Schtuff

No theme this week; just a bunch of random updates from a lax blogger :)

Firstly, the cutest birdhouses in the world.

Secondly, CATERPILLAR.  The size of my middle finger, seriously.  It was freaky and spectacular.

Two days later I found it again on the roof of my car, which was parked under the pepper tree; Caterpillar was clutching a small twig and appeared stunned.  Clearly he had trusted the pepper tree with his weight.  Equally clearly, this was a mistake.  I moved him to a camellia and he tottered off.

Thirdly, CONTRAST is a beautiful thing.  Before and after.  Oh yeah.

Fourthly, our nearly complete back deck!  It's come a long way from being a dark, windowless, tin-roofed concrete pit.  I am proud.  Next week, hopefully, the stained glass piece de resistance goes in.

We are also proud of CARROTS, even the freaky Siamese one.

And proud of our boy's beautiful craft work today, and his careful careful writing.  Mutti and Bunce, he has a very special present for you when you come down :)

Finally, dude is wearing his new hat backwards and throwing shapes.  WORD, HOMEY.

Belated Summer Hols

Well, to try to get over the gaping hole in our family, we went on a little summer holiday in between Liam's contracts - five days in Collingwood.  Gorgeous spot, gorgeous weather, and Tara the Tuatara, Seb's academy class mascot, came along too.  She is in a lot of the pictures.  Part of having Tara means having to write a story of her adventures in her big book; naturally the mummies have now elevated this to a minor art form.  Oh the peer pressure!!

Off we go!

Did I mention COCKLES to anyone?

Here Seb is drawing a picture of Tara in her book (I figured the kid should do SOMETHING) and colouring her in in green and brown... simultaneously.  I am not making this up.

Tara accompanied Seb and I all the way up to the lookout back over Ruataniwha point.  Pretty!  They were both very good trampers and did not complain much at all.

But then Seb got sick.  Boo.  Here he is conked out on our bed, sleeping the day away.  When he woke up his horrid headache was all gone, so it was absolutely the right thing to do.

Also it gave us some unexpected quiet time!!!  Silver linings, silver linings.

Marshmallow time!  Yup, time for another Tara photobomb.

Frankly I am amazed that she didn't make it into this selfie.

Seb and Liam (and you know who) went fishing and got a fish!  A yellow eyed mullet.  My husband knows this sort of stuff now.  It was a catch and release job, thankfully.

The COCKLES were not so lucky, heh heh heh.  Here they are looking perfectly vile just before being chucked into the chowder.  Mmmmmmmmmmm!

Missed my Molls of course.  Had long chat with the awesome woman in Rosy Glow Chocolates about the horror of children heading off to university.  She was dressed in pure 1940s, with a beret, yellow shirt, and huge wide-legged black pants; the perfect 1940s red red lipstick.  I have a terrible girl crush on her.