Gareth has a few favourite teddies that he brings to bed....
Don't most, normal kids?
So what am I supposed to make of this new teddy recently added to the collection?
Yesterday was Palm Sunday. A day of reflection ahead of this weekends celebrations. The kids were involved in an outdoor re-enactment of the stations of the cross in the grounds of our church. It was scorching hot and the sun blazed down on us through the gum trees.
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Byron was invited to join in a Father/son bonding weekend. It involved a tent, two sleeping bags, mozzie spray, marshmallows and tins of beans.
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What are you doing this weekend?
This is what I was doing last weekend...
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When it was time for her to head off to class at the end you couldn't see her for dust!!! I really enjoyed this little glimpse into the life of my 12 year old. She has taken to the busy High School environment like a fish to water. I think these years are going to fly...
No this is not a post about gardening.
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It is Mother's Day in Ireland and Wales this weekend. Australian Mothers day is in another couple of months so we have to be on the ball not to forget to organise presents and cards for Granny in Dublin and Nanny in Wales. There are no Mothers Day cards in the shops here yet and no displays of "perfect gifts" strategically placed at the entrance of Target and K Mart. We have to get the creative juices flowing early enough to wrap and post a good couple of weeks ahead of time.
This year Rhiannon came up with an idea. We went to K Mart and bought a plain white hand towel. Next we drove into Newcastle to a great fabric shop and chose some nice purple flower print fabric and a contrasting lilac.
Over the following weekend we cut and tacked, pinned and ironed...
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My friend Karen is going on holiday soon.
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It seems like forever since we went on holidays to the island of Rarotonga last year. Each and every week we try to remember it in a special way.
Every Saturday morning Byron gets up and goes down to the local bakery with the kids and buys fresh croissants and pastries. While he is out I set the table with fresh melon, banana slices, pear, nuts, orange juice soaked oats mixed with vanilla yoghurt and banana chips. We sit down with juice and coffee and tuck in to our tropical breakfast that we had each and every morning on our holiday.
We may not actually be looking out over turquoise blue sea but with a bit of Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's melody "Somewhere over the rainbow" playing on the iPod we can pretend we are!
Life with a just-started-high-school kid is busy. The comfort of having all three kids at the one school has slipped away and I now need to coordinate permission notes, school fees and parents evening at two different locations. I'm treading water and slipping under a little.
Sian came home on Thursday evening with a message about a Mass she needed to attend on Friday at 6.15pm. She was carrying something at it. A cross? That's about as much as my brain retained. All I could think about was getting her to tennis lessons at 5pm on Friday. The Mass message kind of slipped to the back of my brain. Until Sian mentioned in again as she came off the tennis court Friday evening. At 6pm.
It was raining. She was soaked to the skin. We drove home, got changed in 30 seconds and left Byron, Gar and Rhiannon in the comfort of a dry house and rushed out into the rain again to drive to the High School. Except that's when Sian said it wasn't a school Mass. Well not a High School Mass. It was a local St Josephs one. My heart sank a little. If it wasn't to impress the new High School did we really need to go? The good news was that our local St Josephs is much nearer. We were driving at this point so we carried on and pulled into the half empty car park.
I couldn't help but think wistfully about the bottle of red wine on the table that I would rather be drinking.... We went inside the church to find only a small handful of people there. And only one other girl Sians age. Her friend from a year above her in school who had been the one to talk her into coming. I asked around as to what Sian was to carry?
And then I saw it. The huge World Youth day cross still laying on the roof-rack of a car outside in the rain. The cross that we had first encountered almost 3 years ago in Speers Park. The cross that brought back memories of making bracelets at Rathmines park, hosting teenage girls from Norway, seeing the Pope in Sydney. And here it was back in our small church. And Sian was going to help carry it in with other members of our parish. Drying the raindrops off the rich brown wood. Standing it into its metal stand at the front of the church. Sitting there through the the next hour of liturgy. Glad that I was there. Glad Sian had been talked into going by Claire. Glad that the bottle of wine would wait another hour.
St David's day is celebrated with gusto in our house because Byron is Welsh. Last night I made a batch of Welsh Cakes using my Mother-in-laws recipe. Always a tricky balance between the two women in his life, Byron told me they were wonderful, the best he had ever tasted and then 5 minutes later told his mum that they were good, but not a patch on hers! Luckily he was grinning at me as he said it or I might have hit him over the head with the frying pan!
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He brought a few of them into work to share this morning, complete with home-made Welsh flags the kids made with the printer and some toothpicks. Gareth brought a big Welsh flag into school for news and the teacher hung it up and asked could they keep it a little while. Gar was pretty proud as you can see!
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