Ella is one

Ella's first birthday celebration yesterday included all the elements necessary for a successful party. A gorgeous birthday girl, great setting, party goers from all age groups, and all excited about sharing the fun, great food, champagne and thrilling present openings. The exciting announcement by Erin of her wedding date for next year (April) added to the drama.

Ella loved all her new designer head gear which looked a treat with her first grown up girl's Oobi dress from Ros & Pete at Sandy Beach.

It would not have been the thrilling party it was without A. & O. who contributed age and experience to the present unwrapping, a running commentary on all proceedings and appreciative consumption of the great birthday cakes on offer after our brunch. Little A. did a couple of renditions of his famous version of Frere Jacques with Papa.


After everyone had gone home Ella changed into her new birthday tracksuit (thank you Maxie) and "kicked back" for a while on the couch with fluffy dog.

The Tolo shape sorter was a favourite on the day, especially when it showed potential to be designer headgear too.

Happy first birthday Ella!

Winter wardrobe

We had an early taste of winter this weekend; maximum of 12oC today, perfect for a visit to the Kingston Bus Depot markets (which we did this morning) and tea and home made pumpkin scones (which we did this afternoon).

Granny Bobbie arrived yesterday, bringing with her a whole new wardrobe of handknits for Miss E. She enjoyed the unpacking and trying things on just as much as the older women in the family do

It was terrible exciting to have a new handbag, a great place to store books and your favourite dummy.

It's great to have new hat to wear when you're checking out the lemon tree.

Duelling Canons

Rob won't be left out of our blogosphere now he has his own Canon-IXUS 970 IS. Can you pick between the IXUS and the EOS30D shots? This question is mainly for Joel L.


This afternoon we celebrated all the fabulous mothers in our Canberra family with a glass or two of bubbly, delicious finger food and some wild entertainment provided by O, A and Miss E.

Ollie took this shot with Rob's IXUS.

The car gets an outing and does several circuits with different drivers.

Miss E with her fabulous mother.

It's always more difficult to take pictures of the boys as they are always on the move. I took my chances while Ollie demolished the last of this season's crimson seedless grapes.

Ollie with his fabulous mother.

You can see Miss E's back molar coming through in this shot. No wonder she is a bit "fragile" this past week. It didn't stop her having fun this afternoon, stacking blocks (for the first time) and giving hugs to teddy.

Rob's guitars are always a big attraction. Angie loved playing the 12 bar blues riff.

Sun sea surf sand and seafood

For no other reason than to celebrate seasonal delights and time to be together, we asked chef Jane to prepare our lobster and oyster feast at Rosedale this weekend.


Main course was fresh local lobster (caught yesterday) with skordalia and mixed dressed green leaves, braised chickpeas with spinach and preserved lemons, soused eggplant and zucchini, broad bean pilaf-lebanese style and warmed organic Turkish bread. The kids were very considerate and stayed asleep while food and wine were served!

The cool conditions didn't stop the big O and little A doing some "surfing" and "diving" in the rock pools and some large scale drawing on the huge sand canvas created by low tide.

Highlights for Ella were: spending quality time with her favourite people, opportunities for some air kissing while wearing designer sunglasses

getting some sand between her toes

and in her fingers

and finding her fave Mary Janes had not disappeared down the sand hole to China.