penguin stop!

three weeks old

bike

I taught Ella how to ride her bike 'inout training wheels' (as she says).

Harry meets his family

Harry is here

Harry is here. Born 4 September. Very beautiful. Much loved. Used to noise.

I've been away ---><--- I'm back

I took a blog-break - not deliberately. Been busy with a few things. A few pics to tell where we've been:



> at the playground
> at the beach in funky leggings
> in red
> at Phillip Island
> working on sentences
> looking carefully at things
> riding scooters
> eating cakes at the Pirate Park
> being full of joy
> running and jumping (some of us)
> getting into red and green
> singing and dancing in Chinese
> sleeping peacefully
> waiting for the train
> taking the train (how we love the train)

Baking (for Michelle)

I talked to my lovely friend Michelle the other day. We've both been suffering a loss of 'blogging mojo' lately. Anyway Michelle's always been a great baker, one more reason why going to visit her is always a great pleasure. She'd been ovenless for a while but is now baking again - so I thought I would share my latest baking recipe with her:

Choc-chip muffins

220g sr flour

1/2 cup castor sugar

3/4 cup milk or buttermilk

1 egg

3/4 cup of vegetable oil

150g choc (or white) chips

brown sugar

Add the dry ingredients, add the wet ingredients, mix it all up. Spoon batter into 12-hole muffin tin (use patty pans to make it really simple). Sprinkle brown sugar on top of muffins. Bake for 20-25 mins @ 180. The oil gives them "a very tender crumb and crisp crust", according to Stephanie Alexander - whose lovely simple recipe this is (The Cooks Companion). You can adapt it and add different things (apple or savoury things - for savoury take out the sugar). These are good for school snacks and very popular "dakes" ('cakes' as Jamie says) in our house.

musc

Ella writes: it was my birthday. We were making masks. We used feathers and cudz.

garden

It's lovely how 'garden' is a noun and a verb. I've been watching Monty Don's series 'Around the world in 80 Garden's' and thoroughly enjoying it. He goes from country to country looking at lovely gardens and talking to gardeners, garden historians, garden-lovers and so on. All the gardeners look amazingly healthy and happy - it seems linked to the longevity of their gardening careers. Anyway I think I love it because I realise that I love gardens, love being in them and looking at them and smelling them and taking pictures - really love all that - but I'm not a very keen gardener. I get dejected by forever repotting and throwing away dead plants and stopping small people from ingesting potting mix. For this reason conventional gardening programs leave me cold - because I don't want to 'recreate the look' or find the exact plant for this or that soil. I don't want to hear about root-rot or pruning. I like the colour and feel of gardens, the patterns and textures. I love leaves and flowers. And I like to think about the links between the gardens people have and who they are.

my boy

My boy is asleep in his pushchair next to me as I'm writing. He fell asleep as we walked back from school. He'd got up at 5.15.

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He was a little bit quiet when we dropped Ella at school. He loves having her about all day to mess about with.

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He's two and so lovely. Leans close in to his Dad at the dinner table, head cocked to the side, and asks: "Daddy - 'appy?" "Happy.""Checks with everyone: "Ella - 'appy? Mummy - 'appy?"

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Goes for some big tantrums. "Nooo!" Not this shirt, not those shoes. I WILL lie on the ground and kick my feet and howl.

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Loves cars (dar) and trams (bam). "Mummy! Loooo! Dar!"

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Golden brown ringlet curls. Hair that's never been cut.

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Big brown eyes. Long lashes.

six

Ella turned six last week. There'd been a lot of ongoing discussions about her party (a whole year's worth) but on Thursday we sat down together and had a bit of a planning session about what we'd do. How I love these discussions - a girl after my own heart - a fairy corner, a royal court, a night sky (I found a note she had written on the topic: "moor stuf - wot ubat wee can mac a nyt skuy").

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I suggested some crafty and maybe a few dress-ups, and she came up with the genius suggestion that the kids could make masks and then get dressed up for a Samba parade "like at Womad". Brilliant. And then we thought we'd have a wishing tree - where Ella could attach leaves for each of her party friends and they could attach leaves for her. We did a lot of thoroughly enjoyable preparation - painted party bags, drew a tree, cut and painted leaves, picked glitter and lanterns.

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All of this pretty much worked out - this short sentence underlying a fair amount of activity and chaos and joy and excitement. I thought they might have lost interest, but the kids insisted on a Samba Parade up the street with flags, drums and tinsel. They wanted to go further, but the grown-ups were flagging. Of course I didn't get one photo - too busy banging the drum and tying elastic on masks.

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What a joy to be six.

toot

leaf

I've been reading Keri Smith's two beautiful books (The Guerilla Art Kit and How to be an Explorer of the World). We were inspired to make some leaf sculptures at the Botanic Gardens. Ella also did some 'sap-exploration'- she's deeply interested in tree-sap at the moment - collecting bits of it in pockets and bags. Last time we were at the Botanic gardens we made flower sticks - threading flowers and leaves onto sticks. I'd seen Bhutanese girls from the village of Laya making these in a break from collecting firewood on Tribe.

my sister's garden in Fremantle

I went on a holiday to Fremantle for four days to see my sister. How lovely to travel peacefully solo, to take a break from early rising and toy-tidying. How amazing to visit a home where all items are not in the process of continual rearrangement. How lovely to get home and hear and see and hold my children.

fire

This summer we had, on the same day, Melbourne's hottest recorded day (47 degrees) and Australias worst natural disaster. Fire everywhere. Screaming north and south winds fanning flames. Huge treetop fires that ate up everything. Lots of people died and pets and homes were lost. A whole lovely forest village (Marysville) was pretty much wiped out. Our family was OK, but we watched in shock.

first day of school

My little big girl, all ready for first day of school. Messing around on the step. Excited and nervous.

hot

How hot we were this Summer. We had a crazy (over 40 degree) heat-wave that went on for days and days - way too long. Our valiant fan-cooled house held out as best it could against the onslaught, fans whirring, with no sign of a cool change. We spent a lot of time in the pool, our plants frizzled, our cats panted. It was pretty hard going.

Cranbourne Botanic Gardens

hands

Two hands with treasures at the Botanic Gardens.

top family

Top family at the tippy-top of the toppest tower in Melbourne - the Eureka Tower. I could not bear to watch Ella and Jamie throwing themselves against the windows in excitement.

party dresses

At the National Gallery. Ella and Poppy taking a short break between face-painting all the guests at my birthday party.

boy with bean

Rare to go out with one and not two small people. Ella stayed home to help Dad with an important 'secret' project. Jamie came with Mum, Auntie and Nana to ACCA to see The Waterhole, was fed jellybeans and tickled and chased.