When I grow up...

Delicious image from here.

While driving yesterday, my mama and I talked to Judah about growing up, and all the fun things he could do once he was big, like Daddy. Judah sat quietly, staring out the window at the passing traffic - I actually wasn’t even sure he was listening; but mum and I carried on anyway, talking about visiting strange lands, climbing mountains, riding bikes, driving cars, making lots of new friends, and maybe even learning how to fly.  

After a while, he piped up and said, ‘All I want to do when I grow up is make morning tea for everyone in the world.’

(He is three-and-a-half, mind you – I guess morning tea may be the most exciting meal of the day. And yes, Mum and I laughed at the sweetness of his chosen occupation)

That’s a big job, I told him, when we talked about it again later.

Yes, he said, but I can do it. I’m very clever.

Kids have a lovely self-assurance, don’t they?  

I love the way that my two look at a situation, and there’s no doubt in the world that they can’t tackle and overcome it. They tell me that they’re clever and smart often; they’re convinced that they’re beautiful and handsome, extremely funny, sweet, very good, and always helpful. I love their optimism; and at the right time, it’s contagious.

I wonder if I had the same confidence at their age. Did you?

Nat

Remembering

So, I had a moment during the week with Lyra that made me stop and think about the things we remember from childhood, the comfort of safe, sweet memories, and how they replicate from generation to generation.

I was dressing to go out when little Lyra-Lou, fresh from a bath, wet hair in ringlets and in a bright purple singlet, came marching into the bedroom to see what I was doing. She watched for a while in silence and then began asking questions, wanting to join in too. I put cream on her small chubby cheeks, lip gloss on her pouted lips, and brushed her hair; she looked at herself and at me with a lovely sense of wonder, before declaring that we were both very pretty, and skipping out of the room to show her Daddy.

I remember doing the same thing as a girl – watching my mother dress, carefully applying her makeup. I thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world; I expect most little girls feel the same way. And she would include me in her beauty routines in the same way – cream on my cheeks, brushing my long hair, maybe just the smallest touch of lipstick. And I can see the memory playing before me, and feel that same delight, thinking that she had magically transferred some of her loveliness to me.

Have you ever had a moment like that with your child – where a memory from your youth is played over?

Nat

Ps. I think this is my most favourite photo of Lou, in her beloved Wimcee headdress. When I took it, she was telling me about where things come from – juice comes from bees, yoghurt comes from bees, milk comes from a moo, and apples are from the fridge. Bless.

Holiday Lessons

Yes, we totally dropped off the radar.

Sorry, dear readers.

It actually all started when my computer broke down the week before Christmas. I was horrified at first, and then sunk into the lack of technology like a pig in mud. There is a lot to be said for taking a break from life for a few weeks – Dave and I played long treasure hunting games with the kids, swam, ate and ate, and had random afternoon naps; the kids rode their bikes for hours, we went on long drives, dug up the gardens, cooked the most delicious food, and watched lots of kiddie movies.

It really was heavenly.

And I actually managed to learn a few things while on our long, lazy holiday:

1. Yes, it is possible to go back to sleep in the morning if you close your eyes long enough (and if there’s a pillow over your head to muffle the outside noise).
2. Holidays = messy house, frequently empty fridge. It also means that no one really has the motivation to do anything about it, which makes it a lot easier to turn a blind eye and indulge in fantastic takeaway.
3. You can never have too many swims in one day. And lazy after-the-kids-are-asleep swims are the perfect way to wind down.
4. Holiday breakfasts may just be the best kind of breakfast: there’s very little guilt involved, you’re able to take your time (perhaps even read the paper or pour another mug of coffee), and can then crawl into bed or onto the couch for slow digestion.
5. Having a little girl that loves pretend tea parties is really the most delightful thing. Thinking that we’d always have a tomboy, the emergence of the very girly Lou really is a thing to marvel at; and all those endless cups of pretend tea and cake, the tucking and re-tucking of dolls into makeshift beds, and a sudden obsession with pretty skirts and beads, adds a lovely (sometimes sparkly) shine to the house. 

Even though it may feel like an age ago, did you have a holiday over Christmas? What did you do?

Nat

Ps. I’ve been writing. A lot. And isn’t it a novel thing, to write with a pen on paper? I think it took me two weeks to write without an aching hand!

Image from here.

Making Christmas Ours...

This year, I’m making a pumpkin pie for Christmas Day desert.

And perhaps even a lemon tart, loaded with fresh seasonal berries.

There’ll be lazy after-dinner swims in the pool, iced tea in tall glass pitchers, old (sometimes scratchy) jazz records being played, and a string of lanterns glowing on the verandah.

I’ve been thinking about starting our own family Christmas traditions a lot lately – you know, the things that you do every year as a family (isn’t there just a loveliness in things that stay the same over time?), and the things that we’ll look forward to with delicious anticipation. The small things that will make Christmas our Christmas.

The babes are old enough now to be swept up in magical things, and we’ve been discussing Santa’s job (and whether Santa enlists the help of fairies to help him out), and all the childlike things that go along with it. Judah has decided that he wants to leave a present for Santa, which I readily agreed to – and Lou suggested that the reindeer might like some honey on toast, along with the traditional carrots and apples. Who doesn’t like hot-buttered honey toast?

Dave and I have been brainstorming ways to make the magic of the season real for them both. Inside, on our bright Christmas morning, there’ll be a note left from Santa, footprints leading out from the fireplace, and a pile of string-wrapped presents stacked under the Judah-decorated tree. The plate of homemade goodies that the little ones will make the day before, will have proved too much of a temptation for old St Nick; and outside, the reindeer feast will be all but a memory. There may even be some sparkly glitter in the place where they rested – evidence of their magical pit-stop.

As we lean towards the loveliness of Christmas day, the kids have begun making their presents for the people they love most in the world – with my help, of course. Their drawings are very person-specific, and done with such care and sweetness; some of them have been transformed into small artworks, some have been set aside for more intricate projects in the New Year. But most importantly, they are all wrapped up in the idea of giving to people, and I can’t help but smile at their enthusiasm.

Do you have Christmas traditions that you’ve brought into your family from your childhood? Or have you created your own special family traditions?

Nat

Image from here.

Rowdy, rough-and-tumble types...

My babes are wrestlers.

They’re also fast-running-around-the-table, rolling around in mud, climbing dangerously high (and jumping without fear), and fake laughing in the mirror kind of kids. They do everything in a loud way; will shriek and screech over the smallest finds, and love making up circus tricks and tumbling down the hallway. They make loud, scary noises when pulling faces, breakdance to bad 80’s music, and sing off key to our favourite songs. I never dress them in white. Ever.

Even though I’m more than aware of their boisterous beginnings, this week I had the opportunity to see a work in progress performance in an inner city theatre, a play for two-to-five year olds all about play – and I must admit, I hesitated. Especially because when I was reading the email invitation, Judah was standing on the dining table shouting ‘Fi! Fi! Fo! Fum!’ and beating his chest like King Kong, and I could hear Lou outside squealing repeatedly over a colony of ants that she’d found in the mud.

But then I thought, why not? They may just surprise me…

As it was, my energetic two were very good, and aside from a few feet stamping and jumping on cushion episodes, all went beautifully. But the thing I love the most?  How seeing the performance has influenced their own imaginings and the way that they play together: Judah’s been pretending to swim around the house, holding his breath so his plump little cheeks stick out, breast-stroking at a furious pace, and diving onto the couch to paddle-kick his legs at breakneck speed. And Lou has been exploring with boxes, copying Judah’s enthusiastic swimming displays, and hiding under sheets – just like the actors did.

It was an interesting lesson for me – perhaps I box my wrestlers/mud rollers too quickly, and don’t really give them the opportunity to experience new, quieter things because I’m afraid they’ll be too disruptive. But I’m thinking that we may just become a theatre-going family after all… which is very, very cool.

Have your children ever surprised you in a similar way?

Nat

Ps. Only one more week left before we draw the winner of our $50 Quill & Ink Handmade gift voucher! To enter, all you need to do is post a photo on our facebook page of your Quill & Ink product with its new owner, and like us (if you don’t already). Simple as that! Best photo wins…. x

Slow Slithering...

(Lemon Jellie, this post is for you!)

So, some of you may know that our house is a mecca for creepy wildlife. There’s something about backing onto a creek that brings out the beasties, and among the hundreds of bearded dragons, giant spiders, and a myriad of birds, bats and lizards, are many, many snakes in all different varieties that I’ll often find in really unexpected places (and usually in places I need to be).

I have to admit, when we first moved in here, I was absolutely petrified. I already had a paralysing fear of spiders, and would regularly find them on the inside of the shower screen, the toilet seat, on a random towel or behind pots and pans, and once on a cardigan that I pulled out from my wardrobe. There was much shrieking and a whole lot of obsessive checking of things; but thankfully, as the years have passed, I seem to be coping much better with their surprise visits.

Just recently, we had a mad month of snakes at our house. We’d find carpet pythons, metres long, exploring the front verandah, slithering over the kids bikes, curling around our outdoor furniture. Snakes that sunned themselves in the backyard, mated in our side garden, used trees as ladders, and sneaked from one end of the house to the other through the guttering. Night after night, they’d mate in our roof cavity, sliding over beams, the rough sound echoing through the sleeping house. And there were plenty of nights that we sat up, at two in the morning, drinking tea or eating ice-cream because the noise of them was just too loud.

And then, nothing.

Not a trace of them around the house; no persistent scraping noises in the roof, no shrieking of local birds who followed and alerted us of the snakes when they were migrating in the garden. And weeks go by in blissful silence.

But this morning, look what I found:

Last year, we found baby pythons under the couch, or suddenly in the hallway, or writhing on the bathroom floor. The kids, ever fascinated, would sit on their haunches and watch as we tried to shepherd them into boxes or bowls, to be released near the creek.

Finding the first skin this morning was a cue to be a little more vigilant around the house – hopefully there won’t be too many of them wriggling into our lives this season!

Do you have interesting wildlife at your house?

Or got a snake story?

Nat

Grateful #22: What are you thankful for this week?

It’s been a crazy couple of weeks.

But in amongst some out-of-this-world temper tantrums (toddlers – sheesh!), was the loveliest, food and wine filled holiday spent in the company of the most wonderful people. It’s given me so much to be grateful for this week, including….

The comfort and contentment of home. We had the most delicious time away, and absolutely loved exploring and spending time with our beautiful family in Adelaide. But how nice is it to come home to familiar spaces, well loved things (and to a beloved husband who was lonely without two rambunctious children)?

We arrived home late, on a warm, clear night, and as soon as the bags were inside, I crawled into our bed with the smile of a happy traveller. In the morning, I couldn’t help but marvel at the growth in the garden (our tomatoes and snow peas are in bloom!), and even allowed Ella, our stinky mastiff, to lie smiling on my feet.

I baked, drunk tea, and pottered; did loads of laundry and watched a snake wind its way around a tree in the garden. I took up my needle and began to sew.

I like travelling, but I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m a homebody at heart; and it made me even more grateful for our patch of the world, and all the love and life it contains.

Lyra. The littlest and loveliest of our family turned two a couple of days ago – Lyra (or Lou) spent the day in a sea of colourful balloons and pink wrapping paper, talked loudly, giggled and squealed, ate dreamy vanilla cakes with chocolate butterflies perched on top, drew all over her legs and face with new felt-tip pens, and was loved up by lots of people who think she’s just the bees knees (Judah, on the other hand was so distraught that it wasn’t his birthday that he spent most of the day crying, and/or stamping his feet with the injustice of it all; which is actually pretty funny).

But our sweet Lyra-Lou – goodness, I love her. She wakes with a smile on her face every morning, charms the socks off anyone who meets her, and is just the loveliest, most delightful little person. I spend all day thinking about how very, very fortunate we are to have this precious girl as our own, and how much light and love she’s given us in the two short, blink-of-an-eye years that she’s been here. And that she’s my child: my heart almost bursts with gratitude.

How about you? What are you grateful for this week?

Nat

Ps. Want to play too? Link your grateful post back to Maxabella Loves, or write your grateful list in the comments section below x

Grateful #21: What are you thankful for today?

What a week!

My fingers are sore from so much hand sewing, but today I very proudly reached my market stock quota; which is a first, and pretty darn exciting! It means that all that careful planning has finally paid off, that I’m somehow staying motivated, and that I’m working consistently. Anyone who is self-employed will know how hard that is to do at times! My nook is alive with colour and material and bright spools of cotton thread, and I’m sketching new ideas and small things to try almost daily. It’s the most delicious thing, to be in a creative surge…

And aside from being very grateful and quietly chuffed with my new found creativity, this week I’m very grateful for:

Bananas. I’m not sure how the banana situation is in the southern states, but ever since the beginning of the year, Queensland bananas have been madly expensive, and for us, way, way too costly to buy.

So, as I’m driving home one afternoon, I see that our local fruit and veg shop started selling their ladyfinger bananas at $3.99 a kilo. I almost squealed, and very nearly had an accident in my haste to get there and bag up. They were tiny and green and in gorgeous bunches; and lucky us! We’ve all been wallowing in banana-ry-goodness this week. As silly as it sounds, I’m so grateful for the chance to eat one of my favourite fruits, whenever I like without worrying about the price. And sliced banana on fresh buttered toast is the best and most delicious start to the day.

Power-naps. I had a power nap for the first time yesterday. Set my alarm for 20 minutes, crawled into bed absolutely exhausted, and promptly fell asleep. And even though I did get a crazy fright when the alarm sounded, I jumped out of bed, and got back to work, feeling a bit dazed but refreshed none-the-less.

Questions. So, we’re firmly in the ‘but why, Mum?’ phase with Judah, who asks a million questions about every random thing that we see, hear, taste or do during the day. I’m getting better at answering his queries, but I do catch myself saying, ‘because that’s just the way it is,’ – after we’ve been harping on the same topic for what seems like hours and hours. He doesn’t seem to mind; it opens up another topic to ask hundreds of questions about. Lou’s jumped on the bandwagon, and has begun asking her own ‘why’ questions – but quickly loses interest and seems to like the way that why sounds when it’s said, more than the information that follows it.

I am so liking this new phase in their development, and I’m enjoying being a mini font of knowledge (even if some things are made up).

What are you grateful for this week?

Nat

Ps. Grateful? Want to join in too?

Kim and I are heading up the coast to prep for Mamma's market in the morning, so this post is scheduled. But if you visit the gorgeous Maxabella loves after around 9pm tonight, you'll be able to follow where to leave your grateful linky.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Grateful #19 – What are you thankful for today?

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve done a grateful post – and I’ve missed it! It’s such a lovely thing to get into the practice of doing - pausing at the end of each week to be thankful for the things, people and experiences that enrich our lives.

And this week I’m grateful for:

Mini stay-at-home holidays. One the reasons I’ve been a sometimes-poster in blogger land lately is because I’ve been sewing like a loon for weeks on end. Sometimes that happens; no matter how much careful preparation I put in the lead-up to a big market, I still find myself sewing in a slightly obsessed and panicked sort of way the week or so before.

When the market wrapped up beautifully last weekend, I could see that it was time for a break, to get back to some kind of family and headspace normalcy.

So this week, I put away my diary and decided to bake. I turned my phone off for two whole days, took the kids to the park, caught up with beautiful friends, cleaned the bathroom, folded ten years worth of laundry, wrote a couple of blog posts, and had lazy cups of tea while flicking through junk mail. I watched funny movies, played Lego with Judah and dinosaurs and tea parties with Lou, cooked a roast with all the trimmings, and went to bed early one night with a good book. I ate the best Banoffie pie, pottered around in the garden, made a couple of presents, read lots of picture books with the wee ones, and sat in the sun one morning and admired the bees fussing over our new flowers, while the kids covered themselves in cobbler’s pegs (on purpose).

It was a slow but productive week – the best kind of week - and I’m feeling so much better: recharged, renewed and ready for the next sewing and market timeframe.

So very grateful for the chance, every now and again, to slow down.

What are you thankful for this week?

Nat

PS. Linking up with the delightful Maxabella Loves – and you can too! Link your grateful post here, or write your grateful list in the comments section below.

And don’t forget to enter our first BIG giveaway! To be in the running to receive a parcel of Quill & Ink Handmade goodies, including one of our gorgeous signature dolls, fill out our quick survey here, and ‘like’ us on Facebook here. Entries close Monday 22^nd August, and the lucky winner will be drawn on Tuesday, 23^rd August, 2011.

Image from here.

Grateful #12 – What are you thankful for today?

Welcome to winter, Brisbane!

This week has been frosty, and it’s all anyone can talk about. I’m so sure that every winter is the same, but I seem to have winter amnesia every year, and never remember the teeth-chattering, frosty breath, scarf wearing cold until it actually really is.

The good thing about real winter weather is that it brings lots of sweet snuggly cuddles, steaming mugs of sweet milky tea, and comforting layers of blankets, doonas and warm flannelette sheets. This year, we’ve also become a family of porridge eaters; we even ate it for dinner tonight because it’s so deliciously nourishing.

So, aside from winter weather and honey-laden porridge, this week I’m grateful for:

Friends who love food, cooking, eating, and sharing just as much as I do. This weekend, we have lots of lovely friends coming over for a wintery afternoon BBQ to welcome a pair of sorely-missed nomadic travellers home.

I’ve been seriously dreaming about this feast for nearly two weeks, and this is why -

Imagine: A big open bonfire outside, fireplace lit and roaring inside; marshmallows for toasting on found twigs, a wild boar roasting deliciously on a spit, lovely spiced mulled wine, cheese wheels for nibbling, rich gravies and warm bread, lots of hearty winter salads, baked potatoes roasted on the bonfire coals and topped with lashings of sour cream and bacon, decadent self-saucing puddings, and sweet syrupy cakes.

It’s absolutely my idea of foodie heaven. And that we get to share it with the people we love most in the world – well, it makes it all the more delicious.

Young Flaubert, looking dapper and important. Image from here.

Madame Bovary, and French writer/wonder, Gustave Flaubert. I’ve had a rollicking good time re-reading my absolute favourite book this week. Beautiful Madame Bovary (Emma) is spoilt, absolutely self-centred and self-absorbed, in love with the idea of love, and bored to distraction with her neat little life, married to a bumbling doctor in a small country town. She’s the perfect 19^th century anti-heroine, who cures boredom and emptiness with obsessive, suffocating affairs, smothering her lovers with a careful mix of helpless heroine in need of rescuing, and a va-va-va-vooom! bombshell act which leaves them coming back for more (well, for a while anyway). There’s also a very long drawn out (and quite amusing) death scene right at the end - it's wonderful.

I just love this book; and I'm so grateful for a great bedtime read.

Independence. I stopped dragging my feet, and began toilet training my nearly-three-year-old this week – and it’s all gone so smoothly that I’m left with very little mop-ups and a very proud heart. I love Judah’s new found toileting independence, and I love watching him strut around post-toilet, pleased as punch, knowing he’s doing such a good job. I've even overheard him telling his little sister, 'I did it all by myself!' which is just the loveliest thing to hear.

What are you grateful for this week?

Nat

Ps. Linking up with the lovely Maxabella – and you can too! Link your grateful post up with hers here, or write your grateful list in the comments section below x

Point and Shoot: A Wonderfully Warm Weekend

I’ve just had one of those weekends where all things were lovely – you know the ones?

It started with a new stash of the most gorgeous fabric from our delicious local quilting shop, and the sweetest project for a dear friend expecting her first baby…

...A Saturday morning beach play with the kids; finding beautiful curled shells, smooth and sleek, carved away by the power of the sea. Keeping all the odd shaped ones our toddlers pulled from the waves, and promising to make a treasures chest to keep them all in; feeling the strength of the wind in our hair, watching locals fly their kites, and happy, sleepy poppets all the way home.

And, joy of joys! The discovery of random rouge pumpkins - two growing/hanging in a tree, another sneakily hidden in the long grass, and two only just beginning…

Sunday morning papers, coffee and sunshine through the trees; the kids exploring and getting dirty in the backyard, riding bikes and playing newly made-up games...

Don’t you just love weekends? What did you get up to?

Nat

Ps. To find out more about Point and Shoot and its lovely creator, go here.