Really, it can't be february...

Summer is nearly over (though it is still hot!) and I have not posted for so long! I have no idea where January went! But back to earth today with the first day of school for my lovely Stel. She was so very brave and I hope desperately she is enjoying her day! It was a beautiful welcome for her, with the whole school waiting to greet the new students. There was a lovely Powhiri for the class one kids and their family, with songs and speeches. And then we were greeted one by one by each teacher and staff member which made it all seem so inviting. Her teacher is fresh and young and all I can hope is she enjoys every minute she is there :) If not, there is always homeschooling!!!
The garden is chugging away. Mostly providing pumpkins and tomatoes...and the now dreaded giant zucchini! I am waiting for a batch of zucchini coconut loafs to finish cooking, then I shall be making zucchini banana bread, before venturing onto zucchini orange chocolate loaf (which will use up about 2 of my 5 gigantic zucchs!!! They shall be heading for the freezer to be munched on during winter, when I shall be glad to see them :)
It is about now I am planning my winter veg, and I have prepped some of the soil for planting. It just gets so hot when I am ready to do work, I can't bear to go out in it! We are officially in a drought in our town...first in 100 odd years and we are brown! there is a sprinkler ban (for those who use one) and if the rain doesn't come we won't be able to use hoses soon!!!!! Madness!!
I have been trying to keep up with the 100ft diet. Half the food on our plates every night would be ours...lets hope I can post some pics soon :)

Ho Ho Ho

Well another christmas passes, and we head for the end of the year. It has been a long time since I posted on here as we have been really busy! I had loads to prepare for the advent fair our school puts on. Then we had birthdays and chicken pox and last days at Kindy and Playcircle for the girls...christmas...and all that with a fair bit of gardening thrown into the mix! My lord the garden has really taken off. We have in about 60 ish tomatoes of various kinds, a couple of Zucchinis, gherkins, loads of beans, beetroot, lettuce, chard, carrots, broc, onions, and of course the ever moving sea of pumpkins! We have lifted out our spuds as we had them in early and they were ready. May try to put in a late crop...I have been fighting the birds this week for the christmas plums, which they love to peck and knock from the tree. It is a strange scenario, us being used to a later plum which seemed to just lazily hang its fruit out for weeks and weeks. This tree drops like a sudden shower of rain and there is a frantic battle, over the fortnight it drops, to get our fair share before they all rot on the ground. Anyways, I have stewed plenty and frozen them, plus made my usual 4 litres of plum sauce (which is the perfect amout to last until next season...we know by experience!) The apple tree has plenty of fruit growing on it, and we had a fair little crop of black raspberries this year. The other rasps are not fruiting as much but may be because they were transplanted during the year and might be better off from new growth next year.
So all in all we have had a busy old time. Big things to come next year, with school and kindy for girls, and me trying to get more out of the space we have in our yard! I hope to be more frequent at posting, and will try to diarise our progress...even if I may be the only one who uses the information, its good to keep a record :)

when all the batteries are used by munchkins....

Ok, so I had this plan I would post some crafty things I had done, but realised a miniature photographer had used up all the batteries in the camera. Despairing not I will now turn it into a post about self portraits and what children see...






Lucky they are so cute... and it's so interesting to see the world from their eyes sometimes...










The last pic is actually from my neighbours garden....so obviously a bit of fence jumping has occured!
So although I have some craft to share, this will have to do. Mind you these two are the best things I have ever made anyway :)

photo essay

This is how my 6 year old sees things around the house...

Taking turns

I love the way the children at Stella's kindergarten work together. I know this doesn't happen everywhere, and it probably doesn't happen all the time, but they do seem to enjoy working as a team quite often. Here is a lovely example... when we went for a play at one of the children's houses during the holidays we left the kids to play in the garden while all the mums chatted. After a while we noticed they had worked out a system where eveyone got to have a turn on the one small trampoline that was in the garden...this is proof, and I promise no adults were involved :)

big girl now...

So my baby just turned three...so hard to believe. Some days it feels like we have always known each other and other days I realise time has flown by so fast! She had a lovely birthday, and was incredibly blaise about gifts which is not a bad thing at all :)