Friendly Wildlife

Here's a post about some friendly wildlife that visited us on Easter Sunday and sang us a tune for about 10 minutes. It was so beautiful to listen to and I suspect he was calling out for his mummy somewhere in the trees. The kids enjoyed some Easter painting activities while the birdie was singing to us. Easter Sunday was such beautiful weather here in Brisbane. I believe it is a Butcher Bird but anyone wants to tell me other wise, chirp in!!!

AFL Season

Since James was born in Melbourne the home of AFL it seems fitting that he join our local AFL Junior Under 8's team. So I now have a new title to add to my skill set "Footy Mum". We signed up about two months ago, had a trip to the dentist to get fitted with a mouth guard, got the team shirt, footy boots and he was rearing to go.

Last Thursday night was going to be their first training session however it was rained out. He did get to meet 2 other kids who will be on the team and one of them actually goes to his school. They did get to have 10 minutes of handball and kicking before it poured down rain. The night wasn't a total loss as they put on a Welcome Sausage Sizzle which when it's raining always goes down well. Here's a few photos of him in our backyard before we left.

Ikea Train Set

I'm sure everyone will little ones has at some stage in their life owned an "Ikea Train Set". We have amazingly never lost any of the tracks or the trains which is saying something however, during the past year or so I have attempted at least 2 or 3 times to give this away to the Salvo's since James and Sienna have outgrown it. Every time I put it in a bag in the garage to take it to the Salvo's the kids find it and say "I want to play with it" and again it comes back inside our house again and again.

Yesterday afternoon I went into Sienna's room to find her playing with the train set which I swear had gone in one of my Salvo's bag but there it was appearing again. She was playing with the train set while James had a go on her piano. Since he decided he didn't want to be photographed he took the keyboard off the stand and crawled underneath the bed to avoid the paparazzi mother. (as if that would stop me!!!!) I found it comforting to see them in the same room playing because shortly before that things were not quite so calm and they were in time out in their own bedrooms. It was a lovely change to the previous 15 mins or so.

Masterchef James

As it nears the end of the week, and the end of the year we are all getting very tired and a little cranky and my patience has gone on a holiday somewhere (destination unknown). To take James mind off being exhausted I asked him if he could help me make the pizza tonight. He first turned me down but later decided he would help. It's normally Sienna in the kitchen but I just made this about James. First of all he cut up the ham, rolled the pizza dough (homemade by me), put the pizza sauce on (also homemade by me) and then put the very simple topping of ham and cheese on the pizza.
Tonight I got the pizza stone out of a box in the garage and would you believe it I actually bought that thing from BBQ's galore this time in 2006 (yes that's 5 years ago). I bought a bit of stuff for the BBQ and it got lost somewhere in the shed and I know on the couple of occasions I went to look for it I couldn't find the box. When we were moving I finally found it. Tonight we christened the pizza stone in the oven however next time I might put it on our little BBQ which I believe you can do.

I only had enough pizza dough for the kids dinner tonight so I just had one slice and gave them the rest (what a mother)........ will have to make some more dough and freeze it again. It's handy as I have the sauce in a zip lock bag enough for a pizza and the pizza dough as well so around lunch time on the day I just pop it into the fridge and we are ready with tasty, healthy home made pizza.

Photo Shoot

I am enjoying doing Karen Russell's Photography Workshop for the second year running. It's great to go over stuff you have learnt to keep it in your head and pick up new things as well. My other Aussie friend Di is doing this course as well so it's nice to see another Aussie on the "forum". That being said, I took the kids up the road for a little photo shoot to play with light yesterday afternoon, something I'm still struggling with how to use effectively. I took about 60 photos and the kids, well let me just say the kids are not professional models who do as they are told so I didn't really get totally what I was hoping for. Here are a couple of pictures that I did like from our 15 min session. The bottom photo James was making Sienna laugh. Our only prop was a little Ikea $25 cane chair.

Creative Imagination

The other day I caught up with my good friend (from kindy and fellow Project 365 partner) at the park for a coffee for the mummies and a play for the kids. The boys ended up playing with dirt, making a pretend camp fire with some bark and finding around the playground some red paper to be the fire. They played for ages creating this little area and it truly made me happy for these little boys to be doing this. In an age of technology and gadgets playing outside and getting dirty is so good for them. Sienna was delivering bits and pieces from around the park to help with the campfire effort.

WITL and Piggy Cupcakes

I was very excited to pick up my printed pages for WITL for 2011 today. I had them professionally printed from a local lab and they can do 8.5 x 11 inches for me on beautiful lustre paper. The pink/purple edges need to be trimmed as this page is a 12 inch page so if you are wondering why the top and bottom has purple on it that's why. They do a great job and am looking forward to some trimming of photos and putting in my folder. I will then do my extra journalling and fill in's for the smaller sizes like Ali's. When it's all done and printed our week looked pretty good really including all our routines.

Also I thought I would throw in a picture of the "piggy" cupcakes that James and I decorated this afternoon for tomorrow's grade 2 baking stall. I found it last night on the web, so simple. Waffer biscuits for the ears, half a white marshmallow for the nose and some chocolate drops for eyes. I only made 12 to go to school so unfortunately the kids (and I) couldn't try them out but as they are so easy I will definately make them again as they are cute and fun and not very time consuming.

Thank you cards

James had a busy weekend just past as he went to a birthday party for 4 hours on Saturday and then fronted up to another birthday for 4 hours on Sunday. Sunday night he was very exhausted and of course that was after he had been sick for the previous 7-10 days. Here he is in the study writing out thank you notes to his friends saying he had a great time at their parties.

And another test, even bigger photo!!! (hopefully)

Some of James fishing just turning 4 years old this week.

Day out at the park

Today we went back to the lovely park at Samford and stayed there for 4 hours. We sat in the sun and the kids rode their scooters, played footy, learnt dance moves and made up games. We had sausage rolls for lunch and took the cupcakes that Sienna and I made yesterday amongst a few other goodies like lamingtons and snakes (of the edible kind). We are so very lucky to have such beautiful weather in winter time in Queensland. Yesterday however the wind was so wild that it was an indoor day but today was glorious and 21 degrees.