It was Halloween yesterday, as we discovered when the kids from the neighbourhood turned up demanding sweets. Sara borrowed a costume from Tyller and they went around a few houses with Margaret in the evening. Judging from the way Sara was behaving last night, she had far too many brightly coloured sweets.

The boy next door did a few things in our garden yesterday and Richard is livid. He is not allowed back for a while....

For the last few weeks, Sara and I have been very busy collecting snails in the garden to feed the ducks at Andrea's. Since Sara is not due back there until next Wednsday, we really shouldn't start looking until the day before, but we can't help ourselves. If we are in the garden, we look and we find them everywhere. We caught so many yesterday and today, we had to make a special delivery to Andrea this morning. We got so many snails!

Sara is very interested in my kitchen activities. She really likes to get involved and do everything now.

She does have "cooking mad" genes from the both sides of her parents.

Yesterday, I looked after Elly for 6 hours.

Compared to Sara, looking after Elly is like a walk in the park.

She had her milk, slept for two hours, woke up smiling, had some food, and played by herself quietly for the next three hours.

Pete picked Mia and Sara up from preschool, brought them home and picked Elly up and went home. Looking after Sara until Richard came home for the next 4 hours were far more challenging. Dear feisty thing that she is....

It's cold and wet. But hopefully, it is the last cold day of this year.

I am looking after Elly today, Lisette's one year old baby.
She arrived at 9am and had her milk, went to sleep at 10am. With luck, she'll sleep a bit longer.

I don't recall Sara being this easy as a one year old....

Richard spent the weekend building new stands for the green house. He got some free timber he found at our local primary school which he carried back to our house.
He then went to the local community garden meeting for two hours in the afternoon. He has been very busy of late.

It started to rain yesterday at midday just as we were getting ready to go and have a look at Foodbeat festival. Sara was going demented from being stuck at home all day. We finally made it out of the house about 4pm. Sara had some vegan sweets and was not impressed. We were there just for half an hour and that was our outing for the day. It's still raining heavily now. I decided not to take Sara to the playgroup this morning. Instead Lisette will bring the girls over for a little play. At lunch time, Megan should be dropping by for a coule of hours....

The traffic around Lawson is getting worse. There is almost always a bumper to bumper jam on the main road. Please RTA, do something!

I took Sara to ballet yesterday after preschool. Since Lisette couldn't come and I forgot to take a book, I went inside to have a look at the class. It seems that Sara is finally getting it. She does make an attempt to imitate Miss Anthea. She may not be co-ordinated, but she does still love to go, so I guess I will continue to take her as long as she loves it. The traffic coming out of the street where the ballet class is always a problem, however.
Eventually RTA will widen that stretch of road to dual lanes each way. Hopefully, they will create a right turn bay at the very least.

It's Sara's day at home with mum today. We drove down to Emu Plains for some grocery and spent a little time in the garden. It's quite hot today. Richard will be late home as he is having a couple of beers after work.

This dress was sent (I think) by my sister in Japan. It was finally warm enough for Sara to wear it yesterday.

She LOVES it.

Sara has been watching me as I salute the sun (yoga).

We were invited by Jonathan and Xue Yi to have lunch with them at a Chinese restaurant in Katoomba yesterday as they were joined by my old friend Ann from Sydney whom they both knew through Xue Yi's work.

You see, it was Xue Yi's first exhibition in Australia for her caligraphy and Ann was going to open the exhibition as she is a senior co-ordinator of Asian arts at the Art Gallery of NSW.

After a lovely lunch, we went to the gallery for the opening. The place was jam packed.
After the speaches, Jonathan played a Chinese bamboo flute. He was amazing. Apparently he was a professional musician who toured with a famous Chinese (traditional) music group. He also happens to be a Qi kung master and a gifted acupuncturist as Steffi would attest.

Ann and her partner Poul dropped in to see our house on their way back to Sydney in the late afternoon as well. A busy, social and a happy day.

Today, Sara and I stayed at home all day, just the two of us.
We caught lots of snails in the garden, destined to be eaten by ducks in Wentworth Falls Lake. Apart from that, it has been a challenging day, but at least it is the last day of the school holidays and things will be back to normal from next week.

Today, I took Sara to a Japanese playgroup in Blackheath.
We can only attend during school holidays as it is on when Sara is at preschool usually.
Sara can now fully recognise the fact that Japanese and English are two different languages. All the other children there can understand Japanese quite well except for Sara. It is still good for her to mingle with them.

Andrea had an opening today, so Sara spent the day at the family daycare. Lucky!

It has been very windy and cold up here and it is always surprising to drive down the mountain a little to find that it is much warmer down there. At Winmallee shopping centre, it was positively warm.

Instead of a word "with" Sara has a tendency to say "like".

Would you like to have a bath like me?

Instead of

Would you like to have a bath with me?

Everyday for the last three months, I have been correcting her, but she just can't get it right.

It's cold. Richard took Sara to Blackheath market this morning. I just couldn't get myself motivated to go as it was raining and I suspected that the vegetable seedling stall wasn't going to be ther ein the rain.

Here is another photo from yesterday.

We had a busy Saturday. We went to the Leura festival this morning and went to see Debbie at Maternity Fete in Lawson. Debbie had a stall for her maternity yoga and was promoting her book.

While she was busy, Andrew, her husband and Torsten came over to have lunch with us.
Later, we went back to the Fete and the kids had their face painted. Sara was a puppy dog and Torsten was a cat.

Very cold today.
No outing, no playdates, just another day at home for mum and Sara on a school holidays thursday. We've coloured in, we've read books, we've made Nontan biscuits, we've gardened. Thank goodness the three o'clock arrived at long last so that TV can be switched on. Richard left a message saying he is having a beer with someone after work. Brilliant.


This photo was sent to me today from a birthday party Sara and I attended 4 weeks ago.

Cute, huh?

I entertained Sara at home till about 2pm, then we went shopping in Emu Plains. Sara was in a very chirpy and happy mood all day until we got home. Then suddenly, she started to complain of an ear ache. It was already about 5pm then. It got progressively worse over the next few hours with Sara screaming on my lap. Around 8.30pm, Richard got home. The earache was keeping Sara awake until about 10.15pm. We had a rough night with Sara screaming frequently.

It was a very long day for me.


This morning. She was fine. She told me confidently that she was better and that her ear didn't hurt anymore and that she didn't need to go to the doctor and that she can go to Andrea's.

She is at Andrea's.

Another rainy day. It's public holiday today, but Richard had to go into the office briefly to do a report. Two hours to get there, three hours there, two hours to get back.

Sara and I have been stuck at home all day. I was mighty releaved when the magic 3pm finally came so that Sara could watch TV. Richard walked in just as she began to watch it.



Trust Sara to enlist a boy she has never met before to push her on the swing.

with Torsten on Friday.

It's still raining.  Good for the garden.

The day light saving has began as of this morning. 
We drove to Katoomba this morning as Richard promised to buy Sara a new skipping rope. 
We got a BBQ chicken from COles and a loaf of sourdough from Hominy for lunch.
Interestingly, Sara, who does not like to eat the crust of sandwitches, quite happily munch on the tough sourdough crust, provided it is torn by hand and given to her in the car.

Yesterday, we went to visit Debbie's new baby Umi-chan.  Umi means the ocean in Japanese.
Debbie cooked us lunch which is amazing since she only gave birth two and a half weeks ago.  She had a home birth with a small pool set up in her lounge room.  Her midwife didn't make it to the birth, so Debbie gave birth with a help of her husband Andrew.  The midwife made it in time for the placenta. 

It is more expensive to give birth at home this way as they won't get any of it back from medicare, but I'm sure the experience is worth it. 

Today I took Sara to Otto's birthday party.  It was held at Otto's house as it was raining.  Sara had a wonderful time.  It was OK for me.

We have heard from Steffi and Keith that they have arrived home safely.
It is such a long way to travel.

It got quite warm this afternoon. I was wearing my wool turtle neck jumper as usual, but I seriously regretted it as I went to pick Sara up from preschool and took her to her ballet class.

School holidays start next week. No preschool, no play group and no ballet for two weeks.



double click on the image to enlarge the picture.