Putty Beach Part I

Putty Beach Part II

The Browning Kid's Clan

Alex, Andrew and I met up with our families for a catch up. It was nice as we hardly ever see eachother!

Sorry Nanny and Grandad. I'm saving the good pics for your 2012 calendar. xxx

Emergency glee

 The little fiddlers had a lovely surprise the other week. Daddy was chaperoned home by an Intensive Care Paramedic. So off toddled the boys in their PJ's, so exciting!

Those lovely baby curls got the lop as I yielded to peer pressure - grrr!! I regretted it straight away and have kept them all. Yes there's one coming to you Nanny and Farmor. I'm keeping the other 10 for myself ;o)

BIG SURPRISE for you Meili Moo!

 

 SURPRISE MEILI!!!

Well, this one was a month coming.. all sorts of swallowing flies, spiders, birds, cats, dogs and cows... So sorry about that! But it was all to make you feel special.

We sent Sam and Meili off on holiday up the coast for a couple of days (mixed yha dorms FYI) to have some well needed and long awaited FUN time. They hadn't seen eachother since convention (where they met) and have been in touch ever since.

I think she's secretly really really mad at me for lying. But I'm sure she's over it by now... did he give you that awesome handmade present yet?!?!?!

We love Meili, and we love Sam. Lucas says they're in our family, no objections there!

.... except Riley tried to leave with them, figured they wouldn't notice the extra hand luggage.

 Aaaahhh!

Nice Suprises

 January was full of nice surprises. Above you can see we had nice visitors (wink wink!)

 Riley is just cute, no surprise there..

 Lucas surprised me with a rainbow drawn just for me - aaah!

 What a cutie, he was so proud, he worked hard on it.

 First crop of butter beans. I've had to pick twice a day!

 We finally got our hands on Dad's massive Roma tomatoes that had been getting riper and riper on the vine.

The little tinkers knicked off with them up the tree and scoffed away :o) Oh the joys of home and garden.

AND...

We musn't forget my rather large birthday cookie. Steve and I had some great time to ourselves. I loved buying up food etc at Ikea. We came back to normality (smashed light bulb, fish tank full of everything it shouldn't be - needed an emergency transfer of all fish and plants.... sunscreen).

Land Lubbers

From the Garden

Pancake suprise Plus

At Christmas Steve always buys me a utensil for the kitchen that I think "what the?!" and end up loving it.
This year was no different. It's bigger than it looks. It could lift an entire omelette, pizza or cake.

 I used it to make the kids some super-sized American pancakes (I totally kicked butt with the recipe)

 

What's the surprise you ask?  Well, after cooking and flipping the first side of the first pancake, something smelt odd.

Riley was up on the counter watching... I smelt him. Nope. I smelt me. Nope. I smelt the spatula and said, "oooh, this smells a bit odd" and Riley replied, "I wee on it"

(me) "urgh! .... You WEEED on it?!"

(Riley) "Yeth"

(me) "Did you wee on anything else?"
(Riley) "Yeth"
(me) "what?... in the drawer?"
(Riley) "Yeth"
(me) "Did you pee.. in the DRAWER!?"
(Riley) "Yeaahhh!...(big grin).... No."

So even though it's only flipped one pancake (which was quickly binned) before being scrubbed in hot water, it was a good flip. Then off I went to smell the rest of the drawer's contents, just to check.

PLUS

Here's Steve's birthday Pavlova to go with an almost surprise birthday BBQ. Happy Birthday Sweetheart!

 

 PLUS Lucas' ouchie. The poor little kid stubbed his toe and his whole foot was swollen for a good couple of days. He's fine now.

 

And finally... 

A late Christmas card from a friend. Looks pretty standard right? That is until you look at the back and realise who painted it...

 

.. and how.

 What a lovely cause to support. Thanks Sarah.