little boy Bleu

Work, puppy training, and general summer busyness have been keeping me from blogging. I did find a little time to snap a few pics of our new pup. Little boy Bleu is growing leaps and bounds. Every morning he wobbles around as though he’s navigating the world with a new pair of legs. He’s sleeping through the night now, although only when on our bed. He’s obviously being properly spoiled! 

At times, Bleu is such an ornery puppy. This is the same look he gets when he does a grab and run with one of my daughter’s shoes...

He tries so hard to keep up with his big sister...

They are really pretty cute together.

Bailey gives Bleu plenty of necessary mentoring.

Nothing but time!

Well I think I can say we are offically in SUMMER mode. The girls and I literally have nothing but time on our hands and we are taking advantage of every minute. You can see from the pictures below that our week was full and fun!

MONDAY

We headed to what the girls call "The Beach Park" aka Fanuel Park with Bailey for some sandcastle building, bay water swimming, swinging, and picnicing. It was a great way to start the week!

TUESDAY

We decided to stay home on Tuesday since the rest of our week was full, but that did not mean for a second these ladies were slowing down. Their trains got a 'trainwash' in the splash table while mommy tried to clean the house. After lunch the girls met up with their buddy (our neighbor) Boston and made a super cool bicycle course out of sidewalk chalk which included a gas station, a bike wash, a candy shop, and parking spaces.

WEDNESDAY

Mom had a work meeting, but that didn't stop these little water babies from having fun. While our instructional leadership team met at our Pricipal's house to prepare some things for next school year, all the kids had a blast swimming, watching movies, and playing with each other's toys.

THURSDAY

The girls and I met Uncle Mark, Auntie Missi, Aiden, Liam, Amy, and Ella at the Santee Aquatics Center- So COOL! It makes me wish I was a kid again. Though they don't let you take pictures inside, I had to steal this from google images beacuse it's that cool. After 3 hours of non-stop water play we had a picnic in the shade. Uncle Mark and family had to escape a bit early as Liam was in dire need of a nap.

FRIDAY

Friday was one of our favorite days- we spent the morning hours on Cornado Beach- North Island with Emma. The beach was almost empty and the waves were just perfect for the girls to explore. It was so peacefull. We spent lots of time hunting for shells, running in waves, building sandcastles and best of all we did some shopping afterwards at the Navy Exchange-needless to say the girls got hooked up with some new clothes. Lola was in need of some bigger pants- she is now a size 4T!

SATURDAY

We all headed to one of  Tony's bestfriends family picnic. Chris, Sonja, Byrce, and Solana were the hosts. The girls were mostly concerned with swiging and eating all the cookies at the desert table, I don't blame them.

This picture of Tony and Lola sums up our week pretty well!

As you can imagine, the girls have been sleeping pretty hard these days!

(I failed to mention that we had swim lesson in the evening Monday- Thursday of this week too)

....and it's not even July yet!

The Little Bowerbird

After going to reading time at the library, visiting a cafe, and the playground, the little Bowerbird is still up for adventure. "I don't want to go home yet mummy, I want to go to the fairy forest". Mmmmm.

It's 8 degrees outside, and we're already chilled from a long play at the playground, but we're all rugged up. At least it's not raining. OK. The pine plantations are very fairy like in my little one's eyes, they are so different to the Australian bush. She grabbed a stick and pointed it at things, chiming "detective, detective, detective". There were lots of mushrooms, including many slippery jacks, beautiful mossy rocks, dainty flowers, and pine cones. The fairy outfit wasn't perfect for a walk in the forest and there was some carrying required. I have very little say in what she wears these days, disagreeing with her choice results in tears, so it is generally not worth pointing out issues of practicality. Of course we were in the shade, and it was cold, but we were too busy exploring to really mind.  We filled a bag with pine cones for the fire, and added a pretty rock. Finally she was ready for home and to be warmed by the fire.

A day all about the little Bowerbird. So much more fun than the housework that is screaming for my attention. At least we have a nice basketful of fire-lighters.

Astro Turf, Art and more of 40

Astro turf, is it wrong? Our children love it, partly because they don't encounter it too often. This is at Fed Square, real grass would struggle to grow here due to the high level of pedestrian traffic, so its probably astro-turf, or concrete.

  

  

Took myself off on a tangent googling astro turf - check out
http://www.justlivegreener.com/greener-home/306-is-artificial-grass-eco-friendly.html 
http://www.treehugger.com/green-food/artificial-turf-versus-real-grass-which-is-greener.html


After visiting these sites I think there are probably more astro turf negatives than positives. The advice to wash your hands after using it because of the chemical residues and bacteria sounds pretty ewww, but then washing your hands is pretty good advice in general. More plastic in the world is probably never a good thing. At our rental, we are gradually removing more and more lawn and replacing it with garden, we never water the lawn, and we mow with an electric mower.

Real turf, complete with duck poo splodges to dodge, definitely wash your hands after visiting here. I love this steep hill in Birrarung Marr, so many children gleefully tumbling down it, and then giddily returning to the top. Give them a hill and they will roll.

  

The little Bowerbird took a while to get the knack of it and then when she finally did she bumped her head.

Totally unrelated, but to end the 40th Birthday visit to the city, weekend story. 
Drawing on art created by Vincent Fantauzzo in the Art Gallery. Some really cool textas were placed next to this huge pastiche of photos and visitors were invited to embellish them.

  This little one had no qualms about drawing on walls.

 Looks like he's doing something he shouldn't.

 SO MUCH FUN. 

 NGV Kids Corner, playing with leaves.

 One of my favourite Melbourne buildings viewed from inside the NGV Kids Corner.

Inspired by the circus, the middle Bowerbird attempts juggling.

 Another Birthday Cake to celebrate the big four O.

I love all the art in the city, not so much to enjoy around us. We do good trees, but the Big Bowerbird even found a lovely one of these to climb amongst all the concrete and bustle.

The Big Bowerbird wore my Nannas old hat (a treasured possession) to keep warm, and to disguise the fact that we forgot the brush - she attempted using the apartment's fork with limited success.


Melbourne, mid winter, is really the bomb, especially when your'e spoiling yourselves for a birthday treat. Not quite the overseas adventure we like to talk about (hello Tattslotto quick pick), but a great substitute on a budget. Was one of those weekends that felt like a week had past in just two short days.