lamingtons & white nectarines

2012!

holiday season and pre holiday season flew by in a lovely blur of birthday party-ing, panicked wedding quilt making (in a good way, i kind of like a time-crunch, photos to come one day), campervan-ing, wedding watching, sugar cookie baking, pumpkin pie making, eating, engagement cake baking, beaching, bonfire at farm-ing, more eating, and general family festivities. a VERY lovely few weeks i must say.

i couldn't resist a little blog post writing time tonight although after packing our townhouse for the past few days i should probably be still packing or sleeping or something remotely constructive towards the cause, but ah well i think a moment to document our last days here is a must instead.

yesterday i took the little people down to the waterfront for the last time! crazy. we have lived 400 meters or so from moreton bay for the past 3.5 years or so in a little townhouse that we've sort of scrounged into a home. it is too dark in here. the next place i live i will not be using iso 3200 indoors i'll tell you that much people (well, people who know what i'm talking about anyway)!

wynnum itself has definitely been lovely in its own way and it has been the perfect place to live with kids. that said, we have never felt very settled here in wynnum and whether it be moves to melbourne or canada, the discussion about where to leave to was ongoing. i just can't believe it took 3.5 years to come about.

we took a break from the house and the packing and bought some lamingtons and white nectarines down to the bay for morning tea. it was one of those hazy sunny days of a queensland summer. all sparkling water and hot sun. juicy fingers with sand stuck to them.




snail found


banned from snail farming


re-instated at snail farm


bayside


























dinner

dinner was a strange but satisfying cupboard and fridge clean-out mish mash of barlotti beans (i always keep a pre-cooked bag of previously dried
beans in the freezer for handy use of dried beans), sauteed with a bit of jap pumpkin, cumin (my go-to spice) and onion. Then i boiled a bit of pasta and decided to make the pumpkin and bean mixture a bit more saucy by adding. . . coconut milk. Then it turned into something that would have been much better suited to eat with rice, but personally i quite enjoyed it with pasta.

moves

i have a stack of things i have been meaning to do. instead, i decided to have a play with imovie.

i've been making an effort to take a few more moving pictures of the kids, they love to watch themselves. i am not a huge lover of video but my camera is making it fun. i like using the manual focus, it makes me feel like i'm doing something other than just aiming a camera.

new, additional goal is to compile the little movies at the end of the month using imovie - the application is super intuitive, you can literally make something up as you go without really needing to learn how to do it.

if you have imovie, seriously go and have a play if you haven't already!

November 2011 from Hsu-Yin Boo on Vimeo.

vegemite

there was a lapse in parenting yesterday afternoon when i left B in the kitchen to fix her own vegemite cruskits. of course little ruben was keen to watch so we dragged over a chair for him too. i went off upstairs to do something and returned to this:





his tongue must have been shriveling with the saltiness of it all. for those of you who don't know, vegemite is the beloved australian condiment akin to marmite and promite and is best used as a mere scraping, as opposed to a peanut butter-like blob. my mouth is shuddering just looking at those photos. the poor fellow had a mighty drink of water afterwards. i did feel a bit wrong photographing him while he burned off his taste buds, but the photographer in me took over the mother in me, what can i say!

on a completely unrelated topic, alli has been talking about lurkers, and enticing us out of the shadows.

i am such a lurker. i honestly can't remember the last time i commented on a blog. mostly it is a time constraint thing i think? every blog loves a comment here and there so we don't think we are writing into cyberspace. of course i see stats that tell me someone is reading, and of course i force my family into reading by delivering straight to their mail boxes. so although mainly i tell myself my blog is just for me, i do like to know someone else is lurking out there. . .

so, i suppose i should stop doing so much lurking and write nice things on people's blogs. i will try.

hunting and gathering

we've been doing some pretty serious foraging around these parts - upon discovering an unspoken for mulberry bush and a rather neglected grapefruit tree our forays into urban foraging have been plentiful and fruitful, so to speak.




currently we are accumulating frozen mulberries for use in pie and jams - the bush looks like it will be producing for the next few weeks so a new routine involves walking to our bush with a couple of pails and having a little pick at the ripe berries. it is so fun! the kids love it, little Ruben even gets in there and picks (and munches as he goes).

our other abandoned fruits of the neighborhood are a very very sour variety of grapefruit - i think! they are full of seeds and require doctoring with a simple syrup. we use it as a sort of cordial and have also made popsicles. i like the thought of getting free vitamin C!



any abandoned bushes ripe for the pillage around your parts?

if you go into the woods today

2 little girls named beatrix and lola went out into the bush, to do a bit of camping and gathering. bea was the bigger girl, and lola was the smaller girl. they were a little worried about witches and bears and snakes and zombies, as the day was a bit dark, and the clouds a bit ominous.



the bigger girl, (beatrix) decided to go and gather some herbs for their decorating, and she reassured her little friend that she would be safe in the tent.



lola stayed in the tent. she was feeling a little scared, but she tried her best to be brave.



beatrix literally ran to the clearing in search of their favourite little flowers. she was a little creeped out.



she had the distinct feeling that she was being watched.



she brought back her flowers and herbs and told lola that there may be something lurking in the trees. . .



the girls stayed in the tent, where they felt safer. but they still couldn't shake the feeling that something was coming. lola kept her ears pricked for any suspicious sounds.



they were most pleasantly surprised to find that it was only their little toddler friend, ruben! he must have followed them through the bush. everyone was most relieved to be together again, so they all relaxed and hung out in the tent. they felt much more cheerful after finding out the scary noises were only the sounds of a toddler bustling through the underbrush. the end!

B and K decided to have a tea party photo shoot.

last week. on tuesday morning, bea decided that what she wanted to do was have a tea party. photo shoot. i had to chuckle. she claims she is starting to believe me when i say taking photos is a job. maybe this photo shoot idea was her way of saying sorry for laughing in my face when i told her i was starting to take pictures for people as a job. she literally scoffed and said 'that is NOT work. where is your office?'

so, we dutifully rounded up some items that would be suitable for a tea party. in the end, it had to be watered down quite a bit from her initial ideas of tablecloths and cucumber sandwiches. in the end, she settled for neenish tarts from the shop and apples and pears in a pail. water in the teacups instead of honeyed tea, as she'd originally thought.

here is their little story.



two girls decided to have a picnic tea party in the field. so they packed their snack and ran off together.



they found a spot that was just right and set down their things.



they had a spot of tea (ahem, water).



and a lovely chat.



until the sun was low in the sky (and the baby brother was too cranky for anymore photos to be taken).



the end.

.

bird feeding

the little folks out feeding a little magpie the other day. i believe it was ritz crackers.

a daily event - running out in the paved area outside our townhouse for a bit of a let loose turned a bit special with the arrival of an inquisitive young maggie.

feeding birds is actually really fun! i'd forgotten. . .


i thought they looked cute in their home made head and tail zebra fit outs. although i'm pretty sure ruben isn't the 'head' of this duo.

fish

we've been mildly obsessed with fishing around our place. B is into play games about it and i've been fantasizing about catching our own fish from the shore for a while now.

this weekend it all came to fruition.

all except for the 'catching' the fish part.





finished magnetic fishing game. its a pretty big hit.

more magnetic fishing games here and here




'ted the head'.

he was my secondhand fishing rod dealer. he straps a multitude of rods and reels onto his triumph and peddles them at the chandler markets on sundays.





fish and chips at the esplanade yesterday afternoon.

not caught by me.




me, on my maiden cast off the jetty.


i didn't catch anything! can you believe it? i had the right bait, waited til the tide was coming in and had it on good authority that it was going to be a good evening for fishing, but it got so dark and cold and my baby was coughing up his poor little lungs. and i didn't know that you should hide the hook. i swear i could feel them biting and at one point i sweat i had something big on my hook but it got away.

i will be catching fish in the near future though, and i will let you know when that happens.

kiddie canape

yesterday we made these yummy and fancy looking canapes for our morning snack. they were a big hit! we used banana slices, nutella and a mixture of cashews and frozen blueberries. any nut and berry combo would be good though me thinks!

with a dusting of confectioners sugar, they were gobbled up by B. she had to make another plate. fruit, nut and a bit of hazelnut spread to sweeten the deal. healthy? well, it involved fruit and nuts and really nutella isn't that bad if you look at the label. i'm going with healthy treat.

for more easy peasy food ideas, see here

oh, the things they say

lying in bed together, B is on her way to sleep

B: mummy, are there germs in toots?

Me: no, why? (stifled laughter)

B: oh good. i just didn't want to get germs in the bed.

Me: hehehehehehehe

new man in blog-town

i have been loving a newly discovered blog called made by joel. he's a part-time stay at home dad/artist with twins who makes them toys and posts lots of download-able arts and crafts on his visually stunning blog. no big deal. ahem. a craft blog being written by a man is rare and truly, the little games and toys he comes up with for his kids are both creative and often so aesthetically appealing that the adult in me likes the look of them lying around the house. in fact he is allegedly working on a book, which is probably going to be awesome.

recently we cut out his paper city and had fun colouring in the little people. B arranged them into couples (she is obsessed with marriage at the moment, embarrassingly). we were just getting over a spate of illness and had multiple boxes of toddler panadol lying around which reminded us a little of big buildings so we made some tea light candle holders with them by turning the boxes inside out so the writing was on the inside and cut some holes in the sides to let the light through.