Quote of the week

From Leila (5) on Friday:

"I'm Granny's insistent"

er, that would be "assistant" but somehow the original quote is more accurate.

Speaking of Leila, yes she was running around today dressed up in a dark purple leotard with bat wings and also vampire teeth drawn on in blood red crayola washable marker. I guess it was just a matter of time...

(see earlier posts about my little Wednesday Adams).

Jogging

I've actually (unbelievably) gone on 4 runs in the last week or so. Can you believe it? I've not been good at getting in exercise since little Hannah came along, and its starting to show.

I've been inspired quite a bit by Damien - he's been eating healthy and exercising (running and weights) as preparation for his coming trip to Gallippoli (he has to pass a Navy fitness test). He's lost a few Kg, put on some muscle and looks great. I wondered how many minutes it would take before I had to stop and walk - it was only 2 1/2 minutes on the first run, but already I can do more than 5 minutes without stopping, and I've taken my total time up to about 18 minutes. I go very s.l.o.w. but am improving. I'll keep you posted.

I'm looking forward to feeling fit and getting my metabolism back up and running, especially now Hannah is finally weaned and I don't want to get fat(ter). The best times to go seem to be in the morning when Damien starts his shower or in the late evening. I feel good about this.

Creative Bethany and Hannah's clothes

Bethany got an Usbourne book of Fairy things to make and do for Christmas. Here is her first completed project. It was a very happy thing for me to introduce her to felt and blanket stitch.

Her little fairy bag was later involved in an unfortunate incident involving cordial on the kitchen bench, so she carefully hand washed it. I told her to hang it up on the tap over the bath tub, but then found this set-up in her bedroom. She had rigged up a washing line, pegged it up, and then put a bilibo bowl underneath to catch the drips. Not a bad effort at all!

You will also note Leila in her fairy dress in this picture. We had spent Australia day with most of the other echocardiography girls and their kids at Allens Rivulet. We had a lovely time.

Leila and Hannah both went in their fairy dresses. Sometimes its just not worth the drama of convincing Hannah to get changed. She thinks that if it isn't pink, covered in sequens and/or from the Dress up box it isn't worth wearing.

Hannah can take her clothes on and off herself now, so if I put her in the clothes I want her to wear before loading up the car, I come back to the house to find that she has taken them off again.

She'll also frequently decide that the wet dressup I've just hung on the line is what she wants to wear right now, and it causes her much distress when I say that she can't. She'll even move things around in the backyard to try to make a step she can climb to get the item down for herself.

How the heck do they sleep like this?

When I took the Lamp photos this is how I found Leila. Oh, and so much for the house fairy huh?

Creative Granny

I Came home from work on Monday to find that Granny and the girls had gotten into the cupcake supply cupboard and then attacked the lampshade in their room with rather amazing results:




I was suprised that she didn't check with me first, but I recall that we did have a conversation about getting a new shade for this Lamp some time ago (it was made by Damien's Grandfather).



The hobby horses were also made by Granny - they're one of her trademark specialties. We used them on our Sunday night Family home evening to role-play the "Waltzing Matilda" song (being Australia Day this week why not?). We also went over a map of Australia with a marker pen, noting all the places that Nan and Pop have sent us postcards from. They are on an extended caravan tour, and must have sent us about 40 postcards by now.

A few recent pictures

My first couple of pictures are showing off Hannah at the Hairdressers getting her second haircut (I'm not counting the Leila haircut previously blogged). She sat good as gold! All of us girls had our bi-annual trim and it took 1 1/2 hours. We were so ready to get out of there, and I think the hairdresser was happy to see us go too...


This next picture is to remind me of the gorgeous moments that can occur in a mundane day. Hannah can now peg! She still needs a bit of help to figure out which end to squeeze, but I am so proud.

Lastly, I wonder if I'll ever forget what a rigmarole it is to take 3 little girls to the toilet when we're in town! Hannah is still excited about using the loo (recently out of nappies) so if I say "do you want to go to the toilet?" she always says yes. Bit of a pain that. I also have to somehow get myself in and out with the pram (which won't fit in a cubicle).
Bethany often takes FOREVER, Leila usually finds the flush button too stiff to press by herself, Hannah wants to crawl under the door to say hello to everyone (related or not) and as for washing hands...
The pictures say it all: Waterplay! And there's soap too! What do you mean "Daddy's waiting we need to keep moving?" Way too much fun.
Today they had a great time with the taps in Centrepoint, but it all got a bit wet. Imagine having boys too: Could be even trickier!

Kids locked out

I really must take more photos. I came home from work on Monday afternoon to find that Granny and the kids had locked themselves out of the house. This wouldn't have been such a drama if they hadn't just been to the beach (which is 4 minutes walk away) and come home frozen. Apparently there was weeping and wailing and much despair, until they raided the clothesline and got layered up. By layered up, I mean that they were wearing multiple underpants on their heads, and their father's T shirts, mothers socks etc. over whatever clothes of their own they found on the line. It was highly picture worthy, but I didn't think to take a photo.
Fortunately by the time I got home they had decided it was an adventure, not a disaster.

Christmas window 2009

I washed all this off yesterday, but it was a blogworthy effort to put together, so here are the pictures of this Christmas's traditional front window art. I am so pleased with how it turned out, and am officially showing off our efforts.

First, I do a Google image search for Christmas colouring in pages, and print out a few. The girls help me choose which one we will use. Then I paint the picture outline on the window in black, and the kids and I colour it in. Even Hannah helped out. I gave myself the "do you want it to be perfect, or do you want it an authentic family activity?" lecture, and I'm glad I did, because that 2 year old kid can actually paint! She mostly kept within the lines, and even though she mixed up all the colours it looked pretty fine to me. I even like the bits where she doodled off to the side.

My Fantastic New Years Eve

It is ages since I posted, and I don't even have any photos, but I wanted to write about the fantastic time I had on New years eve. It was a scorching day (38 degrees) and I spent half of it working at the Hospital.

It didn't feel like much of a day really, but then in the late afternoon Damien and I took the girls to a picnic spot on the Derwent River, just past New Norfolk. We met up with Matthew and Liz's family (we invited ourselves to their activity).

The river was perfect: there were large areas of smooth very slow moving water for swimming, and places that were shallow for little ones. The pebbly riverbed and banks were "Macca-Pacca heaven" for Hannah (2), who spent a lot of time just plopping perfect rounded river stones into the water toddler-style. The Dads and Matthew's boys skimmed stones, and then there was a lot of swimming about tossing a ball to each other. There were rapids towards the far bank for the big kids and also a couple of small "rock-pool" type safe spots for the young ones.

Can you imagine the coolness of river water next to the heat of the air? It was beautiful like Lenah Valley Creek and Goat Island.

Beside the river there was a nearly dry tributary (or maybe just a grey-water drain?) which turned out to contain a large pond full of trapped baby fish. Beth, Leila and Sophie spent some time catching the fish with their dinner bowls, and setting them free in the river. Covered in mud and happy as anything.

We'd brought along little portable cook tops, and had sausages, bread and fruit etc. for dinner. I had my swim then. It was really lovely.

It was still really quite hot as we packed everything up and we got into the car just as the thunder started. We sat watching the lightening for a while and then drove home. The storm seemed to follow us along the other side of the river. The lightening displays were fantastic - probably at least the second best Tassie lightening display I've ever seen. We stopped again to watch twice more on the way home. By the time we reached Lindesfarne the storm had made its way to the Eastern Shore, and then the rain absolutely bucketed down. I love the rain at the end of a really hot day: its like the whole world breaths a sigh of relief. It was so heavy that we had quite poor visibility and had to drive quite slowly.

Would you believe that the rain stopped as we pulled into our driveway? Damien and I were able to carry our sleeping children inside without them getting drenched!
A few minutes after we arrived home the power went, came back on again, and then died once more, so the rest of my evening with Damien was just the two of us and candlelight.

Perfection.