A morning by the Lake

We are making the most of the end of Summer

    : : Enjoying the shade on the shore with my baby & my knitting
    : : Paddling with Pa
    : : Unaware of the surrounds {sleeping}
    : : Talking to the nearby fisherman and sharing in his catch
    : : Meeting [and terrorising] hermit crabs

We plan to continue doing this every day for another whole week. There is just so much sun to soak up outside, I won't be back in this space again till we return home. 

New Old Things

Over the past few weeks I have collected a few more old things.  I am so excited about each one of them.  An old iron, an old meat safe and an old (but electric) preserving kit.

I don't have great plans for this iron - it just brings me joy as it sits on our dining room table.

I have great plans for this one - hopefully one day I'll be sharing them with you.

This kits looks like work - but to me it is well worth it.  We are growing so much in our garden that we can't use at the time so the thought of saving it for later using this is very exciting.

I have a great contact when it comes to finding old things - my father in law.  He and I share a joy in finding and collecting old things.  I have him thank for two of these finds.

Week Two

After much procrastination, I have finally started playing tennis with my sister once a week.  The term tennis might be a little bit of an overstatement - perhaps it could be better described like this. 

We go to a tennis court, use a tennis racket to wack a tennis ball at each other. 

Well, that was last week, this week we did actually manage a couple of rallies that were more than one hit each!  Hopefully as we continue, we will get better.  It is a wonderful time of fun, much laughter and a little exercise (& no kids to worry about - they are with their dads).

Yes that is my knitting in the corner of the photo - just in case we needed a break - but no we didn't knit!

Welcome

Yesterday in amongst harvesting and waiting for grain to dry etc my husband made me a shelf that I've been wanting for a while.  It is made from old plough points that my grandfather used to use. 

 The welcome sign came from a gift shop/jewellery shop in Kununurra, WA and the cow door bell came from a country shop in Highfields, QLD on a 'girls only' day.

So each time I walk through my front door and see this speical shelf,

my mind wanders off to lot of wonderful memories.

Through the windows

This week on playschool, there was a girl doing ribbon dancing through the windows. 

When it was on Isaiah asked if he could have a ribbon stick,

I said yes, we can make one this afternoon. 

After his sleep, he reminded me of this promise and so I found some ribbon, an old cylinder and made one.  The request was for pink ribbon - just like the girl on TV. 

Thankfully I keep all my ribbon from presents and actually had some pink in the cupboard.

Don't they look cool?  So simple - So fun.

I made one for Jai too, they had a great time playing with them.

Perhaps I need to make one more with yellow ribbon for a cousin that loves yellow.

Family reunion

We have had such a wonderful week.  Some of our family that lives overseas have come home to Australia for a holiday.  It was a lovely reunion of cousins and a introduction of a new nephew.  I was too busy enjoying the moment to remember to take any photos so you'll have to go over to Aunty Al's blog and see pictures there. 

We also had a very fun day when they visited the farm.  I am so pleased that the boys have grown up and have learned to play together so well and there are many more times of kindness than fighting.

The next seven weeks will hopefully be very full of visits and play dates.  I am trying very hard not to think about week 8.

For Eli

I have wanted to make a timber playgym since I saw one on another blog in April 2009 - at that stage it would have been for our second son.  But we didn't have all our tools with us so it never happened. 

Over the last few weeks, in the evenings when our boys have been sleeping we finally made one - for Eli.

I love it and I think Eli does too.

Unplanned Horses

Sorry for my absence.  I have been fighting with my internet connection all week and haven't had any luck until today.  We had a very full weekend and I want to share some of it with you.  

This was a completely spontaneous event.  We were outside making other things and we have been talking about making horses for the  boys for a long time. So I drew a rough outline and next thing you know, we had two horses.  (These are my kind of horses, no yard required, no feeding or watering and if you forget to ride them for a few months, they don't care!) It took no more than 10mins total.  And we have had lots of 10mins of playing. 

Isn't amazing how the simplest toys are often those played with the most. I love that!!