A pumpkin! Or it’s probably actually a squash!
I love autumn, and pumpkins are so very autumn. The best ones are those that come up by accident, out of garden compost… this one is in the soon to be garlic bed. If there’s room.
Ramona’s pretty excited too.
Isobel and Iris.
I’ve been helping my mum sort out some of the family stuff that’s been with us (her) for years and years, there have been a few fabulous discoveries. Like this one, my dad sleeping a drawing by my nana, he must have been about 3 or 4, I gather. Boxes of her work was not recovered before the Big Family Fall Out, my granddad, still alive somewhere apparently disposed of heaps of old family stuff, sad really, in some ways these fragments help connect me to my dad, telling me more of his story.
Lots more of nana’s illustrations, I’m going to have to commit some time scanning them along with many old photos.
This vintage yoyo blanket has been in my family as long as I can remember, and it was made by a friend of my nana’s.
This is the size of a lap blanket, and covered a rather large dolls bed that was at nana’s and then our house. I enjoyed the different textures of the fabric used for the blanket, especially the metallic sparkly pieces! This is a photo of the reverse…
And front and back together.
We’re pretty lucky here, we live just 5 minutes drive from a beach, it’s a city harbour beach, and it’s one of our favourite places to go after dinner to see the sun go down. We had some heavy cloudy days last week, with thunder and showers. It all makes for a moody looking harbour.
Besides watching the gulls, Luna set-to and immediately began collecting wood to build a fire. She had a good plan, the wood was accompanied by some green sea weed, there had been a bit of a wash up of wood and weed after the storms.
And a couple of spare crab nippers.
I’m so very grateful to live so close to a beach, and that we have the time and space in our lives to go there and just wander it. Or build fires and huge sandcastles. This kind of play opens up converstaions too, we are all learning the names of more shells, about ecology, and have talked about collecting wood for our fire before winter comes, what you need to build a fire…
This is one of my favourite times of the day, I love the beach, and there’s something healing about watching the sunset.
I have been reading here and there about the benefits of keeping toys to a minimum, choosing toys that are simple, and keeping play fairly unstructured. I’ve never really liked single use toys, or educational toys (that sing the alphabet, count to ten or whatever..) so things have kind of just worked that way with us, though we have been gifted so many toys, I try and limit the plastic, and gendered toys (Disney Princesses and the like) we have made some of our own toys, and picked up some good old second hand blocks and so on over time. Though, I do still feel there is too much, and I think there probably will always be.
And the books… don’t even start! But that is another story, and don’t mention my toys…
When you have a small person that occassionlly rises before six am, you get to see some beautiful sunrises.
Today was no exception, though I was outside Auckland and could take in a sea view of sun up.
With coffee.
I know it’s obvious, but sea stars are some of my favourite animals.
So while Luna was after as many green lipped mussels she could cram into her hat, I was oooh-ing and aaaah-ing about some stunning sea stars.
Look how many they are? They were just amazing, lots of little (and *cough* big) getting up close with these babies. Each was unique, their colours so varied. They felt like jeweled reptiles to touch, and I remembered what a deadly predator they are, exuding their stomachs onto their victim, then slowly digesting them… I’m glad I’m not a mollusc.
This one was mauve!
So many, oozing and squeezing into the rocks.
Really, there is so much to explore and see at the beach. A good day at Piha is completely exhausting for us all, clean water and life in and around the rocks.
A bit too wild for swimming in the sea for the little ones, though we found a perfect tidal pool, complete with tiny fish.
Luna is really keen on green lipped mussels just now, and she was bagging any she could find. After a converstation about only taking empties with us, and remembering that there was an animal inside the shells, we reduced the risk of finding smelly shells in the back yard.
And limpets! Luna found these ones.
Beautiful day.
Watching the waves.
Sand and space.
The girls have been hanging out with me in the sewing room for a few days, between outings of course.
Iris and Ramona next to Nana Shirley.
Ramona is such a summer girl!
Audrey, by the tin of needles… and Isobel, happy as always.
It’s the creek! Says Luna.
We like simple toys here, and it’s not original, but we had a few logs lying around in the back yard after taking out some undesirable trees (so these babies are not made from lovely friendly willow or anything..) and we had had a few rainy days, so I suggested we make some new toys…
Simple is definitely best for kids to really play. We just cut the logs in short lengths, maybe between 20 -80 mm, Rob cut a few ‘half’ logs. These are great for making trucks!
Old Austin was not that keen on it all, I pulled out some stones, and the pine cones.
I also enjoyed setting up some imaginary worlds…
I pulled out the felt pieces, which are often land or water for plastic animals…
Good fun!
Look! I have company, well, the quiet, just-standing-behind-you-here-while-you-sew kind of company!
I’ve been dreaming of having a dress form to work with now I’m making all these dresses, so I’m very excited, just need some time together and to pad her out a bit, sizing-wise she’s close but a bit skinny, probably on account of not having any children, heh.
