sunday sewing

There are definite challenges to sewing with a three year old (and a five year old too actually). Those are his fingers on the fabric above. I find it easier if I get to press the foot, especially on small things or detailed things. If I want the boys to use the foot then I put it on a box for them so their shorter legs can manage. I try and be calm and not snappy but sometimes I think I'm crazy to let them help!

We have finished the Christmas pressies this morning with a bit more sewing. It feels great and I'm sure that it'll feel even better once they're wrapped up and ready to go. I have some photos to share after Christmas.

hanging out with the animals

The dragon at the zoo recently had a makeover and it's looking gorgeous! I guess it helps that red is my favourite colour.

One Monday afternoon after rugasoc and after school (maybe two weeks back) B and I took the boys for a late afternoon zoo visit. It's the best time of the day to visit the zoo (late afternoon). We saw so much animal activity and there were so few people there. I guess it helped that it wasn't a very warm afternoon either.

We saw roaring lions, shrieking baboons, mother hens sheltering their chicks (seven under one mama), the hippos swimming quickly about, frisky otters playing...

The boys played on the dragon while B and I had a drink from the cafe and played backgammon. If you haven't seen B's wedding ring up close before it's engraved with roman numerals of the year we fell in love (15 years ago now).

christmas chefs

super busy at the moment

sometimes I don't make the blog much of a priority

but I still keep taking photos

I can't help myself!

Tonight we made pizzas and I realised that it's less than a month till Christmas... so I got out the new apron and chef hat sets that I picked up in the post Christmas sales last year. I had envisaged some grand gingerbread baking photo shoot but I couldn't resist taking some pictures tonight and of course thought you guys would like to see them. #2 is using the olive pitter that GG gave us last year and chopping mushrooms for his (cheese free) pizza. I try to make sure he gets lots of toppings so that not all of them fall off! I love that the kids eat stuff that I would have never eaten as a kid... mushrooms, olives, capsicum etc

powerman

Powerman (his not so secret super hero name) got to play electrician the other day.

How much fun is electricity? I'm still kind of amazed that a battery and some wires can make a light turn on. I think it must be the science geek in me (I am the daughter of an electrical engineer after all). I used to want to be a jet pilot when I was fourteen.

What did you want to be when you grew up? Leave me a comment, I'd love to know. It's not so tricky. Click on the word "comments" below. Type something in the box. Click on the "comment as" box. Choose "name/url" and type in your name. Click "Post Comment". That't it :o)

Meg x

helping

Recently we've introduced some chores into the boys lives. The 5yr old was keen to have his own job and quite enjoyed emptying the dishwasher in the mornings. So we decided that could be his thing (with some help from us).

Once it became his job though we've had a few morning meltdowns. That sort of thing is never fun but much harder to deal with early in the morning pre-caffination. Bring on the reward chart... a happy face for a happily emptied dishwasher, neutral face if there was some grumping and a lovely X for total tantrum or refusal to do it.

The first morning after we introduced the reward chart he came into our bedroom at 6:30am, fully dressed and said "I've emptied the dishwasher!". No grumping, no sulking only beautiful sweet hard work. He can't reach the shelf with the adults glasses or mugs so he had lined them up along the edge of the bench. I had to get a photo before we put them away. It hasn't been all happy faces since then but most days are starting off well :o)

summer is on it's way

Doesn't life just get that much sweeter when it's warm? My good friend Susie came to stay for a long weekend with her two little guys (a baby and a two year old (in the cape)). We had a pretty busy time (with all the napping and feeding) but managed to fit in a spontaneous beach visit late one afternoon, complete with super hero children and beer for the mums. It's amazing how quickly you forget how time consuming and completely dependent babies are! But they're so lovely.

I like that at this time of year you can end up at the beach without swimsuits or sunscreen and not get burnt. Bliss. I'm pretty easily burnt myself and so we tend not to spend too much time at the beach. This one is our local though, 3.5km up the road according to the online map I just looked up. It's great for late afternoon - sunset visits for us.

proud

Guess who got player of the day last week? He was super proud of himself. I had been out shooting kiddies for the cover of Good magazine and so NanaD and Poppa took him to Rugasoc. He was thrilled to get the trophy although a bit of a dork about getting photographed with it (he kept pulling silly faces) even though he insisted I get the camera out!

The big graze/bruise on his cheek was from the weekend when he fell onto the bricks in our courtyard. Lots of tears about that one! Ouch.

hopscotch

One thing I've really noticed since the start of school, is how many cool games that we played as kids (and I'd totally forgotten), are still very popular. Like Statues, What's the time Mr Wolf, Midnight etc. It's nice hearing about them through fresh eyes. Many of them they play in class and a lot on their own at lunch time too.

typical

This was the illegal shortcut that resulted in this. When #1 had challenged #2 to a race around the court and #2 had realised that he couldn't win without taking a massive shortcut right across the middle. So very typical of both of them.

girls and boys come out to play

Three months have passed since our school boy began primary school. While I was away in Wellington at the Infocus conference, B sent me a txt that there were a few girls keen on our wee guy. Apparently they would gather to wave and call out to him after school each day.

One day I witnessed it for myself (a day when I had a camera too, double luck). They were so sweet and he was quite noncommittal about it. They're all 3-4 years older than him.

At the disco on Friday there were three wee girls from his class trying to show him how zombies walk. Those wee five year old girls are so gorgeous. Very girly. So far removed from my two boys, a different species entirely. Or should I say my one boy and my one cat? The little one calls himself "miaow miaow" on a regular basis and pretends he is a cat.

I came across the sweetest thing on Tuesday afternoon. The boys had been playing together and I'd been bringing in the laundry (oh the excitement). When I came upstairs both of them were sitting (one in the hall and one on the couch) and crying softly. Perplexed, I asked what was going on... they wouldn't give much away but kind of giggled through their tears. I was determined to find out what the story was and eventually got it out of them. No, they hadn't been fighting. No, they weren't crying because either of them were hurt.

Apparently they were playing a game where one of them was Ben and one was Miaow Miaow (guess which one). Ben had gone to the doctor and been diagnosed as having an allergy to cats (can you see where this is going?). He'd had to send his cat away to a new home and both he and the cat were devastated. How gorgeous/sad is that for a game? Pretty much acting out what happened a couple of years ago when we had a cat allergy diagnosis for the little one. Our puss is still doing well in her second home and his allergic runny nose has been gone ever since.

getting arty

We don't go there often enough for my liking but NanaD and I did manage to get to the Art Gallery with the boys during the holidays. They had this cool activity table for the kids. It had four frames on it and you could create your own art inside the space with a variety of magnets. They had made the magnets themselves by gluing magnets to printed out images and shapes. Once you had created your artwork you could draw a picture of it to take home. I especially liked the frames which had empty rooms in them that you could decorate/fill with things. A little like playing the Sims without the massive addictive factor.

plasma car

This plasma car is from our toy library and has been well loved by our boys and any kid who has come to visit. There have even been physical fights over it (between visitors and our two!). It's kind of magic (or physics I guess) how you twist the steering wheel from side to side and it moves the car along.

his first school disco

Perhaps I was being a little tricksy with my last post. He wasn't actually painted up that way for Halloween. My face painting talents (with a $5 pack of face crayons from Toy World) can't quite do anything that cool. But he was pretty pleased with his "mummy/zombie" face that I did for the school disco. We didn't have enough bandages to fully make him a mummy. He wanted to use toilet paper but I didn't think it would last the distance.

Our lovely friend Susie stayed here with her boys for a few nights and she and her sister looked after #2 on Friday night when I took my mummy/zombie boy to the disco. He told me his friend's cowboy costume wasn't scary enough!

There was lots of dancing and music for kids (and parents) and fun times for all. I was impressed by how many mums and dads dressed up too. I'll have to come up with something for next year. It did take a while to get all that black off.