Holiday craftiness

As I may have mentioned we are library tarts. We like to visit three libraries near us, especially when they happen to be next to a cafe like ajanta in coolamon. The nearness of cake pretty much guarantees weekly visits.
As school holidays approached I decided that we needed a plan. Some scheduled activities to get us out and about, not inside and bonkers.
I saw that they were doing a picture frame workshop at coolamon so on wednesday morning we set off through the fog. I wasn't sure how jack would go, but he was reasonably engrossed for about an hour and he did a pretty good job too. Sadly, there was no cake.
Today we went to see the bugalugs bum thief (a crack up) and tomorrow ajanta for cake.
Do you think we are obsessed with cake?

Instagram

For mother's day I got a smartphone and a gym membership. I haven't accumulated a large number of apps or even as many games as jack would like, but I have been playing with instagram. Beautifying the already beautiful sam.

Licking the beaters

Is it just me or is this the best place to do this?

Jack the Knight

Jack, like all kids I suppose has phases where he becomes absolutely obsessed with something like Cars 2 or Thomas the tank engine, Dinosaurs or sharks. When a friend invited him to a costume party recently he was desperate to go as his new hero Mike The Knight. 

Mike is on a newish show on ABC2 and has inspired in Jack a love of all things Knightly. When my brother got Jack a light saber for his birthday he proceeded to use it as a jousting stick. So I agreed to make a Mike costume with his help and together we made armour, a shield, helmet, shoes, tunic and a sword. Blue metallic cardboard worked better than expected. I'm not sure what people did before the interweb, but when it came to the helmet I googled knights helmet from cardboard and up popped instructions including a template. Giddyup! Jack was thrilled, so much so that I feared the costume would wear out before the party. However the day of the party arrived and his costume was a hit. I had prepared him for possible armour annihilation but somehow it remained pristine. Then it turned out that there was a dress up day at preschool. true it was a disney dress up day but we bent the rules so he could be a knight again. He was the only knight amongst a sea of woodys (tehe), buzz lightyears and pirates. And the armour survived!

More brotherly love!

Cuddles

We really have been busy. New baby, new kitchen, new job for S and lots of visitors or visiting because the thing about babies is that (most) people love to cuddle them. Here are some cuddlers with Sam. Luckily he'svery sociable and doesn't mind being passed around too much.

 

 Chelsea

Uncle Craig 

Nonno 

Jeannie sitting very still & upright

 Barn 

 Ganma 

  Amy (the baby whisperer)

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Big Brother

For nine months or so Jack has been soooo excited about the imminent arrival of his little sister. No we didn't know that we were having a girl (though most of us thought that). Jack was just absolutely certain that I would have a girl and then the family would be balanced (obviously not taking into account the dog and three chickens and 1 broody duck). We even discussed finding out so we could Jack used to the idea of a brother (not that that was going to happen - surely all those weird jalapeno cravings meant a girl?).
Then on the9th of March Sam made his debut and he was definitely not a girl. S laughing gave this away, followed by the cries of "It's a boy!"and then he weeed on me and I had other things on my mind.
Jack took the news well and didn't try to put him in a dress, as suggested by a friend of mine, but did have to find a new home for a very girly doll that he and Barn purchased. Jack finds the whole sleeping/feeding baby thing booooooring but is trying hard to be a fab big brother and is making the most of Sam's 'playtime'.