Royal Wedding Afterglow

Yesterday was all about the hats. Here are L&P&I in our fascinators.

Today was more down to earth.

Awww, the shells have clearly drifted into the shape of a loveheart though. . .

Now it wasn't just me that noticed that. L8 was very excited to see it and swears it was created by human hand.

What Happened

It was an autumny day and there was lots of gumboot wear.

L&P&I worked hard to de-poop the chickens.

Their houses are looking positively palatial! Cheap segue to some pre-wedding prep. . .

That's Kate's arms in the window picture, not a particularly busty bride. William's hair is also looking rather special. I'm guessing he'd go with the fro look rather than the receeder he currently sports anyway.

But What Really Happened was. . .

we bought takeout for dinner as P5 randomly threw up in the foodcourt when we attempted to eat out, on the way home from failing to make it to the shop in time to pick up Blokey Husband's new glasses. I also discovered (whilst attempting to dress up) that I can no longer fit into my wedding dress - which wasn't even fitted, and it isn't the fat bits of me that don't fit - it's the skinny bits of me :-( And I know it fit about a year or two ago, so while in all probability something ghastly has happened between then and now, I'm still going with 'It Shrunk'. Meanwhile P5 wore it happily.

Then I took out my flabby frustration a big bar of chocolate. I scoffed that sucker with such enthusiasm that when I went to write this post I got confused about what was in which hand, and popped my memory card in my mouth and just about crunched it. It's kinda chocolately, but still functional.

The End.

This Is A Post For My Husband

A subtle hint. Mothers' Day looming and all that. I've been a bit hopeless these holidays on bread (although I've baked a veritable flabsworthy of cakes) but hope to rectify that in the coming weeks.

It's A Happy Day

when you find purple potatoes in the supermarket.

Actually it was a happy day all around - took L&P to catch up with their long lost gallivanting grandparents, and that made them all happy. Got a chance to sneak out during a marathon Ludo session to have a wee treat at the yarn shop. But I failed to take a memory card with me, so it's a pic of the veggies ready to go in the oven that you end up with.

Pretty enough though eh?

Black Lipstick And A (Not Very) Surprise

Today we found black lipstick, and really, who can resist? It's sooooo useful if you want to look emo

or cat

After that, P5 wanted to paint me up as a cat too. So mine is a bit wonky and faintly tired looking, but I wouldn't blame that all on her artistic skills. I asked what would happen if someone came to the door and she said rather matter of factly "Then they'll think we are mad."

Okay then. Cat it is.

No-one was immune. . . as soon as he walked in the door:

See how I share all these inane details? It's because I'm not very good at keeping secrets. So if you think you might be getting something knitty in the mail soon, and you want a surprise, then just don't look okay? But otherwise, I finished some commissioned fingerless gloves. There was allllllllmost enough left over for a hat. Enough if you added a stripe.

OOo I love the finishing and the sending part. And the spoiling by putting on the blog part too :)

All About Today

Rain.

Mud.

Cake.

On Easter And Bad Photos

We had family around for the trad Easter thing, and I completely failed on taking pics. I took this awesome one:

where absolutely everybody turned their back. I'm sure it was because the egg hunt was so amusing.

There was a naughty amount of wii, but only so we could show the lovely Deb and sweet Carol their mii versions. While people were here there was lots of loud overexcitement, but just at the end of the day there was cuddles as big brother helped his little sister, and that made it all okay. Sure the pic is rubbish, but the sentiment was nice.

Just in case there wasn't enough chocolate I made a sacher torte, which absolutely rocked. OMG, can you even guess how much butter was in that creation? That's really the answer to being a chef - add a whole bucketful of butter. Mmmm. Totally going to make that again if my heart keeps beating long enough.

And just because it's Easter and all. . .

Thanks to our guests, and happy Easter to everyone else. I'll leave the last word to L8:

"Easter isn't about presents P5, it's about eggs."

Ice-makers and fire-makers. Lamp eyes, dammerung, mat flyers, artists, whisperers, counterfeiters. Multiples. These are the Karmidee. The last truly magical people, hidden and far away in their secret City of Trees, their last refuge from our world, where they would be put in laboratories, or zoos, or worse. . .

Once there were many such people and creatures living among us. They are all there in the stories. Even mermaids. Even fire-breathing dragons, dreaming on the edge of volcanoes. But those stories are for children now.

Don't be deceived. Magical people exist and they are called Karmidee. But they are not like the people in the fairy tales. They do not twinkle. They are real flesh and blood and bone.

(From L8's current read - Otto Hush in the Time of the Warrior by Charlotte Haptie.)

Good Friday

L&P&I learnt to make origami boxes, which we are going to use for Easter prezzies.

Blokey Husband spend the time making groany cat wails on his guitar. But he was happy.

Hope you had a Good Friday too.

Black And White

We did some serious holiday crafting together.

And a little bit of writing on the windows too.

Colour

P5 painted with watercolours this morning. She told me she was going to "fill this with bright colours like Fiona White does." I love it when my children know more than me.

"Who P5?"

"She's an artist."

That girl listens at school. And remembers.

I also managed to fill my life with a little colour today. It's odd when you open up your emails in the morning and find out that you have forgotten an auction you put up and lo and behold, your dining chairs are sold. So yay, got me replacements to brighten my day.

Unfortunately they are fearsomely difficult to take a photo of that gives you any kind of correct impression of the total effect, so I'm going with tantalising instead.

Murder

was on the cards today. No, not getting super grumpy at the beginning of the school holidays ;-) This morning I accidentally encountered the BIGGEST spider of my life hanging out in my kitchen cupboard. Bleurgwaheeeeeeeeeeek! So I decided to use that as an excuse to wreak some havoc on the plague of cockroaches that has always inhabited this house along with us, and if some spiders happened to die in the slaughter, then that's a happy coincidence too. I've put it off and off because it just seems so wrong to throw poison about while you are trying to raise small beings to grow up healthy and strong, but there's a line, and that nuggety arachnid this morning pushed me well over it.

So I set off three roach (and spider and anything else crawly) bombs - one underneath the house, one in the outside room, and one inside just to completely poison us all. Ewwwww. . . yes there was evidence outside afterwards. But thankfully not too many inside. I'm also crossing my fingers that we are all still breathing in the morning after shutting ourselves in with it all night. I've had everything open all day despite it being the first really wintry day, and now we are just going to take our chances .

On a more pleasant, yet slightly consumerist note, when you have to spend hours and hours away from home on a really cold day, someone is surely gonna end up with new shoes.

Sadly it wasn't me. How teenage does my little boy look now??!

Welcome Back Sewing Mojo

Actually it's been back a while (I've been reading Miss Celie's Pants since someone linked to it and am seriously envious of her productivity. And her hair.) but first I didn't have a sewing machine in the house, and then I didn't have any time. What I did have was some fabric offcuts I bought off a friend who buys scrummy fabric. This inspired sneaking off to get a pattern instead of working on Thursday. And today my children had friends around, which meant I could ignore them a bit more and finally get to work.

Clearly this dress makes P5 want to embrace the world.

Sewing the square neck almost made me want to escape the world by doing myself in.

But it was hardly worth stressing over since it's almost entirely obscured by hair.

Yes, that is four almost entirely identical pictures of the same thing. Your point?

Craze

We have a new family game, and L8 is predictably obsessed.

It's good. P5 can play too and Blokey Husband and I played it heaps after the children went to bed, so it must be a winner.

Also the music on this video ad makes L&P dance like mad things, and possibly you will too.

Indulgence

Indulging my children. You'd think one half of the bagel jam and the other nutella would work, but no, it's hugely tastier to have each half, half jam half nutella.

Indulging my chooks. Go for it girls. I was growing a green crop to dig in, but you may as well enjoy it.

Indulging my husband. It's not an indulgence if you use it to get to work eh? It's nice to do something eco-friendly with reusable nappy profits, and he certainly deserves a treat.

He did tell me it's going to live in our room, and I can have a co-sleeper bed next to it :(

A Shoe Post, But Not A Good One.

Usually I try to buy my children nice shoes. Good, sturdy, rugged shoes that are actually designed for walking, running, hopping, skipping, climbing, dipping in streams and all those important jobs. (So many little girls' shoes don't seem to be useful in those respects?) But this week P5 has been on at me to take her to the Warewhare for shoes. How she got the notion in her head that this is where you get shoes, I'm not sure. I guess we have bought them there before, but since they last about a second and a half, make me feel guilty about their origins, and generally smell of weird chemicals, I wouldn't say it's my preferred choice.

However, we had an hour to kill while L8 was at karate on Tuesday, so we went for a wander. Stupid Me. How can my lovely daughter with her groovy style and impeccable understanding of colour (today she told me that the outfit she is wearing here wasn't quite right because it was two different reds - "the top is an orangy-red and the skirt is a pinky-red") fall in love with these grotesque little puppies? I said no to so many others (for aforementioned reasons) that I couldn't reasonably object to these. They have good soles. Excellent toes. But it would help appreciate them if you were colourblind perhaps?

Ahhh, another girl in her class has them. It all becomes clear. She's been so happy with her twinnie shoes. I'm just hoping the other parents-of-girls know that it's got very little to do with me.

She's still cute as pie though.

I tried to get a pic of L8, but he declined. So instead I'm going to share his charm - again from a few days ago. Yeah, I'm prolific but not necessarily up to date, or indeed, interesting.

Me: "L8 why are your shoes here?"
L8: "Where?"

Me: "By the fridge."

L8: "Because that's where I took them off. Please use common sense."