life is a crayola card...

no one's ever too young to begin expressing their creative talent! so we set out to let those talents shine!

last week i put eamon in front of a blank sheet of paper with some crayons to see what he could come up with... although the results were certainly no glover prize winner, i, as his mum, was very impressed with his work as a crayola first-timer. a few random dots, lines, a little crayon licking and paper ripping for effect, and the job was done!

eamon, before you know if you'll be joining the ranks of auntie charlene and her little crayola card venture :)

anyway, the important thing was we all had fun. and i just loved the way his chubby little hands held awkwardly on to the crayons...

eamon's first drawings hang proudly in the house of course - so cute!

zucchini mad

over at our place we are all but zucchini'd out - i guess its that time of the year when home grown zucchini's are in abundance and everyone is trying to do the same thing - use them up in as many ways as possible!

the one we have here is a lighter green variety but still tastes exactly like regular zucchini. we are very sure about that.

if you have any bright ideas about what else you can do with this monster vegetable (apart from muffins, bread, quiche, fritters) i'd love it if you shared :)

all in a day's work

drop in into our house during the AM hours of the day and you will probably see this little piece of kitchen demolition occuring... not terribly good photography but i just had to share it as it happens almost everyday and i'm sure you all feel my pain :)

its the usual scenario of "just have to squeeze one more little job in before i attend to the eamon" and - too late ... crash clatter bang ... eamon has found the kitchen cupboard and is helping himself to everything in sight.

there is no doubt that the little baby is gone and the toddler is here!!

however, as we all know, toddlers have an innate ability to be extremely cute when necessary :) isn't that why our heart melts and we forget all about the disciplinary action we were planning on taking?

eamon's latest is this over-the-top cheeeeesy smile. you can't help but laugh at his silliness :)

time to catch up!

yay! finally some time to blog!

i thought it was about time i touched base again to let u all know that we are still here + ok!

mum + dad have been and gone, and life has generally returned to normal (well, as normal as it can be!) ... summer is nearly over and the nights are getting cooler (eek!)

family life is crazily busy and one week seems to merge into the next. i'm so glad we have the weekend, especially sundays, to reflect and make sense out of the craziness!

needless to say, the last few months have been nothing short of incredibly good and i hope to share some more of the memories with you soon (as time permits of course. i may have to do some bargaining with eamon).

for now i'll leave you with some pictures of the lilium plant m + d bought for me while they were here - i promised i'd take some photos so here they are - it was truly beautiful when it flowered and i was sad to see it finish! and now to figure out how to look after it so it does the same again next year! x

birthday BOY

hip hip h o o r a y!

today our eamon turns ONE!

i can hardly believe that a year has passed since little e was born!

in those early days the big 12 month milestone seemed like an eternity away - and now here we are standing (tall + very, very proud) at the doorstep of the second year of eamon's life with the memories of the first gigantic year a leaving a colourful trail behind us.

today fills me with much happy emotion - having eamon in our lives has helped us to love, laugh, and smile like we never have before. life with our little boy means so much! and we are also so excited to be able to share his day with the special people in his life (including his nan and pop!).

at the same time i'm a wee bit sentimental at how terribly fast this year has gone and how crazily fast eamon is growing into a real toddler. where has my little baby gone? i'm sure all parents can commiserate with me on that point!

"but is he walking yet?" (i hear you all asking!)
no, not interested in walking - he spends so much of his time growing teeth, talking and being cheeky he has no time left for walking practice!...and hates being encouraged to walk. a few character traits evident there! i've been enlightened to the fact that neither myself nor any of my siblings were walking at 12 months (more like 16 months!) so don't hold your breath :)

the picture at the top of this post is of the dutch banner ("hooray" in dutch) aimee sent, us all the way from holland...what a find!

on saturday we celebrated eamon's birthday with a little sailboat themed party. everything turned out just lovely (more pictures soon) and eamon was a perfect little birthday boy :)

love you lots little darling xx

love and laughter

just in case you have been wondering what we have been up to of late, here is a little (and i stress little!) glimpse of the happenings around here. i'm sure i've taken thousands of photos in the past month but they will have to wait for another day... today i'll just share a few.

mum + dad have been here for about 4 weeks now and we are absolutely loving it! they have just 2 more weeks with us before they hit the road again, caravan in tow, back to the west-side. i cannot believe how amazingly fast it has gone! we have done so much but at the same time have managed to do a bit of relaxing and chilling out as well.

we've enjoyed a beautiful christmas, a great new year's eve celebration, a weeks' holiday in the always-gorgeous coles bay and many day trips here and there - the obligatory raspberry farm, bay of fires winery (to reminice, of course), brewery tour, shopping, and the rest (you get the idea). we even managed to squeeze in a week of being sick in all of that!

the next couple of weeks have the promise of good times written all over them... we are looking forward to celebrating dad's birthday, australia day and .... wait for it ... little eamon's birthday! i can't believe my little boy is turning one! x

hooray for the raspberry farm!

christmas day cuddles with nana

mum + dad @ honeymoon bay, freycinet (don't they look cute!?)

pop giving eamon the words up on all things caravan

a very happy christmas !

just putting up a little post to wish all my followers and readers a happy and safe christmas and holiday season! what a truly special time of the year ! and what a blessing it is to be able to celebrate the birth of our Saviour !

we are looking forward to a few weeks of valuable family time now and can't wait to soak up the sun (when it eventually comes out!) and some good times with my parents who are visiting for a little while (first christmas with them in four years - wow!)

also a big t h a n k s
to all of my readers for your loyalty over the past year! you have all been reliable with your updates especially when i haven't! and it has been a great way to say in touch with you all :)

looking forward to a fun, vibrant and exciting new year :) x

(here's eamon very excited about celebrating his first christmas too!)

ribbons + brooches

in the last few weeks i have been lucky enough to have quite a few beautiful things come my way...

- i have a delightful design market and a birthday to thank for that!

the apron design market was held last month at seaport and featured the lovely wares many many trendy tasmanian crafters. the dick and dora stall was a bit hit :) i came home with this oh-so-edible ribbon and a pretty flower brooch - yay!

and then a couple of weeks later on my birthday i was spoiled with more brooches (i'm definitely not complaining!) - another dick and dora number (teapot - very me) and a gorgeous knitted brooch from christine.

anyway i can't stop looking at my lovely things :) - and now, to wear them!

birthday girl

last week our gorgeous niece alannah turned seven :)

we were there to help her celebrate of course, with a fun-filled affair complete with a flower-themed chocolate cake, tummy-friendly party food and a happy family atmosphere. one of the pressies alannah recieved was her all-time favourite game - guess who! she wasted no time getting stuck into a few games...look out uncle ben and uncle daz!

thanks for your party alan, we had a fabulous time!

almost no time to blog !

it must be THAT time of the year again - birthdays, christmas celebrations, weddings, holidays, family visits are all either happening right now or looming on the very near horizon. makes for a very busy time but still just enough time to fit in a blog post here or there.

while my dear sister is sporting adventures from around the globe, we are here in little tassie holidaying at home :) last week we celebrated mine and ben's birthday and so escaped to hobart for a couple of days to mark the occasion. some chilling out in the park, a relaxed dinner in salamanca place, a bit of a stroll around the waterfront, a gorgeous room right on the pier and a delicious breakfast (had to be eggs benedict, my fave!) at t42 the next morning all made for some terrific family time!

and as you can see, little eamon is well and truly on the move! he's been crawling for over a month, but just in the last few weeks he's really been moving faster! he can't contain he's excitement when he realises he can get exactly where he wants to go! and all in a split-second. look out parents!

yes we even saw some pirate ships casually docked at the pier. heehee...it was really just the sea shepherd and her counterparts having a breather in hobart before heading off again on another anti-whaling-ship mission.

eamon was exhausted by the end of it all and slept all the way home :)