Well Hello there...

Me and my girl

You know it gym comp season because...

... there are matching hairstyles

... lots of chalking up and leotard adjusting

... beautiful young ladies

... some new tumbling for this year

... our tradition of lunch afterwards.

Attack of the bug eyed children...

The two munchkins all geared up for the school swimming carnival. 
They do actually swim in goggles rather than oversized party glasses!

Hot...

Photos from last weekend when the temperature hit forty one degrees for two days running. We  stayed inside for most of the weekend with the air conditioner on overdrive. The girl and the dog ventured out in the late afternoon for some sprinkler under the trampoline fun.
At about 7.00pm with the mercury still in the high thirties we piled everyone in the car and hit the beach, along with about a thousand other people! Still have to love an evening when you tell your kids to come out of the ocean because it is too dark now, rather than too cold.


Of course being Tassie this weekend we have the heater on...

Up and over the bridge we go...

After the 2012 Bridge Run... an annual fun run that  transverses  the main bridge over the Derwent River. Running at 8.00am is a far too energetic way to start the day in my opinion, so I was waiting at the finish line with coffee in hand.
The boy munchkin ran 5 km in around 29 minutes  and Miss B ran 2 kms in 9 minutes. Sometimes I still wonder if these kids are really related to me?

Thank you...

Thank you for all the fun and laughter, for all the good jokes and even the bad ones.
Thank you for all your help and advice.
Thank you for loving us all.
Miss you so much P.B.
1937 -2012

First day...

Not really sure where the holidays went?
First day of year 6 for my boy... and his last year of primary school!
First day of year 4 for my girl.


Guess it's back to the usual daily grind now.

Psychedelic Cake...

So Miss B has made it her mission this week to learn to cook, entirely by herself with absolutely no help from Mum. Her first effort was a rainbow cake, complete with red and pink icing and chocolate buttons. Tasted very yummy... but maybe I need to go over how to measure out the food colouring again...

It was an extremely bright rainbow cake....

The view from my veranda...

Sunshine, a swing and a sprinkler... if only life was always this much fun!

Hot...

Hot day + trampoline + sprinkler + two nine year olds = FUN :)

Birthday... belated and blue

Miss B turned nine three days after Christmas. If you have a December baby you very quickly learn that three days after Christmas is NOT the time to hold a birthday party. As if the general post Christmas fatigue and a fridge full of left overs is not a disincentive enough, half of the birthday child's friends tend to be at the beach or visiting relatives.

So we celebrated today. A blue tea party, except that the drink of choice today was pink lemonade.

Games of hide and seek, lots of playing on the swings and a blue and white ice cream cake to finish..

Happy belated birthday Miss B... may the next nine years be just as awesome!

Trouble x 2...

The fluffy one has been the most trouble this week... the other one has spent the whole week on the couch with possible appendicitis. We left the house only for blood tests and ultrasounds. Not unwell enough for hospital, not well enough to do anything but watch countless hours of tv and dvds.

Thankfully he is now feeling better and fingers crossed it doesn't return!

The little fluffy one... well she is still creating havoc!

Come back summer...

Rain, wind and then more rain that is how the weekend seems to be panning out. What happened to our summer?

Even though I wasn't ready...

School still started yesterday!

My boy munchkin is in year 5, which according to him means "lots of cool stuff happens". He moves to the middle school campus, gets a blazer, an individual lap top, more sports opportunities and little more freedom. He was nervous yesterday morning but happy yesterday afternoon.

My girl munchkin is in year 3 and she was really excited to be going back to school! Year three means moving into a house group and competing in sporting carnivals at school, bigger desks, choosing a class captain and being able to play on the oval. Her day was so exciting that she talked non stop for the first hour after I collected them from school.

So the house seems really quiet today and I have a huge pile of school books I am avoiding... did I mention that I hate contact?

I'm not ready...

I'm not ready for my munchkins go back to school next week.

I don't want to have to think about new uniforms and shoes.

I don't want to cover school books.

I'm not ready for early bedtimes.

I'm not ready to give up sleeping in.

I don't want to have to think about cutting lunches.

I don't want to have to be organised again.

I'm not ready for the house to seem so quiet again.

I'm not ready for summer to be over.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Baking, sorting, cleaning, present wrapping, sleeping in, slowing down, carols in the mall... Christmas is coming :)

Someday...

"What? you have cousins?" one of them asked, in a somewhat bewildered and incredulous tone.
We were driving and chatting and somehow the conversation had wound its way around to family.

I can see their look of disbelief in the rear vision mirror.
"Yes I have lots of cousins" I reply.
"Well why haven't we met them yet?"

And right there I pause, because I am unsure how to answer this question.

I have twenty nine cousins.

The memories and faces roll through my mind like a softly fading slide show.

Hide and seek and playing chase.

Climbing trees and throwing pine cones.

Making slides in the hay shed, and then getting into trouble for wrecking all the hay bales.

Cricket matches at Christmas that lasted all afternoon.

Playing the piano and thinking we sounded oh so great.

Dressing up and sleeping in.

Parties with music and dancing and the smell of cigarette smoke, because it was the seventies and all the cool adults smoked.

Stargazing outside on the veranda in the cold and quiet hearing the murmur of conversation inside.

Sometimes it feels like only yesterday.

Sometimes it feels like it never happened.

And then we grew up.

We moved away to work and to study.

My favourite aunt died.

My father died.

Then one day I had no grandparents left.

We all got busy.

We just gradually slipped away.

And our numbers are ever dwindling.

I have two nieces.

My children have two cousins.

They live half a state away.

I doubt that they will ever have any more.

They will never know what it feels like to have a huge extended family.

No matter how much they may wish for it.

They fight like cats and dogs these two children of mine.

But they cannot imagine a time when they will not see each other every day.

They are young and full of hope.

How do I explain that sometimes life just gets in the way.

That the people you love cannot always be with you.

That you lose touch and as time goes on it gets harder and harder to pick up the threads of your connection.

That a part of me is sad that they are missing out on being part of a big family community.

That the price you pay for moving away is that you are often all on your own.

I don't know how to explain any of this.

Instead I glance in the mirror and smile.

"Someday, they all live a long way away" I say.

And for now they smile back.

Love the first days...

Love the first days of spring sunshine...

the beginning of the school holidays...

time to spend with friends...

time to play...

time to create...

to experiment...

to sit and breathe...

Trying to keep the glass half full...

It's raining, the washing basket is overflowing... but the garden desperately needs water.

We are renovating at work. It is dirty, dusty and difficult. We have no water, which means no coffee! ... but it will be a beautiful place to work when it is finished.

My house is messy... but there is running water and coffee!

It's cold and I have to go and sit at gymnastics for three hours... but my kids are doing something that keeps them fit and makes them healthy.

It's Wednesday... which means the week is half over :)

I forgot...

How cold 3 degrees feels on the way to work...
How beautiful a crisp, frosty morning is...
How long it takes my toes to defrost in winter...
How much coming home to a house filled with people I love warms my heart...
How much my son has grown until I looked at his way too short winter pj's tonight...
How much I love snuggling in a warm bed with a good book...