Catching up

 It's been quite a while between posts so I thought I'd just upload some of my favourite photos from the last few months to give a glimpse into what we've been up to. Looking back over the photos, I feel lucky to have had so many happy times with my friends and family. I guess we don't tend to photograph the bad days, do we? Nevertheless, I have been feeling the most relaxed and happy I have felt for a year or two and I am enjoying it so much. I think I have let go of a lot of my expectations of life, myself and others and am making peace with the messy, beautiful, chaos that is my reality. I even loosened up on the recent school holidays and stopped obsessing about how much TV/computer time/junk food the girls had and how untidy, and dusty the house was and taking home baked goodies along to get-togethers in the park with friends. Surprisingly, without any nagging from me, the girls still turned off the TV/computer and played outside climbing our bottlebrush tree and doing plays with their friends. The world didn't end because our house was untidy and nobody cared that I took chocolate chip cookies from Coles to the park for playdates.

The girls enjoying a ride at Movie World while Scott did some heritage work at the Gold Coast for a few days

Dress rehearsal for a planned production of Alice in Wonderland. (Can you guess which character this is? "I'm late....I'm late....for a very important date").

 I nearly burst with pride when my big girl played Dorothy in a Fame musical.(That's her in the blue gingham dress with Toto in a basket)

 I had a picnic with old friends at my old uni for my 47th birthday and the best part was watching the girls and their pals playing for hours in this enormous tree. The other best part was sitting by the lake, watching the ducks and their ducklings trot in and out of the water and chatting and eating yummy food with a handful of very precious old buddies.

 Some photos to show you what has been growing in my garden lately. How beautiful and cool is the green of this maidenhair??

 Most mornings I get up and go outside to see the morning sun on my flowers.

 Finally....some sweet peas! Is there any smell in the world more redolent of the innocence of a happy childhood?

 My newly planted little garden complete with lots of rocks to deter the Kipster from burying his bones. Fat lot of good that did!

 The kids in our street come to one of the G girl's regular free homemade lemonade stalls.

 With a special friend at Alma Park Zoo.

 Hanging out at the dog park with Kip (which we do maybe once every three months. Such slack dog owners!)

 The dog pog with a new chewy boney thing.

 My new hobby is making table runners for friends. All the fun of choosing fabric and playing with colours with a fraction of the time and money involved in sewing a quilt. I fell in love with this Kaffe Fassett fabric and am on my third table runner from three fat quarters.

 Facepainting at the Ekka

 ditto

 The girls chilling out at a friend's birthday party 

 With friends at the Medieval Fair

I've been making dolly quilts for our school fete and this one went wonky as some donated fabric wasn't 100 percent cotton. Never mind. After it was test driven by this rather surprised looking dolly, it went to a special little friend as I didn't like to sell a wonky quilt at the fete.

My beautiful Dad with some of his girls at Nudgee Beach on Mothers' Day.

I hope life is good at your place, bloggy pals.