busyness in the stillness... secret underworld stuff

It feels like its been ages since I was out in the garden... and all this week its rained so its put even more of a stop to us being able to go out there. But earlier this week we had a brief moment of dry weather and I was hanging the washing out when Jared alerted me to the sorry state our veggie/ gerbra patch is in... Whoops.

Ive done nothing in it, not trimmed, not even really glanced in the direction and its become an overgrown ridiculous mess. Its been " when the weekend comes," or " next sunny day" or " in the holidays!"... but I knew it probably wasnt going to be a priority for awhile.... until I needed soil!

On the weekend I had some lovely friends get baptised and I wanted to give them a gift of some new baby argave plants. I had a pot and the plants... then realised I had no soil. Not really wanting to go ALL the way to bunnings for a small amount of soil, I figured I would dig some out of my own garden :)
Fearing the worst, I grabbed my two little helpers to find out whether the soil was going to be useable, its been so neglected I wasnt sure what it would be like.... OH.MY.GOSH. What a world be discovered :)

(seriously check out this worm! its unedited, its TOTALLY pink and purple and with an irridescent streak... I was totally in awe of the colours! and just a little but grossed out too... they are still worms after all)

Witchetty grubs. Irridescent green worms. Busy ants. All working so hard to keep my soil well churned, moist and beautiful.

Jared was in absolute awe. Amahli ( once she got over her disgust and I managed to hide it from my face) was totally captivated at how BUSY everything was, and it was all happening without any disturbance to the top of the soil. So we watched this busy world, in the stillness of our garden.

Unfortunately my photos turned out crap today but you get the idea ;)

As gross as turning that first bit of soil was and everything starting moving, this was a really great experience to see just what goes on beneath the ground. I would totally challenge you to get down low and turn some soil/sand/mud whatever! yourselves and see what you can find :)

the difference in Mum VS Dad

During the week, I had a go at making some cute little reusable sandwich bags. Jareds preschool had a "no plastic wrap" week and so we were "encouraged" to not send any in the kids lunchboxes. Me, sensing a crafty challenge, got to work making some and was SO excited when the gorgeous waterproofed lined bag a made worked so well!!


Heres what it looked like:

So cute right!! Then it was brought to my attention that the stuff I used to make the lining with ( its a iron on vinyl, I absolutely LOVED it!) was really bad near food and was linked to all sorts of horrible stuff. So needless to say, I cant use them :( So they will be used as pencil cases :)


Last weekend, we took our tribe the beach. There really isnt any place Id rather be in winter than the beach! No one thinks about  going in the water, but the days are warm, bright and clear. Unfortunately, our coastline has taken a brutal beating from storms recently and our beaches resemble clifftops..... luckily for my kids, they now have ridiculously high hills to jump off, slide down, and general kamikaze themselves over.


Now as a mum, I dont overly cotton wool my kids when it comes to running on hard surfaces, jumping off rocks, climbing..... but this is fairly extreme and my inner "mum" was really work ing hard with her " gosh what if it collapses? what about broken bones? Isnt it a bit HIGH??"


But daddy, with his inner dare devil, totally encouraged them to explore, jump, FLY :)




And thats just what they did :)

(these arent properly edited, but that will come soon)

Daddy's tend not to worry so much, not thinking so far into the depth of danger, or the what ifs, but really living in the moment.
Its just what I need to do a bit more....


"there are two lasting bequests we can give our children, One is roots, the other is wings".

The letter B

I had another case of stupid Mother guilt the other day... at this age, Jumeirah was identifying letters, writing and reading... Jared?? Not so much. Truly he is a boy and couldnt care less for boring things like learning letters for goodness sake! But I so want him to be ok when he hits school next year I thought Id have some activities that would help him out a bit without making too much fuss over it :)


So I created a memory game, similar to what we've played before, only this time half the items started with B, the other half didnt, and when we went through through he had to work out if it started with a B or not. Took a bit to get started and to get the idea of what we were doing, but he soon cottoned on.

My kids LOVE this game and will play it over and over. Its brilliant if you are stuck in a Dr surgery or on a plane or really anywhere and can pull a few items out of your bag or from wherever and just play! You can adjust it to your kids age and stage, have only 3-4 items for a 3 yr old and build on it. Even Jumeirah at nearly 8 loves playing and will play for ages.

This activity lead to a painting activity ( its always painting when it comes to Amahli) and I told them it was something starting with B... balloons!! Both were very keen to do this.

Balloon painting is actually pretty tricky. They are hard to hold and even harder to control so it takes kids a bit to get the hang of it. Both really enjoyed this even though we had a few balloon escapes...

I then added paintbrushes and encouraged Jared to think and then paint something beginning with "B" ( first response was "yeah... nah" but I kinda sorta bribed and he was cool :) )

He worked out that blue berries and bananas start with B and even better, they take no time at all to paint!!

Funny boy :) How I love you xx

lost their marbles

Last week, two of my littles developed the hilarious game of "marbles", which involved dropping them all over the floor and chasing them little crazy goons... Last week I stopped it, worrying slightly at the chance they would slip on them and crack a skull, or that they would damage the walls or tiles or themselves... today I am too sick to care :)


Kinda glad I was... ( sorta but not really) because to watch these two so engrossed in this madness of a game totally lifted my spirits at the complete and utter joy they were having.... with only two marbles.

How can that be so much fun???


Watch ;)  ( click here!)

more of the simple stuff

Just when I think Im too busy to do anything ( including anything regular on this blog... sorry!) I go and score myself yet another job ;)

Two days a week I am now caring for triplets ( yup you heard right) 3 yr olds ( again, yup) girls, who are very much like Amahli in temperament and attitude :)
Gorgeous little beings, and ones who I am totally going to love to watch shine as I care for them but yes, life is about to get even more crazy for the rest of us.
And so, I began this week, which meant on Tuesday I did as little as possible when I got home from my run to school/preschool/music/preschool/school home....

Luckily, my own gorgeous three were totally engaged with each other and Jumeirah quickly took charge and ordered me to "lovingly go away Mum" so they could play.

I did sneak in a couple of times to see what they were doing.

Jumeirah had set them all up in "fixing" the bedroom. Apparently its really unstable and needed some fine tuning to be able to be slept upon. I wasnt allowed in the "work space" so I left them to it :)

All of them have been asking for something to "decorate" their rooms though and so seeing as all rooms have been kept moderately clean since last week, I gave them the idea to hang the clouds I made recently.
Bedroom decor neednt cost a fortune. Simple things such as kids art, canvas paintings, photos or these clouds, take little time and funds but really make a bedroom fun.

I made these clouds for our mothers day morning and didnt really want to chuck them out so Im glad them came to good use.

They were really easy to make! Cut a whole heap ( I think I ended up with over 60 of them but you probably could do with 20-30) of clouds out of strong white paper.
Using a normal sewing machine set on a really wide straight stitch setting, ( I also used a quilting foot so it would travel easier) place one cloud beneath the foot and stitch through. When you get the the end of one cloud, let the machine stitch for a few seconds to each cloud is seperated slightly.

The place another cloud through the machine. Keep going in this fashion until all clouds are joined.

Then hang as you like! YOU could add hot air balloons, birds, hearts, planes or whatever you like between the clouds, but we are lovin this simple start. Its also an easy way to do bunting, or party decos as well!

And the best part is, it took about 1o mintues to do and cost me nothing so when they want a change I wont care too much about throwing it away :)

Love it :)