Books, everywhere you look

Nicholas' first book week was this week. He dressed up as the Library Lion. Partly because my brain is too tired from the past week at work to think too hard of something else. But it proved successful. I used the horse costume Melanie made for Lachlan's birthday last year, and changed the ears and mane. I think it worked. And I made a tail. His teachers said that he proudly told them "mama made my costume". Yesterday he told his teacher what he was dressing as, and she hadn't read the book so asked him to bring it to class. She read it to them today. I think he liked that. I went to the school for their assembly. Lots of fun.


And tonight, I MET MY NEWEST NEPHEW! He was about two hours old. He is beautiful. He is perfect. And I will leave the first photographs for Melanie to post. :)

on this day...

So, an historical day in Australian politics...
when I decided not to go to the Tally Room this year (first time since 1996), I knew I would be missing something exciting (yes, I'm easily thrilled). But I have enjoyed just being home, watching Kerry O'Brien and Antony Green, eating takeaway and receiving text messages from colleagues. Not to mention calls from David, who is working on the Tally Board - updating Victorian figures. If he stuck his head through the window he is working at he would be sitting on Kerry O'Brien's head. I am also making some small changes to a costume for Nicholas to wear for Book Week at school this coming week.
Nicholas and Audrey came with me to our local polling station. As it is located at Nicholas' school, i thought I should do my bit to support them and buy a cake. Voting cost me $16! By the time I bought the cake and paid for Nicholas and Audrey to go on the jumping castle and pop the balls into the sideshow clowns mouths, most of my takeaway and snack money for tonight was gone!

And no, they didn't vote...

This picture is here for no other reason than that Audrey was really cute earlier this week. She went to a little friends birthday party and felt so grown up. It was the first time she had caught the bus with me when I didn't take the pram. She walked with me (most of the time) holding my hand and smiling. This gorgeous grin shows how grown up she felt.

This Week's Library Book

We read a lot of books about farms. Working on farms, living on farms and lots of stories about various farm animals. When we visit the farm I plan to spend a week reading various farm stories.
Audrey in particular likes pigs. Nicholas borrowed Pigs Love Potatoes. It is about a little pig who is hungry, so his mother cooks potatoes. Gradually siblings, family members and neighbours arrive so she has to add more potatoes to the pot. A simple story, but nice as we could do lots of counting.

I particularly liked the picture of the piglets helping to wash the potatoes.

Book Week

Next week Nicholas' preschool is celebrating Book Week. We only just found out and now I feel under pressure to come up with a costume! I suggested Spot or The very Hungry Caterpillar (wanting something immediately identifiable) but all Nicholas wants to dress as is a dinosaur! Not only can I not think of what he can be, but of how to prepare the costume! I thought of painting a big box or him to wear and make it the cover of a famous children's book, but he may have trouble managing it on his own...
We love collecting books in our house. there are so many gorgeous children's books - funny ones, those that are beautifully illustrated (I can't resist buying those ones). I like that story time is something that we do together. Borrowing library books gives exposure to a wider range of books, is exciting for the kids and of course easy on the pocket. Of course we have to build our own collection.
A colleague of mine recently lent Nicholas a huge bag of books, when he broke his leg. It gave me some confidence that she had kept them as part of her own collection over the years. Here are some of our favourites.

this week's library book

This morning we went to Story Time. When we first moved to our house, Nicholas was as old as Audrey is now. I remember how much I enjoyed Story Time with him. there were never many people there and he would sit quietly on the mat, listening intently to the stories.
It is certainly an adventure with them together!! Today they sang songs together, participated in the stories and while Nicholas listened to the stories, Audrey rolled around on the ground and jumped on me. I am putting together a nice list of children's books I hope to add to their library. With my reading of the Beatrix Potter tales, and admiration for her illustrations I am loving it. We have also been reading Little Golden Books from the 1970's. Some probably not considered PC, but enjoyable all the same.
Speaking of politically correct, I am [hopefully] one of many who is really annoyed that publishers are replacing some of the wording in Enid Blyton books... mean, really, 'mother' and 'father' are dated?? My children won't be able to understand what a 'tunic' is??

ps: I came across this blog and one of the categories is 'this week's library book'. I am totally stealing that idea. Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, isn't it? Anyway, before I post about one of our library books, I wanted to link to one of hers, as I had completely forgotten about this book - I loves it when I was in primary school. It is nice to be reminded of things that we enjoyed when we were young.

loving the simple things

I'm simply enjoying my children so much these days. It is nice to let go of other things that tend to occupy my mind. I am also feeling good about some 'decluttering" I have achieved in the past week. Not that if anyone was to visit they would notice... I also took the plunge and went through a pile of magazines I have been storing for a while and tore out anything that was mildly inspiring to keep in plastic sleeves. The theory being that I will never remember which magazine I saw that flooring I liked, or wall colour, so why keep the whole magazine? Now I need to categorise them. I couldn't bear to touch my Country Style, Notebook or Home Beautiful magazines though. What do other people do with their magazines? How long can you justify keeping every issue of a particular magazine? Until they're piled around the house until you can't move, and own 68 cats, ad one day are found dead in your house... with 68 cats and 42 years worth of Country Style magazines??

Audrey helped me to bake biscuits the other day. Like her brother, eating the mixture is her interpretation of "helping". That is, after breaking the eggs and stirring for a bit.

Nicholas' preschool had a visit from a local museum and gallery this week, and they looked at Sydney Nolan's Ned Kelly series and did their own pictures using shapes. They also made their own Ned Kelly helmets. makes me proud, as a lover of Australian social history (thrilling gal that i am) we have a catalogue of the Ned Kelly paintings as well as a framed print with a picture of Sir Sydney himself. (I completed my first real work experience at the Nolan Gallery when I was 15, so I have a soft spot for his work...) I was very proud to see Nicholas standing on the couch (not that this is generally allowed) and looking intently at our picture before saying "Now I understand. The artist didn't paint Ned Kelly's eyes because they are at the front. This shows the pony's tail, so this picture is of the back."

Yesterday I finally took this chart off Nicholas' wardrobe door. I went back to work for 4 days each week when he was 7 months old. When he was about 2 I felt it was important for him to have some form of regularity in his little life (and it made me feel more in control) and so printed up a weekly chart and laminated it. I then printed a few pictures of him (with me, with David, with his grandmother and more recently, of a school). I covered them with contact and used velcro stickers to apply them, depending on the day of the week, to show where he would be the next day. It didn't take long before each night he would look at it and ask what he was doing the next day. I even had a picture of him at story time, so we could add that one on Saturday's if we intended to go. Not needing it anymore reminds me that he is growing up...

snow day?

well, snow did fall...

Nicholas has been desperate to see snow. we haven't really had time, but today decided to make a quick dash to locate some snow. Nicholas came prepared to make a snowman - bottle tops for eyes and a carrot for a nose.

when we got to our location snow started to fall, but there wasn't anything that might be useful for a snowman. but we made it a special time with hot chocolate, toasted marshmallows and a snow ball. Nicholas ate the carrot on the way home. ;)