last day of 2008

we ventured outside this morning and the green-ness of the garden surprised me. and then i turned the corner to find the vegie garden has doubled in size...without much attention from any of us recently. i gave gingko some (fertiliser) love as she seems to be struggling amongst the weeds. amelie picked three peaches off the tree. three perfect sweet peaches. i dug with my hands for potatoes....have i told you how much fun that is.

then my mum arrived with a bag of beans from her garden for us. so here is amelie sucking on a peach and me crunching on freshly picked beans. . this is the best sort of medicine i think....

our magical sounding garden is under threat from a billion weeds but somewhow i see past them and find so much beauty there. my mum comes and sees a million weeds and work to be done.

and its the same with life isnt it. its just how you choose to see it.

i must be feeling a little better today ( i did get the antibiotics just yesterday kelly :-) because the farm and the mess and the weeds dont seem as big as they did a day or two ago.

tonight there are plans for a special dinner, a movie maybe, and a trip to a family mardi gras?? - i just want to see the fireworks ;-) .... but im not sure we will make it. maybe a picnic in the backyard and a cake and our own fireworks display?

see you on the flip side friends xoxo

resting

im off with the fairies. this is the beautiful card my farmer boy gave me for christmas. isnt it the sweetest.
i usually am a little off with the fairies...which i like to do... but for the last while ive been just off.... and now it has manifested into a wicked chest infection. so i drift between bed and pottering around the house. i get the urge to go somewhere and do something with the kids. but then i listen. and i hear them being happy, hanging off the hammock we have hung in the lounge room ,... which may be the kids favourite christmas present. and off i go back to bed.
so we havent been anywhere and my body is making me be still. and so i have time to look around our house. i know ive said it before. . . but i need to get rid of three quarters of the stuff..and then im thinking our house may almost feel spacious. space. i need some to create in. and so we all stop bumping into each other. we cant extend the house right now and secretly i dont think we will ever do it. it seems just a crazy thing to do. though i may change my mind in a month. i do that. so i need to find somewhere other than the kitchen table to put my sewing machines and etc......
anyway... what i came to say was...im sick.... im just here at home hanging out with the kids. slowly filling bags for the op shop. lighting candles because i really love having flame to look at.
i also love this feeling of a new year about to begin.
when i clear my chest.. we might go somewhere. a beach would be nice.

sugar and spice and all things nice

hope you had a sweet christmas day.. time to relax now...........

close

my sister michelle brought along her finely decorated strawberry friends to the family christmas party on the weekend. she is so good at decorating. everything. houses, herself, and food .

before we left for the party i was sitting outside in the morning sunshine soaking up the beauty before me. i had to take some photos, she was glowing . but then i heard the news that our friend was very sick. from pure joy to pure sadness in a split second. i cant stop thinking about her and her husband. really shitty things happen to really beautiful people sometimes. its not fair.

the kids had so much fun with their cousins, big and small. the big ones act like small ones anyway so its twice as fun. and their big uncle also acts like a big kid. hes fun too. and he lights..oops i mean likes fireworks.

i just realised the pinata was actually inspired by my echinacea .

not all of our family could make it to the party. . perth and japan are a little far unfortunately.. and obviously my dad couldnt make it because hes busy being an angel... but i swear i just saw him in this photo...and i got goosebumps thinking that it was him there laughing his head off at the party and ho ho ho ing.

and p.s my laptop has died. temporarily i hope. such a pain. back to the dinosaur computer.

cant think of one

before i go to sleep

today me and sindri made chocolate crackles. i was inspired after i ate one for the first time in many years at a party the other day. they are so yum. and i never knew they had coconut in them.
we also decorated more people.. biscuit people.
the kids went to play with their grandparents...they put up their christmas tree for them which was a cute thing to do... whilst i went shopping. and whilst i did that my farmer boy was visiting doctors to find out why his heart is skipping a beat.....other than because he is in love ;-)
fingers are crossed it will be nothing serious. other than love sickness.
i made the pinata for the party on the weekend. a 10 minute masterpiece. a present pinata..the kids helped cutting and sticking and they did all the filling. the other day i let them loose at the supermarket to choose lollies to put inside. i restrained my inner mum and brought ALL the packets they chose. veda went to a party the other day and the pinata was a bought one. veda was not impressed! i love how she notices the difference. and im loving her style she has.
and i love how sindri draws his dreams. and i am a little on edge about amelie telling me there is a ghost behind me. she was serious. and i think i may believe her!......

a story about amelie

it has taken a whole year, with me by her side or just a few steps away if she would let me... but on her last day of kindergarten Amelie was so very happy. ironic, because i was quite the opposite. being her last day here...and also knowing that her new kinder is of the sensory overload not as nice type.

she played with her favourite (boy) friend. in the last story of the day she was proudly Mary holding and loving her baby jesus and stopping joseph from hitting the babies head. and she later told me that jai, her (boy) friend would have been a much better joseph.

as we left we hugged her teachers, sob sob, and at the gate, through the fence, she hugged jai.

in the car she then told me that she is going to marry jai. all i could say is really? she then told me she wants to marry two boys..jai and sindri.. her brother. shes a lover not a fighter our amelie.

sunday flowers

this morning while the birds were singing their good morning song, i snuck off alone to the local farmers market. i had only stepped maybe five steps in the gate and came across these bunches of beautiful kangaroo paw. i have the hugest bunch of them on the kitchen table now ..a jungle of native beauty in a vase.

.. this is how i like to decorate our home for christmas. with flowers and candles and the beautiful creations that the kids make. we also decorated the biscuits today. they look so cute and the cinnamon tasted delicious.

this coming week is going to be so busy. i will be happy when it is friday. and i know it is horrible to wish away a week. but i think if i could, maybe just this week i would.

back tack happiness

there has been a few more-than-usual packages arriving in the mail lately... but this one on friday was especially exciting. from my backtack partner Austen

once i got past the beauty of the stamps on the outside of the parcel....Amelie and I opened it to find many special parcels. how exciting! i love this idea.

the cutest ever pom pom garland hangs perfectly across the kitchen, next to amelies cardboard garland which i also love. how beautiful is simple and hand made?

amongst the gifts was a book for me to doodle in with this beautiful book cover on it. i love all those little stitches.. and the leaf shapes..and the wispy threads.

it was so exciting and at the same time i was hoping Austen would like her parcel and be as happy as I was in those moments.

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today has been so nice already :

waking up after a night of laughing with friends

phone talking with little brother

and also with little sister

coffee and real yo yos at mums place... the best yo yos in the world im sure.

thai leftovers for lunch

gingerbread , not ginger but rather cinnamon flavoured people, for end of year parties for the kids

and finally i now need a new list. 12 days until christmas. far out brussell sprout.

rust

im really loving the rusty colour of magnolia flowers and birch seed pods. and even more so against a summer blue sky.

stuff

i give them all my energy and often i dont have any left at
the end of the day. sometimes i dont have any left by 10am

i have avoided going near any shops that are filled with ugly
stuff right now..very successfully.
i love you internet. you make shopping with kids so much
easier.

i went to the clearance sale. i brought a chair..with wooden legs and
the seat has springs in it... it looks a bit
like a granny chair. its covered in an old big floral fabric. one
day (when im a granny) i may re-cover it in some not so
granny looking fabric. i also got a box of horse books for veda and
a cute little kitchen cupboard and a shelf for the kids.
and somehow i also ended up with tennis racquets, a blow up
pool and a blow up mattress! but i didnt try to buy them...they were in a box with the other stuff. its what happens at clearing sales. you end up with stuff.
there were way too many people there making everything way too expensive. and there wasnt anything really juicy there anyway. but it did remind me...and mum... how much we like going to clearing sales. poor amelie fell asleep on my shoulder as i carried her around in the heat.. and on the way home the trailer got a flat tyre. we came home covered in dust and exhausted. and on monday i will take all the stuff i got and didnt want and paid for...to the op shop. its on the front verandah collecting spiders at the moment.

for you minda

the end of a long whingey type of day with kids..you may know the kind..i finally picked veda up from school and then dropped her around at her piano teachers house. i pulled into the driveway and
oh. my. god.
big old hoya , sitting on her verandah. melinda needed to be there. she would have squealed with me. it has many many bunches of perfectly folded wax parcels of beautiful flowers. some open some not.

piano teacher so casual about how her nana needs to prune it. i think it may have been hers. and i hesitantly asked if i could pick a stem. piano teacher was not attached to flowers at all. ( i realise i get attached to my flowers in the garden-bad me. )
so here on my window sill sits hoya.
.. making me smile at her perfect cuteness and beauty

barbie meets the new reindeers