A Story About My Garden

You might have expected this to be a post about Christmas.  Fair enough!  It was indeed Christmas and there were some very lovely Christmassy things.

But mostly this is going to be a post about my garden.

Not my front garden, which is very civilised, parklike, and good for playing swingball in.  (Oh Seb loves his Christmas swingball!)

And not my back garden, which is rapidly approaching civilisation, and is full of lovely fruit trees, and vege beds, and good sunshine.

No, this is a post about my side garden.  The paddock.  The field.  The meadow.

I've convinced Liam that mowing it is futile, as well as being bloody hard work.  It's not really grass.  Mowing it just produces a lot of very short weeds.  So we've let it go feral.

But in the wildness... just here and there, amongst the many many weeds, I admit... the most amazing little bits of beauty are emerging, and I am so besotted with them.  Look. Just look at these.

My wilderness is my new favourite place.

Those pre-Christmas, summer days...

Of course, the most important thing that's happened in the last couple of weeks is this.  Hurray for Liam B. Hegarty, BPA, Dip.Aq!  (I don't know what it's really abbreviated to, but that'll do.)

His two year history of straight A's was blemished only by one A+.  I'm very proud of that man and how hard he's worked, and how well he's done!

Meanwhile, summer has marched on, bringing with it all the usual summery things.  A gigantic moth corpse!

Carols in the park, and mini paparazzi!

Ice cream!

A helicopter bearing Santa!

The Man.  Yup, that's my boy right there in the front.  Any close and he'd actually be in Santa's boot.  And no we didn't put him there, it was all his own fast work.  Can he REALLY be related to me?

Last but not least,  the Peanut T ball squad.  BEYOND CUTE.

If you don't see much of Miss M... nor do we :( Girl is working seriously hard and I only see her to wake her up, take her into work, and pick her up again.  Two sleeps to go till she gets a couple of days off, YAY!

My little schoolgirl that was

Thanks to Susanne, half a world away, here are the pictures that were really needed in the last post... my girl in her first years of school.

Her dear little smile still breaks my heart in pieces.  Oh, how well you have done, you brave little flower.

Thank you Susanne :)

School's Out for....Ever!

I wanted to start this off with a picture of Miss M on her first day of school, but tbh I have no idea where they might be... I suspect in a box in the spare room, but it's half past eight on a Sunday night and it's just not going to happen.  You'll just have to remember what a dear little dot she was, swimming in her tiny uniform.  More importantly, here she is on her last day of school... ever.

My darling girl, we are so proud of you.  I wish we had known thirteen years ago what a wonderful, happy, hardworking, friendly, gorgeous girl you'd turn into; I spent so much time worrying about you and all along there was nothing to worry about at all.  You are fantastic.  Every single year, you were chosen for a recognition award: friendliness, or honesty, or this year, trustworthiness.  It's so good when other people notice what a great person you are and I am proud, proud, proud.

We went out for dinner to celebrate.  I tried to take a picture of my two children.

Yeah, it worked better with just one.

Congratulations, Molls.  You've done us proud.

Acrobatics

I wanted to start this post with a bit about an historic occasion - Seb's last day at Campus Corner, after two years.  Wow.  Hard for a little guy to imagine, I think, that his Campus days are over.  They did a lovely farewell though, with a special chair and a special book and a special song.  Awww.

Tomorrow.... Paula's Academy!  Big stuff!

Talking of big things, on Friday we went to the Circus.  Which, globally speaking, was pretty small stuff -- but to Seb, it was just about the BEST THING EVAH.  The evening also included a special treat -- a light up sword with a laser pointer.  We could probably have gone home at that point, tbh.

It was all good fun anyway and some of it was downright scary.

This was his expression for two hours straight.  Huge eyed and awed.

I wanted to show you some fabulous acrobatics that Seb's been doing himself, but keep getting error messages.  Bad Blogger, bad!  Will try again later.  meanwhile, here's a picture of an astonishing flar that appeared in our garden this week.  Gorgy -- I am fairly certain I could NOT have grown this on purpose.

Batter up!

Our boy's playing his first team sport!  Tee ball, which is being organised on Saturday mornings by lovely Julie, one of his Campus Corner teachers.  Dude can seriously whack stuff.

Also, if I'm honest, he's probably better at hitting a ball that's bowled to him than I am and all.

Sunday dawned less auspiciously, with our wastewater system alarm going off.  Liam had to turn Plumber and clean out the filter.  You are SO LUCKY I didn't get a photo of the filter.  Eueueuerghhhhhhhh.

Sunday also saw more Star Wars action, Sebby has taken to wandering around with a lightsaber at his hip and creating massive (unvaryingly symmetrical) lego space ships for his tiny little "guys".  We also watched the first half of the movie yesterday - a high point in my parenting experience.  My boy was transfixed from the get-go and when Princess Leia's ship appeared, followed by the neverending bulk of the massive Imperial cruiser, he cried, "Holy cow, that's big!"

Little dude, you are my kindred spirit.  You can be Luke and I'll be Leia any time.

A Boy of Four

What a week it's been!

First there were fireworks.  Seb is right in the Firework Appreciation Sweet Spot.  He was  utterly fascinated and each one was more spectacular than the last, if he can be believed.  Totally worth a late night.

And then, two days later, my boy turned four.  WOWSERS.  What a big guy!  Seb had a special party at Campus and all his friends sang to him as he sat in the Birthday Chair.  We had a lovely evening too, though Molls was at work at KMart; the rest of us went down to the Boatshed Cafe at Mapua and had a great evening on the beach, throwing stones and eating delicious food.  Lovely.

Saturday came the PARTY, at Chipmunks I'm afraid, because we're all mad busy.  Sebby looooooved it, he's never been there before so it was all very exciting.  There was a Batman cake (it's a weird shape because it was made in a teddy bear cake mold - it's Batbear really) and Charlie Chipmunk came and danced for him, and he was happy as can be.

So was Moll, who got to sit at the kids table.  She was a trooper and it was a gas.

A happy boy steering the racing car video game with his socked feet:

A happy boy firing foam balls at his friend Bailey's extraordinarily patient dad:

A happy boy in a clown train.

All in all, yup, a VERY happy boy.

Less so last night when he got sick, but today we stayed home in the sunshine and did healthful things like making fresh squeezed orange juice, picked from our tree and hand-squooshed by a master artisan.

And these are just for Mutti, to show her what we've been doing.  Best spot in the world to veg on a sunny morning!

Update from a Slacker

I have been dead slack since Mutti and Bunce left.  Three weeks and not a peep!  Sorry guys.

Here are some memories for ya.  Rabbit Island in the sun.

A tiny adorable butt crack.

Splashing fun.

And this one I can't resist because it looks like a re-enactment of the troll scene from the Hobbit that they were listening to previously.  Hahaha good one Bunce!

Onward!  Sebby did some colouring in today.  he did not do this drawing I should note.  He's good but still three.  However -- his colouring in is exceptional, he is violently fussy about it and a few minutes after this photo was taken had a meltdown because he'd gone over the line.

Key point is, I'm getting more and more suspicious that he's a lefty.

This weekend there was a Get Up and Go day or something like that, organised by Campus Corner.  Seb went along and was initially unconvinced:

But was soon zooming down the fastestestest slide EVER,

tossing gumboots,

And egg-and-spooning.

My oh my he's cute at the moment.

I wish I had a picture of him last night, dressed up in THE most awesome costume for Halloween.  Well  no, it wasn't really a patch on the Simpson-Jinks effort.  But Lydia brought him round a seriously cool PowerRanger suit and he looked pretty fab.  Next time he puts it on I'll find the camera, promise.

Spring Visitors

We have been having a lovely time with Mutti and Bunce.  Bunce has been predominantly horizontal but that is not stopping Sebby from having a great time with him.  Stories and lego galore!  Here they are listening to a reading of The Hobbit together.

And here's Seb having an awesome play with Mutti and his new Squaddie Headquarters that she treated him to.

Bunce is fast asleep on the sofa but I'll spare his dignity and won't post the picture of that :)

I have no such regard for my son's dignity.  Here he is pulling a mad face and being Naked Clark Kent.

(I wonder how many people Google might send my way for having that phrase in the blog?  Sorry, hopeful nerdy pervs.  There is strategically placed blinding light.  Also he is three.)

Spring has brought the wisteria to play.  It's soooo lovely.  Liam has great plans to prune the pants off it, but this summer it has a reprieve, so I'm enjoying it to the max.

I also enjoyed this to the max: going to the Stoneridge cafe maze with Mutti and Seb, getting totally lost, and eventually cheating our way into the middle via a small hole in the hedge.  It was a serious crackup.

And we've still got a whole 'nother week of your company - lucky us :)