Celebrating SIX :D

Somehow the years have slipped by and our sweet little baby bundle has grown into this loud, rambunctious, imaginative, joyous ball of energy and yesterday we woke to a six year old.

A sixth birthday is especially significant for us. We manage to keep our small fry little until then but six for us says its okay to get a little older, to let go some more and let them move onto the next stage of childhood. It's like a final good-bye to babyhood.

And a celebration of the child he's become. This is our gorgeous boy on his birthday eve so terribly excited about finally becoming a 'big boy'.

You'd imagine that it would have been difficult to fall asleep the night before his birthday but Kangaroo had no problem. Sleeping through the entire night and rising at a decent, humane time , well that was a different matter. I'm so grateful that our journey as parents has brought us to search for meaningful family traditions in our celebrations and for more personal gifts for our boys. Gifts that mean more and instigate creative and imaginative play.

Kangaroo began his morning seated on his Birthday Throne opening six special, small gifts. We wrapped them plainly in tissue wrap and each gift was tied with ribbon. The first with one, the next with two, the following with three and so on until the sixth gift wrapped in six ribbons. I loved this. It slowed the gift opening down and Kangaroo (and us) could enjoy the gift giving more. We counted the years represented in the ribbons. The gifts were small and picked especially for Kangaroo's play. Small props to help the imagination.

Poor Kookaburra was devastated and reduced to tears when he saw Kangaroo's special gift - a not so little red wagon. Maybe ten isn't too old for a wagon?

Nearly two years ago Kangaroo played with a toy violin when visiting a friend and has been fairly focused on one day owning a real violin. He's talked about it regularly since then. Six is early, we think, to be learning to play violin but we have a great music teacher who understands our philosophy of exposure, opportunity and if possible making learning fun. So finally, Kangaroo has his beautiful violin, although he calls it a fiddle and wants to be like Pa from The Little House on the Prairie books.

His 'fiddling' was, um, interesting.

husking corn

We spent the day doing what Kangaroo loves best. We took our boys to the Pioneer Day at a historical museum about half an hour from our town. Driving out there we had to laugh that we'd considered buying a property this far from town just to escape the busyness. What a tree change that would have been! The cost of fuel would have kept my boys and I firmly at home and fuel would haven been spent on just getting Mr E to work every day and we definitely would not have been enjoying the fun things we've been involved with lately.

Fitting the rim to a wagon wheel.

Trying their hand at doing the washing. All this doing it by hand makes me hugely grateful for the washing machine and the time it frees up for, say, blogging :D

And don't even mention the ironing. It doesn't get a look in now let alone heating up these metal contrivances.

All my boys loved getting into 'The Barn' and having a good look at the development of farm machinery.

The kids could play old fashioned games but whilst Kookaburra was out there looking to join in Kangaroo still hides out on our laps happy to watch.

This was the first time our guys have had the chance to look inside an old schoolhouse.


Complete with 'God Save the Queen', slates, little tiny desks with holes for ink pots.

These are the Rules for Teachers in 1879. Click on it to get a larger version and have a giggle. The strictness of the times makes me pretty darn grateful for now.

Train fare fees.


A visit to a draughty, tiny Settlers hut which had been moved piece by numbered piece from it's original site was a worthy look.

The inside of this Butchers shop wouldn't get much patronage from us with the meat hooks exposed to the hot air and flies and not a sign of hand sanitizer or bleach to be found anywhere :P.

The smells of the traditional Aussie BBQ enticed to us have the good 'ol snag on bread whilst serenaded by bush ballads of Waltzing Matilda and Click Go the Shears all totaled up to a lovely little day for Master Six.

Poor little tike was a bit exhausted from it all though and fell asleep pretty quick on his way back to town.

We took our boys to visit their cousin and we arrived in time to enjoy soap making with my Aunt.

It turned out to be a much bigger day then we expected but Kangaroo loved it and was happy for the excursion and plenty of friends to play with.

We dragged our feet to bed though and tripped on down memory lane going through old photographs and video. I can't believe how fast they've grown.

So this is six. What will Kangaroo's sixth year hold? More games, imaginings and endless books. Tree climbing and park visits. Swimming and music. And of course constant dressing up and incessant questions.

We love our rambunctious ball of energy. And we're so lucky because we get to witness his sweet little side rarely seen by family and friends because he's far too busy hurtling through life.

Hip Hip Hooray, Happy Sixth Birthday Kangaroo, our special little guy, we're so glad you're ours.