Never Too Late to Put In An Appearance

It's been so long but surely my blog doesn't have an expiry date? I've visited a few times with the intention of posting at least a short update, but I always clicked the log off button feeling simultaneously, like we are the most boring family on earth but also that there has just been too much of the great bloggable moments missed over the last few months to find the foggiest of where to begin again. Without a doubt though, I definitely regret not keeping the blog up. My boys have grown and changed and I've missed recording that, but it isn't too late.

When I dropped off the face of blogosphere I'd sprained my ankle and Mr E's mother was living with us temporarily. My ankle has since healed, although I fear it will never again be as slim as its partner and Mr E's mother who stayed with us for about two months, ended up buying a house near our block just before Christmas. Great news for our family to have grandparents so close. One thing though, thank goodness for having our space back! I know while she was here I became very preoccupied with a fastidiously clean house, lots of very nice meals and well educated children. Blah! The pressure had me ready to crack!!

But that's all over now and the focus has naturally shifted to getting on with the house building. I feel that we could easily go on record as being the most stuffed around family ever as far as builders and brokers and so on go but everything is for a reason right? And I am grateful for all the steps it has taken to get us this far. To the point where our loan is approved and our building contract has been signed, sealed and delivered. It's been about two years since we sold our old Queenslander and invested our hopes and future in this five acre block. Now it appears we're on the final count down and building should begin hopefully next month with an even more hopeful approximate hand over date in July, admittedly, that would be the earliest. The timing will be just right as we have some big news to share in the next few weeks. I'm super excited and really can not wait to tell!

The builders sign is up at the block. We think it's a scream that
they've posted it in front of our poor neglected cubby house though!

Chooks and the Danger of Being a Weekend Warrior

My friend is chicken mad. When you visit her home you'll find her kitchen full of paraphernalia and literature pertaining to this fluffy little barnyard critter. With three large coops on her property and her latest addition of ducks to the menagerie of birds there was no doubting that when I went searching for her birthday present I definitely wasn't stumped as to what interested her - chooks! At her thirtieth birthday celebrations she was excitedly telling me about her new brood that were squirreled away up in the kitchen in her incubator. Forty eggs!!! So when these baby chicks began to hatch, we decided we'd love to see these guys emerge into this great world too.

So after swimming lessons Tuesday morning we visited my chooky mad girlfriend and although we didn't see any actual hatching but we still learnt a bit about our poultry friends. We watched a video there that Chookie Girl took, which was amazing, so we found a real time vid of a chicken hatching to share.



It sure is sweet to watch them emerge!

When her first baby hatched he squeaked and squeaked for company and couldn't get dry properly either. Chooky Girl placed her fluffy piglet in with him and after the baby had instinctively snuggled up real close, he dried out in no time!

I never knew that a baby chick hatching was such a messy business too. Baby chicks have a small hard bump on the end of their beak which they use to peek open the top of their egg. After the chick emerges wet and slimy with the umbilical cord and part of the embryo sack still attached to them you can see inside the empty egg shell little red veins of blood that once fed the chick whist it was growing.

Can you see the embryo sack still attached and sitting in the palm of the hand? This falls away within a few hours of hatching.

We also found that these chicks are hard wired for survival. We simulated a mother hen sitting upon her brood by carefully cupping our free hand over the top of the chick who then went to sleep! Pretty handy in times of danger!

We also learnt that as the time draws near for the chickens to hatch (after only 21 days of incubating!) the humidity around the egg needs to increase dramatically and that if we were to feel around the eggs under a broody hen at this time the feathers are damp and clammy.

Sometime in the next few days I hope to get my boys and I off to the library so Kangaroo in particular can do some more 'research' on chickens,

So that was Tuesday, which was great, but Tuesday night, well, that wasn't so great. I joined a touch football team three weeks ago in an effort to introduce some aerobic exercise regularly into my life and Tuesday nights are the games. All day I'd been looking forward to having a great run. Five minutes into the game I leapt to catch a high pass and as my fingertips grazed the ball, my feet came back in contact with the ground and my left ankle gave way with a loud 'pop' audible to everyone on the field. My ankle had rolled outwards and my foot was sitting neatly facing inwards. Sitting on the field grasping my foot I definitely struggled to contain myself. I really could have just balled but you know, that would have been way too embarrassing!!!. The pain was intense but I did manage to hobble off the field to a waiting ice pack. It's funny the thoughts that swirled through my head as I sat on the side of the field icing my ankle, things like, thank goodness I did the full house clean today, how on earth am I going to cook tea on Wednesday night and how sad and frustrated I felt at not being able to go to Zen Do Kai on Wednesday night!

Today I've tried to remain sitting on the couch and 'rest' - a few up and downs at least, but what mother can resist her boys - diligently applying the RICE method (rest, ice, compression, elevation) I can see that the despite this the outside of my ankle has completely disappeared under the swelling! This means sadly that not only is Zen Do Kai off the cards but quite probably Mr E's and my first Tango class scheduled for this Saturday with some other very brave friends is no go too.

As for dinner, I find myself lucky to have an extremely kind and thoughtful friend who came to play for a while with her little ones and also cooked a beautiful vegetarian meal for us all. For this I am so thankful. Thankful for beautiful friends.

It's times like these that my mother likes to remind me how dangerous sports can be! I'm sure when I eventually get round to letting her know inevitably the little irritating remark regarding the danger of being a Weekend Warrior's will sneak into the conversation. Injuries really are few and far between fortunately for me and are definitely nowhere near frequent enough to exclude sport from my life.

To my mother I say, this Weekend Warrior just can't wait to get back out on the field again!

One Massive Weekend - A Time for Family

I'd been thinking recently about our family. Not just our happy foursome but our extended clan. After all, we are cousins, Aunt, Uncle, sister, son, brother in law, and daughter. Our nieces and nephew are very important to us and often we find the weeks slip by without spending quality time with them so to prevent this from snowballing into we never did anything with our nieces and nephew I've scheduled Friday afternoons as being 'our time'. My boys and I walk to school, wait for the cousins to finish school for the day and we walk the long walk (about half an hour) home together. Together we might stop for hot chips or an icecream or check out the second hand bookstore - I'm helping Princess Calamity grow her book collection - for any interesting finds. We slowly walk home chatting and catching up and poking around, collecting odds and ends and observing our world (as well as learning how to get to my house on foot). It's a bit of a ways so when we get home the kiddos need a rest to wind down from their day at school and from their long walk. Once they're ready though, it's on.

We Bake.

Marble Muffins this week!

Make miniature gardens in eggshells from cotton wall and cress seeds. Hopefully Princess Cupcake will leave cutting her own hair and stick to giving the egg a trim when the cress grows :D.

Build obstacle courses.

We go all out on our equipment here! Salvaged pallets are used to build climbing frames, secured with rope to prevent them from collapsing and an old water barrel to balance roll upon. These kids inner core muscles are going to be so strong if they keep that up!

Creating an art project too is another thing we try to cram in. This was so simple but they all enjoyed it. Pick two paint colours and put some generous dollops inside a ziplock bag with a little glitter and then send the children outside to see how well they can manipulate the paint through the plastic to make a 'new' colour.

But the number one reason for my making Friday afternoons an important extended family time is so that each week we are creating positive memories and through this ritual we establish strong ties and connections with each other. I want them all the children to know that they are worthy of our time and effort. We're growing our relationships purposely with them so hopefully, in time, if they ever need us - for anything! - they already know they are loved and cared for and we are there for them, no matter what it is.

This week Mr E's Mumma had a special visitor.... Mr E's Dad :) Aww shucks. They miss each other being apart as they are during the week and GD drove up to spend the weekend. It had been his birthday during the week so we needed to make a yummy Mud cake to celebrate!

Early Saturday morning my men and I packed up for Senjo (grading) on the Sunshine Coast for Zen Do Kai.

Congrats goes to Kookaburra who has ascended the ranks from yellow belt to orange and to my martial arts hero Mr E on being graded successfully as a new green belt. As for myself, I am now a yellow belt. Hoorah, means I now know my punches and a few other basics but still not enough to beat Mr E when we're playing around.

And Sunday. Beautiful, sunshiny, happy Sunday.

We went bushwalking with our in in-house insect and plant expert who gently caught this lizard within about two minutes of pulling up at the reserve.

So many magnificent colours and interesting things to see.



Lots of different types of termite mounds today.



and iron ore to collect from the road base on the tracks.

Spending my time in the native bushland with my family would be hands down one of my favourite ways to spend a day.

What about you? Did you have a crazy weekend too?!

Complete

This is my first complete still life from the Thursday night (into the wee hours of the morning - who can resist talking endlessly about history and politics?!) Art Class I've been attending for about two or three months.

My teacher is a hands off, guide if you need it mentor, so I'm super excited by what I've drawn!!!

Give me a year and I wonder how far I'll have come?

Let it Snow?!

Thank goodness it's nearing bedtime! The sweet lil puppy dog we're taking care of for my cous' whilst she's off enjoying those European delights, is spending most of the night barking at everything that we can't see or hear. After two nights of it, Mr E is thinking the dog may have a death wish but I really think that's just the sleep deprivation talking. Poor bloke even had a tumble stumble down some stairs at work. Fortunately it was stealthy and he only bruised his arm and nothing else. And that'll need to heal quick smart because we have what's called a 'Senjo' on the Sunny Coast this weekend.

Basically a Senjo is grading for our belts for Zen Do Kai and as he's been helping out another girl for the past six months in prep for her black belt red tip something or other, I'm not sure, he really needs to be able to partner her well and be able to perform his best for his, I think, brown belt. I'm pretty proud of him. Two years ago he'd only dabbled here and there briefly in martial arts but he's found a place that he likes to train and has involved us all as well.

Kookaburra is going from his yellow to orange belt and myself, white to yellow. Kookaburra's concentration and commitment is so obvious when he's training that my little heart just swells with pride. Kangaroo has only been going for a short amount of time so he won't be grading this time but his Kyoshi handled it so well regarding his not grading this time that Kangaroo is happily excited about his grading for the next time it comes around.

What else? It's been such a long time since writing anything substantial in my blog that I'm kind of stuck on the details of life and rarely get round to reflecting. Some time soon I hope. I do enjoy my blog but sometimes I feel like there is just way too much to put down and at other times there ain't nothing at all interesting to say!

Mr E's Mumma is staying with us during the weeks and returning home to Brisbane on the weekend whilst she's looking for a place to rent which is incredibly hard to do 'cause she works fulltime and the real estate agents are closed when she's not at work. It's been a month now and I hope they're able to find something soon for two reasons. Mr E's Dad really misses his wifey and the other, well, I have to admit that the impact it's having on Kookaburra who is sleeping on double thick camp mattresses on his brothers bedroom floor is not getting the best night sleep and is waking up looking ragged so consequently the flu we had back in September keeps rearing it's ugly head because the poor kid has never fully recovered from it.

So I have two tired little boys trying to contend with a very tired Mum and Dad and who still do their lesson work and keep up with our busy lives. I cannot wait until the Christmas hol's when all the extra curricula activities come to a momentary standstill out of respect for our sanity. In the meantime I'm teaching our boys to be helpful and that when it comes to chores and jobs our attitude is that even though it may be assigned to someone as their job, if we can see that the job needs doing or that the family member could do with a hand we get in their and help because we are family and we care for each other. Acts of kindness! We're also getting through our lessons quite well. Today the focus was on finishing some of yesterdays SOTW writing and then we were into our FIAR which is just plain enjoyable. At the moment our book is Katy and the Big Snow. We've focused on the weather, the water cycle, how the wind is formed, the characteristic of determination and the use of personification in literature and art. Now that we're nearing the end of the unit we can indulge in a fun game and project. This is easy as and loads of fun for two little boys. First we bought a two dollar plain, white shower curtain then gave them both a permanent black marker each (this is definitely an outdoors activity!!!!)

and we drew a compass rose in one corner and discussed the North East South West and the inbetweeners of North-East and so on until I was sure my boys understood.

They then drew roads and built the necessary infrastructure for a city out of mega blocks, like the Police Department, Fire Brigade, Council Depot, Schools and shops, electric company and so on.

Once this was all ready they got out their little cars and planes and then let it snow!!!! Shaving cream snow!!!!!




They dug their way out of disaster which did get very slippery and resulted in sliding and silliness. Kookaburra was quite serious about the 'job' of bulldozing a clearing through the city like Katy did but little Kangaroo thought the texture of the shaving cream was a scream and just wanted to play.


He tried throwing great globules of the stuff at his brother only to find his 'snowball' stuck to his little hand.

For ages he just picked up handfuls and would clap his hands together to see the shaving cream fly off into hundreds of little puffs into the air. He really had a wonderful time, as did Kookaburra who joined in with the merriment and as I took my inexhaustible supply of photos I reflected on how incredibly lucky I am and how much I want to hold my boys so close and love them up.