On organising, some more...

I've taken to knitting in a big way, and you need a lot of needles!  They were all over the place, but I thought I'd put them in an expanding file in sizes, and it's working ok so far.

Needle storage!

 While I was doing the labelling, Lolly amused herself with a "sink bath."  Messy but fun!

Sink bath friends.

I bought myself a label maker, sadly it's been like a dream of mine for many years.  *ahem*  You can see the labels on my knitting needle container.  mmmmm, labels...

Shiny!  And purple!

Mischief Managed

I used dog food today to purchase a free half hour.  Not on purpose, I fed the dog, then it [by it, I mean my awesome three year old] went quiet... Too quiet.  I spied some suspicious doings out the bedroom window, and had the following mental dialogue with myself:

"Aw shit, I didn't realise that she could get the lid off that.  Doesn't look too bad so far, I guess I'll go out and clean it up.... Hang on, it's grotty already, and the dog will eventually eat all this food bonanza, or the birds will.  It looks like there's some food left in there, maybe I should just slink quietly past into the lounge and sit down, I still have half a cup of coffee left, I reckon she'll be another 15 minutes...cool!"

Here is what it looked like when she finally came in and asked me to come look at her creations...

Embiggen to fully appreciate the amount of dog food on the ground.

The dog's bucket for water...

Oh yes, she's eating some, though she does prefer cat food.

"and then I put that in there, to make some doggy soup!"  So proud of her accomplishments!

It was worth it. 

[Oh and in case overseas readers are pitying our dog not having a stylish water bowl, round these parts, a bucket is the easiest way to ensure cane toads don't sit in the dog water and poison it.  Cane toads can't hop high enough to get over the sides of a bucket.  Nice, hey!  Gosh we have some great wildlife here in Oz!] 

A week of doings!

Here is an update post on some of our doings over the past week or so, with plenty of photos for extra cuteness!

Last Saturday, while DinnerDad was repairing the whippersnipper, the girls had some outside bathtime fun near the garage!


"Big" hand, little foot!



Last Sunday we embarked on our driving adventure/experiment, which went really well up til the 20 minutes of screaming on the way home. *sigh* We went out via the Warrego and round via the dams up to Mount Glorious, with a stop for a bushwalk and hotdogs for lunch, and then a coffee.

Bushwalking with a wheelchair is fun!! Snail peeping at me...


Wheel over a stream.


Stairs!!!


Just before Smash stacked it :)


Lolly in the Ergo.



It was the hour long drive home that did Lolly in. She was tired, but not tired enough, and really got upset for a good quarter hour plus. There was a stop for booba, and for me to swap with Smash in the back, to little effect once we got going again. It was pretty harrowing til she fell asleep. I find that kind of crying in the car so difficult as it's like I abandoned her to her terrible four-wheeled fate. All her other crying is in-arms (and she's not a big cryer anyway), to hear her screaming and sobbing because of the car is heartbreaking to me. Hence the lack of much car travelling over the past 6 months. Before that, I had become pretty adept at timing trips with her naps, and we actually drove a lot that way. Now, naps aren't reliable and there is more objection, which is gradually easing up as she gets older and more interested in everything. Here's to a cruisy car future as she grows to be more entertained by it all! Living out here where even getting to the local shops is 10 minutes driving, and getting to anywhere entertaining is at least 15 minutes, it has been a bit difficult. Lolly is now pretty reliably happy to travel for 15-20 minutes, which is enough to get a fair few places for me. With lots of interesting things (facewashers to suck on, cups of water, teething rusks, lots and lots of interesting toys, my wallet, the nappy bag, etc etc etc) she can get 30 minutes.

We had a busy week, Smash is taking tennis lessons and we all trucked over there Tuesday night, DinnerDad had a major week at work (and just got a super cool promotion!) so there was a lot of Selene and the girls afternoons. Went well though, it's much easier to deal with them both now Lolly is a little older. Phew!

Afternoon snacking on plums!



School is tiring!


More on our gardening works soon!

The garden begins

Yesterday we started on our garden, the vege patch part of it anyway. We dug out the patch and turned it all over, and added our compost bin to it. Fun was had by all.


Snail did a lot of digging and helping. Lolly mostly watched, but really enjoyed being outside.




























More garden work today! Here is me learning to use the tractor/mower. No...Snail and I are not having a race!

Here is Smash at the top of the backyard.

We're planning two more large vege patches, to grow a lot of our own food. Dave cleared out the chook pen area near the shed (which is just behind Smash out of picture), and in a couple of weeks there will be chickens! I want to harvest our aloe vera, which you can see just behind Smash. Dave's curry tree (front right) is doing well, despite lots of curries lately!


We're also planning an orchard down in our unused "front" yard with a range of fruit trees. So, basic gardening is a priority, as well as getting some rainwater tanks. Chooks in a couple of weeks.

On Friday night, the two girls laughed at the same thing for the first time - it was bath time and I was, as usual, singing a foolish song. Both the Lolly and Snail thought it was hilarious! They also smiled at each other a lot yesterday. I think this is the beginning of them being friends. There'll be a long period where they are both interested in the same thing, and in each other, and this will be great for them both. Very sweet.