Lizard

This is one of our many resident Blue Tounges that lives in our garden. Thanks for this great photo Josh.

More Crafting

I have been on a role this week with my crafting, creating two more nature journal covers for some little friends who I know will love them.

I also completed this bunting for my little neice Maya.

Stenciling and Car bags

Today was a crafting day for us, as the mood strikes one must run with it...

I bought this cute fabric the other day with the idea that I wanted to make Charlie a car bag, I've been keeping my eye our and this was perfect. I made the bag (below) from a pattern my good friend Jo made up, quite simple and hard to stuff up (however I proven that theory wrong of course). But upon first glance Charlie now has a very cute bag to keep his cars in.

With the left overs I made a "Mini" car bag to give as a gift (with a car in it) to Charlie's little friend Craig.

My sister Janine and fmy riend Kylie have both inspired me to give stenciling a go, so as I had some fabric paint "fixture" in my draw I thought we'd have a go today. Eli made his hand into a tree, and wants to make it into a bag. Noah did and elephant and his name and I made it into a nature journal cover (sorry Kylie, totally stealing your idea, but it was SUCH a good one, just borrowing it...) Photo yet to come, he was too busy using it to take a photo.

I did these trees, and some Ginko leaves which I picked the other day and photocopied and made a stencil out of (love my ginko), also did some butter flies and flowers. I plan to make Journal covers out of these as gifts for...whoever!!! I had so much fun doing this. Now all I need to do is stitch around each stencil with embroidery thread and whip them up on the sewing machine and I'll be done..hahahahahaha, sounds so simple, but who knows when my next crafting day will arrive!!! To be continued...

Randoms at Home

Some late spring ducklings, I guess they got sick of waiting for the weather to improve and got on with it anyway, they are the third family of ducks we've had so far.
Charlie playing with Biff

Danny and the boys (and Richy) have embraced cricket/baseball over the last few weeks.

Nosh having a crack at it.

and a bowl...

Eli has a dangerous whack about him...a bit of a natural.

Backyard cricket

Chubby with mumma chook and her five babies, he's become quite the protective father of late.

Charlie all set for a bush walk, having a quick play in the new pool with Biff

Our "cute as" puppy @ 4 months old.

APPLES!!! I cant wait to harvest apples off our apple trees.

Balnarring "Wildthings Nature Walk" 29th Nov 2010

Well you can choose your friends but you can't choose the weather.
Unfortunately our walk was cut short buy some most unpleasant weather (and a very "goody two shoes citizen who insisted I remove Biff from the beach...because there was sooooo many other people there he could bother).
I'm sure the big kids would have stayed, but the little kids (and the mums) couldn't cope with the cold, so we retreated to the rotunda for lunch only to be taken over by "School Kids"...AAAGH!!!
We all ended up back at our house for a picnic under the apples trees, being much more protected from the wind (but not the dog), we managed quite a pleasant afternoon.
At least the beach provided an opportunity for some great photos...love these!!!

Eli's Gold Coast Holiday

Aunty Janine & Charlotte took a holiday to the Gold Coast to visit Gran and Granpa at there new house. They asked Eli along for the ride and he was more than happy to oblige!
According to all reports Sea World was completely AWESOME! Dolphin show was a hit as was these water cannons you could just shoot at anyone (Eli heaven).

Must have Sea World photo, Charlotte looking "Too Cool For School".

Oh another big hit with Eli was Gran and Granpas out door shower, never before has this boy washed himself so much. I think I need to get me one of those!!!

Beautiful Aunty Cheryl

The girlies playing their girly games on the DS.

Eli thoroughly enjoyed the pool too from what I hear, and is very good at bombs. Luckily he got to catch up with his cousins too.

Granpa with the grangirls

Another must have Sea World photo...Thank You so very much to Janine for taking Eli on this whirlwind adventure, and Thank You also to Mum and David for facilitating these adventures...I'm coming next time!!!

10 Chickens arrive

After 3 weeks of diligent sitting ans nesting, our mumma hen hatched herself a clutch of cute little chickens. It was so exciting. Over three days we watched 12 chickens break out of their shells and poke their little heads out from under mumma. Such a delightful sight.
Josh tried to rescue one baby that was having trouble getting out, but as nature goes these things just can't really be helped...it lived for a day but was just too weak to go on. Sad but we know it would happen. The first chicken to hatch also died when it wasn't quite out of it's shell, and one more drowned in the water. So in the end we now have 9 beautiful chickens.

Charlie wasn't sure what to make of them at first, but soon learned to be very gentle with the little critters. He and Biff follow them around the paddock and when they get too intense mumma hen will give them a peck to politely ask them to be a bit more careful with her babies. Now there is no sweeter sight than to watch an 18 month old and his puppy and a bunch of chicken hanging out together. It sure makes my heart smile.

Eli called his chicken "black eye" and Noah called hi "yellow head" can you guess how these chickens might have gotten their very imaginative names from???

One day we caught all the chickens to get photos of them all, a much harder task than you might imagine, especially with a very inquisitive baby and puppy hanging around.

Noah's mumma hen and her chickies scouting for food.

She's such a great mother, and I am so glad she is too. We love our chickens and our clever chooks and proud rooster.

Grampians Home Ed Camp October 2010

We'd been planning this trip for a while, but even I wasn't convinced it was going to be a worthwhile trip. I left it to the last minute to book and wasn't the keen, but felt we should at least give it a shot as the kids were keen and we at least knew a few families that were going. I had to talk Danny into coming as this camp fell into the time period in which I am without a licence. Thankfully it was to a location which he didn't mind going at all, if all else failed at last we'd be somewhere beautiful we could camp, 4wd and relax. Turns out we could do both, home ed camp AND relax/have fun/4wd and much more. The first night we decided to go bush and set up camp wherever we could find a nice spot. Thankfully in the Grampians, this wasn't difficult. We spent a lovely night in our hired camper trailer, waiting for the bucketing rain which thankfully never came. The boys had fun making fires and digging holes, And Biff had a great time exploring the place all over.

Biff and Eli having a cuddle

Josh set up a spit ready just in case a wild animal decided to throw itself on the fire. Turns out it cooks great toast!
We took mostly 4wd tracks around the place, but eventually you have to end up somewhere civilized...a look out. We stopped for lunch and a puppy run and a play on the rocks.
Eli sharing his breakfast with Chuckles.

Danny spotted this Ecidna on the side of the road, we stopped for a look, turns out he was a rather friendly chap, and was happy to pose for photos...like all good wildlife should!

Monday, Kylie and her boys joined us for a walk to check out some Aboriginal Rock art. How amazing to see this. It was such a beautiful place, we could just imagine what it would have been like to just hang out there with your family and friends. Such a great spot, very special.

Us guys hanging out, not quite the same with the wire fence though...but kids loved it. Did a few dances and had an explore.

Noah being an Emu.Josh, Manny, Biff, Eli, Khobi, Noah and Charlie in a tree.

On the same walk we came across this waterfall. Just what the boys ordered!!! they probably spent about 2 hrs exploring, climbing and pushing their limits on this waterfall, so beautiful and majestic.

Charlie had a bit of a climb on the waterfall on Daddy's back, but then came to hang out with me and Biff.

Manny had a great time in the water flows. And Yes he did end up in the drink at some point...

Tuesday found us tagging along with Dan and Jess (and their three kids) to do some rock climbing and a walk up to Hollow Mountain. Dan is an experienced rock climber and instructor and offered to take us out for a climb.

Josh was Great, he got right into it! A natural of course.

Eli was fantastic, I always thought he'd make a great rock climber, and I was right, he shot up that wall like it was nothing at all.

Even Kylie had a crack at it. Go Kylie...

Well... I couldn't have Kylie have a crack at it and I not. I truly surprised myself...well done me too.

Danny giving Josh a wedgie... so mature.

Yeah, yeah of course it was easy peasy for Danny...nothing to see here.

After our climbing, we had some lunch and headed off up Hollow Mountain. It sounded amazing from what Dan was saying, and it truly was. We could have easily spent a whole day up there exploring the caves.

The walk/climb was challenging, but we and all the kids were up to the challenge.

Very rewarding to reach the top and soak up such amazing views.Good one Josh

Me and Chuckles. Chuck missed most of it as he was asleep on my back. But we'll go back again one day when he is bigger and do it all again!!!