Day 359: Christmas Eve Construction

Belinda put her Gingerbread House moulds to good use today and then with some help from Jenna constructed this awesome little Christmas treat. The end result looked like something you'd pay a lot of money for at some fancy little Christmas boutique store. I'm very lucky to have such a talented wife & daughter team.

Day 355: Green

I've been playing with Belinda's pot plants again. This time I focussed on the Basil because I liked how bright the green was. Apart from the bug eaten leaf in the top left corner of today's photo it's also looking really healthy, but that won't last long because we tend to use it faster than we can grow it.

Day 352: A Class Act

Belinda's school were performing at the Queanbeyan Theatre tonight and her class did a Dutch themed act that involved this cute little street scene followed by the Birdie Dance done to Dutch Street Organ music. The kids did a great job which is testament to all of Belinda's hard work, even more impressive were the props: Belinda spent a lot of time making the little dutch hats and clogs that all the kids wore. I also contributed to this production by supplying the kite that can be seen centre stage as any good start should.

Watching the production was interesting too, I had both Jenna and Henry with me and while Jenna can sit still for hours on end, Henry struggles. Event he iPod wore thin toward the end of the show. Apart from climbing on the seats and all over my lap like a little monkey, Henry coped pretty well with his first theatre experience. I think it would have been a bit more of a trial if  Jenna hadn't been there to help entertain him.

Day 348: Water Work

Swimming lessons again and Belinda's turn again. Sometimes Henry is more 'into it' than others and when he's having one of his not so into it days it can be tiring work.

Today Henry seemed to enjoy himself, he watched Mum swim through a hoop and then the instructor guided him through the same hoop into Mum's arms. He also got to walk on a big slab of foam that floats under the weight of a toddler running from one end to the other. This part looks like it would be fun, but Henry's still a little unsure of walking on something that moves underfoot.

Day 337: It's That Time Of Year

The Christmas Trees went up today, I helped a lot by staying out of the way. In total we had 3 trees decorated at the end of the day. Jenna looked after the 6ft one in the Lounge while Belinda supervised Henry's decoration of the small table tree and then very carefully made the 8ft tree in the family room look amazing. Unfortunately the trees will need to remain present-less until Christmas Eve because Henry seems to think all presents are his, or as he calls it "Mines". This year should be an improvement over last years when he was more interested in the paper and the boxes than the gifts inside.

Day 336: Fancy Dress Party

One of Belinda's friends had an 80's themed birthday party tonight so to make sure we looked the part I did some shopping this morning. I found the jacket I wore at St Vinnies for $10 and then went in to Target and bought Belinda's fluro top, my white shoes and the 80's style sunnies. The rest of our costumes came from our wardrobe.

The party was fun and there were some interesting takes on 80's fashion. I might be a little biased but I do think we were among the best dressed at the party. The photo tonight was taken by Jenna with my phone, she thought it was pretty funny that Belinda and I were hamming it up for the camera.

Day 322: Opa's Birthday

Happy Birthday Hans!

What a day. We spent the morning shopping and then visited David's house to see the build progress, after this we all jumped into the car and were going to go back to the Frekes' house. This would have been fine if the car would start. It wouldn't even wind over. I checked the battery, it's one of those ones with an indicator to tell you if it has charge or not, it was showing the OK reading. I started to google mobile mechanics in the area and got on to one who could be there in roughly an hour.

While we waited for the mechanic Belinda went home with her mum to retrieve their second car so we could install Henry's seat in it and get him back for some afternoon tea and out of the heat. Once that was done I waited with the car for the mechanic who spent about 20 mins poking about and looking at all the stuff I'd already looked at, in the end he did something I couldn't do and that was check the starter motor was getting power with a test light. It was and since it wasn't doing anything with the power it was receiving it meant that the starter motor had failed.

Luckily, David was still working on his house and was able to give me a lift back to the Freke's so I could get changed and we could all go out for dinner to celebrate Hans' Birthday. We only just made it, I'd spent pretty much an entire afternoon sitting in a hot car that wouldn't start waiting for a mechanic to come and tell me there was nothing that could be done.

Dinner was nice and we had cake when we got back, today's photo is of Hans, Jenna and Belinda trying to show Henry how to help blow out Hans' candles. He didn't actually blow any out, but on the positive side: he didn't spit all over the cake either.

It was a long day and tomorrow I need to work out what I'm going to do with a car that won't start... I'm pretty over the drama with this BMW.

Day 274: Dinner: Better Than Gardening

I spent today out in the garden nursing a little bit of a hangover. It was forced labour that involved a lot of pine chip shoveling and pulling a bunch of things out of the ground including two very large and very heavy posts. I didn't enjoy it, so I didn't use it for today's photo.

What I did enjoy was making and then eating dinner. As we had Belinda's parents coming down for a few days and we'd bought a roast, I was put on dinner duties. I'd also made a trip down to the supermarket for supplies so I could make a Basil, Bocconcini and Tomato salad to have as well as the baked veg. It was worth the effort and was just what the doctor ordered to help me recover from last nights frivolity.

Day 269: Expanding Capabilities

This little gem arrived in the mail today, it's a funky little adaptor that lets me us Nikon F mount lenses on my Nikon V1 camera. I'm now looking forward to actually using this with some of Belinda's lenses and might even look into buying some F mount lenses of my own.

It's quite a heavy little thing, and it's got all the contact points to bring power to the lens so it will auto focus. The local camera shops were asking a lot of money for one of these and they didn't actually carry them in stock either. By shopping online I saved close to 40% and had delivery within a week. I wonder how long it will be before retail outlets are a thing of the past?

Day 265: Travel Companion

This afternoon we headed off to Sydney to visit Belinda's family and help celebrate David's 35th birthday. Our travel was fairly peaceful and was done in one sitting, thanks largely to Belinda's iPad. Henry has an enormous attention span for the various kids apps that have been installed and they managed to keep him entertained for pretty much the full 3 hour journey.

As I was driving and also hadn't taken a photo of my own today, I've resorted to employing the services of a special guest photographer. Luckily, Belinda is quite good at taking photos, even on her iPhone, and her services were readily available.

Day 260: Every Dog Has Its Day

Today was Dog wash day, which is something we usually outsource to the local Dogworld but because the weather has been so nice over the last couple of days we decided to take care of it ourselves. Henry even helped. After watching Belinda wash and rinse Rex, Henry helped rinse Milly off by tipping jugs of water on her like Belinda had for Rex. He's a quick study.

I like this photo because it caught the water splashing off Rex's back as Belinda was pouring it on, you can also see how much Rex was enjoying it all and Henry intently taking it all in.

Day 259: Such A Nice Day Today

 

We ventured into the city today to do a spot of shopping and hang out at Glebe Park for a while, unfortunately we left the stroller at home but then fortunately we discovered that the Canberra Centre has free stroller hire... which would mean you're not really hiring. Thinking this was a great idea we filled in the forms and borrowed a stroller, unfortunately Henry didn't want to sit in it. At least it was good for carrying the shopping.

After a bit of lunch we headed over to Glebe Park, sans free stroller, where Jenna and Henry took advantage of the playground. I snapped this photo while we were there and decided to use it for today's photo, mostly because it's very much a snapshot of our family life. Henry's taken off for the highest part of the playground with no fear, Jenna's shadowing him making sure he's ok and Belinda's there watching over them both and grabbing some great photos while she's at it.

It's times like this that I feel so lucky to have such a beautiful family.

Day 254: Belinda's Been Busy

This is an amazing improvement on what our bathroom looked like yesterday. We had things piled up on the floor in front of the bath left over from when we did a big bedroom clean up a little while ago. I have to admit I didn't have much of a hand in this transformation, my input really only involved taking my stuff that had been shuffled from the bedroom into the bathroom to its final storage location out to the shed. Belinda really has been busy.

Day 253: Lanyon Laziness

After a substantial sleep in Belinda suggested we take Henry and Daphne down to Lanyon Homestead for an afternoon coffee. I hadn't been there before so didn't really now what to expect, what I found was a little cafe that opens onto a big paddock. Henry had great fun running around in all that open space while we were waiting for our coffee, which wasn't bad even if it did take a long time to make its way out to our table.

Today's photo of Henry was taken at maximum zoom with the sun behind him and I'm still getting used to which settings work best in which conditions, this one worked ok but it's a little grainy. I still wanted to use it because it's just so Henry, he was having so much fun and you can see it written all over his cheeky little face.

Day 246: Father's Day - Playing Plumber

Belinda has been telling me that the hot water system's been leaking a fair bit lately so today I finally got around to taking a look at it. I thought I'd try flushing the pressure relief valve which only resulted in spraying hot water all over my sneakers and increasing the flow of water onto the path. It was then that I decided it was time to turn the gas and water off at the heater and take a trip down to Bunnings.

A little while later I returned with a new relief valve and a roll of plumbers tape. While I was fitting the new valve Belinda thought it a photo of me doing Fatherly things on Father's Day would make a good photo. As Belinda was about to shoot, I quickly tried to pull my jeans down at the back so I could really look the part of a plumber for the photo... unfortunately my belt was too tight and I was unable to achieve the desired But Cleavage. I'm not sure when I'll get the opportunity to play plumber again, but when I do I'll be sure to wear more appropriate clothing.

Day 228: Happy Birthday Belinda!

Just a little something I whipped up this afternoon for Belinda's birthday. You know you've done a decent job when you're asked 'Did you really make that? No, really, where did you buy it?'. For the record I really did bake this cake, I even cut the strawberries, whipped the cream and dusted it with icing sugar all by myself.

It's not as good as my Nan's legendary sponges but I'm pretty proud of my effort today. I googled 'sponge cake recipes' and found quite a few but I chose this one from taste.com.au because it's called the 'Basic sponge Cake' and I figured if it's basic I should be ok. Turns out it wasn't as hard as I thought it might be and the cakes only took about 30 minutes to bake.

I loved being able to surprise Belinda with this little bit extra for her birthday, her initial disbelief made it all worthwhile but I Henry's reaction was even more priceless. When he saw the cake his eyes just about popped out of his head and he started doing his little happy jig while pointing and yelling out 'Cake!! Cake!!'.

Day 210: Happy Birthday Henry!

It's actually Henry's birthday tomorrow, but we had his party today. There were lots of present for Henry and he was really loving opening them up and playing with them all.

Today's photo is an action shot of Henry, after a few failed attempts, successfully launching his air powered rocket that was a gift from Poppy. The orange and green streak you can see below the TV is the little foam rocket shooting toward the ceiling.

Henry also received 3 different lots of Duplo, provided by Uncle Dion, the Freke Grandparents and Belinda and I. He's been loving playing with the Duplo almost as much as Jenna has.

Day 204: Brunch in the 'Berra

We headed into the Canberra Centre this morning to do a bit of shopping for Henry's Birthday but our first stop had to be breakfast... at a quarter to 11. We were both starving.

After satisfying our needs for poached eggs, hash browns, sauteed mushrooms, grilled tomato, thick toast and in my case lots of bacon we got started on the shopping. Belinda had a little spending spree in Forever New and I bought a carry bag for my camera and a funky little iPad connector thing that lets me pull photos straight from an SD Card or any camera with a USB cable. We also bought Henry some Duplo/Lego stuff with farm animals, I think he'll like it a lot. All in all it was a successful day out.

Day 202: How I've Missed You...

Belinda and I used to make a simple pasta dish with slices of fried Chorizo in it. I'm not sure why we stopped cooking this little dish but it kind of fell off the menu for a while. It wasn't until tonight that I realised how much I had missed this wonderful ingredient. I have no idea what goes into making this particular sausage and I'm sure Google could enlighten me, but life's pretty boring without a little mystery. As is usual with most sausages I assume that it's probably better not to know, regardless the humble Chorizo sausage is among my favourite proteins.

Day 200: The "Arty Farty, Had Nothing Else To Blog" Post MkIV

Not much going on today so I tried to get a little 'Arty' with my photo for the day. I think it turned out alright with the Snapseed frame. So what is it? It's Belinda's twig decorations that sit in a vase up on one of our book shelves. Pretty hey?