Monday, October 25, 2010

Happy Birthday Captain - The Pirate Party

I woke on Saturday morning to the Captain standing next to the bed, fully dressed in his pirate outfit.  It was 6.03 am and the first thing he said was, "how long until everyone gets here?"  Blinking in the light shining in through the shutters he had opened, I was so thrilled to see it was a beautiful day. 


A sign outside the house welcoming our guests!




Eye-patches, bandannas, cutlasses and hats ready to hand out to the little pirates.




Warning sign on the pool fence.  As the decking is still unfinished we wanted to avoid anyone going into this part of the garden for safety reasons.




Baby Pirate.




The ship cake.




Cup-cakes.




The "thank you for coming" favours.  We wrapped little chocolate bars in gold paper as "ingots" and the skull shaped cookie cutter I found on the Thurs at Aldi of all places, after trying all the more obvious baking suppliers unsuccessfully!




Finally, some pirates arrived and so did Pirate Peacock.  From the moment these little pirates spotted Pirate Peacock sauntering down our street, lugging his pirate chest full of treasure, they were mesmerised.  Apparently he had docked his ship nearby and was looking for some buccaneers. 




Pass theTreasure Chest.




Tug-O-War (the little pirates LOVED this activity!)




Even this super-cute Pirate Princess had to walk the plank for being rude to the Queen.  (Pirate Peacock was also very funny!)




The Treasure Hunt




Where is that treasure?  The X is on the ship wrecked dinghy!




Finally they found it and had to whack it open with their cutlasses to get to the Pieces of Eight!




The Captain and his cake.



Thank you for coming to my party! 


For those that have asked about Pirate Peacock contact:

He was absolutely fantastic!  Brilliant at keeping in character and entertaining the children, I could not recommend him more highly!


Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Mayhem Chez Pirates!

An eventful few days were had at Pirate HQ whilst R was away in Melbourne playing golf, staying at a glamorous hotel and dining at establishments like Gordon Ramsay's new restaurant. He had lobster and apparently it was outstanding, can you tell I am a teeny bit jealous...

Incident 1.  The Snake

The Captain announced calmly to me from the french doors that lead out into the garden, "Mummy, there is a snake in the garden"  the calmness of this statement threw me and I ignored him!  In my defence, I was thinking to myself that it must be a stick he is looking at.  A second, more urgent sounding "Mummy, there is a snake in the garden" got my attention though and I got up to have a look.

"Get inside the house and shut all the doors and windows!" I screeched, grabbing the phone to call husband and seek his advice on what to do.  Of course he was in Melbourne playing golf.  Admittedly and in his defence, it was a charity match raising money for Ronald McDonald House, however at that point in time I was outraged that he was not at my beck and call.  He suggested I ring WIRES.  They were very helpful and identified the snake as a non-venomous tree snake!  Phew! 



Incident 2. The demise of the Dishwasher

Out of frustration and to punish husband for his neglectful absence in my time of need I went and bought myself a shiny new Miele dishwasher and to go with it a lovely new Miele oven.  Well, it was on special and that never happens with Miele.  Plus, our stove top is Miele, so now everything matches and looks lovely!


Incident 3. The Power Failure

Tree-loppers across the road  in their attempt to remove some Bangalow Palms managed to accidentally knock down a giant Strezlitzia straight onto the power lines! No power for hours, this was merely inconvenient compared to incident 4 though.

Incident 4.  The Wardrobe Malfunction

I left the house at half-past eight and dropped the Captain off at pre-school.  Then with the baby went to do the shopping, pottered around Spotlight buying party items, had a coffee and some lunch and then visited several of my favourite junk shops.  During the course of the day I chatted with numerous people, but it was not until half-past two when I went to collect the Captain from school, that one of the other lovely Mums sidled up to me and whispered in my ear, "Emma, your dress is on inside out!" I was mortified! I have decided to blame R for this incident. If he had been at home he might have perhaps noticed such a significant wardrobe malfunction.  Also I might not have been so  distracted (see incidents one, two and three). 

Thankfully, throughout the mayhem, my two little pirates were angels... thank you boys! 





 P.S. I love my new oven and dishwasher and it made walking around the northern beaches with my frock on inside out all better, admittedly some rather extravagant retail therapy though!


Monday, October 18, 2010

Pirate Party - Preparations Continue.

Preparations for the Pirate Party this weekend are well and truly underway now.   So far we have made the treasure map,  as you can see the Captain got into the spirit of things:


The clues for the treasure map are stored inside these little pouches I found at a $2 shop.  The sword is the final clue and is the weapon to "open" the Treasure Chest pinata:



Filling the pinata full of "pieces of eight" (chocolate coins):


Making the pinata shell, hopefully when it is finished it will loosely resemble a Treasure Chest:



I am making 21 of these newspaper swords, see Alphamom for the tutorial: 


The Captain's hearty approval:


Lastly I chopped up the sun-shade umbrella to begin converting the outdoor table into a pirate ship.  Do you think my husband will be cross?  As he has been in Melbourne, gallivanting about and wining and dining with friends and I have been at home, alone with two children.  Left to deal with amongst other day to day things, a rogue snake (eeek!) and a broken dishwasher (gah!), he had better not say anything:




More on the rogue snake and other recent domestic issues tomorrow!

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Have a nice day then!

Conversation with the little one at 7pm last night, moments before bedtime:

LO: I am going out.

Me: (grabbing camera off kitchen bench to fire off a few snaps quickly) Where are you going darling?

LO: (Smiling beatifically for camera) To work.

Me: Really?  Are you sure you should wear the bunny ears to work?

LO: Yes, dadda always wears bunny ears to work.

Me: (Laughing, all other photos now blurry)  Does he now?  I must have a word with your father about that then!




Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Embracing thrift with cute cowboys!

As I have two boys, my intention has always been to buy good quality clothes for Boy One and then hopefully pass some of his wardrobe onto Boy Two.  Boy One though has turned out to be extremely active and enjoys playing in the dirt, trees, sandpit and other typical boy joy places.  Most clothing has survived the mud and the dirt very well.  Seed, Country Road, Gap and Old Navy are definite favourites.  However, almost all of Boy One's pants have suffered in the knee area.  It seems so wasteful to throw out a pair of trousers just because the knees have worn through, so in the spirit of thrift and with noble thoughts regarding the environment, I asked my lovely Mum if she could sew some knee patches for me.  I am so pleased with the end result that I am blogging about it!


I knew that if I was to be happy with the patches that the fabric had to be cute.  So after quizzing a clever pre-school Mum (Thank you Susan!) I found some gorgeous cowboy fabric at a nearby quilting shop.  A fat quarter of cowboy fabric cost a few dollars and if you think about the cost of buying a new pair of decent pants, a few dollars is nothing. 



The patches were stitched on by hand, with some additional fabric stitched onto the inside leg of the jeans (basically behind the patches), in order to meet boy play standards.  This will come in handy as Boy Two is following in Boy One's gumboots and is equally as fascinated with mud, dirt and general outdoor mischief.  


Perfect play clothes for the little one! Thanks Grandma!!!

Friday, October 8, 2010

The Gruffalo


This morning I took the pirates to see the stage production of The Gruffalo.  The Captain, who can almost recite The Gruffalo in it's entirety, just loved it and the baby watched wide eyed and adored roaring when the "mouse" requested that the children in the audience roar!  To anyone who is unfamiliar with the books and has young children, I highly recommend all of Julia Donaldson's books but in particular The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child.  Written in rhyme, the story will appeal to most children and is so clever that I actually don't mind reading it over and over again!

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Berrima

I met up with my parents for lunch today in Berrima, a lovely little town a few hours south of Sydney in the Southern Highlands.  They have very kindly had The Captain to stay for the last few days and so we met in Berrima so that they could return him to me!  I adore meeting up with them here as we can have a lovely lunch at one of the numerous cafes and then I can have a leisurely stroll through the many antique shops whilst they entertain the grandchildren in the park!  Today we had lunch at The Magpie Cafe on the verandah. 


The Captain dancing about with excitement on the verandah at the cafe, telling me all about the wonderful time he has had with Grandma and Grandpa:

Although it would have been just as lovely to eat outside on the pavement under the blosssoms, petals were drifting down with the slight breeze and filling the air with their delicious scent:


The highlands are in the midst of Tulip Time and there were half barrels full of tulips lining the streets:


Even the post office had tubs of flowers outside:



       This cat is a local identity.  He gracefully permitted me to photograph him outside his home:


A must in Berrima is a visit to Peppergreen's.  An absolute favourite of mine:


It is full of vintage kitchenalia:


Glassware:


Vintage linen:


Other collectibles:


Beautiful things:


There are several rooms full of collectibles and it truly is a feast for the eyes!




Thank you to my wonderful parents for having The Captain to stay!  He had a marvellous time and we had a lovely break!

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

It was far too quiet...

I was on the phone to my husband, discussing the necessity of my latest nursery order (as in garden nursery, yes it is a weakness.  Note to self:  think about making NYE resolution preventing future nursery purchases!)  Anyway, during the course of the phone call I suddenly noticed the absence of the little one.  Wandering through the house looking for him, I spotted this:


That would be a 2 kilo jar of sugar next to his feet.  I hastily said to my husband. "Um... I need to go.  Bye!"  I grabbed the camera, as I really regret not taking the photos of this child covered in permanent marker aged 3 months (didn't find it that funny at the time... unfortunately!).  Licking his lips:



Quickly shovelling in the last mouthful whilst Mummy snaps a few more photos:


Mwaaahhaaaahaaahaaaaaa!!!:


I recall saying some time ago that this child has a sweet tooth!

Addendum: all nursery purchases for CURRENT garden need to be completed by Christmas 2010

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