a home a day.

Posted on July 27, 2009

Today we did the groceries. Cassidy bought her pram with Baby in it to the shops. I think she likes to do this because everyone smiles at her, says aren’t you beautiful and what’s your baby’s name. She whispers “Baby” while batting her eyelashes and keeping up her angelic front.

We came home and I ironed while she coloured in. We cuddled on the lounge and watched a movie. We cooked dinner and made cupcakes and she wore bunny ears. The latest obsession seems to be various headdresses. Last time we went shopping she wore a white glitterly halo suspended above an Alice band. This was obviously deemed a success as the “aren’t you beautiful” comments became more frequent. Now she rarely leaves the house without some sort of look-at-me head accessory.

This afternoon she said, “it’s nice to be a-home-a-day isn’t it mum?”

Yes, it is. I will miss our home-a-days next year

let it snow. at last.

Posted on July 22, 2009

I know this post has been a long time coming. When you come home to fifty million happy snaps on three different cameras that got dumped at random times onto various storage devices, it gets a little off putting. There’s a lot of photos, most of them happy snaps. Brace yourselves.

The trip started with a huuuge day in the car…15 hours driving to be exact to get to our friends in southern New South Wales (or as we put it, the middle of bloomin’ nowhere). Dave and Renata and their four gorgeous kiddos have a beautiful property near Temora. We stayed two nights with them and our city kids had an absolute ball. Here they all are, doing what kids do on farms. Climb gates.



Nata and the kids gave us a guided tour around the farm which was lovely. The kids threw rocks into the dam (as you do), fed the cows (because, you know, they might have trouble feeding themselves) and chased around what I think may be the cutest puppy in the world, Snowy.


The cows are rather attracted to Snowy too. Well, who wouldn’t be. I wanted to take him with us.



Three of the four afore mentioned beautiful kids. I don’t know how Isaiah evaded my shooting rampage Here is the camera shy Ellie, Elijah and Judah. I won’t try to be smart and tell you which twin is which because I can’t. I only feel okay about this because their own mother used to confuse them until a little while ago…..hey Nata?



Ellie and Cassidy didn’t like each other much. Neither did Isaac and Isaiah.





The boys got the special tour of the Temora Aircraft Museum because a certain daddy happens to work there. They don’t let just anyone sit in a Spitfire you know. Isaiah and Isaac were in little boy heaven.



We left Temora and drove to Albury where we picked up Em, Steve and William and did a spot of grocery shopping before heading up the mountain to the SNOW!!! Words can not express the bird like shriek that came from Cassidy when she spotted the first bit of snow as we drove up the mountain. There wasn’t much snow where we were staying for the first few days, but we prayed and the snow came and it snowed solidly for two days. I realise my Canadian and American friends that read this blog think I’m completely nuts, but I just love it. Then again, I don’t have to live in it for 7 months of the year either

Isaac. Ah, the little photographed “other” child. Unfortunately this holiday did not help in the photo area. From the first day, he took to skiing like a tounge to an icy ski lift pole. He had one day in ski school, and then was racing us down all the green and blue runs. At one point, he whizzed passed me right as I’d impaled myself in an enbankment calling over his shoulder, “you right there, mum?” When I relayed this to Steve he told me he thinks that’s the way it’s supposed to be. I didn’t find him very comforting in my time of feeling old and uncoordinated. Here’s the snow boy himself.



And here’s how he looked for most of our holiday.



Then there was the miss. Here she is with her snow dog, Bella. (Don’t ask).

Cass had fun in the snow and tabogganed a lot, but also appreciated the benefits of a heated coffee shop and hot chips. Fine dining at its best.



Cass also appreciated Nanna and Pa who were always ready with a hot chocolate and pikelets at a moments notice.



Behold the pretty-ness.



Behold the holiday random-ness.



Behold the chubby cheeks. (William’s not Em’s )



Behold the igloo. Was it not an architectural masterpiece for our first attempt? The kids had red cordial snow slushies in there which they spilt on the little table Steve made which made it look rather sinister….

Do not, however, behold our smooshed car One night in partculary snowy weather both the Steve’s and Em and I decided we’d go out for some night skiiing. Unfortunately the landcruiser driving in the opposite direction didn’t know this and hit our car. No-one hurt. Radiator did not like the landcruiser hitting our car. Car spent better part of a week at the bottom of the mountain getting fixed. Steve and Kate decided to build a bridge and get over it and stay for a few extra days. The only hiccup in a fantastic two weeks. The kids cried when we left and I almost did too.

Now if I can just make myself delete the snow reports from my favourites and stop inwardly counting the weeks till next year, we’ll be all set.

saturday night fever.

Posted on July 20, 2009

Or should that be Sunday afternoon fever. Cassidy was invited to a birthday party on Sunday afternoon with a disco theme. Now, I doubt the child has the slightest inkling of what a disco is, only that everyone at kindy had been talking about it and she’d come to the conclusion it must be fun.

The outfit of choice was of upmost importance. She also seemed to understand that sparkles should be involved. As strange as it may seem, I’m not in the habit of stocking my almost-five year old daughter’s cupboard with an abundance of sparkles and spandex. In the end we went for more of a layered/hippie/Elton-John-in-the-seventies ensemble. We curled the hair, we overdid the eyeshadow and we sprayed glitter hairspray on anything that didn’t twinkle.

Our main issue was her footwear that apparently “was not sparkly enough” (this was aided by the fact that she’d planned to wear her red glitter shoes and put them on only to find they were too tight). She was less than impressed that her plain red, and very un-sparkly shoes had to do. What’s a girl to do when there just ain’t enough glitter to go around.

Here she is; her attitude making up for the lack of sequins.



The “disco” was a darkened garage with heaps of moving lights, music, a mirror ball and the expected amount of giggling and shrieking girls. She thought it was just the bees knees

little nessie.

Posted on July 15, 2009

I know, I know…I haven’t blogged the snow, but can you blame me for letting this little one jump the queue? Steve’s brother Brad and my sister in law Karli brought Vanessa over today for a session. Due to my lack of knitting and crotcheting grandmothers due to their high falutin’ caravan-ing accross the countryside, I couldn’t guilt my Nonna into knitting me a cocoon like I wanted for Vanessa. One of my knitted hats had to do.

Isn’t she smoochy.

Long legs like mummy.



Maxed out on daddy’s shoulder.



Snuggle bugs with mum and dad.



Congrats Brad and Karli from all of us…she’s boodiful. xo

feels like home.

Posted on July 13, 2009

I don’t think it matters how wonderful the time away is…it’s always good to be home. Even after a wonderful holiday, I still inwardly go ‘ahhh’ when I walk in the front door…and yet another ‘ahhh’ when I lie on my very own bed. The snow holiday extravaganza post to come soon.

What made coming home even better was that our new niece, Miss Vanessa Anne, saw fit to wait for us to be almost home to make her appearance (somehow I don’t think her mummy felt the same sentiment being a week overdue!) Here’s a few of my sister in law Karli, looking rather glow-y and pregnant-y just before we left.

We had a quick stop in to the hospital when we got home to meet the newest princess in our family. Cassidy is rather tickled that she now has blue AND pink baby cousins to smoosh. Isaac continues his Babies Can’t Touch Me stance but scratch the surface and he’s all smoosh himself.

I’m looking forward to getting my camera onto our new little sweetie soon. It’s good to be home. xo