School hols - the Farm

We had the opportunity to go to the farm for a few days this week and it was fabulous as always.

I haven't been there in the middle of winter like this before, though the kids and I spent nearly two weeks there at the END of winter back in 2011.

The fog/mist seemed to roll in off the river late in the afternoon, then in the morning we were completely surrounded.

This lasted for hours, I am not actually sure if it was fog/mist/low cloud or a combo effect. It didn't lift until mid-afternoon most days and sometimes it hadn't cleared completely by the time night fell again.

But that didn't stop us, we went for walks in the fog, looking at all the details that we could see...

and more walks when the fog did eventually lift.

We met the latest resident of the farmhouse and had a fine time as usual. Lots of crafting, playing monopoly, doing jigsaw puzzles and playing tiggy in and out of the many doors in the homestead.

Back to Melbourne now and our house is not nearly so well heated as the Farm.....!

School hols over and back to the routine

Life has been a bit off-kilter here because my dear hubby was away for a month....yes, a month!....including the two weeks of school holidays. Ai yi yi! 

We survived, obviously.

The school hols we spent at The Farm which was just fabulous, joined at different times by one of my sisters and one of my brothers. The boys were in heaven, and so was I most of the time. 

Photographing a squashed-on-the-road snake.
No photos of the live brown snakes we saw though.

Feeding the farm dogs.

The helmets were so cool, they wore them everywhere the first few days.

About to go on a platypus hunt. 

Unsuccessful as it turns out, two loud little boys don't help, I'm sure.

Glorious view in the morning as the fog lifts.

The stillness and blissful quiet was broken from time to time, by some very, uh, tuneful singing. And loud keyboard. Turn up the echo on the karaoke machine and I'm sure every sheep and every cow in every bl**dy paddock could hear us.

Er, I mean them. Well, mostly them.

More morning views.

Loads of mud around after the storm that apparently just about drowned Melbourne.
Ah, the bliss of living on a great big hill.

Here is the aforementioned rain.

These were inspired by Mr 6 seeing three baby rabbits out the bathroom windows one morning.

And this set Mr 6 into "Can I have a pet, pleeeeeease?' mode.
(There may some bantams coming for Christmas if I can find some young ones, shhh.)

The view again. Yawning yet?

Lots of art happened.

A true picasso, that green smear is the dead snake from the first photo.

'The bog' as the boys called it. An overfull stream in reality.

Bullseye!

Hanging out in the Goulburn River.

Yep, a great time was had by all.

Mr 6 is now back at school, hubby is home and life has regained some semblance of normality.

Yay!

Well hello 2011......finally. And........baby news!

Thank you to those who have been enquiring both here and behind the scenes whether I am in fact still alive....

Blogging has been on the backburner for a while now as life has felt just too darn busy, partly due to the fact that we're unexpectedly expecting baby number three.

Yup, number three.

Make that BOY number three.

Eeeek!!

So I'm trying to enjoy the quiet life, or what passes for that in our house, until August when the game is ON.

Recently, the quiet life has included....

A stay at the farm, the farm being the weekend retreat from the mansion.

Yup, terrible hardship that one.

This is the view from one angle...

And from another...

The boys did some of this...

And plenty of this...

A wee spot of this...

A little bit of this....

(that's not me in case you're wondering, that's one of the farm managers)

Had a try out with the machinery....

(Thanks to the other farm manager)

Investigated the tea plantation...

And generally had a fabulously good time inside the homestead as well as out...

Then there was start of prep for Mr 5....

The start of pre school for Mr 3.

Still settling in to this one.

Mr 3's birthday.

Turning 3, obviously.

We are now undertaking a re organisation of the inside of our house and garage, rearranging things to fit in an extra person, albeit, a rather small person.

Not sure if this is just an issue if you have boys, but sports equipment seems to breed in our garage and our seemingly huge collection of footballs, soccer balls, basketballs, tennis balls, golf clubs, cricket bats, t-ball bats, badminton rackets, tennis rackets, scooters, bikes and skateboards has taken over the garage to the point where it's difficult to find a safe path to the rear garage door.

Not to mention mine and hubby's snowboards, from the days when we were footloose and child free....

So, to free up space in what will be the baby's dresser, I need to get Mr 3's clothes out of there and into the wardrobe in his room, where he is with Mr 5.

Which means some of the things in that wardrobe need to be moved to storage in the garage.

Which means the garage needs some major organisation to be able to take aforementioned things AND have anyone find them ever again if needed.

So, guess what we'll be doing over Easter weekend?

Yup, organising the garage and working backwards from there.

Update on this long neglected, half-written post:

We DID organise the place over Easter.

Mr 3 started pre-school, hated it and has since stopped going.

Mr 5 is now Mr 6 and we're gearing up for a birthday party this weekend.

Ok, hopefully more regular blogging will happen from now on.

Life continues!