Silent Sunday

The Gallery: Faces

"Faces, faces everywhere. But if you could sit and stare....."

I spend a lot of my day humming songs from Playschool. The Squeeze and The Bear's favourite kids show is Playschool. Hell, I love Playschool. I love the innuendo thrown in for the grown-ups' benefits.

Tara Cain at Sticky Fingers has set this week's Photographic Gallery theme on FACES. Easy! There are three faces I photograph almost on a daily basis. So, here are a select few of those pics.

Those big brown eyes and the splash of freckles are heaven.

A perfect ski-jump nose with the most kissable cheeks in all the lands!

My "Dreamy"

I could "sit and stare" at faces all day.

If you don't know Playschool, enlighten yourself here. Have fun!

Here's to The Squeeze!

The Squeeze turned "thixth" yesterday. (She is missing two and a half top teeth.)

This year I am trying to break the habit of having a birthday party. Instead, she is having four friends for a sleep over on Friday. Five six year olds in the house. Hardly breaking the habit, am I. Do I have a plan? Yes. And no.

The Bear is going to a friend's house for her own sleep over, just to avoid any sibling 'issues'. The swag will be rolled out in the girls' room so sleeping arrangements are sorted.

Mr. H was hoping to 'phone a friend' and escape to the pub for the night, or until the hysteria had gone to sleep. I told him to get off his bloody planet.

Other than making sure there is plenty of gin and whisky for Mr. H and myself, that is the extent of my plan. Maybe some homemade pizzas, a movie, some games, dress-ups. There, organised. Oh, the girls? They'll think of something to do.

Happy birthday my Squeezalicious.

Silent Sunday

A week of.....

Well it is officially the school holidays, and I am very much looking forward to two weeks void of the morning rush, and being able to sleep in.

It has been a struggle waking The Squeeze and The Bear up in the morning this last week. On Wednesday it was futile so The Squeeze had a "find my centre" day and stayed home. It was after nine o'clock before either of them crawled out of bed, and it was lunch time before they got out of their PJs.

But we have still had an action packed last week of term. On Tuesday night, The Squeeze went to her first disco at school. It seems social behaviour hasn't changed much in thirty years (oh I feel old!) The boys appeared to enjoy dancing more these days than they did in my day (oh so so old). And, they also appear to spend more time on their hair than the girls! But there is still that awkward, embarassing, barely moving, "Oh my God, a boy asked me to dance!", "Oh my God, I can't believe I have to dance with a girl." dancing.

The Squeeze was first asked to dance by a fourth grader (I'll remind you The Squeeze is in Prep). They barely moved throughout the entire song, standing there with embarassing smiles on their faces. I'll hand it to The Squeeze who tried to relax the mood with the odd wiggle and twirl but he wasn't buying it. I suppose it didn't help that I was on the other side of the room, camera poised, in hysterics. The next boy she danced with was more active, and more her age (he's in grade one). Ok, it was a pre-rehearsed dance but, hey, it was very cute.

"Come on. Hold hands??"

 All the kids had a ball and put a lot of effort into their groovy moves.

The following day was 'down time'. Well, for the girls at least. I, on the other hand, had a marathon day in the kitchen baking for my friend's gallery. Two weeks worth of goodies were needed before I took off for a week. What did I bake I hear you ask? Well, let me show you.

The day started early with an Armenian Nut cake, my favourite.

Followed by a Chocolate and Date Torte. Apparently this is popular at the gallery.

I then made a Chocolate Cardamon Fudge cake. Very rich and yummy but an arm workout to mix. I forgot to take a picture of this one so unfortunately I can't show you the end result.

By this stage it was lunch time and The Bear was due at kinder, and I was due at the gym for a PT session. After nearly killing myself to work off the beater licking of the morning, it was back to kinder for a teddy bears' picnic, then home to fire up the oven again. I still had one more cake, a batch of muffins, and two lots of bikkies to make!

Orange and poppyseed cake with syrup.

 By the time I finished making White chocolate and orange muffins (see previous post) I was starting to fade. It was ten o'clock before I had it all wrapped up with chocolate chip bikkies and melting moments. Phew!

After delivering all the yummies the next morning, it was back to the gym for more torture. Bloody nine week challenge! I really need to teach the girls the art of beater and bowl licking.

Today, the term finished with Elf Reading Day. All the kiddies from kinder and the primary schools dress up as a character from a book, then parade down the main street to have stories read to them by employees of businesses and volunteers outside the shops. Great way to end the term. Only, our day didn't start so greatly.

The Squeeze decided that morning to change her mind not once, not twice, but six times about what she was going to dress up as. Initially, she wanted to be Angelina Ballerina but quickly changed her mind to Aladdin's monkey (she had the costume from her ballet concert last year). I pointed out that she might be a bit cold in just a leotard and stockings. I suggested going as one of the Seven Little Australians as we had a dress that would suit. This seemed to be the goer until she saw the dress and thought it wasn't dress-up enough. My eye started to twitch.

"Ok. How about Pippy Longstocking?"

A flat "No" followed by a "Humf" and a crossing of arms.

"Well you can just wear your school uniform then."

"Nooooooo. We're not allowed to."

She then had a fleeting idea of going as Lola (from Charlie and Lola) but realised Lola wears ordinary clothes.

By this stage we were running out of time, and patience, and my eye was driving me nuts. This is when I spotted the "Pearlie" books by Wendy Harmer.

"How about 'Pearlie the park fairy'?" The Squeeze's eyes lit up. "YES!"

Finally we were getting closer to getting out the door. We didn't have fairy wings or a wand but a quick phone call to a friend to borrow some solved that. Hair, accessories, and off we went. My eye ceased to twitch.

The Squeeze is in pink. How cool is the smurf!

Unfortunately, I missed the parade due to a prior commitment with my PT - again! Have you ever known such stupidity? Why I signed up for this sometimes baffles me. Jelly legs all over again. So Mr. H went instead.

To top off the day, I managed to get Sunday and Monday off work so we can head up to NSW to see my folks and tickle that gorgeous little niece of mine.

So that was my week. How was yours?

I'm grateful for...

Brenda from Mira Narnie is hosting Maxabella Loves' Grateful Saturday this week. I know I'm a day late but I suffer FOMO (fear of missing out) when it comes to these things. So here is what I am grateful for this week.

4. A haircut. I only get my hair cut two or three times a year so it's a treat when it happens. My hairdresser is two hours away in Melbourne. She has been cutting my hair for ten years now and always does a fantastic job (at least I think so), even so that my hair grows out really well. Hence, the infrequent cuts. Here is the latest 'do' but please excuse the tired, post night duty, post workout look on my face!

5. Liquorice allsorts. I actually don't like them, but The Squeeze and The Bear love them. Why? Apparently they "make you dance."

Mr. H took the girls fishing yesterday afternoon while I slept. They picked up some liquorice allsorts from a local sweet shop on the way (in case the girls became bored trying to catch fish). Mr. H told me that no sooner had they arrived at the river, and The Squeeze and The Bear had started to eat the treats, they started dancing on a log, yelling "Look Daddy, look. See? We told you."

As for the fishing, The Squeeze caught a little rainbow trout, much to The Bear's excitement!

6. Being outside. Spring is in the air, the sun is out, the bees are buzzing and I am loving being outside more. The smell of freshly mowed grass and the warm air just rejuvinates me. Tra, la la, la la!

What are you grateful for? Pop over to Brenda's to tell us.