office.

They have come in to eat insects and spiders out of the c purloins on our back veranda roof.

Notice the blue on the first one's face? Its much more iridescent in real life.  These pair are quite quiet and happy hopped around and hung upside down and generally had a great old time.

And I found this cheeky, noisy one INSIDE the house, not five minutes later, sitting on the draining board just inside the window (for the second time in as many days!)  While I am gratefully for its assistance in keeping the spider population on my twelve foot ceilings down to a dull roar, I don't really like the little souvenirs it leaves.

Funny things. I should dig out the bird book and find their real name. Nice visitors to have from time to time. Although I do wish that noisy one would get a sore throat or laryngitis!

This

won't get any emptier

And neither will this

This won't get full:

And this won't get emptier either:

Why, you ask? Because look what happened:

Can't REALLY see, other than a few odd angles?  let me show you how I found it, early one morning:

Do you see NOW?!

Investigations into the mysterious new angle of my somewhat vintage clothesline have revealed that three children plus that pesky spare kid may have something to do with its rakish angle,  late the previous afternoon. Intense gruelling of suspect #3 have revealed that "the big girls did it". Further investigations and interviewing of suspect #1 have shed more light on proceedings, especially on the matter of the carefully edited narration of events by #3, suggesting he (#3)  had no role in illicit activities.  Furthermore, suspect #2 has suggested that in fact the whole thing was #3's idea.

(which leads Chief Investigator to enquire on the wisdom of Suspects #1, #2 and that pesky spare kid #4 in following the suggestions of the youngest, the four year old #3!)

Pesky spare kid suspect #4 has been invited on a sleepover at her earliest convenience at which time she and her fellow felons will be undertaking bindy picking and unsavoury tasks of that nature. However, mother of said pesky child (who, it has to be said, was quite unsympathetic and laughed hysterically at the tale) has said pesky child is unavailable for sleepover due to a previous fencing commitment, however due punishment will be dished out in the form of exceptionally early and rather nasty cold mornings. This sounds like a rather fitting form of retribution for my own children, however due to the fact that I myself am not overly fond of exceptionally early and rather nasty cold mornings, will continue along the bindy picking or NO TV path.

Postscript:  Clothesline now returned to its former level glory, thanks to the husband and my un-idle threats of great marital disharmony should it not be fixed before he drove away that morning. 

still working on

this:  a sneaky peek.

I've got some slicing up of paper, some printing, some assembly and some envelope stuffing coming up on my horizon this week.   This paper has a lovely texture - after some trepidation, I love the finished result.

I'll share the finished article once I get them all assembled and posted away. I may not be loving them quite so much by that stage!

Little boys and getting back on the horse

The scrapping horse, so to speak. Its been awhile, both digi or real life paper, but finally I said, bugger it, the To Do List of Everything That Needs To Be Done is never ever ever ending, and scrapped.

Mostly this is because of Amy and my challenge to her to give ME a challenge to get off my bum inspired and motivated by. Specifically, her challenge was do scrap something that happened last week.  She's all about doing pages on the here and now. Amy even provided a sketch/template for those needing some extra prodding ahem. But nice template it indeed is.

So, with a recent conversation with child #3 playing in my head, as he yelled for me once again from the bathroom, I whipped up this:

Which may seem awfully familiar, seeing as the words and the photos came from a blog post just a few days ago. Told you I was going to scrap it! ;-) Ridiculously easy really, not much thought required as I had the words down already. Perhaps I should treat each page like a blog post.

Pop over to Amy's to see how everyone else treated this little challenge.

PS. Isn't that Echo Park range just adorable. Love their stuff.

you don't see that everyday

Boy yells out to me, as he wanders around outside 'Mum! there is a bunny!"

Now, being broad daylight, in the middle of the day, I am very surprised to hear about a bunny scampering about the paddock, and I question his bunny sighting.

"Yes, Mum, I saw it running, over there! look there it is!" and he runs off through the back gate to investigate further.  I do look, and indeed see something that is rather larger than a bunny, moving through the grass. At first I think it is a small dirty, white pig but as I jump the fence with rather more speed and agility than I normally would do, I reassess.

"It's a koala!"

Now, although we live in the sticks, it is beside a major highway and the traffic can be fairly constant.  Our back paddock however is reasonably close (in bush terms) to some timber and a creek, so I am surmising this fellow has come from there. Angus tells me that he was heading towards the road when the noise of the traffic turned him back.

I sent Angus for my camera, and hollered out to the school kids, who were on their lunch break and running around not far away. You can actually see them running through the school grounds, in the background of the first photo.  (now you know how close to school we live!)

This fellow ended up climbing to the top of the power pole once the audience arrived, and about half an hour later climbed down and we saw him move to the solitary gum tree on our back fence (away from the road). We'll check later to see if its still there, or moved on to a quieter part of the world!

An exciting day for all parties!

catching up

if there is such a thing, doing some scrapbooking.  I'm at 2009 right now, and have gathered up a bundle of photos that will be presented in summary style, with an odd precious story thrown in as I see fit.

The first of them:

In this case, a gathering of photos from the school year of 2009. I was going to wack on that title there "grade one" in some coloured letters and call it done, but I said to myself "self, don't be lazy, add a bit of something else!" so I tried the circle thing that I've seen around a bit. Not sure that I have carried it off actually, I don't think I was being random enough (or didn't think enough?!) in their placement, but you know my philosophy - its stuck down, story told (with little captions to boot) and looking nice and tidy.

And I find it funny that I have in the house another year one girl with no front teeth either. (Well, actually, front teeth that have FINALLY started to grow. Its taken quite some time! ) How time flies, with this big girl in grade three now, with much longer hair. I like it shorter, I have to say.

more diversity

This time musical.

The Husband and I, we grew up in the country. We live in the country. We were reared on a diet of Slim Dusty and Charlie Pride, with a dash of Abba. I even played piano for many many years. As we grew older we branched into more modern music, but never too far from our country roots. And as we grew much older ;-) and babies came along, music and buying cd's and new fangled musical thingos didn't hit too high on the priority list. Listening to music is what you did (and still do) when the radio was on and you were driving in the car.

These kids:

Love music. Any sort of music actually. They have no bias, if its catchy, and has a beat and can sort of understand the words (HELLO Pink! lets say when I actually listened to some lyrics, particularly Funhouse? we started skipping over that one on the cd that my dear, musically up to date and VERY diverse friend Mel gave us) then they love it.

The photo above: cleaning their teeth, after watching Australia's Got Talent (another thing they love) and belting out "its a long way to the top if you wanna rock and rooooollllll" that a band had performed on the show.

Acca Dacca, eat your heart out! They've never heard the song before, never heard of the band. They just know a good song when they hear one.

Ah, aren't kids so entertaining?

this boy

He's four. Five in September. He's my baby.

In a post bath-time snuggle on the couch, we had a little chat about Kindy he attended that day. There wasn't an awful lot of information. Boys. They start early I tell ya.

He offered a little gem of information in passing, as he left to play with lego and scatter them to the four winds.

He wiped his own bum at kindy.

Please take a moment to reflect on what an important milestone we have reached.

Actually, I have a feeling the little sod has been MORE than able to do this task for sometime, but just likes to yell at the top of his lungs from the toilet for me to come and do said bum wiping.

I probably should be sad that he is getting to be a Big Boy. But mostly I am so.very.pleased. Or I was, until yesterday (the day after kindy) he yelled again from the toilet. I think I am being had.

My baby boy.

decisions

Do I enter them all? Donation to show society starting to look hefty!

(and if this photo looks weird, it's because I was standing on a chair, thinking I might audition for Australia's Got Talent, given my contortionist efforts) 

getting ready for the show

Our annual town show is in a little over two weeks, and I've been quite slack over the past few years and not bothered with ANY entries what so ever.

This year the kids and I are putting in a few things: eggs, little collections (some very new! ;-) and some potted succulents, some scrapbooking, and just a few photos.

 

A sampling of what I decided to offer! (nicely showcased in a template from the ever talented Amy - thanks Amy!) across a few categories; obviously mostly my subjects are the kids. I've just remembered I've forgotten in include my favourite shot from the September wedding last year, oh well, too late now (having just uploaded and paid for this selection to print at Snapfish, who I hope are feeling speedy).

Lets call it my donation to the Show Society and our individual effort to fill spaces in the Show Pavilion. I might even have the kids do a drawing on nice cardstock. (or two of them, the third one shows great disdain for drawing, or if he does, its VERY, hilariously, minimalistic!)

Thoughts? Critiques? Ideas?

PS. Stamps: after we've decided to start a stamp collection ;-) I realised how few stamps I get on letters? If any Australian readers get some nicely stamped letters in the mail over the next few days, it would SO great if you could pop them in an envelope and post to me!

getting under control

-  Folding clothes directly off the line, and having the kids put their own buckets of clothes away. Boy gets some help. Otherwise undies (no, they are JOCKS Mum!) end up in strange places. This seems to be working at eliminating the giant folding pile that never ends.

(please feel free to ignore the rampant couch grass in the background) I love those tuff tubs so much that The Husband thinks I am collecting them. Have many. Possibly need more!

-  Girls with long hair will have very short hair if hair ties and bands and clips are not kept in order and in a place that can be found come school time each morning. Today I took matters into my own hands.

The basket is a wee bit small, but I worked with what I had on hand. Its all THERE in one spot. Hair ties in their own container:

and clips in another: ( a totally crappy shot, but you get the idea.) Headbands in another. Hairbrushes and detangler spray ALL HERE IN ONE SPOT.

And the other day, I got the total poops with the kids having the DVD's all over the place in the TV cupboard (which admittedly, wasn't really made for their storage) and dragged this old bookcase out of the storeroom. It couldn't get any more perfect, so much so I can overlook its obvious need of a coat of paint) And it fits this small bit of wall like it was custom made for it.

White? Or a nice BRIGHT shiny red? or all modern and black? (I have black paint, left over from my office shelf painting exercise.  Quite a bit actually!)    The shelf is also a great place to house the library books, stacked in another basket rescued from kids crap today. And the bottom shelf has a few books, plus a stash of no longer watched wiggles and hi 5 DVD's.  (is this a lot of DVD's? most of them are kids, I grab one whenever I see it on sale at Woollies or the like. Sort of looks like a lot here!)

I had designs on the "junk drawer" or lack thereof, but that will have to wait for another day. But it feels good to have things in hand, even if just one teeny, tiny bit. One hair tie at a time! ;-) Stay tuned for the next episode of organising/de-cluttering madness! (super organiser mum I am not. And feel free to google that blog all by yourself. I will keep my opinions to myself!)

Working On

Walking on the wild side and designing wedding invitations for a dear friend's brother's wedding. This is just a sample using what I had on hand (imagine a non-spotty ribbon!)  And they didn't like the flower :( Oh well.

Stay tuned for the finished product. 

OH! I am also photographer at this wedding! Multi tasking aren't I!

Diverse Landscape

So the ones that were thwarted in their fishing attempts just a couple of weekends ago, decided we were goin' fishin' again. The temperature had plummeted somewhat since our first expedition, so it was quite some trepidation that I prepared the family for the outing. It can be cold in them thare hills!

We went to the same Secret Special Spot or thereabouts on the river (across the same adventure in four wheel driving road) but this time, went to another spot just a kilometre or so downstream from our location last time.

What a change in the landscape:

How gorgeous are these little waterfalls - it would be lovely on a warm day. This day? like ICE. But still pretty, and the sound? just perfect.

And the rocky landscape made quite an adventure for the kids. We went for a walk "to find the fish".

The kids stopped their exploring and peering over the edge into the water (a good 3 metres down - makes the heart skip a little when they scamper right to the edge!) so I could take this.

And I wasn't fooled by their "its NOT cold Mum!" and their pleas to get their jeans off.

Apparently this spot wasn't good enough (ie the fish weren't interested) so we moved back up stream for lunch. Here they DID catch some fish, which were very quickly cooked.

(coated in a seasoned flour mix and drizzled with fresh lime as it was cooked on the BBQ). I didn't eat any, but can appreciate how it looked and smelled.

(and that would be MY husband waving his beer can at me). As you can see, it still requires a group of men to stand around the bbq, whether it be at a party or fishin'.

After lunch, we moved to another location again, about half way between the first stop and the lunch stop. Again, such a change in terrain over short distance. Would love to explore more and find where the changes in terrain occur.

Much more child friendly, the rock was flat. I didn't get in the shot the wide ledge that was just below me to my right, from where one fished (I caught THREE! little ones, but its the catching that counts, isn't it?!) most comfortably, and could see fish swimming up and down. Would make the nicest swimming spot.

And then we had a snack (sitting on a rock, as one does in spear grass country) packed up, and went home.

Fisherpersons far more satisfied with their excursion today, despite some minor male foot stomping regarding lack of "bloody fish" to start off with. Men! (rolling eyes)

Me, I had a great time reeling in my three (five, counting the two that got away!) little 'uns, and happy that one of the blokes conveniently walked past each time to set my catch free! And I think I am safe in saying the kids had a great day.

But I think I might be over fishing for a little while!

I think I am a genius

So, I've had this ongoing problem with toothbrushes and toothpaste on my bathroom sink (quite apart from the kids getting toothpaste every-bloody-where problem). You see, quite some time ago, we cheerily trotted off to good ole Bunnings and plonked down some money for a nice shiny stainless (maybe better to say silver?!) toothbrush holder.

Get it home, attach to the wall - and no one's tooth brushes fit in the darned thing.

After much research, it seems none of the holder makers actually go and get a Colgate or Oral B toothbrush and see if they will fit their holder. Joy, joy.

So, toothbrushes have lolled about in various forms of disarray, sitting on the bench, or stuck in a cup (which, due to my rather slack housewifey-ness and inclination to have daughter #2 clean the bathroom sink (its a job she actually quite enjoys, the precious little Sadie. Pity she doesn't extend the same joyfulness to her bedroom. However I digress) had a tendency to get nice and slimy.

But yesterday, in a fit of pure genius, when wandering through my favourite $2 shop, I brought home this little $2.5 gem.

A simple plastic cutlery holder.

I know. I am brilliant, am I not?

Let us gaze once more upon its beauty.

Let us not dwell on the nice rust stains left on my sink by Husband's shaving cream tin, left there in the water that seeps from that leaking tap that I have asked him to fix for the past 10 months over and over again.

Its pretty isn't it?

Ah, such simple things that give such simple pleasure.

Please refrain from any comments that might be directed towards how the recent cold snap may have addled my brains. ;-)  

less dangerous than chocolate

My mum gave the kids a tent for Easter, in lieu of chocolate. More better for both them and the state of their mother's backside.

On Sunday I put it up for the first time, as its the first real chance we've had.

Its meant to be a four man tent, but I reckon they would be four skinny blokes. This tent will be quite cosy with three swags rolled out in it!

And it only took me about five minutes to erect (without the ropey tie bits, without instructions I have no idea what to do with them. Bloke thing I think).

Now they will be wanting to use it for real. Although I don't think they are brave enough to camp in the back yard while we sleep comfy inside in our warm, innerspring bed.

Which is a bit of a bugger really, considering the cold snap we are getting (or rather, the start of winter).

I think my ugg boots will be getting a workout this season.

G1 and G2

You met G1 (formally known as Daisy and Mini-Pig) a while ago.

Over the easter holidays his little brother G2 came to live with us.

He's a bit lively. And eats a lot.

Its no wonder he has a nervous twitch though, with these monkeys on the outside! One in particular.

what kind of chook farmer am I ?

A few weeks or more ago, after we got home from somewhere after a day or so away from home, we found a strange chook running around our back yard. A pretty speckled little bantam.

We tried to chase it back towards the neighbours place - it wouldn't go.  The next day, I found it scratching in my garden making a nice old mess, so I put in my chook run and told the neighbours I had their chook. The neighbours said they weren't missing a chook.

So, it continued to live in the chook run, and the kids got all excited when they found a smaller than normal egg. The kids see the chooks every day, its their job to feed them.

The other morning, I was hanging around the garden. I hear a rooster crow. "Hmm" I says to myself "Neighbours rooster must be wandering around, or the sound is really carrying this morning!"

HA! what kind of chook farmer am I? No bloody wonder it sounded so close:

It was in my OWN CHOOKRUN! That little speckled bantam ain't no egg layer! It appears to have turned into a rooster. This would be why the neighbours aren't missing a CHOOK. I bet they are still giggling into their beers.

And he knows how to crow very well.

Chicken stew anyone?

When all the cracks gathered to the fray...

(for the non-Australian readers, the title refers to a line in the very famous poem, The Man from Snowy River by Banjo Patterson. Google it and read the poem, it's great).

ANYHOW. Last Sunday morning, rather bright and early, a group of enthusiastic fisherpersons and adventure seekers rolled out in their four wheel driving glory, heading for the Secret Special Fishing Hole.

I really should contact Toyota, what a great ad for them this would be.

I know. Just us, and five vehicle loads of our closest friend ! ;-) Its a big river, plenty of space for everyone. As always, it was quite a four wheel driving adventure getting to the SSFH. Our host doesn't believe in making it easy to access the SSFH (for good reason!)

We found a spot to set up camp:

Had smoko, and then set about the serious task of fishing (which was a little disappointing: due to the nature of our wet season, all of the deep holes had filled with sand. Great for the kids, not so much for the fishing)

This one caught a fish:

(one of the green shirted mates from Easter)

This one caught a fish too, with the help of his dad:

    (follow the fishing line and see the fish there, near Georgie's foot)

And this one had some one on one time with her dad, and also caught a fish or two:

While I took the two youngest hooligans down stream where they could explore and pretend to be Steve Irwin

(I believe she discovered the remains of some very small creature)

And they did some fish spotting, which is the closest we got to a fish for the day.

(the fish didn't come up well in the photo, but in reality, the water was SO clear, and small schools of fish were swimming past in the knee deep, running water)

And they jumped into the icy frigid take your breath away water time and time and time again.

We had lunch:

And then went and played in the river some more.

Some of played with cameras rather than fishing lines. See the reflection in her sunnies? Its her husband and daughter.

And LOOK! I was there! See my new fishing hat? I decided that the old felt one really could handle another encounter with water, and left it at home. I do like a well made and fitting "rag" hat, and even better this one was cheap as chips at k-mart.

And after the men had satisfied themselves that they were definitely not going to find a deeper hole or any more fish, we packed up and went home.

We've since been informed of a stretch of deeper holes downstream from this location, so it seems another trip is being planned. There is more than a touch of chill in the air mornings and evenings of late, so OF COURSE they will want to camp. Stay tuned!