Two Beautiful Pink Things From Today

Now that the move is over I finally found some time to spin. It's going to be (my second attempt at) a pigtail hat for a wee girl.

The girl, minus the hat and pigtails, making a new fishing game with her Mutti in the Snazzi-workshop.

(Okay the move isn't quite over. We don't eat that many bananas. Fortunately they are empty, just awaiting removal.)

High Hopes

We have established that the large tree at the back of the house is in fact not dead. We have blossoming!

Grandad R kindly came around to rip up deck boards with Blokey Husband. I suspect they think I'm nuts and it cannot be done, but just when all was looking bleak, I discovered Mulchman.

Mulchman can get soil for my garden in place I'm sure. I'm keeping my high hopes. I just hope he doesn't arrive in those tight red pants.

How Nice. . .

on a bleak and chilly afternoon to bump into your grandmother on the way to do a spot of fishing.As P3 astutely pointed out,

"Fishing is really just standing."

Yep.

The Sleepout

Just to document, in case things change, this is the new Snazzipants room (or sleepout) which used to look really big, before we filled it chock full of STUFF.

Winter Is On Its Way Out

But although it is sunny

and I'm cute as a cute lil button

there is no way I'm gonna let you take a decent picture of me

so I'm gonna act up

and be a wally.

So there!

Oh Happy Day

Our first online order from blackmarket arrived (yeah the other three don't fit. We haven't drunk them already or anything.)

Will it actually work out cheap, or will we just destroy our livers? Not sure, but it gives me an urge to chop a big hole in the kitchen floor and create a lovely cellar like Aunty Iz has.

On a more creative note (actually chopping holes in floors is quite creative too now I think about it) I painted P3's rather vivid wall. And I like it! But when I took a photo, duh, it surprised me that it looked all vile again on my computer. Just like the swatch on the computer. But nothing like real life. So I'm not going to add the pic. It's quite alarmingly raspberry, but is very much better than beige.

I think I've complained about beige before. Should be banned.

Flora

Blokey Husband came home bearing flowers. Lovely flowers.

He is trying to be out-of-the-blue-spontaneous, but I do distinctly remember telling him about his lack of romance last time we argued. Romance is not his strong point. That is kinda important. But often niceness is not mine, and that's way more important.

(Actually tidying he is pretty lousy at too. A few years back I undertook The Teatowel Challenge, where I threw a teatowel down in the hall and waited until he picked it up. I'm not sure, but I think it was 11 days. Nova will know the details.)

However, niceness is totally my husband's forte in life. He is perfectly nice through and through no matter what you chuck at him. I really value that.

I like the flowers too. Thanks kind Husband.

Three-And-A-Half And Six-And-A-Half

Good ages.

Sometimes you just want to freeze time.

Good Things About Boys

Aunty Iz sent us an updated puku pic, and it is getting impressive.

There's a wee boy hiding in there, and boys usually get a pretty bad rap. Yup, they are noisy and bouncy and sometimes kinda smelly, but at least when you ask them to choose a paint colour, chances are they won't throw this at you

which is what P3 set her heart on today. Actually, it isn't so bad on the chart, but it looks frankly scarily burgundy on my pc. It is called tickled pink, so fingers crossed that it is just the monitor. Please God. I promised her only one wall (others white to tone it down) and it is her room after all. (Yup, fully trying to convince myself.) Maybe I'll throw some white in just in case to make it less boysenberry?

Anyway, back to boys. . .I asked L6 at dinner what the best part of his day was today. His quick as a flash answer: "Waking up, and seeing you."

Awwwww. Boys love you so completely. Even if they are totally having you on.

Sunday

Took the children to MOTAT. Go the mirror maze!

(Except it is a bit disconcerting seeing that many images of your butt.)

Yawn Alright

I promise wholeheartedly that one day you will click on here and it'll say something interesting. We're moving to Italy! Look at my huge new tattoo! I just won a Nobel Prize! Hey, this is how the theory of relativity works! Or something along those lines.

But today I am going for the most tedious blog in the known world.

I painted some steps. The colour is faintly yeurgh, but there was paint under the house, and that photo of L6 the other day proves it was even more yeurgh before.

Blokey Husband cooked dinner. (What is is with boys and kitchen MESS?? Look - ice cube trays on the floor? Shhhh me.)

P3 got right into party mood, even arranging and posing for this photo. Which is why it looks nothing like her.

And the lemons and mandarins stayed pretty much where they were.

Yawn. Warned ya.

Yay For Broadband

because it means I can upload a squillion bad pictures from the day and prattle on about them despite their total and utter insignificance, with ease.

P3 organized a party, and I was lucky enough to be invited. Everyone else was invisible. There was food and drink

and (woman after my own heart that she is) lots of beer

although she promised that the beer was "not too strong for babies" so I can't in all honesty recommend it.

I thought she had colour co-ordinated the food/flowers in the bowls

but she denied it, so maybe that was just me being weird.

If you were observant you'd have noticed I have new hippy shoes

but with all the walking we do to school/kindy and back now I don't actually care what they look like because they are more comfy than barefeet on candyfloss, so I am going to live in them in the coming months.

Yep, got that old.

And here you can see my lovely new plants in the garden created to replace yet another piece of weedmat covered with rocks

but not showing any more around there because that is where you can see the really ugly house, so I'm hoping those trees will grow quick and blot it out.

And more unrelated stuff, L6 had to dress up like a schoolboy from any decade from 1930 till 1990, which was rather a hard call. I thought he ended up looking seriously cute (despite our hopelessness on the historical shoe front)

but it was pointed out to me that he actually looked like that guy from ACDC. Bugger. Yeah, okay, okay.

And the day finished with my first attempt at homemade gnocchi. Just because Sandra can, and it looked like a good idea.

Mine were kind of rubbery.

Ordinary Day

L6's class planted a garden to beautify the school today. I went to help, because I'm a goodie goodie.

And P3 took the best photo of the day after dinner.

If you look closely you can see her whole family in there. Albeit blurry.

I Don't Have A Picture

but I do have a transcript of the sqillionth time I popped in to check if L6 was asleep:

"I have thought of a thing that rings a bell in a shop when you walk in and this is how it works: it has a ramp and a rope attached to the ramp and then the rope is attached to a long bit of metal with a ball on the end and then there is a bit of metal that goes through the bit of metal that has the ball on the end. Then there is a bit of metal shaped like the cover of a bell and when you step on the ramp it pulls the rope which pulls down on the stick of metal with the ball on the end which pivots on the line of metal through it which rings the bell."

Okay I wrote it down as he said it (the second time) after a wine or two, so if it makes no sense it could be me. Or it could be him. But my point is, my mind just doesn't do that when I go to sleep at night. It might race, but it feels inane compared with what is going through my boy's head as it is trying to slow down at night.

Mummy

By P3:

By L6:

By Mummy:

(Roast chicken gravy from dinner, carcass in pot for stock, milo warming to fatten 'em up. Felt so matronly.)

Thought For Today From P3

"I might fall down the toilet, but when my bottom is as big as your bottom I won't fall down because then it will be tooooooo big."

Um, yeah.

Go M14!!

Wooo hoo you smart girl! (She won a fourth, a second and two firsts in the Nelson Performing Arts competitions. Fab eh?) We think you are AMAZING!!

Boy Stuff

L6 had a day off school today, and he and Bunce worked on making rope. First manually:


and then when their boy genes got the better of them, with a machine they designed and made from meccano:

It was very satisfying, the Big Moment when they let go and it went sproing (yes, that is the official term) and turned itself into pretty respectable, untwisty, rope. Bit like Spinning For Blokes.

We should be geeky homeschoolers eh? ;)

The End Of Winter

must surely be just around the corner? I've had enough of it. Today, between the rainshowers, Blokey Husband began to rip up the deck (the house has three levels of deck so we can happily lose one) to create some garden space. I need to see green stuff growing. My friends must realise this because over the weekend one came bearing parsley

and another gave me a daffodil.

They make me so happy sitting on the kitchen windowsill reminding me that spring is about to be sprung. Better keep pestering husband about getting those boards up.

And my other flower just because she is a picture in herself.

A Moment

P3 sat down at the piano after bath, starkers, plonked out some notes and sang

"1 2 3 4 5
Open your eyes

See what you've got

And give it away"

Cute, plus extra points for spontaneous philanthropy.

One For Iz

My beautiful sister. I remember how you were my idol you were six. :)

You're still pretty fab.

I Hate Asthma And Some Old Pics

ihateasthmaihateasthmaihateasthmaihateasthmaihateasthmaihateasthma

A mantra to repeat when you are kept up all night by a little one struggling to breathe. Well, mostly for L6 it is just the constant cough. One with every breath for six and a half hours straight last night. So today was never going to be particularly auspicious. Too completely knackered.

Luckily there were grandparents lavishing care and cuddles and giving a tired mummy a chance to sleep for an hour on the couch. For which I am eternally thankful.




And I don't have any clue what happened to make the photos so wobbly. We'll blame dial up for that too while we are at it eh? Three days to go till broadband! And 'cos the photos aren't up to much, here's a couple from Bunce. From 1974, so he has a good excuse for fuzzy.



Yep, that's our family on the run to NZ, going through the Panama Canal. So big a moment I remember it. Well, I remember my Dad saying "remember this moment" anyway. Did notice we are the only ones sitting for the big event. What was that I was saying about athletic prowess? Or perhaps that was hippy chic?

Small me on big boat.