Therapy For Wild Things

It's the last week of term. L7 and P4 are tired.

Who can resist the allure of a magic painting book? It was absolutely quiet as I cooked dinner, and they painted with water.

L7 has some bizarre plan to sell his. I agree it's therapeutic, but I suspect he is overvaluing the desirability of end product somewhat.

It Must Still Be Summer

see?

Actually I pulled them out to make room for these:

which you will notice have been absolutely decimated by caterpillars before I've even found time to plant them.

And actually I have no idea what day end of school term is, so I probably don't really know if it is still summer or not.

It's Good To Have

-an older cousin around to help you make yummy chocolate drinks:

-a pen and paper at bedtime to prolong the moment when you actually have to go to sleep. Look what P4 came up all by herself with to distract us from turning off the light:

-a kind auntie in the optometry game who will find your old lenses stashed away and pop them in a loaner frame the day after you are ditzy enough to leave your real glasses on top of the car and drive away.

-cuddles before bedtime. Ah yes, those are the best.

The books worked their magic.

L7 failed to emerge from his bedroom this morning, and learnt the joy of a Sunday morning lie in where you just keep going until you have finished the whole book. We are hoping that in three years both children will have mastered this skill. . .and Sunday mornings will be proper Sunday mornings again.

Part way through The Big Read we had to scoff some breakfast, so I gave my children lollies and bubblegum. Because y'know this domestic goddess lark is all well and good, but it does get a bit. . .grating. So I know you are waiting for the photographic evidence of L4 learning about bubblegum. Oh yes, blogsworthy indeed. She was very keen on the spitting out bit.

There you go. Just what you needed to see eh? Four year old learns gum. Excellent.

Anyway, there was actually Big Stuff to blog to remember because today is the day M14 came from her Kidney Kids Camp to come play for a day before going home. I made the cuzzies pose for a million wallet pics.

Which was hard because they do like to tickle and play silly buggers.

But I think they were pretty happy to see each other.

Then I discovered they were all actually way more photogenic outside in the autumn light.

And we went a had a slap up dinner at a local restaurant, courtesy of Mutti and Bunce (thank you guys!) in which P4 took the cake by literally taking her cousin's cake while she chatted. And I managed to take a pic that is vaguely decent of exactly half the participants, and hopeless of the other 50%.

But you get the gist. Cosy.

So lovely to see you M14. And can't wait to do so again tomorrow :)

More Happiness

Oooo lookie:

Who is happy about new books?

Excellent.

Short post because I have lost my glasses, so typing is hard. EEEEEEEEEEEK! Doesn't bode well for my new book.

Feeling Lucky And Loved

Okay so this blog is supposedly about P4 and L7 because they do grow up so fast and even though it is hard work I want to savour it. The thought of them being big enough to be independent is both lovely and completely awful at the same time.

But this week has been a hard one. I've been tired and scratchy and still not quite well. It's a boring old drag. So this isn't a post so much about cool things I got, as a thank you for my lovely family. All of you who bother to read and to comment and to care.

On Wednesday I arrived home, tired, from the zoo trip, and there sitting on my table was the spice thingy I had been warbling on to Mutti about the day before. I wanted it (thank you stupid pantry moths for making me so storage obsessive) but had decided to be good and save, rather than spend. And yet lookie - it's mine!

And today, struggling through to the end of the week, I went to the post box and found this:

Now it would have been cool enough that my lovely sister posted this to me (which she kindly did ) but the note admitted the credit was my kind brother-in-law -the world's best present organiser and buyer - who saw it and thought of me. 'Crafty Girls' Road Trip - guide to NZ craft places' in case you can't read it. Well, way to make my day.

I'm so thankful for you guys. Bought some lovely wool for my cute nephew to pay it back. Or maybe forward. Or probably around.

Bread

I'm a sad old product of the 70's like the blokes who sang about The Guitar Man and Aubrey. Bread is my new hobby.

This morning I had the bread maker on cooking up a fruit loaf for tomorrow's breakfast toast:

a new batch of artisan bread in 5 minutes rising to its sticky airy fantastic messiness:

fed my sourdough mother up with her daily dose:

and had a shapeless glob of the last lot of artisan bread slowly rising on its polenta base for lunch for P4 and I:

That's a lot of bread for one morning.

ETA - Ha, am such a doofus we ate all the fresh stuff and had no bread left for lunch sammies in the morning. Thank goodness for school sausage sizzle day.

Dear P4 and P2. . .

. . . AKA Little Red Riding Hood,
Today we took you both (and P2's little bro B-zero but he's a tad too small to remember the day) to the zoo. I want you to know that you two girls are the sweetest, loveliest, happiest, cutest little girls in the whole wide world, and I will gladly take you anywhere, anytime. You walk for hours, brave the wind and drizzle, and never ever complain, fuss or demand anything. You two are the bestest.

I seem to have managed to take not one single animal pic, but here you are posing happily by some lovely begonias:

And not posing so much by some interesting gum trees:

But I promise it was really not the botanical gardens but the zoo,

and you were delicious.

Spying

with your spy watch listening device

and your [grandmother and soft toy] posse.

And as a totally irrelevant aside - someone at kindy recognised my schoolhouse tunic as a schoolhouse tunic!!?! 'Mazing eh? She just bought the pattern too. I have a new friend. Yay.

Hair Squashing Hat

Ignore the wild staring eyes and concentrate on the slouchy hat. Finished my second taos slouch, and it is super handy for a girl growing out her hair.

It is very green and purple, which you can't really see. I'm also in love with corrugated ribbing as much as it is possible to love a knitting stitch.

My Garden Is A Disaster

but man, I've found my sewing mojo. . .

Funkiest pants ever for P4. Homage to the days when you really wore homemade clothes made from the offcuts of other people's homemade clothes.

Am tempted to find a comfy-pant pattern for grown ups, although I might subliminally and unwittingly be revisiting the bedwear sewing theme.

Heh. We looked really silly,

but Baboo pulled it off with style.

Alice in Wonderland in 3D is gloriously pretty, but in hindsight a bit much for P4. It did mean I got two solid hours of cuddles though. Blokey Husband didn't have such a good time as he got stung by a wasp up his trouser leg in the movie. Kind of random, but funny. Maybe not so much for him.

I also finally got around to finishing Schoolhouse Tunic version 2. Wouldn't you know it, the one I hated went so smoothly it was like finishing a jigsaw, but this one was a total nightmare. Sleeves went in twice, had to redo the skirt to fit the bodice whilst perilously close to making it too small, and I'm not even going to begin on my pleat disasters. But at least it doesn't look like an old lady's bed jacket this time. Pyjamas yes, but in a chic and comfy way I think. I hope.

Green Stuff

Nah, I'm not gonna tell you about snot, although I'm tempted. Desperate times and all that. My sister told me to lay off the tequila, but I promise I haven't even sniffed it; saving it for when she's up. We both know we rock together on tequila ;) Anyway, I resorted to spirulina smoothie, I'm so tired of being unwell.

On the plus side, P4 thinks it is yum. Hence the green moustache of goodness.

And on the topic of green, remember my terrifying walls? And the fact that I put up my old bright pink curtains but wasn't game to show you even though I loved them?

Haha, well check out the latest House and Garden:

Green and pink rock. Officially. The end of tone on tone. Hurrah!

Okay the lego in my pic doesn't look quite so smashing, I admit.

I worried yesterday about what would be point of my husband when he wasn't required to bring me Doritos from his travels now that I can get them here.

And then today he totally proved himself. He hired someone who had been travelling in Mexico. Woohooo, tequila! And since he hired the guy surely we are talking FREE tequila??! Nah, apparently not. Boo hiss. Damn morals.

Anyway it's a good thing too (tequila) because I am grumpy as hell today. Sick again. Only good thing is it is suddenly cold enough to wear my rather grubby-looking Minnie Cooper boots again.

And then. . . the zip broke. Again, Blokey Husband proved his worth by making it look fixed. But I'm not sure if it really is, deep in its leathery soul. And I mean soul, not sole. I heart my boots. Loving today? Not so much.

Wish I was L7, who was in heaven because a lego club magazine arrived with 3D glasses.

I remember the happiness of 3D glasses.

Doritos

Now in New Zealand. I'm insanely happy.

It's gonna be ugly.


Yummmmmmmmmmmmmmm. They make a great sandwich. My excuse is they remind me of living in Aberdeen. Aberdeen would drive you to junk too you know.

My Space

The student in me just had to pinch it for old times' sake.

And now I can't quite bring myself to take it down.

P4 Style

She was born happy and glamorous this one.

New tap shoes.

Brother checks out metal heels.

Happy tappy. . .

(Yes, Blokey Husband had a minor spazzo over the wooden floor, till I told him to shushy.)