Grey - with colourful spots

We've had a lot of grey lately so I've been on the lookout for bright. There's a lot of it about, as they say, if you look closely.

Bag Boy

Jamie, sorting through the laundry rack, discovers a shopping bag, pulls it down, and puts it on. Reappears, ready to go, very pleased with himself. Sock on head, shoe in hand.

Early morning

Early morning balloons. We are suffering a bit of TOO-EARLY at the moment. With small pre-breakfast snacks needing to be served to noisy boys at 6am when it is still pitch-black outside. So time to watch the sky brightening and balloons (our favourite balloons) float overhead.

Early morning Blossom. Dear Apricot tree - what are you up to? You've only just finished dropping the last of your leaves - but you do hate to be bare. While we were eating lunch a week or so ago Ella shouts "Mum - LOOK! Look out there!" She had seen the first blossoms breaking through, and when we went to explore and examine we were so happy to find the whole tree covered in bursting buds. It's only June - but this tree looks like and smells like spring, wafting it's fresh beautiful blossom-scent in through our back door.

Early morning tail. Do cat's sleep in? Never. This tail is taking a little quiet exercise before a full day of toddler tail-tainment. Trot-trotting into the frame comes one small boy, fluent in cat language, but deaf to these firm words: "SOFTLY, SLOWLY, GENTLY! And NOT his TAIL! NO! NO!"

This was posted by tamara (not Edward) - why does blogger insists on reorganising me?

Eat, walk, explore

a happy grubby curry-eating boy.

A very busy walk - and what a fabulous big blue street-drum

A bit of winter colour, a few problems with a camera.

Willy comes to stay at my house

Ella writes: Willy is from my kinder. I had lots of fun with Willy. Willy was in my tree. I have a huge big tree at my house. Willy is a monkey. Willy gets to go to everyone's house.

the house in the city

Ella writes: This is Ella's drawing - she did it by herself on KidPix. It's a rainbow picture.

Great Garden T

Just to surprise me, the winter garden has not completely perished. After spending loads of time (in my mind at least) in summer flapping about with potting mix, plant food and water for some pretty hard-to-spot results, I decided to give it all up for the winter while I pondered the problems of not enough sun, disappearing worms and Very Hungry Caterpillars. To expand: the worm farm seemed deserted, nothing grew much and what did grow was immediately munched up by a really healthy, happy herd of beautiful, fat bright-green caterpillars. So I left it all alone and expected nothing, but I noticed that the mint is BACK (sssshhhhh - don't tell the caterpillars), the parsley's poddling along, and the worms were just hiding - I snuck up on them one morning and caught them all diving into the compost. So I got a couple more pots at the market the other day and might get to reorganising the deckchairs soon and then giving them some more healthy neglect - as obviously the survival of the fittest approach is what works best for this garden. Don't be fooled though - it's not that great. I found a book the other day on Jardin Majorelle in Marrakesh, which E and I visited in 2000 and got to longing for those lush greens and that blue ...

Cat's Birthday

Ella writes: henry and mosh birthday

Doing ArtTivities

Ella writes: Bookmaking and activities. Headdress with an aeroplane - that was very fun. I made a book by myself. i love making books. i love doing activities. I've been learning letters a lot.

Gentle

There was a baby animal farm at the market this morning and Ella and I went in to enjoy the beautiful creatures. Happily they did not seem too stressed and I felt so proud and happy to see Ella being so gentle and careful and curious with the animals. Two little piglets tried to eat her shoes! On the walk home we did some mushroom spotting and came up to a long meadow on a hill where Ella noticed a HUGE horse. "Look, look Mum! He's coming over to us!"

A little bit sick, a little bit sad

We've had a difficult few days as we have been blighted by endless viruses and always seem to have someone in the family who is feeling poorly. This last few days it's been little Jamie who is hot, streamy and miserable. He has needed to be carried about and has had to take a little break from the important activity of pointing at things and commenting on them. So this has left and tired and cranky mama and little big person who has taken it a bit hard as a result and has had to give firm instructions to "just be nice and kind Mummy."

Pink is a Primary Colour

This is an old photo but I had to find something that properly illustrated this comment by Ella the other day. We'd been doing a lot of painting in the morning, with plenty of experimenting with creating different colours by mixing things together. This involved a lot of messy paint and a lot of questions "How do you make green?" "How do you make purple?" etc. Many green and purple spots later, we were up to "how do you make red?", which led to "red is a primary colour." Later at dinner colour mixing resurfaced in the conversation and I asked Ella "how do you make pink?." Ella says, "Pink is a primary colour" and Edward says "Yes, for you Ella that is certainly true."

First day of winter

Everything was looking pretty wintery over at the "Natanic" Gardens, and it was coooolllld and a little bit foggy, but Jamie's mates Mr and Mrs Swan came over to greet us (although hadn't taken time to polish up their beaks we noticed) and Jamie found that walking about on his own was a pretty exciting prospect with much to explore, like sprinklers, leaves and seeds.

Lovely things

We took a family trip into the city and up the very special lifts ("The lifts remain some of the last in Melbourne to be operated by a 'lift lady'") in the Nicholas Building to visit Kimono House - a Japanese textile workshop that Mum had discovered. I have been looking at Japanese Loop Bags lately and trying to work out "how to" and finally got a set of instructions. This is my first bag - and I like the way it turned out and hope to make many more! Also here is my new wonderful felted hole-scarf from my Felting Friend Michelle, which I love. She said the "holes were the most popular" with her friends and explained how to refelt it if it needed it down the track. I like this concept - that you sort a bit of wear and tear with some gentle coaxing with soapy water and bubble-wrap and hey presto - brand new scarf.

Wobbly Tooth Wiggles Loose

Ella writes: My tooth is looooose! My Pa is called Alan and I rang him up and told him that I have a loose tooth and you know it too because it's on our blog. love ella