Autumn Holidays

Two weeks of school holidays.

Making the most of it.

Slowing down.

Watching the waves

Taking a break

Picnics by the water

Enjoying honeycombs from our friends hive.

Horse riding and potlucks with friends

Sophie had the time of her life!

Checking out the water dragons by the river.

BBQ by the beach

Sharing the rock pools with the wobbegongs

Swimming and exploring

Camping along the beach with friends

Anzac Marching

 Another successful Full Moon get together

 Almost independent.

Date night with hubby: salsa dancing!
With a special Cuban birthday dance for one of the dancers.

Nights are getting nippy, the PJ’s have come out of storage...

Soccer, soccer, soccer.
It's going great, however I’m still a little frazzled with everything involved.
The kids have stepped up, taking on more responsibility. Sophie loves helping out with fundraising, and odd jobs like handing out balls with our new mascot.
Seeing them play from the distance, Alex is this blond tornado whizzing over the field, David with two hands in the air celebrating his first goals, Tim being a wall in defence.

And Sophie finding her feet. 

Playing in the backyard and swimming with the waterlily’s.
Even though the swims in the pool are getting very short.

Enjoying a lazy afternoon at home on this extra pupil free day,
tomorrow is back to school, work and play.

Autumn - Playing in the Back Yard

Our backyard is:

So many waterholes, to tramp through and to play with the dog.

It always amuses me, that the kids make sure they’re clothed, but barefooted, when we go out to play. 

Only to be stripping clothes as they go, running free, wild (and nude), climbing, splashing, jumping and exploring.

This is what I envisioned as a perfect childhood: space to play.

The dam, for sticks, stones and designs for rafts,

and swimming.

Many walking tracks, also doubling up as awesome BMX-tracks.

Coming up to the end of our forest, our gully, drains into the neighbours dam,
it’s such a serene place, about half a kilometre away from the house,
Just the birds twittering and dragon flies playing around you.
But don’t get tricked, it can get really spooky after prolonged rain, with a river pounding trough.

So many pretty mushrooms.

Checking out all the different types of waterlilly’s that are popping up in the dam and waterholes.
Sophie is in love with the blue tinged ones.

The one spot in the house yard that I’m not allowed to mow,

the kids tell me it makes a perfect spot for hiding games and Jedi fights.

All four kids and the dog are hiding and you wouldn't know if it wasn’t for their giggles.

Two found!

Laura has besides her paddock, the whole 20 acres of forest to roam, the girl loves running! 

Same as with the kids, it’s great for her physical development to have space to roam. The rocky, muddy and hilly ground is making her very surefooted. 

Last week we had her first training session, I enlisted the help of a professional trainer to guide me through the process.

Little miss bossy boots did great, accepting everything we did with her, no fuss. Plastic bags flying, noisy banging, sudden movements, overall touch or a saddle on her back. She was cool as a cucumber.

Until we got the part where she had to actually work. Like a belligerent teenager (that she is in horse years), she didn’t accept being told what to do and especially not by a man!  She threw a hissy fit that was just like any other strong willed three year old and then came back in for a cuddle.

We’ve got home work to do... 

Home

Do you think Alex likes his new quilt Oma Evelien made him?

Sander developed a very high fever on his second day home from Thailand. On the 4th day of fevers we made it to the hospital, to rule out malaria (he was in a low risk area) and to to hook him up on some much needed fluids. Blood work came back, it’s off, but luckily clear of malaria.

Although still very weak, thankfully he’s on the mend now.

Our first Amongst Friends, Gum Trees and a Full Moon 

get-together of the year. 

With Sander still out of action, 

our kids all offered to pitch in so they could still have their night with friends.

It was a lovely evening, a cloudless sky and a beautiful and very bright moon, which gave enough light for the kids to ride their bikes, run around, wrestle on the trampoline and play hide-and-seek in the shadows.

Easter egg hunt for little boys in training for Thailand...

Working in two teams,
each team gets to hide eggs on one side of the house,
then they swop sides to find them, but get to give each other clues...

Halfway through the weekend I managed to stake my foot on a branch while Tim clocked out with a mild fever,
Our Easter walk has been postponed until further healing.

Playing in the sandpit, made with leftover tiling sand...

Making the most of the last warm days.

Enjoying the butterflies

 A friendly horse

Trying to tempt someones appetite,
baking fresh, egg enriched, bread

Project Fire Pit

Our old view from the deck, with an old fireplace that didn’t get used,

(other then climbing).

It was only last week that I mentioned that we loved the cooking fire while camping. 

But things happen when you put your mind to it.

 A neighbour had a pile of bush rocks laying about and was happy to drop them off.

A bit of puzzling.

 Pinching the grill from the old barbecue.
I love this big rock at the front, lovely to sit on while cooking.

 Cooking time!

With the grill tray gone, the old barbecue now gets used as a seat...

A campfire by evening.

“Mama, where are the marshmallows?"

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This week: water fun

Two little piggies found themselves a puddle.

Last weekend was a Tim's birthday bash.
From us, all Tim wanted for his 9th birthday, was playing Lastertag with his best mates.

All spending the night, in the tent, pillow fights, playing spotlight by a full moon, running off all those pizzas. The big stack of pancakes was gone just as quickly and off they went with their bikes, finding all the new tracks in the forest. Enjoying the beautiful sunny weekend in the pool.
So lucky to have such good mates, they bonded in kindergarten and are still going strong in year 4.

Sophie has her best friend living next door, they’re only two weeks apart! Her younger brother and Alex have a year between them, but are finally starting to find each other. So nice to have good mates, it’s even better when you can ride your bike to visit them.

 The rest of the week was wet, very wet. David loves going on Puddle Patrol.

 The rain is bringing up all these creepy crawlies. Going for a walk includes at least one bite by one of these bull ants (or bully ants as the kids call them), ouch!

Rain, lots of it. Grafton copped 145mm on Saturday alone. 

Flash flooding galore.

 The garden is loving all this rain. In love with my new, funky chilli plant.

 Sander’s weekend project: new stairs to match the front veranda. Such a skilled handy man.

We could have filled 10 rainwater tanks if we’ve had them... We’ve already had 300mm of rain this month.

 Like a kid in a candy store, adding little pockets of happiness to the garden.

 Doing a little repair and diverting work on the first spillway. We had lots of practice as kids, we grew up Dutch after all. Taking it to the next level with the next generation.

Baby quilt in progress.

Seeing all the waterholes filling up, the make such a beautiful picture. This week I got to spend a lot of time with the boys looking for all those noisy frogs and counting all the different kinds of dragonflies.

 Before.
The cushions are machine washable, the frame not so much, spray just doesn’t work anymore ...

After.
The carpet cleaner had his work cut out... A cream lounge, what were we thinking?!?!?
(in our defence, we bought it 11 years ago, before kids)
We’ve talked about replacing the carpets, but with the kids still so little...
A professional carpet clean has given us a couple more years to decide.

Pretty bug

Highlight of this week was seeing the dam fill. Having dinner on the deck with lake view...