Last Day of Sixness

I'm hoping it's just a stage I'm going through, and maybe something to do with all the various projects I've been trying to achieve on top of my normal responsibilities (board painting, cavemen costumes etc and lets include while we're at it the school holidays because that has been a project in itself, organising playdates and activities and visits) but lately I feel like my blog has just become a series of lists of what we've been doing, without any proper form or content or even coherence. And having brought that to your attention, you'd think I'd then produce some quality blogging as an antidote, but no! It's another list of doings, I'm afraid. At least we can look back and say those September school holidays in 2010 were good fun, weren't they?

So our doings for the last week or so or of hols were:

We had the Peppermint Patcher Clan over to our house for dinner and served them yellow food. (Ginger coconut chicken and lemon tart). They came bearing lego gifts for my children (always a winner) and chocolates for the grown-ups, and Pip went out and kicked a soccer ball with the boys which led to Cherub saying seriously to me later in private you know Pip is actually a weally nice person. Tracey also let us play with her ipad (or giant iphone as Cherub called it) which the boys thought was wonderful.



I met up with Tracey, Pete and Pip again on the Friday, along with the lovely Lisa, for a bloggy get-together; being a football avoider I neglected to take note that the pre-Grand Final parade was going on in the city at exactly that time and organised our meet-up at a place just adjacent to the madness, Lisa was this close to going home in a huff but then she found a parking spot. It has been really great spending this time with the Peppermint Patch family, who I love, I really do. They are funny and charming and interested and interesting and I think blogging is a really cool thing to have brought friends such as them into my life, all the way from Far North Queensland.

We have borrowed Astrid's Wii while she suns her toes in Port Douglas. The boys are having a really good time with it, but I can't see us buying one. The original point of borrowing it was to see if Fixit would use it to help with weight loss, but he hasn't gone near it in the time we've had it. The boys, meanwhile, are working their way avidly through Lego Star Wars amid shrieks of laughter, and playing very co-operatively, I might add. But I think it will work best as a sometimes treat rather than a household staple.

We went with Jenny, a fellow football Grand Final avoider, to The Zoo while all the kerfuffle was going on, and had a lovely time. While we were at the Meerkats (Climber's favourites) some people were let in to the enclosure and photographed whilst interacting with the meerkats. The keeper threw grubs everywhere and the meerkats were so tame, sitting on laps, trying to get inside the keepers grub-bucket, Every single child on the outside watching this said I want to go in there too! It was a veritable chorus of jealousy, mingled with hope that if some people could go in there, they all could.



We came home thinking we'd done a wonderful job avoiding the Final, only to discover it was a draw and the whole thing is being replayed on this weekend, bah.

We've also gone swimming, attended a friend's bowling alley birthday party [shudder], attended a lego workshop, had lots of playdates, been to cricket practice twice, and in amongst all that I decided I was going to learn crochet (thank you Youtube and this book)...



(Foxs Lane is my Guru du Jour, this is her crocheted ric-rac, underneath you can see the wrong way to do it, and on top is the way it will look if you go back after practicing crochet for a bit and READ THE INSTRUCTIONS PROPERLY)

Aaaaaaaand...

then I decided I would, in my wisdom, make-not-buy some presents. Five of them! By Sunday! So my cousin's baby is getting these pants (Aunty Cookie's very good pattern from the Meet Me At Mikes book),



... my aunt is getting this Vineyard Washcloth which is also swiped from Foxs Lane (Kate's is much neater than mine!).



(and oh my God, lace knitting! Serious concentration required for this project, and absolutely not possible to do this one in public. Ravelled here, as the knitters say...)

... and as for the other 3, well, maybe, just maybe I will be trying my hand at wheat-bags on Saturday afternoon, whilst not watching the Grand Final Mark II. Or I might go shopping like a sane person.

But in the meantime, today is the last day of Sixness for my Cherub, yes the countdown is over, the presents are wrapped...



... and the boy is asleep and dreaming of a glorious day tomorrow. We're having a few friends round for cake. He can't wait.