That's how you eat spaghetti...

Being a mum makes me smile sometimes! I love to see the kids learn new things, especially when they work it for themselves and get that "a-ha" moment. Tonight Mr Happy worked out how to slurp his spaghetti straight out of the plate - and practiced for the whole meal;-)

Rainy days...

25mm of rain in our rain gauge this afternoon after last night's downpour...

Back to school...

One happy Grader Oner!

Wish the Pre-prep boy had worn this happy face all morning but he didn't:-(

Hot Australia Day...

Being such a hot day, we decided to use some of the water sitting in our tank. The kids were so excited!

Lego...

More Lego play today... nice to see the kids playing together and sharing so well...

First day of Pre-prep...

A bit late with this update, but Mr Happy started pre-prep last week. He was excited the first day and had a pretty good day, apart from a few tears in the middle. The teacher said she thought he was a bit overwhelmed by all the other kids. Unfortunately the next two days he wasn't so keen. But some special afternoon tea and dinner to look forward to seemed to do the trick. I totally forgot to take a photo but received one from the centre so that was good. Next week should be interesting...

New message...

The kids are in bed.

Daddy's in the study.

Mummy's in the "sewing room" (well, that's its current purpose;-)

Daddy's phone gets a message come in and goes "beep, beep" (you know, generic mobile phone sound)

Suddenly a little voice down the hall says "beep, beep"...

it's an incoming message from Mr Happy!

Naturally I pop down the hall to press a button to check the message, but its just a giggle!

Dreaming of being a Princess...

...with her very own pink castle to live in! Another great birthday present;-)

Crafty girl...

Little Miss got some beautiful birthday presents, including a huge box of crafty bits and pieces. Here the first 2 items she created. She can't wait to make more!

New dress...

...so of course we had to wear it to church this morning! So pretty! Thanks Cousin E and Aunty J;-)

Birthday Party...

Someone is nearly 6!! Lots of fun!

Another jigsaw finished...

...but this one was mostly done by Mummy! Little Miss picked it out but the blurry picture with lots of similar blocks of colour really meant it was too hard for her. So lucky mummy likes to do jigsaws too;-)

First there was...

...a sad little boy. He wanted to play ball, but he was kind of cranky and told Daddy to go away... So he sat, alone, and was miserable.

But then Mummy decided to take a picture of the sad little boy...

and suddenly he was happy again! Hooray! The magic power of the camera - who knew?!

The Master Barista...

Look at the skills my man has developed!!!!

Finished!!

Look what Little Miss did!!! OK, there was a little bit of help from Mummy but she did 90% of it. Well done, Gorgeous!

Jigsaws...

People who grew up with me know I LOVE jigsaws. In the school holidays I would often do a big jigsaw (or 2) on the dining room table - thank goodness we had a spare big table that didn't get used every day! Mum and I spent many hours chatting over jigsaws. Now that I'm a mum, I can see how important that time together was. (Thanks, Mum)

So it was time to encourage the kids to see how they felt about jigsaws. Little Miss showed great enthusiasm a few years ago then got interested in other things. But recently she too has done jigsaws with Mum/ Grandma. She has outgrown our collection, so when we came across some bigger ones for $4 at KMart today, they had to come home with us. She chose 1000 pieces, but when she saw how small the pieces were at home, she opted to try Mummy's 750 piece one first. And the edges are done. Mr Happy also got a new one and insisted on doing it alone.

Now the kids are in bed, but I was instructed to pull out "all the balloon pieces" overnight so that Little Miss could keep going in the morning.

Birthday for Miss Z...

...so of course we had to celebrate with morning tea. Great new place with play corner for the kids and staff who tolerated our slightly noisy offspring. They had the cutest little cookies in a tube for the kids. Loved it!

Painting...

This is a long term project that CraftyDaddy brings out every now and again. The huge piece of cardboard came from our outdoor table and it has gradually been covered in paint. Did I mention how much I love our deck? Today it is raining but they could still be out there in the covered section to paint. This has kept them busy half the afternoon (while I sewed my new laptop case:-)

Craft and Cooking...

Happy New Year!

What a busy morning we've had. Yesterday we opened some Christmas presents that had been overlooked after being stashed away. Immediately we had to read 4 books, and then the kids wanted to do craft and cooking! I managed to talk them into waiting until today, but straight after breakfast the begging started. So Little Miss made a lead light decoration for her window - great activity! Meanwhile Mr Happy and I baked biscuits using his new foot shaped cutter. They came out great and we're just waiting for them to cool before we taste test them;-)