Saturday, May 07, 2011

I bought a plant.....

And here it is, a Hebe (I think). I've been a busy bee trying to whip this house into shape before the return of my long lost husband on Monday, shortly to be followed by my Mummy on Friday (wooohoo to both!) I've cleaned all the windows I can reach, inside and out, I've weeded, I've swept, I've relocated gravel. I've even managed to remove (some of) the yucky blue Christmas lights that were strewn all over the front of the house. Things are looking better by the day, I think me and the blue house are in love. It's amazing what some clean widows and a new pot plant can do to jazz up a place! (Oh my god I sound like Kim and Aggie). I'll move on.

Other than my odd obsession with cleaning and organizing we've also been doing something pretty fun....we've been going to School! Seb, Bel and I have been attending a program called Strong Start. It's a free program in BC where kids from birth to 5 can come along to the school a couple of times per week and play with other kiddies in a class room full of toys. They get to paint and do crafts and have story time and gym time. They get a healthy snack and learn loads of important things to prepare them for school. Theres also an unlimited supply of coffee and tea for the parents! Wonderful! I can't tell you how nice it's been to watch my kids having so much fun and learning all kinds of stuff they haven't experienced at home. It's also been an absolute blessing right now to let them burn off steam and not have me be on the receiving end of all their boundless energy. I think I was really running myself ragged and suffering from kid burn out. Our little outings to school have given us all exactly what we needed :) Check out my very first ever hand made mothers day card!! Ok so I had a little hand in it's making but the gluing and sticking was all Bel!!

I also got paintings! I'm so excited! I've been waiting to hang kiddy art on my walls for three and a half years! I think they are rather good, apparently the blue and red one is a picture of Nanna and Daddy, awwww!

Bel's been loving her trips to school and has a new obsession with books. She pretends to read aloud and has a specific "story telling" tone of voice that she only uses when reading, she get's so excited when I sit and listen to her story and she can't stop smiling, it's so cute! Unfortunately she's not a very gentle girl and most books aren't quite tough enough for her. I want to encourage her love of reading but I don't know how to get her to look after the books and not turn pages like wild woman! I spent half an hour yesterday going through various books and reattaching bits of pages with sticky tape, grrrr! Anyway I'm trying to use her new "book love" to help on our potty training mission. So far, no good. Auntie Cake kindly sent us a book about poo :) which Bel loves. She totally get's the concept using the potty and all that. She just doesn't much like putting the theory into practise. We shall persevere.



Back to things going on in the Blue House, here's my hallway frame arrangement can you spot the difference from before? I've added a few bits of stuff to it. There's a new colourful blue print in one frame and some driftwood and sand dollars we found on the beach stuck up there too. I think it makes it a bit more interesting, what do you think?

Now onto the living room or more accurately, the view from the living room. here's a pretty wide shot showing the sofa and the big windows behind....

Let's zoom in a wee bit.....
What's that shiny red thingy out there you might wonder. It's my new hummingbird feeder!! I've been so fascinated by these funny little birds and I'm hoping this feeder might attract a few more or at least get me a better view of the ones that already like to visit. I figured that this would be a good spot, I pass the window about a million times a day. Let's zoom in a bit more.....

So far they don't seem too interested in my little jar of nectar and I'm wondering how I can get their attention. This is what they usually come into the garden for, Salmon berry flowers. Maybe I should move the feeder closer to some of the flowers until they figure it out. if anyoone out there is a hummingbird expert please feel free to give me some hints.

And finally some photos from this morning in the garden, I did see a humming bird but he didn't go near my feeder and he was way to quick for me to catch with the camera. Little blighter! Maybe next time.




Cheeky!

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sophie - You could try Isobel straight on the loo with one of those special seats that fit over it. My son would never use the pot but as soon as I got the seat to go on the loo he got the idea. Send me your email address Neil, as the one I won't work anymore.

EMAIL ADDRESSES


ralstne@gmail.com