Where oh where have we been?!

I can tell you where I haven't been very much in recent weeks.  Here!  Sitting at the computer; blogging. Here's a few of my excuses as to why poor little We Be has been so very neglected for so very long.  But at the end of the day, they're just excuses.  I simply haven't been making time to record the little comings and goings of our lives here and its time that stopped people!

1.  I am gestating.  And we all know how much energy that can take up.  Seriously though, the first trimester was a blur of down to the bone exhaustion and round the clock nausea.  Will had more overseas travel than usual so I was solo parenting throughout much of it and maintaining this little space fell way down the list of priorities alongside such tasks as avoiding a car interior that doesn't resemble a bomb sight and cleaning the smudge marks off the mirrored wardrobe doors.  I recently announced our newest family member with this graphic on Facebook.  Cute huh?!

2.  Term 3 was busy, busy, busy.  (Term 4 looks set to be busier still....arghhh).  It included not only all our usual classes and social groups but also extra activities during Science Week in August, attending our first opera performance (Hansel and Gretel), running around to appointments for Hugo's ongoing ezcema /tummy problems and starting the long process of designing a plan for the renovation of our house with our wonderful architect.  Oh yes, and squashed in there were my prenatal appointments with my beautiful midwife, a regular babysitting favour for a neighbour and a huge family reunion organised by my mum.  Did I mention Will's travel schedule during this time?  He swung through Colombia (twice), El Salvador, Canada, United States, Nassau and Papua New Guinea.  Its possible I've forgotten somewhere too.  One can hardly keep track!

I mustn't leave out a couple of rather impressive milestones that Dexter achieved during the past couples of months.  He attended his first ever sleep over without a hiccup.  It was Carmella's 9th birthday party and Dexter had a ball along with 8 of his friends staying up late dancing to Bananarama, watching Madagascar and choreographing and performing various 'shows'.


Dexter also performed in his first piano recital.  We have been attending our end of term piano concerts since Dexter began lessons 12 months ago but he wasn't feeling ready to participate until now.  He played Go Tell Aunt Rhody.  Hugo also insisted on performing even though he has only been having lessons for one term and is very much at the beginning of things shall we say?!  His performance involved bowing, sitting at the piano to play the Busy Busy Stop Stop rhythm with his thumb on C and bowing again to finish - the whole thing taking about 45 seconds!

                                      

Another big event that took place last term was the birth of my niece Hayley.  She arrived in a big hurry into my brothers waiting arms in their home while the car sat running the driveway for a trip to the local birthing suite which never eventuated.   What a champion her mama is, she made it all look so easy and stayed cool, calm and collected throughout.  A few days later Cass and I enjoyed an extremely fun 24 hour road trip - without our husbands or children, oh my - so I could meet my gorgeous new niece and Cass could capture her first days in the world with her wonderful photography skills.  (All up 7 hours of driving time and still we hadn't finished our conversation when I dropped her home late at night...one just never runs out of things to talk about with ones best friend does one?!).

photo by Cass

3.  We have been overseas, albeit briefly.  The trip was for exactly 14 days start to finish and we literally travelled to the opposite side of the globe then back again.  That's a lot of air miles and sitting around in airports.  When we weren't on an airplane we enjoyed teasing tastes of New Orleans, Boston and the main event which was spending 6 days with Granny Kim and Papa Ward on their beautiful boat Goodtimes in the Bahamas.  Divine.  (I hope this is enough photos for you mum)!

 Above: Dexter driving the dingy above and below: my belly and I hanging with the nurse sharks.  

We spent hours on various beaches accessible only by the dingy.  Not a footprint or sign of a human in sight.  Who knows how long since the last child wrote his name in the sand here.

Hugo had a go at driving the dingy with Papa Ward giving instruction.  Can you spot the giant iguana below?  A whole island full of them!  And they're not very appreciative of human visitors.  Some of the worlds most amazing real estate and essentially owned by iguana's.  How awesome!

This is the Compass Cay marina.  The entire area is a national park/marine conservation in the Bahamas too divine for words, where we moored Goodtimes for a few days.  Only the island caretaker Tucker and his family live here and in 5 days we only saw 2 other boats visiting.  Uncrowded is an understatement.

The children found a treasure map in a bottle just bobbing around in the water beside the boat, no kidding!  They followed the map to buried treasure on the other side of the island.  The whole adventure thrilled them beyond belief.  Below, Will checking in on work.  What a crappy location to check your emails from huh?  

Will jumped moments after this photo.  I videoed it however YouTube doesn't like me lately so you wont be able to see for yourself.

 Captain Steve involved the children in the lowering of the anchor when we spent the night 'on the hook' at a place known as Shroud which is on the way back to Nassua from Compass Cay.

Arriving back in Nassau to the marina at Atlantis.  It felt positively bustling after Compass Cay where we saw no more people than I have fingers.  

I will try to put together a few photos of our time in New orleans and Boston too but not today, I've reached my limit with sitting here patiently watching photos upload.

And that must conclude my attempt at a catch up post.  I have every intention of making more time for maintaining this blog from now on...if I don't and you happen to see me please feel free to poke me!  A little pushing and prodding might be necessary with our busy schedule of classes and courses this term and as I enter the later stages of pregnancy.  But I'm determined to keep things a little more current around here.  Wish me luck!

Hot glue gun - yeah baby!

One night before bed* last month Dexter made this:

They're dogs, on a mission to the moon.  Complete with stretchy bodies, tails, legs and detailed faces.  Made from paper and sticky tape and little foil in the background attached to their space ship.  I have no idea where he gets these ideas from, and as for constructing it in 3D?!  I love this kids creativity.

It gave me an idea.  Mum gave me a hot glue gun for my birthday last year which was still sitting in its packet on my sewing shelf.  Time we put it to use!  I raided the craft stuff and found these chipboard wooden bases along with a pile of other stuff.   We made a trip to the art store for a few extras like that fake bush/foliage stuff folks use in miniature train sets.  I figured if Dex could be so creative with paper and sticky tape, he would enjoy the process of making scenes/sets/fairy homes with the ease and convenience of a hot glue gun.    

 Dexter carefully planned a fairy house, drawing his ideas first, measuring and counting out little wooden cubes for the mini dwelling...generally attacking it in his usual, thoughtful way.  I handled the glue gun at all times - it really isn't safe for little people - and the children gave me directions on where to dab the next glob of glue.  The details are hard to see in a photo but here is his little fairy house including bunk beds, a doily rug, a fridge with doors that open and close, an indoor vertical garden (someone has been looking at renovation ideas with me!) and an outside garden.

Hugo took to the project in an entirely different way, with less planning and more of an organic approach.  He calls this a Camping Area.  There is a little sleeping bag and pillow down the back and various strange 'rock' and natural formations.  A little box contains treasures for the scary diamonte-eyed camper (middle foreground) to discover.

Hot glue guns rock!  They stink like nothing else - we were doing this on a freezing rainy day so didn't have any doors or windows open which was probably a bad idea.  The tip gets incredibly hot as does the glue and I received a couple of little burns to prove it.  The glue begins to dry in seconds and is completely set within 1 minute.  So easy.  We will do this again soon.

*I mentioned in my last post his night owl nature.  He is definitely the personality type that gets his creative jiggy on in the later part of the evening.  Wonder where he gets that from?  Hugo and Will on the other hand are morning people through and through.  

Hugo's drawings

Today I finally got around to photographing some of the HUGE pile of drawings that Hugo has created in recent months.  He loves drawing and is more and more interested in writing words and letters too.  He can write a few words by heart such as Hugo, Dex, Mum, Dad, go, stop, dog...though he can be rather creative with the order of the letters.  Many of his 'words' are completely made up, often with actual letters of the alphabet, often letter-like scribbles.  He likes me to spell out words as he writes them and checks each letter first by drawing it in the air and saying 'S is like this, isn't it mum?' etc.

I bought him a few workbook style early literacy activity books, you know the type; where he can trace the letters, circle which pictures on the page begin with that letter, draw a line between capital and lower case letters and so on.  He is much more into these than Dexter was who basically said - why would I trace over the same letter, repeatedly across the entire page when I've just done it once already?!  Having said that, Dexter is really into the currant workbooks I bought him (Excel's Science and Technology Ages 6-8 and a few of those cheapie School Zone publications like First and Second Grade Basics).  He hasn't spent more than 5 minutes with the Targeting Handwriting NSW Foundation Style 1 student book which was waste of $15!  And if you saw his shocking handwriting you would believe me!  Plenty of time for him to work on that though.  And it doesn't hurt to have a few of the BOS recommended workbooks around for our homeschooling records/resources...whether or not he uses them.  We can hand them onto Hugo anyway if his love for tracing letters continues.

Anyway, onto those drawings by Hugo:

He has a habit of adding little love hearts midway through someones name - naw!

I included the pen below to show perspective - how tiny and perfect is his name?  He drew this a few weeks ago, recently he has been drawing his g's backwards.

These three little letters were made early one morning - apart from Will who leaves the house at the ungodly hour of 6am or so Hugo is still the first one out of bed in this house.  This day he wrote some letters for Dexter (whose preferred sleeping pattern is one of the night owl like his mama) and placed them all around his sleeping head so that he would see them straight away upon waking.  He explained that they say 'To Dexter, Love Hugo' and include portraits of them both.

A hodge podge post about recent life

We took Marvin for a final afternoon wander last week before his surgery.  Nothing serious, just some growths that needed removing.  But boy, he looks awful now!  Two big patches of shaved fur and four chunky lines of stitches adorn him.  The lump behind one ear required quite a large incision and it looks a bit like his whole ear was cut off then sewn back on.  I wont provide a photo but lets just say even our lovely vet Sarah said he's got a nice Frankenstein look about him!

The boys decided to stomp on Will's shadow for the walk home.  Will kept them leaping about by ducking and jumping from side to side on the footpath.  I'm sure passerby's thought he was some kind of crazy man, bouncing about behind two little kids who to the unseeing eye looked to just be walking normally along in front!

I recently purchased some wool online, not realising it would arrive in skeins.  Bah.  No fancy equipment here, its a slow process of hand-balling the yarn.  Is that even a term?  Ah well, I'll leave the technical yarn language to the likes of Ravalry and Soulemama shall I?

On Friday morning Dexter and Hugo were deeply engrossed in a space adventure at home so when it came time to head off to our friends place they incorporated the whole adventure into their imaginary game.  Check out the awesome 'outer wear' Dex has on over his normal orange NASA suit.  $1 from a Bathurst op shop -  a score I came across last week while visiting mum and dad.  One dollar!  It is too totally awesome is it not?  Dexter almost peed himself with joy upon seeing it.  

We tried our hand at a wee geocaching* adventure on the weekend after being inspired by these guys.  We attempted two different treasure hunts and both were cache-less.  One was vandalised and the other had been unfortunately 'archived', a small detail we didn't notice on the hunt description until we arrived at said location.  We failed our first ever geocaching adventure!  It really didn't matter at all though, we still thoroughly enjoyed our bush trekking and plan to have another go at hunting down a cache at the next available opportunity.

*Geowhat?  Here's how wikipedia explains it :  Geocaching is an outdoor sporting activity in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device^[2] and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world.

On Monday we spent the day picnicking with Cass and co. in the old cemetery at St Stephens church in Newtown. It is so gorgeous in there.  Truly an oasis from the hustle and bustle and energy of nearby King Street.  We whiled away the day on a big rug with books in reach and I even worked on my crocheted blanket for a time.  Cass and I took turns to wander up to King Street - alone - to grab takeaway sushi rolls and salad and hot chips for lunch.  The children switched back and forth between playing altogether and splitting into the two older and the 2 younger children doing their separate things.  Dexter spent quite a lot of time alone up a tree, as he does, while Harriet tried unsuccessfully to argue her case for why she should get to take home a small broken piece of a headstone.  Hugo was in a more manic mood and gave his bossy voice a workout during his version of a hybrid game of soccer/hide and seek....which Ted took totally in his stride with a grin plastered to his face the whole time.

Hugo has been telling Will and I over and over how he made Teddy laugh by saying in his silly voice 'I'm a total rock star'!  And he indeed did, I captured the moment right here.  These two together are delightful aren't they? 

Cass attempted to capture the four children together in one photo.  Yeah sure. At least one of them would run away at the last moment each and every single time she was about to snap them!  I'm not sure she actually got one.  Keep an eye on her blog because when she gets around to posting her photos from this afternoon they are sure to be gorgeous.  My photos do no justice what so ever to the real gorgeousness of this place. 

Now

I made kale chips the other day.  There has been such a buzz about these in blog land I really had my hopes high.  Unfortunately, not a hit.  Not even close!  We didn't like them at all.  Yuck!  I made a few batches, trialling recipes I found online and the Parmesan ones were the most palatable.  But not so much that we'll be rushing out to make more soon.  Ah well, for now our ginger Kefir will have to hold the fort of daily hippy food consumption. 

Dexter made me a surprise breakfast last week.  How cute is that?  He set out the place mat and cutlery on the table and told me while I was in the shower that my breakfast was waiting for me! I love the clumsy way in which he cut the orange and the native violet and parsley garnish from the garden stuck in the mandarin.

Today we are enjoying a cosy day at home, as we do most Tuesday's.  Its a day free of any scheduled activities or classes which we all love.  Though of course we always do an experiment or two of some sort, no way will the boys let me forget that.  Dexter has been working on his new Meccano set which we picked up yesterday for his 'end of term' present for piano.  We have a little arrangement - some might call it bribery, though I err on the side of gentle persuasion/motivation - where by Dexter can choose a present at the end of each term of piano lessons if we both feel like he has put in his best during lessons and completed his daily practices without too much grumbling!  In all seriousness he is naturally quite motivated and genuinely enjoys practicing and he loves his lessons but I'm a realist; few 6 yr olds are going to walk over to the piano voluntarily every single day to practice.  He works hard at it, I appreciate that and tell him so.  The way we see it is that he deserves something for all that hard work and if the thought of some new Lego or Mecanno helps him achieve daily practice then why not?!

Hugo pulled out all the over size toy trucks today.  These things go in and out of a box destined for the Salvo's which lives in the laundry.  They don't get touched for months and when I'm getting ready to pass them on to charity suddenly Hugo takes an interest in them again.
 

 

While busy with their truck and Meccano play the kids asked me to download the soundtrack for The Muppets.  It is great, seriously!  We saw it at the movies in January.  It was the boys first cinema experience.  Truth be told they found it all a bit overwhelming, its just too loud and full on with that massive screen.  Not to mention the damn previews beforehand which terrified them.  But they really enjoyed the actual movie.  A few weeks ago we bought the DVD and have watched it twice since then.  Hugo has been wandering around singing We Built This City for days!  Dexter can often be heard humming The Muppet Show Theme.  Both kids have been singing far too much Mah Na Mah Na.  In the car mostly.  And at the dinner table.  Joy!  Anyway we downloaded the soundtrack this afternoon and have had it playing loudly since.   I don't care how daggy it is, I love a good musical, there is no better music style for an overcast winter's day.  I dare you to listen to this or this and not end up with a big ole grin on your face by the end. 

 

The kids got swept up into the music for a couple of hours.  Here they are dancing.  Hugo is using a torch as a microphone and Dexter decided binoculars were his necessary prop.  After I took this photo Dexter changed into a green top so that he could look more like Kermit!  They know nearly all the words to several songs already.  I have a feeling these songs will go to that part of their brain where they'll be burned for eternity in much the same way that I can still belt out word for perfect word Tomorrow from Annie even though I haven't seen the movie or listened to the soundtrack in 20 years.  (I have vivid memories of Mum playing it on the piano while we sang along and then when I was older playing it myself on the piano while belting it out at the top of my lungs).

On the weekend Will made Gingerbread cookies with the kids.  In typical Will fashion he thoroughly researched a traditional recipe (poo pooing my suggestion of coconut palm sugar in place of traditional brown sugar - because the recipe called for brown sugar Louie not coconut).  The man is a perfectionist.  The kids gushed and carried on about how great the experience was and isn't Daddy the greatest, acting like he was the first person to ever bake with them!  Hmm, mummy does stuff like that with you all the time and where's the gushing for her huh?!

Here's a shot of last weeks science experiment.  We dyed white Carnation flowers.  Cool.  When I ordered them from the florist they were rather rude and put out - apparently carnations are not in vogue.  Pfft.  Wont be returning to that florist, flower snobs.