Ah the blessed rain...

I wasn't expecting any rain today. It was a perfect dry, but coolish, morning. I even washed blankets today and had them hanging on the line. So while out at the shops I was a little disappointed to see that all of the cars were covered in droplets from a rain shower. Not to worry, I'll have to dry the blankets in the drier. After another weekend of hot 40 degree weather, a headache bordering on migraine doesn't mix well with heat. It was refreshing to put on a jacket this afternoon and listen to the heavy rain showers on the roof and feel the cool air. The temperature had dropped to 15 degrees.

While walking home from school the boys enjoyed the puddles to jump in and overflowing gutters to splash in. A perfect afternoon for building dams and floating jacaranda flowers down little rivers.

I think it's a veggie lasagne night tonight. See recipe here.

Last Friday

It was a busy week last week. A lot of preparation went into Sam's birthday, cooking cakes and goodies, making jelly and organising his after school party.

As well as Sam's birthday party last Friday it was my friend Yvonne's birthday. I made her a cake too. A delicious caramel mud cake. I never realised how easy it was to make, so here is the recipe to share.

That same Friday was a special day for Ethan too. Along with another class mate from year 2, Ethan was conducting an oratory competition for the year 1's oratory competition final. Ethan gave his talk a few weeks before but didn't make it into the finals, it was a good talk too!! So his teacher gave him another opportunity to shine by conducting for the year 1's oratory competition and introducing the speakers.

Ethan has such a lovely, clear, gentle voice and expresses himself beautifully. He has such a calm exterior and talking in front of a crowd of people comes quite naturally to him. I know speaking in church in primary has a lot to do with his growing confidence as well as the speaking opportunities the school involves the children in during class and assembly. Ethan is such a fantastic reader. I know that reading is a great basis for all learning and growing too. I'm so glad he loves books, as do all my boys (I didn't when I was younger and school and study was a struggle). Always make the opportunity to read to your children everyday, it will make a world of difference.

At the end of the competition they had a brief assembly where class awards were handed out. I couldn't have been more proud of Ethan during his presentation but to hear he had also won an award for "Good work in all areas of literacy", just made the tears start to well up in my eyes. Ah what a good boy you are Ethan, what a wonderful spirit you have.

Afternoons

Diddled

I bought some road side peaches the other day. I love road side stalls, I feel like part of a community, neighbours helping neighbours, suburbans helping out the local farmers and benefiting from cheap produce. This stall sold flowers and peaches, how lovely. This was a very security conscious road side stall. With security camera, a sign telling you you were being watched and a large padlocked box to put your money in the romance of a country road side stall started to fade a little. As I looked at the two boxes of peaches left on the shelf they seemed alright, I even lifted a few up to see what the peaches underneath were like. Everything was fine so I chose box number 1 and put my $5 into the security box. All the while trying to look honest and show those security camera's I wasn't a thief. When I put the box into the back seat of the car a swarm of fruit flies rose from the peaches and into my face. So I tried to blow them away and I checked the peaches again, they still seemed ok, I had half a mind to swap boxes, but what would the security camera think!! I kept my chosen box and drove home with the windows open in the hope that the fruit flies would flutter out the window. When I got home I transferred the peaches into a fruit bowl, anticipating the soft, sweet deliciousness that comes with the first bite of a lovely ripe peach. That's when I found the soft spots on just about all of the peaches, they were all strategically placed soft spot down in the box and had been slowly rotting. Hence the large cloud of fruit flies. I lost my desire to take a bite as I felt I had been diddled. By the next day there was only one or two edible pieces of fruit left as they just seemed to wilt drastically over night. Nothing more disappointing than spoiled fruit, I like my fruit to be just right.

The possums have been having a feast the last few days, they don't mind the soft mouldy spots they just eat around them and leave the bad bits. I don't think I'll be going back there again.

Our weekend

It has been a very hot weekend. Luckily for Sam he chose the best activity as part of his birthday celebrations. After a hot Friday afternoon with friends over from school for some cake and ice cream, Saturday morning was spent ice skating with just the family.

Surprisingly there weren't many people ice skating and at times we almost had the whole ice rink to ourselves. It was so cool and refreshing.

There were a few bumps, bruises and tears, we even had to get the frozen peas out for the egg on the back of Ethan's head.

Toby learned to ice skate by himself, but still needed a little help and a pull along for a ride.

Sunday came and it was present opening time, it was still very hot with record highs of 40 to 42 degrees all across the weekend.

As Donald had been doing a little extra work on another project we ran out of time to ice one of Donald's cakes. So instead we did a Lisha special, cut the cake in half and added cream, strawberries and blue berries and a little chocolate shavings on top.

I think we plan to ice the rest of the cake tonight as our family home evening activity.

*10*

Happy Birthday gorgeous boy

My how you have grown

And so beautifully too!

A hot day

A 42 degree day. An after school party day. Some handball in the driveway, a spot of apple bobbing to cool down and we can't live without the cheezel chomp. Some cool jelly and some mad fungi faced cup cakes. A fun start to Sam's birthday weekend. Ten on Sunday. Who knew ten years would fly by so quickly.

Junk mail and family heirlooms

Our letter box is getting jammed everyday with Christmas catalogues, I actually don't mind looking through some of them. Others get tossed straight in the recycling otherwise a mountain starts to pile up on the dining room table. Donald, Sam and Toby were looking at the toy catalogues the other day and Donald pointed out a cool lego star wars tie fighter. Toby piped up "Donald we're not supposed to tell Sam that we got him that for his birthday"...silence.....ooops! Sam: "I don't think you were supposed to say that Toby". Poor Tobs had been keeping quiet for a whole week and hadn't told Sam the surprise...just inadvertently.

I was looking at the David Jones gift catalogue and found this lovely icing set:

and then I went to the cupboard and got out this lovely icing set:

It was my grandmothers and we've been using it for years. It's what Donald started his cake decorating with.

We have graduated to a piping bag with some new nibs, but we often revert back to the older icing set, it just works so well.

I love old family heirlooms and I love that they last too! I couldn't tell you how old this icing set is.

I think I'll have to ask my mum.

"No unforgivable curses in the house....please!"

There are spells flying through our house at the moment. The biggest battle of wands and wizards, morning, afternoon and evening. Sam and Ethan are back into reading the Harry Potter series, Ethan is up to The Goblet of Fire and Sam is just beginning The Half Blood Prince. They are enraptured again in J.K.Rowlings world of wizards again. They go through cycles of reading Deltora Quest, Star Wars, Pokemon, Harry Potter, Asterix and Obelix and Tin Tin. The cycle changes but Sam and Ethan will stay on the same path together, they have a lot in common. Then Toby will fall into the same pattern of play. It's wonderful and important to me that they play together. They are all on the same wave length, there are times of trouble when one gets a little too bossy, the tears come and they go their separate ways. Mostly they just 'get' each other. I love it, I love my boys, I love their world. It is a little crazy but fun.

Shooting spells across the room with flag sticks as their wands, they run around stunning each other, making the others eat slugs or bugs. Sam has written down a list of spells, he's researched through all of the books and is now using it as ammunition against his brothers. Toby has his own spells...."Nyaaaah what's up doc? Stupefy!!", all the while wearing bunny ears and aiming his wand.

Expecto Patronum is one of their emotionally charged spells....it's all in the delivery.

Sam and Ethan have only watched the first two movies up until recently as they get a little deep and dark. Sam is susceptible to night mares so we try and protect them from watching movies that would leave a fearful impact on them. Sometimes the books are scary and anxiety producing while reading them but the boys just love to eat them up, so do I. We made a deal with Ethan, if he reads the Prisoner of Azkaban then we'll think about letting him and Sam watch the movie. He did and we watched and they loved it....which is why the spells are flying around the house. No unforgivable curses in the house....please boys!!