Celebrating family...

Here's a project we'll be taking part in....check it out!

Snacks..always so much tastier with two

An impromptu play-date for Savannah and her bff - M. - milk and Oreos (with Double Stuff)....sheer snacking *joy*

Earth Hour 2009...

Observing our second Earth Hour...

Off with all the lights and on with the candles. I have five million candles (almost) but rarely light them as Sebastian is currently harbouring a grand passion for using our candle snuffer to douse the 'marshmallows'. He agreed to leave us with them on for a while....but finally, it became too much and we negotiated for him to snuffe out two at which point he took himself off to bed - he was coming down from his New Moon Mania of the previous night.

In the true spirit of the occasion I turned off the flash on the camera which made for some rather interesting photos....

Simba dines by candlelight....

Several attempts at a family self-portrait...we only ever got the top of Sebastian's head...

And, oh, what a wonderful time we had. We laughed, we chatted, we made fantastical plans and we hurled insults at the gormless Earth-idiots across the way who had all their lights a-blazing...

....what a wonderful life we are leading.

Monsters In Your Backyard...

Friday's trip with Aunty S. and Cousin M. to the Royal Botanical Gardens to see the "Bug Show"...

Professor Buzz McFly tells us all about the wonderful world of entymology and how insects are so very important to the Earth. Sebastian was absolutely horrified at first but came to be quite charmed by Prof. McFly by the end of our visit. He even worked himself up to pressing the button (to start the animatronics) himself...much to the delight, I'm sure, of the poor soul working at the admissions desk nearby. She's probably ready to take a giant fly swatter to Professor McFly by the end of each day....

A giant Monarch butterfly...the first of the gigantic insects.

Savannah 'rubs some bugs' at one of the craft table. She now has quite a colourful collection of rubbings papering her bedroom wall.

A few views from the top of the Atrium where the giant bugs were. It's a new section of the RBG and is a beautiful building...sunlight streaming through the windows, flowers and plants growing everywhere...Oh, and a mammoth freakin' tarantula..

Two Atlas beetles duke it out.....

Team work to match the different bug parts together....

Savannah and Cousin M. try to get a closer look at the Tomato Caterpillar's mouth parts...

A great honkin' snail. Native to Africa (glad its not native to MY garden)...but really, super cool. I got to hold a mealworm and was offered an up-close-and-personal with a Mexican Red-Kneed Tarantula. I declined. But first, I shrieked like a girl.

Sebastian studies population proportions. The big plastic globe is filled with different coloured foam balls, each representing a proportion of life on Earth - mammals, birds, insects etc. Did you know that insects represent 75% of all life on this great planet? The best part is that when you press a button, a fan blasts some air into the globe, sending the balls flying around like one of those lottery machines. Sebastian pressed the button many, many, many, many times. :)

The robotic bugs. Designed to be great lessons in robotics and how insects move their many legs, but mostly it was just fun to watch them jive around the floor when the joysticks were jiggled just so.

Then we went to the Mediterranean Gardens. A school group invaded the Atrium - they had certain Things To Learn and had Clipboards and Forms To Fill Out and really cramped our free-for-all wild learning style, so we went to look at the fish instead. It was infinitely more Zen.

It's official - the first picnic of 2009! The Hendrie Garden was closed so we found a table amongst the trees, pooled our bounty and enjoyed a lovely sunny day.

Then we headed back in to see the bugs. The school kids had all been herded off to a classroom for their lunch so we had the Atrium pretty much to ourselves. And of course, it wouldn't be a trip without some shopping so we hit the gift shop where all the kids bought a Big Bag of Bugs which can now be found in odd places around our house.

'Twas a grand day indeed.

The humble oat...

...is transformed by a little kitchen magick from this....

..to this!

Abundance flows....and it quite delicious too.

Shadow....Play

Word-Wednesday.....Fur

It's a little greyer around the edges, but still *shines* with the fire of your soul.

Oscar Wee the Magnificent.... a.k.a Oscar -Weiner Dog of the Wilderness, He-Who-Rolls-In-All-Things-Foul-and-Smelly, You-Stinky-Bastard, Weezies and the Hot-Weiner-Bottle.

Your breath can be deadly, your feet smell like corn-chips and you are my favourite (canine) snuggle buddy. You never complain when I cut your nails too short and have forgiven me for bringing two boisterous children into your Zen-like weiner-world.

You. Just. Are.

I never saw Jesus...

...in a grilled cheese sandwich, but I did see Mickey Mouse in a pancake.

An offering accepted...

I spent some time yesterday de-cluttering a section of our kitchen. This particular section has a habit of becoming a dumping ground for Things With No Home and is in a perpetual state of disarray. Well, the time had come.



So I organized and tidied and Found Homes and cleared out a proper space for our Faery House - I imagine our house brownie was none too happy with the clutter around his front door....



So last night, in a gesture of appeasement..I left a drop of wine in our 'offering shell'....



I went to remove it this morning....(and to take these accompanying pictures)...and upon a closer examination of the shell....
You can see by the 'water line' that it was quite full......not so this morning. That'd be enough to get a brownie good and sloshed, don't you think?

Hiccup.

Papier Mache...the adventure continues

It's really all about smooshing your fingers around in the paste...

Papier Mache...adventures in goo

Hearing that a friend had been on a frenzy of papier mache creativity - and me, having pondering it for a while myself - Savannah wanted to try her hand at it. I dredged my memory banks for the how-to's, followed by a quick Google to confirm my often-faulty memories...and away we went...
Now, I had assumed that Savannah would be wanting to try something simple - a ball, a bowl, perhaps a set of maracas like Madi...but then again, why would I expect 'simple' from my girl?

She decided she wanted a dog. Hmmmm. No wire for framing....so.....I improvised with scrunched and folded newspaper and lots of masking tape. Behold - a paper dog!

Then came the fun part.....she's loving the feel of the 'goo'....

In the interim...I exercise the 'simple' option and transformed a margarine tub into a bowl...

And now we wait.......

Portrait of a Sunday...

An adventure down to the Lake - as suggested by Savannah for our Sunday Adventure...

Sure signs of spring:

A robin sighted by Nanna...some bulbs sprouting....

...and a shiny motorcycle parked downtown.

A lake carries you into recesses of feeling otherwise impenetrable ~ William Wordsworth

Braving the cooler weather, lakeside - at least we didn't need our hats and mitts...(thank you Nice Lady for offering to take our picture - at least now there's proof that I was there)

A tutorial on skipping stones...

...apparently it's all in the crouch

Savannah prefers the 'Frisbee Method'....guaranteed to get a splash, everytime.

Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans ~ Jacques Cousteau

We decided to follow Sebastian's example and stop attempting to skip the stones and just picked bigger ones and hurled them in - a much more satisfying PLOP and splash. [Note: grasping of hoods by B...he didn't fancy having to jump in after them]

Some really cool, algae-covered rocks...

A perilous journey out onto the stepping stones...

Earth and sky, woods and fields, lakes and rivers, the mountains and the sea, are excellent schoolmasters and teach some of us more than we can ever learn from books ~ John Lubbock

Then it was into the little cafe for some refreshments. Our usual chip place was closed so we had to take our business elsewhere...to The Bite

Impressive that they have a real plant in here instead of the usual fake ones....
Confirmed as real by Savannah's schnozz....

Warning: Don't get the blue Slushy...it tastes awful. Fortunately, I brought some apple juice as a back-up.

Reclining after a long stone-tossing session...

Careful! The fries are hot!

But also quite yummy....

Apres lunch...a tour around Discovery Landing....

Then is was the long, but not uninteresting, walk back to the car....

Walking the vertical slope....

...and home in time to play with a cousin....

Life is good.