My Leisure Time This Week...

Our week so far has been a nice easy, relaxed one which has seen Grace return to kindergarten for her final term and us ease back into our normal pace and weekly rhythm.  There's been a picnic lunch at our favourite riverside location, lots of cooking and crafting and some snippets of leisure time amongst the usual day-to-day happenings of keeping house.  Here's a few things that I've been enjoying in those moments of free time...

Reading... over the past few weeks, as I've sat down with my cuppa at night, relaxing on the couch, I've been working my way through Kelly Doust's most recent book 'The Crafty Minx At Home'. Filled with photos of beautifully styled homely nooks and creative projects, it has drawn me in with its abundance of inspiration as well as seen me nodding along in support of many of Kelly's thoughts. I was especially fond of the following line...

"I like to think of this gradual life's work process of home editing as domestic curating".

Gardening... yesterday, while Sophie napped, Grace and I pulled out most of our vegetable patch in preparation for a new batch of seedlings to be planted on the weekend.  This corner of our backyard has really come along in the past year.  My herb patch has flourished, the tiny passion-fruit vine we put into the ground last October has well and truly taken off and the lettuces which self-seeded themselves have provided us with all we've needed over the past few months.  Grace and I also cleared another section of garden underneath our lily-pily tree to be a 'cut flower garden' where we've sprinkled some zinnia seeds and hope to add some more colourful beauties.

Researching... if I can get myself organised and actually decide on a date and make some invitations, I'm hoping to host another Pink Ribbon Day fundraiser this year.  However, with Sophie's 2nd birthday close to the official date for doing so, my event will be held in November instead.  I'm thinking of something smaller scale, high tea style and in my 'online time', have been searching for food and decorating inspiration.

What have you been doing in your leisure time over the past week?

Last photo taken by my friend Lyndell at my last Pink Ribbon Day fundraiser

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"A portrait of my children, once a week every week in 2013"


Sophie: Those curls, blue eyes and sweet face... my darling poppet is growing up and has become such a little girl now. I can't believe that in just over a week, she will be two.

Grace: Doing a spot of interior decorating in the dolls house.  Her 'new' fairy dress has been worn almost every day this week after my Mum found it at a recent garage sale.  Anything 'fairy' is an instant winner with Grace and with this piece also being her favourite colour, it has been a much loved costume indeed... until yesterday afternoon when it got caught in the spokes of her bicycle wheel... I have a spot of mending ahead of me today...

Joining in with Jodi

Bron's gorgeous shot of Badoo was one of my stand outs from last week (and quite possibly one of my favourite shots of hers ever).  I also loved Catherine's clever rear vision mirror composition...

The Rhythm Of Our Days: Non-Kindy Quiet Time

The hours following lunchtime are ones I always look forward to both for the peaceful ambiance that transcends upon our household and for the precious one on one time it allows me with my big girl on non-kindy days.

Once lunchtime is over, faces and hands are washed and both little girls retreat to their bedrooms for naptime/quiet time.  Sophie clutches her 'baby' (doll), stuffed lamb and Peppa Pig toy in her arms and insists on us both cradling one of them while singing 'rock a bye baby' together before I tuck her into bed. Grace keeps herself busy drawing and creating, dressing Barbie Dolls or playing with her stuffed toys.  I immediately flick the kettle on and make a cuppa, sitting in front of the computer as I sip whilst browsing blogs, checking email or editing photos.  A quietness washes over the house as we all recharge.

Not long after I've finished my tea, Grace comes to find me, emerging from her room wearing a plethora of dress-up costumes of varying colours and styles.  She is eager to spend time with me and knowing next year, we will no longer have this opportunity when she is at pre-primary, I am more than willing to oblige. We take our vintage copy of The Enchanted Wood outside and sit in the sunshine as I read aloud to her, throwing the ball to Asha every now and then as she drops it in front of our book, desperate for a play mate.  Sometimes, we follow our reading sessions with a tea party.  Other times we work on a sticker book together or play a game.  If I have a load of washing to hang out, I have a keen helper.  If Grace has a task to complete for kindy, I'll help her out.  These simple moments together are ones I've come to treasure.  

Our quietness comes to an end when a little voice can be heard calling out from her room, "Mummy open door!... Gacie, open door!" and then, we ready ourselves for afternoon tea and the few hours left until Daddy comes home....

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"A portrait of my children, once a week every week in 2013"


Grace:  The first week of kindy holidays has been a lovely balance of small outings and slow-paced days at home for her.  After lunch today, she followed Paul around outside as he did jobs in the yard and garden, taking the blooms from the shrubs which had been pruned and placing them delicately among the bare branches of our deciduous tree...

Joining in with Jodi

Stella at the park, toddling after a handful of ducks and her sweet mama's baby bump were my favourite photos from last week...

The Evolution Of A Family Garden

When we bought and moved into our house eight and half years ago, the garden was already well established and the lawn lush and perfectly kept.  And while it was neat and tidy and visually pleasing, gradually, changes were made here and there to make it more us.  As we pulled out shrubs past their used-by date, straggly day-lilies and overgrown daisies, we began to have more of an idea of our vision. Old woody roses gave way to Double Delight and Iceberg varieties.  A mish-mash of cottage style plants was replaced by a row of ornamental plums, lavender bushes and a Poinciana tree.  An abundant but awkwardly placed herb garden was relocated and an adjacent sandy patch of yard turned into a sweet little vegetable plot.  

For the past few years, there's been much waiting... waiting for things we'd planted to take off and to fill in gaps... to grow so that they looked as though they had been there all along... to look like what we'd envisaged from day one. Finally, after several years, lots of planning and much hard work, we're feeling closer to that point.  As I hang out washing, I smile at the Cottonwood Hibiscus bushes which in under a year, are already peeking over our fence.  While I am sipping a cup of tea at the kitchen table, I look proudly out the window at our lemon tree, the branches of which are currently weighed down with an abundance of fruit. I pull into our driveway greeted by a show of pink roses, with blooms bigger and brighter than any year to date.

Gradually, as well as changing visually, our garden has evolved to suit not only our taste, but also our needs. Nowadays, with two little ones running around, it has come to feel like another 'room' in our house. It is where sandcastles are built and 'cakes' are baked in the sand patch... where fairy gardens are tended to and imaginations run wild... where Asha is cuddled and shown affection.  I love that I find garden gnomes hidden among the lettuce leaves in the vegetable patch and flowers poked optimistically into bare patches of earth in the hope they will grow. Paths are covered in chalk drawings. Balls and gumboots and watering cans lie on the lawn.

Our garden looks not only more established, but 'lived in' and enjoyed and much more like a family garden...