Hurrah... I have a computer again!

I started to write a long and lengthy post trying to explain about the rather difficult past 3 months we have just had but in the interests of keeping things in perspective, ie.  there are others that that have to cope with so much more on a daily basis that I decided to abandon it and instead update you all as what we have been doing.

I will say though that as we haven't had a computer for the past 6 weeks (details were in the explanation now abandoned!) and have moved out of the house twice and been on holidays, also twice, that blogging and all that it entails were temporarily put on hold.   Apologies to those that I alarmed with my lengthy absence and Jane a card will be in the post on Monday to you my lovely!

The house is now painted. The colours that we ended up choosing are Dulux Oyster Linen and Taubmans Aspen Snow for the trims.  A lot of people have emailed me about the colour of the house.  The number is actually mind boggling.... anyway, if I haven't replied to your email yet I apologise and am getting around to everyone slowly.  Hopefully I will answer all the questions here now:  Oyster Linen is not on the standard colour chart but if you go into Dulux or Bunnings they will be able to mix a sample pot for you.  It is full strength.  The front door is Dulux Domino in a gloss finish.

The little blue strip above the door is yet to be painted!

The inside is very slowly getting there...

My clever clogs husband built the bench seat! Well, he/we did most of the work inside the house!

It is a lovely spot for a cup of tea in the morning, actually just lovely all the time! The floors are blackbutt with a matt finish.

The laundry is in, I absolutely love the long bench top but do not recommend the product.  Ceaserstone Snow and it stains if you just look at it with a cup of coffee, some red wine or even a slice of fruit... don't ask... Unless you are considering using it somewhere, in which case be aware that it STAINS easily. VERY EASILY.  It does look nice though.

Will do some more house updates soon but in the meantime the Pirates are well.  We had a fabulous break at the beach house.

They are both their father's sons and love the surf.  The little one, although quite a proficient swimmer scares me with his confidence.  He is always the smallest person out in the surf.

He started pre-school last week.  First time away from me and I was prepared for tears and drama.  Nothing.  Indeed, the little traitor practically rolled his eyes at me when I was saying goodbye.

I will be along to visit all of you soon!  xx

Nicasso and the Avant-Garde art movement

Captain Nicasso has entered his Cubism phase, aged 4 years! He has spent roughly a week creating this and is so proud of it that he took it to pre-school with him this morning for show and tell. R and I are very pleased that the realism phase seems to be over and can only hope that there is no further disgracing of the family at Pre-School.

Make and Do: The Volcano!!!

Inspired by nature (and a few other clever Mamas who have made these for their broods recently) we built ourselves a volcano. The Captain was put to work ripping up bits of paper for the papier-mache volcano and valley.

We then borrowed a bit of plywood from Daddy's supplies under the house to use as the base of the volcano. An old tin can was used as the volcano crater and some take-away containers helped pad out the rest of the volcano. We used a basic papier-mache recipe of flour and water to construct the rest.

All our hard work completed the volcano was set to dry out in the afternoon sunshine.

We were so proud of ourselves and then disaster, in the form of a very cheeky brushtail possum, struck. Very late at night we heard unusual sounds on our back deck. Ross, sent to investigate, discovered that a possum was eating our beautiful volcano! The culprit was caught on security camera and further invesigations are pending!

In the morning we surveyed the damage to our volcano and decided it was repairable.

Repairs underway:

After another day in the sunshine the volcano was ready to paint:

Finally, it was ready for the Captain to take to Pre-School for show and tell. His pre-school teacher helped him mix the ingredients for the chemical reaction.

The eruption!

Apparently the class loved it!