Dinosaurs and ladybugs....

My very clever mate, Karin, is pretty handy with a hook and yarn. She has made both my kids some very cute beanies with her talents. I can knit, but am no crocheter!

Back when Astrid turned 2 (and had a bugs and bees birthday party), Karin made her a cute ladybug beanie.  Here is Astrid modelling it at just 2 years old.

Well, the beanie still fits. It is well loved, and has had several sets of eyes now.  Astrid always gets compliments on it, and she still loves wearing it..........

To continue the tradition, Karin offered to make Soren a beanie, for an early 2nd birthday present (while it's still Winter).  Since he loves dinosaurs, I suggested a dinosaur beanie.  It turns out that dinosaurs are more effort than ladybugs. The dino is a hit though. Apparently this design is never to be repeated, due to the annoyance level.  Lucky the Sorenosaurus looks very cute and adores his beanie. It's been worn every day since he got it, when out walking the alpacas and even at home playing dinosaurs.

 He loves wearing it down to preschool while riding in the ergo, and we've heard several shouts of 'look there goes a baby dinosaur' from passing kids, so it gets the seal of approval all around.  The spikes need adjusting from time to time but Soren loves being a Sorenosaurus and he will probably still be wearing it at 4 too!

School holiday sickness and misery......

There hasn't been much blogging lately. Not much photo taking either. We were all looking forward to the school holidays. A break from running around to swimming and gymnastics lessons, and preschool. Time to catch up with friends for play dates, do some bike riding and go to the shops for morning and afternoon teas.... well unfortunately things didn't really go to plan and Astrid got a nasty flu like virus in the first week of the school holidays, and spent days with fevers and being sleepy and unwell.  Then inevitably she shared the germs with the rest of us.  What's better than one sick kid? Two very sick kids and two barely functioning adults.  There should be a rule that all the adults aren't allowed to get sick at the same time as the kids.....  It's hard to adult when you feel like death and the kids just want hugs and panadol.

Our school holidays looked a little like this.........

All the fun plans were replaced with trying to get through the days with miserable kids and uncooperative freezing and rainy weather.  Between bouts of deathly germs we managed to see a couple of friends and we made it to the Playschool concert. Astrid had been given tickets for her birthday and both kids had been excited about going.  As I had to wake Astrid up after being asleep all day, and throw her in the shower to perk her up, I didn't even bother taking the camera. Soren was also on the verge of the same virus, so while they enjoyed the concert, there weren't as many smiles or as much dancing as there would have been normally.

To fill in days when everyone was too tired and sick (and it was too cold) to venture out of the house we did a lot of painting  and played with a lot of playdough.  Soren loves to 'roll, roll, roll'.  Astrid is still immensely fond of playdough too. It may have saved  my sanity a few days.

We did manage a little baking, and apparently piping bags make great hats........  It was tough convincing Soren that it was appropriate head wear when walking the alpacas in zero degrees!

By the time preschool and activities were back on, the kids were just well enough to attend. Then Astrid ended up with another massive ear infection....... more pain, screaming, antibiotics and doctor visits!  She was even sick enough to not whinge too much about missing preschool.

Touch wood, this week things are getting back to normal, after almost a month of illness.  Despite spending very little time taking photos, blogging or even being on the black hole of time wasting known as Facebook, I can't say I have achieved a great deal.   Just before we all got sick we booked our flights to and from Europe for our December and January trip. We didn't get too much further before illness struck, but the last week or so we have been busy sorting out our itinerary. I'll post a trip update soon, but for now we are hoping to stay germ-free for at least the next few weeks so life can return to normal!

Fun in the Winter sun........

It's only the first week of July, and we are well and truly over this Winter! With lots of frosts and minus 5 temperatures in May, June was more of the same.  We've hit minus 7 several times and this week there have been several days where the temperature has only gotten above zero after lunch time. As I'm writing this, it's lunch time and again it's not even zero degrees!  There has been the odd nice day though.......  A few days after Astrid's birthday, we had a lovely sunny afternoon. It might have even been at least 10 degrees!  After we came home from preschool we ventured over to the paddock with the alpacas for some outside play.

For Astrid's birthday I had my friend Anh, from Ana, ma Petit Tresor, make Astrid a beautiful dress and capelet.  Astrid loves her new outfit and had been wearing it constantly since her birthday.  I figured the nice weather was a good opportunity to get some nice shots of her in her new outfit.......

Apparently it is the perfect dress for spinning and dancing in.  How cute is she in her, rocking the lace and boots!  Not at all camera shy, my little Miss.......

Gee I love Winter afternoon sun, to get this light in Summer you have to be out way past our kiddies bed time.  In mid-Winter you get this gorgeous light at 3.30pm and 4.30pm...

Astrid adores her capelet and her matching headband, I think she will get a lot of wear out of both. The capelet is also lovely and warm for those times it's chilly but we don't quite need coats.

While his big sister was playing model, Soren was having a ball playing with sticks, grass and bits of paper and chasing the alpacas all over the paddock.  He was more than happy to stay there for hours, enjoying the sunshine and free play.  Sadly, once the sun starts to go down the temperature drops rapidly, so his play time was shorter than he had hoped.

As for the alpacas, well they love some sunny play time in the paddock, even if it means being chased by small toddlers wearing tiger hats, and lead around by little girls wearing capelets.......