Sunday

 The gods shone upon us again at football this week with sunny, mild weather. We were at our home ground so no problem finding that!
The twins played happily under the big oak tree with their posse of footy mates - such boys!

 Thankfully this was a high as Benji dared go near climbing the tree.

 And the icing on the cake was that Xandy was awarded play of the day for his work in the ruck. He took some great marks and was in on the action. He was on such a high, the effects of minimal sleep from the night before didn't make a mark at all - all day!

Sunday funday

 Its been some time since we've had one of these. Our street festival was on and we all went out to celebrate the local community.

 Xandy dressed in his cub uniform 'fresh' from a cub sleepover, sold all his raffle tickets there so it was a good, albeit hot, day.

Fishing

Mum & Dad had the boys for the night and took them up to Buxton fishing today. It was a trout farm where apparently they supply everything and you pay for what you catch - and there is a no throw back policy.

Benji caught his and the first fish of the day

Followed by Xandy

And finally Spencer. Who was cool with the idea of fishing, but not so much with the wriggling fish on the line.

They caught 6 fish, and stopped putting bait on the line or else we would have a fridge full of fish! Everyone had a lovely day.

This is Benji's dance when he caught a fish - he caught three which is great because he has been the one obsessed with fishing, and having done it now, still is. This one came out Pure Bloke.

I cooked up the fish for dinner tonight - baked whole with sliced lemon, parsley and mint from the garden. On a bed of spinach with some chips as a sweetener for the kids. Bones a bit of an issue but it was tasty and they liked the idea of eating their catch.

Strolling in the City

After our usual luxury breakfast, we went with Grandfather strolling in the city. We did those touristy things that you don't normally do in your home town. Wandering the arcades and laneways on a Sunday is always so lovely. We enjoyed some Haigs chocolate frogs and saw Gog and Magog chime at noon.

Off to the footy

we all rugged up to brave the Melbourne weather and caught the train into Richmond to watch the football (AFL). Alexander got free tickets through Auskick and we were off to the MCG.

It was a long day as we got there a bit too early to get good seats, but all in all a good day. The twins liked the train ride the best, Xandy got into the man on man competition - as did I from a totally different perspective.....

Follow Me!

Its the theme of the school fair that we were advertising at the local festival today. Alexander was meant to be dancing at the festival but through circumstances and inclement weather (and they moved their dance forward in the schedule!!) we missed it. We got over it as he had the chance to hop under the dragon and chant follow me up and down high street.

While the weather was miserable, it wasn't too bad to be wandering the street. The local community was out and it was great to see so many people from kinder, school, basketball etc. The kids had a great time too. A lovely way to end our hectic weekend.

Adventuring

We got in the car to go off adventuring. Just off, for random drive nowhere in particular. We were headed to the 'country' as the kids keep talking about camping (in a tent too - don't know where that came from). We got to Ballarat and had a little look around there. It is certainly somewhere we plan to go back to. On our list is Sovereign Hill and Kryall Castle. Maybe we can camp in one of the caravan parks for a weekend...

Little Boxes

We headed into the city today for some family fun. We walked through the botanical gardens and around the shrine.

We caught a tram up St Kilda Road and found our own Box City. Fun and free family activity in the city. 6000 boxes reay to be stacked and unstacked to create our own box city.

Of course, Benji found the only open box and hopped right on it!

We intended to go to Brickvention - a Lego exhibition put on for one day only, but with a queue that went around a city block with an estimated 2 hour wait - we gave it a miss and quietly headed home back on the tram.

Sunday in the city

Hopetoun tearooms - we daren't go inside!

Lego Woody at Myer

Lego Buzz at Myer.

Some 40 year old men have had great fun doing this I am sure!!

We headed into the city today with no real plans. We walked across through the arcades to Flinders street and caught the free city circle tram back around. How great is Melbourne! I would really love to do this again - next time shopping and without the kids.

Craft Victoria has a downloadable podcast tour ofthe best of Flinders Lane shops, studios and galleries. I haven't had a chance to but you can download it here.

http://www.craftvuc,org,au

to market, to market, to market!

I think almost everyone selling anything crafty or groovy was out in the city today. With lovely sunshine we wanted a walk, and rather than tackling Camberwell Market again, we headed into the city. (Yes twice in one week!) First we started at the tried and true Makers Market which has moved from under the bridge at southbank to all around the art centre and is actually better for it. There was space, nice lawn for the kids to have a run and play (albeit up a sculpture) we had a lovely wander. Sadly this is the only market where we bought anything - maybe because we could actually get to the stalls but we got a cute pair of leather shoes for my baby nephew.

Then we headed up to Federation Square for the Mark It which will be held again on 28 November. This was full of laser cut stuff and a few different things than usual. The place was absolutely packed and it was really difficult (especially with the kids in tow) to get in and look at too much - so I collected cards of some of my favourites.

• The boys loved the giant hamburgers at third drawer down.


• For the musician in yuor family these notebooks are so cute at Record Attempts


• Cute brooches and necklaces by Love


• Of course I am a bit partial to the laser cut squirrels at bride&wolfe

Finally we headed down to the car park under Fed Square. This, terribly groovy, market was The Melbourne Design Market. Again this market was pumping. It was dark, the DJ was mixing and there were heaps of hip people. We only managed a quick circuit as all the boys could see was very groovy bottoms of all the people. Again I collected some cards from where I could. I didn't manage to get the one from the shuttlecock seat which I thought was brilliant.

• The funkiest bike bags and baskets - made me want to ride a bike just to have one.


• I love these little gadgets - for creating moveable photogalleries of 6x4 pictures sans frames. I just couldn't work out how many. I think I should put these on my wish list.


• Finally while not craft as much as clever design, I love this site and maybe will get to their shop in Little Lonsdale St, but that is another trip to the city!

To market- Sunday Funday

We packed the kids up in the car today and went to the Mornington Market. Its been a long time since we have been to one of their markets and were really pleasantly surprised today. We had fun walking around both the market and the the actual racecourse and we even came home with some goodies!

I got name puzzles for the twins - so rare to actually find Spencer that I had to buy it! It is a good opportunity for us to work on letters, colours and ultimately how to spell their names.

The cookie cutters are actually babushka dolls (not bowling pins like the big squirrel thought!) They are Australian made and had a huge range of different shapes -www.biskart.com.au. These are on page 5 of misc, but they have a huge range and also make to order. The others that tempted me were the transport set and the dinosaur set. The other weird looking thing that we bought is shown here in use: They are a set of eyes that slip over your fingers to make your hand into a puppet. The man who sold them to us (no idea how to contact him...) had a glove with some wool sewn to it as hair but it works just as well on your hand. One of those simple little things that if you had it in your handbag it could entertain for hours, as to does this....

Mr Moppit as he has been named. For $30 he has movable mouth and stuffed arms. The kids were getting ratty in the car on the way home - I slipped him on and started chatting and they were transfixed. They had total belief that they were actually talking to him - even though they knew it was me (no ventriliquism here folks!)

We had a calm and relaxing day wandering and collective inspiration as well as tasting and chatting. A lovely Sunday Funday!

Sunday Funday

We had a lovely day today which was very fluid. We all headed off to breakfast, and then stumbled across our local street fair. We went for a lovely walk, chatting with friends who were also out, and looking at things in the community. It was a lovely morning and nice to be out in the sunshine.

Once home the little boys went off to sleep and we started the large task of doing some jobs around home. We are trying to turn this little nook into our information centre. We now have all the books there, but also want all school notices etc.

Its been a long time since he has done any overall worthy work!!!

but he did get in and help paint our sliding door into a blackboard. This is still a work in progress but we are getting there....