The birthday girl with her Bamboletta doll

Three

It's Evie's 3rd birthday today! Here's her birthday spiral

Meeting her Bamboletta doll, Hannah

Glockenspiel

Cash register

Felt bracelet from Livinia

Construction vehicles from Aunty Bron, Uncle Grant, Kate & Jenna (thanks guys!), Livinia likes them too.

Hannah ready for a ride in the pusher

More pics later I think :)

Evie's birthday at Collingwood Children's Farm

It's Evie's 3rd birthday tomorrow, so we went to Collingwood Children's Farm today, for a birthday outing. The land is called St Heliers, and there is an old convent on site that dates back nearly 150 years. There are community gardens and farmers markets there these days, and the convent houses Sophia Mundi Steiner school, a cafe and various artists spaces. A great day was had by all, here's Evie with the silkie bantams.

Livinia in the Beco carrier

Ducks

Feeding a goat

Feeding a guinea pig

One of the resident cats who keep the rodent population down

Lunch time with a cupcake

Mavis the pig with her 6 piglets

The convent

Feeding another goat

In the stables

It's (another!) girl!

My brother and his wife, along with their daughter Lucy, have welcomed another baby girl, Isla Susan (8lb 1oz) into the world this morning. No baby boys in our family yet, 6 girls!

Garden Update

With a bit of winter rain, and a few sunny winter days, the garden is coming along well...so are the weeds unfortunately, but that's what you get when you mulch a (dustbowl) lawn, a few weeds and a bit of grass popping through. I'm glad we got rid of a reasonably large section of lawn though, it's such a waste of space in a backyard as big as ours. I like a little bit of grass for the kids to play on, not too much.
Not a great photo, but we planted a Japanese maple in the middle, in front of the garden seat.
The veggie patch- I moved the compost bin into it last week, to make use of nutrient run-off, and we planted a dwarf pear tree, it's on the right of the photo, with the white tag.

6 Months! (yesterday)

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Originally uploaded by anryan3215

Where does the time go?

Bread baking Wednesday

Banana date loaf today, from the Simply no Knead breadmaking book. It's really nice toasted.

Winter

We've gone with a bit of a snow theme this winter, last time we had snow in these parts was in my prep year, 1986! I remember there being a tiny bit of snow along the back fence. Not much at all. No snowmen to be made. The penguins are Buntspechte, the Eskimos (Inuits), dog, and polar bear are Ostheimer, white silk from Sarah's silks, and the nesting cave is from Spiel & Holz.