Tuesday 24 April 2012

Happy birthday, grandma Rosemary!

Today is grandma Rosemary's birthday. Since she is travelling somewhere in Western Australia at the moment, we don't have an address to send some good chocolates to her. Instead we are sending our hugs and kisses via the blog.

Postcard from WA

The girls got a postcard from her to their birthday with pictures of beautiful beaches and lounging kangaroos! It looks beyond beautiful in Western Australia!

Happy birthday grandma Rosemary!

Sunday 22 April 2012

Funky the Monkey

This morning we got up early - we had a morning date with Susan and Jessica - Girls day out! We were going to see our favourite person from Playschool: Jay! He is touring a special show around Australia, and today he was in Adelaide. We were going to see Jay's Place.

He introduced us to Funky the Monkey...


...and lots of other cools stuff. It is safe to say that both the big and the little girls enjoyed Jay's show today:)


And his cd has been rolling non-stop - lucky he's got some catchy tunes going on. The girls have gone to bed now....accompanied by Float Away...



Good night, everyone!



G'day Bodil!

My regular coffee shop is Gloria Jean's Coffees, and every time I stop by, I hear from the counter: 

'G'day, BODIL, how are you today? The regular Iced Mocha?'

I know, my name is not Bodil, that's my mum. And it all started way back. I missed her so much, that one day upon ordering my coffee (they always ask what's the name for the order) I said: 'Bodil'. And they said: 'Beaudill?', and I replied 'yep, that's it'. Since then they have remembered my name, and every time I get a coffee they greet me by that name. It's been a few years now, and it's too late to backpedal and change it. Particularly since last year when they issued new frequent sipper's cards, mine came as 'Bodil', and now I find it quite nice actually. I get to see my mum's name on my coffee every day!


Date night

Yesterday we attended the beautiful wedding of friends; lovely ceremony, great food and fun music!

Here we are. Just us. No kids. Just us and gorgeous wine:)


Sunday 15 April 2012

The Spider Wasp and the Huntsman Spider

Yesterday at the girls birthday party, me and Daisy was tidying up in the garden when we saw something quite creepy! A large insect, looked to be about 5cm long, black as the night with two fluorescent orange stripes horizontally across its back. The insect in itself was not the incredible part, but it was 'reversing', pulling a huge Huntsman spider across the lawn! The Huntsman was much bigger than the insect, but it seemed to have no trouble at all pulling all that weight!

After googling today and comparing photos, I found out that it was a Spider Wasp. Apparently they are a common sight in Australian backyards during summer, although I have never seen one before. They often attack spiders which are bigger than themselves, and then they drag them along the ground back to their nest, after they have paralysed, but not killed the spider. Here is a photo of a wasp dragging the spider across the grass...


...and even across the neighbours fence!


Listen to this! The female wasp stings the spider to paralyse it and then drags it into her burrow where she lays an egg on it! When the larvae hatches, it starts to eat the still living spider! According to Australianmuseum.net.au it looks something like this:



Holy macaroni...all the things we have in our garden...!!!



Finally...the birthday party!!!

Elliot said on her birthday (which was on Monday): 'Tell me mamma, how come there are no kids here???' 

Well, finally...the day we have been waiting for was here! Elliot and Agnes' 4th birthday party happened yesterday. And a big success it was! Lots of cake, lots of kids and lots of fun!

The day before we made all the cakes. Two birthday cakes for the two birthday princesses, cupcakes and lots of other goodies.

Decorating the birthday cakes
We made 'fairy bread' - loff med smoer og stroe paa - white bread with butter and hundreds and thousands. Of course cut out in number 4's!

Fairy-bread Agnes

Elliot so happy!
Here is all the girls of the house waiting for the guests to arrive. We are having a taste of all the goodies...mmmm! 


Mamma and her two birthday girls!
My little Elliot is 4 now!
My little Agnes is now 4!
Mwahh!
My Milla!
Each year the girls get to choose which birthday cake they want, and this year they chose a princess and a princess castle. If you look closely, you can see some little finger marks in the icing.... Just a little taste....mmmmm. Both birthday cakes were dark chocolate mud cakes! Yum!

Princess castle for Agnes and Elliot
...and here is the princess

No birthday party without cupcakes!
Milla is ready for the guests to arrive
All the girls are very much fascinated by the fairytale 'Tangled' about princess Rapunzel with the long hair. For the party we had arranged a treasure hunt where we were looking for Rapunzel in the tower. There were stations we had to complete along the way.

We are going on a treasure hunt
to find Rapunzel in the tower
first we work through stations
to give us superpower

Ok, so the rhyming isn't the best, hahahaha, but it made the mystery we needed to surround our treasure hunt:)
Our station 1 was crowns and wands.

Little princes and princesses
must have wands and crowns
here is glitter, glue and jewels
to be stuck around

At the crafts table making beautiful crowns... 
...lots of glitter and jewels... 
...perfect crowns!
Station two is freezing cold
grab the hammer and take hold
smash the ice and see what you find
gumball machines could be in mind 

We had frozen two gum ball machines in a bucket of water, and the kids had to smash the ice open
 Station 3 was silly-string in spray cans

Now it's time to b e a little clown
hop around and spray each other down
silly string is fun
spray all colours in the sun


Then the kids were off on a fishing adventure. Gregg had made rods out of sticks, and we had prizes in a little 'pond' that they could fish for. At the end of the fishing rods we had attached string with a paper-clip bent open for 'hooks'. And on the prices we had taped paper-clips for something to grab a hold of.

Use your rod to catch a gift
today there is no real fish
take turns and see what bites

Very excited as they found the fishing station...what is under there?
Everyone fishing away
Milla is enjoying the treasure hunt
Now, where is Rapunzel in the tower....??? Whilst we were all looking for clues, pappa and Samba were getting ready in the 'tower' of the cubby house.

Time to get the wig on.... 
Little Bella is very excited about Rapunzel!
...lots of treats, but the wig is on...
Even flashing a beautiful smile!
The kids have solved the clues and are heading to the tower to free Rapunzel... 


...we found Rapunzel!!! Bwahahahaha, everyone got a good laugh!!! The kids loved our Rapunzel!




At last they followed a special string.....round and round the garden....up and down....and around a corner.... FOUND THE TREASURE!!! Lots of goodies!

Mmmmm, lots of goodies!
Mamma trying on Milla's beautiful crown and wand 

Time for cake now! Lots of candles to blow out!! 4 for Agnes and 4 for Elliot...




....did it! And made a wish!


Cake for everyone! Happy birthday Agnes and Elliot!!!


This morning all the girls were up early to play with all the beautiful presents they got! Yipppiiiii! Here they are holding the lovely birthday cards they got from Grandma - a 3D card of a princess castle! 




The girls got so many beautiful presents! Thank you so much for coming to our party everyone, and thank you so much for all the lovely presents!!!

Monday 9 April 2012

Sunflowers

Birthday activity this year: 'can we plant in the garden, mamma??'

Sunflower girls
Ok, so we did. Pappa went and got some seeds for us. We had Sunflower seeds, Coriander and Parsley seeds. And we each had one pot to plant.


First some soil...


...then make a hole and put the seeds in there...



....must have labels so we can check whose flowers are sprouting...


...and watering every day...





...even pappas Tiger Chilli-plant we got him at the farmers market got a re-potting and some new soil. All set. Now just to wait for them to blossom!