Wordless Wednesday

mmm lush #2

I purchased another Olga Berg this week. This one is second hand and was a fantastic price! Brown embroidered suede, which will fit in nicely with all the brown in my new wardrobe. Loving Ebay atm.

Ooh la la

I got my hair straightened tonight by a couple of friends. I L.O.V.E. it. I think I've got to get me me a straightener. Lucky my money for having a student teacher has finally been paid!!!

Thanks Kimmy and Mal.

Mmmm lush

My new Olga Berg bag that is.

Photo courtesy of my Ebay seller.

I've been after a new bag for about 6 months and after trawling DFO, op shops and the mall a few times and coming away empty handed I headed over to Ebay. I've had a serious love affair going on with Olga Berg for quite awhile but never found just the right one. Couldn't resist this one. Just gorgeous.

A Teddy Bear's Picnic

We attempted, quite unsuccessfully, to go to the Teddy Bear's Picnic in the park. We tried but gave up. It was so crowded by the time we got there that lines for rides were unbelievable. All the rides and activities were free so half of Canberra must have been there. Guides were running a stall: sausage sizzle and ice creams, so we thought we'd pop in and visit. Was a good fund raiser with everything selling out!

A ride on the Merry Go Round.

When we gave up on the picnic we decided to head into the city instead and gave the kids a ride on the Merry Go Round. They had a ball. String Bean then decided that she'd have a Teddy Bear's Picnic anyway. When we got home she collected every teddy in the house and set them up with rugs and cloth place mats. She ate her dinner on the floor and had so much fun, till Squealy trashed it all!

Best $14 I've Spent in Ages!

I won an online auction for some beaded jewelry. Total items: 12. Cost per necklace: $1.16. The best part is that now I'll be able to accessorise with whatever I have in my wardrobe.

Retail price would have been over $300 easily, as the necklaces all had price tags still attached.

Feeling quite chuffed with my score. Might have to go and see if I can win a wine auction!

Update: One of our lovely students today at school: "Mrs D has anyone told you today how lovely your necklace looks? It's really beautiful". :-) Made my day.

Look What I Scored!

Maybe this is a sign I'm spending far too much time at the gym? Many thanks to Matt, my gym man, as String Bean refers to him as ;-) Now I'll have a cool cap to wear at work......my straw hat is so passe.

Update: When showing Fuzzy my cap this morning: "You look like a MummyMatt!" OMG total hysterics here today.....hehehe.

We're on our way...

At long last the goal is in sight. The milestone I am desperate to reach: 3 fully toilet trained tots.

Squealy finally did a #2 on the potty.

Much joy and jubilation ensued. He looked like the cat who'd eaten the canary as we all cheered, clapped and laughed.

Although to my thinking he is very young to toilet train.....only 2 years 4 months. Stringy and Fuzzy trained at 3. Maybe the youngest is more advanced? He does have good teachers and doesn't want to ever miss out on anything! Bring it on: I'm over nappies.

Lightening this way a come...

Photography by Jeff Gilbert.

Last night a thunderstorm came over our place quite quickly. There was alot of noise in the distance and lots of thunder. Our friend, Jeff Gilbert took this photo of the storm! Notice the lightening in the distance is actually hitting Black mountain Tower.

Wow what a photo. My digital camera just couldn't capture the lightening quickly enough. So many thanks to Jeff for allowing me to share this photo with you all. Was taken over Gunghlin late last night.

Please click on the photo to see the whole image!

From Small Beginnings...

I planted a blueberry plant about 2 months ago and it has already produced some fruit.

Totally delicious. I can't wait to get a much bigger crop next year. Now I'm tempted to plant more into that bed. I'm really keen to try growing rhubarb, so I've got some on hand for make yummy cakes. Apparently it freezes really well. Will have to go see if now if an OK time to plant it.

I've also had a bumper lemon crop this year and am going to try making lemon butter. I love the stuff and the store bought variety is so ordinary and just bland. I will post about how that goes later on.

Neighbouring Ducks

Mumma Duck and her 10 babies.

Our neighbour purchased 4 adult ducks during Winter 2008. He hasn't been looking after them very well and they are basically left to their own devices (they can escape as the yard has no gates). They have since had babies so now there are four adults and 10 babies. They are super cute and they come and visit the front garden looking for food, which the kids love!

Squealy was even saying: "Very cute. Duckies very cute!" He's so delightful at the moment.

A New Year and New Things To Do.

Well as 2009 rolled in we kept up the pace and continued blitzing the house. The wisteria clippings made it into the trash pack, lawns mowed & I nearly finished washing all the windows. *sigh* No recovering from a hangover here :-)

We also were lucky enough to discover a colony of ants nesting underneath our umbrella stand. String Bean was the recipient of an 'Ant Jungle' set from her friend Ethan for her birthday. According to the instructions collecting eggs is the best way to establish the colony, so we decided that since eggs were around, today was the day.

So we set the included trap and collected some eggs and a few ants that were hanging around. We then chucked them in as best we could and set the trap with chicken to try and collect some more ants. It's easier if you're just collecting ants, as you chill them in the fridge for about 6 minutes to put them to sleep and then you can tip them straight in!

Over the day we have added another 3 trap loads full of asleep ants to the colony. They wake up instantly and start cruising around and checking each other out. We were getting them into the trap with left over chicken so they spent most of the time breaking it up into tiny little portions, which they them take down into the tunnels. The ants have already made a heap of tunnels in there which is fantastic. The kids have really enjoyed watching ants do their thing!

Boulder

My boys have discovered You Tube. Mostly Thomas stuff at this stage. They love watching Rusty and the Boulder. It's quite funny to watch Squealy trying his hardest in his emerging language to warn you that Boulder is coming!

Fuzzy also enjoys watching random movies that the public have made up themselves, which are totally dodgy but hilarious for a 2 & 4 year old. Things like: "Thomas and the Mad Bomber" & "Thomas Fires the Laser".

At least it keeps Fuzzy quiet for a bit when Squealy sleeps. Fuzzy has totally given up his day sleep so sometimes you just need 5 minutes without him bothering you about something. It's going to be a long Christmas break.

Christmas Day

Here are some pictures from the day. Overall we had a great day, but it ended up being alot of work. Kids had way too much to eat. Fuzzy decided he enjoyed the punch and had quite abit of it (alcohol free!).

All three were really pleased with their gifts and they didn't know what to play with first. We tried sitting in a circle this year and opening a gift at a time. This worked really well and slowed things down a bit.

I still didn't manage to get any decent photos at all. Most of them were blurry. So it's going to make scrapping Christmas LO's pretty difficult.

The First Tooth.

String Bean has lost her first baby tooth. She seems to have sprouted lately, gotten really tall and quite lanky. So I guess this is all just a part of her growing up. She was so pleased the tooth fairy came to visit, leaving her a dollar. I wonder when the next tooth will fall out? None are wiggly yet, but it can't be too far away.

Zoo visit.

Yesterday we gave into the kids nagging and took them off to visit the zoo. After getting over the price!!!! ($57 which included 25% off from the Entertainment book voucher) we actually had a great time.

We arrived just in time to see the monkeys being fed by the keeper on Monkey Island. The kids loved seeing them mucking around and doing lots of tricks. When asked if anyone had any questions, String Bean asked the keeper if she could feed the monkeys.....please! The answer was no but he took the time to explain why and she didn't mind at all.





We then walked around the whole zoo. The highlights were seeing the penguins being fed by another keeper and watching the brown bear eat a block of ice full of sardines! Fuzzy had a great time 'trying' to get close to the kangaroos in the petting area. He had minimal success. Squealy loved everything especially the giraffes and the 'crocs' his favourite animals.

Pity about the entry cost. The kids had such a great time it is a real shame we can't visit more often.

He got sad....

Captured the moon and his little pals again this evening. But instead of a smile it is now a frown! Too cool really.