15/7/12: Matthew had his birthday party today. It was a really nice morning, with his friends and their families coming to celebrate. Some of the children have been sick, and they were coughing away but they liked the warm house. I’m so proud of my little boy. I loved watching him beaming when we were singing ‘happy birthday.’ Monte and I have a bit of a tradition of making the birthday cake together, and we enjoyed making this cool treasure chest for Matthew. He thought it was so cool!

14/7/12: My favourite moment today was watching Ella doing cute toddler nudie runs across the family room. She had just had a bath, and was saying ‘ I want to run!’ and she ran, giggling. I loved watching her cute little form, which is losing its babyness. I loved hearing her giggle and shriek as she ran about. So cute. Cluck cluck. Anyway, I didn’t take photos of her! So my second favourite thing today was making Matthew’s birthday party cake with Monte. But I can’t post a photo of that until after his party, so my third favourite thing was that monte worked ridiculously hard outside today, shovelling mulch into the garden beds around the deck; mowing lawns; gardening; cleaning up etc.

13/7/12: one of the birthday presents that Monte gave me is a grill for the esse stove. It means that we can grill food on the hot plates, which means we have yet another method of cooking. When it’s too dark and too cold to cook on the BBQ outside, we can still enjoy delicious grilled food that is cooked indoors (not sausages though – it’s too smokey; we’ll cook them in the electric grill next time). And it’s red, so it looks nice too!

12/7/12: I am growing beans in plastic cups in my classroom. I brought home some extra beans and Georgia has been growing them in her room. They are doing really really well – much better than the ones in my classroom, which are by the window, where it gets too cold at night. Georgia’s room is consistently very warm and her beans are flourishing! This weekend she wants to plant them in her garden. I hope they survive; beans are meant to be planted in spring or autumn… I’m just glad she’s showing so much interest in gardening.

11/7/12: Well, I love this place. It is beautiful. The river continues to amaze me. Mornings are so perfectly pretty, giving promise of a good day.

10/7/12: our little boy is six! He had a great day, receiving some exciting presents and enjoying two cakes: he took one (chocolate) to school and we had an icecream cake at home. He wanted a pizza and movie night for tea, so we did that too. Elora walked around the house all afternoon singing ‘happy birthday, happy birthday’ – in tune!

9/7/12: I quite like waking up to this every day.

8/7/12: we went to the local for dinner. Our children love going out for dinner. Matthew was very chatty (probably because Georgie was being quiet), talking about how delicious is dinner was, and he was telling us all about the things he learns at school.

7/7/12: today the rendering got completed. This is amazing stuff! Plus, the first coat of the lime wash was completed, so our house went from a grey render colour to a lovely bright white! It’s so exciting!