A Hunger for Haircuts

The Hatchlings had their hair cut last week. They were so well behaved that I thought maybe the real Hatchlings had been abducted and replaced with 'Kidbots', whose super-powers include calmness and serenity. It was THAT spooky!

Hair cuts are clearly quite taxing on their stomachs though. The moment we arrived home I was faced with a feeding frenzy!

Look at that beautifully snipped, combed and blowdried hair!

Check out that rather disconcerting yellow/green bruise on Hatchling No.2's forehead. That's what happens when you trip and headbut your brother's bed. The bump that emerged from his forehead was truly sickening, poor baby.

The only thing that could make him feel better after the whole headbut thing - an Australian flag tattoo. Of course!

Hatchling No.1 is currently going for the Edward Cullen look. In fact, since completing the 'Twilight' series, his Aunt Pattie insists on always calling him Edward.

Edward Cullen, aged 4.

Hatchling No.1 may need to work on Edward's cool demeanour. I don't recall big cheesy grins being Edward's thing...

And maybe overcome his passion for Lightning McQueen. I don't recall Edward wearing any 'Cars' t-shirts in the movie.

Cute haircuts though. It's amazing what can be achieved if one will simply sit still and let the hairdresser do their thing!

And thank heavens feeding frenzies of this scale only happen occasionally!!

Jen x

Hairstyles - the long and the short

Here is a picture of me and my sister in law, sitting on our father in law's lap. The photo was taken at the party held in the UK to celebrate Union Jack and I getting engaged and skipping the country. The party was fantastic, the 70's funk band were spectacular and by golly my hair was LONG!!!

I have been trying to grow my hair a bit longer recently, but this photo has spurred me on. I think I want long hair again!

However....
The followng (very blurry) photo was taken at a work break-up party last March. In some kooky transcendental fashion, the blurriness of this image matched exactly with how blurry everything was looking to me at the time, due mainly to the consumption of LOTS of beer.

The activities that followed this photo session included a marathon session at a Melbourne karaoke bar, Glen Campbell's Rhinestone Cowboy, and waaaay too many cosmopolitans. But I digress...

The point is that in this photo my hair was SHORT. And BLONDE! Seeing this photo makes me want to chop off all of my hair and colour it immediately!!

Now I am torn. Long and dark? Short and blonde?

Help!!

Jen x

Black Saturday - 365 days + 1

I couldn't write this post yesterday - it felt weird. Some say we were only 12 minutes away from fire if the wind hadn't changed when it did on February 7th last year... I don't know. But sitting in my home surrounded by family yesterday, I felt so lucky.

25km meant a lot this time last year.

I am humbled by these pictures - tears sting my eyes every time I look at them. Those brave, brave people...

God bless those brave, brave people...

Phoenix rising

According to our friends at Wikipedia, a phoenix is a mythical bird with a colorful plumage and a tail of gold and scarlet (or purple, blue, and green according to some legends).

It has a 500 to 1000 year life-cycle, near the end of which it builds itself a nest of twigs that then ignites; both nest and bird burn fiercely and are reduced to ashes, from which a new, young phoenix or phoenix egg arises, reborn anew to live again.

The new phoenix is destined to live as long as its old self. In some stories, the new phoenix embalms the ashes of its old self in an egg made of myrrh and deposits it in the Egyptian city of Heliopolis (sun city in Greek).

It is said that the bird's cry is that of a beautiful song.

In very few stories they are able to change into humans.

Whatever!
This is my mum's new puppy, and her name is Phoenix. She is warm, her fur is like velvet and she has a lot of spare wrinkly skin to grow into...

Have you ever seen a forehead as delightful as this?

She wees on the floor sometimes, otherwise I might have to steal her.

Jen x

Camping along the Goulburn River

As I mentioned in a previous post - Union Jack, The Hatchlings and I planned a camping trip for our summer holidays. Well, we've been, we've camped, we've conquered the wild outdoors of Acheron... and it was FANTASTIC!!

This is what our campsite looked like:

And when I sat outside on my ever-so-comfortable camping chair with a hot cup of tea in the morning - this is what I saw:

The Hatchlings enjoyed staring out at the beautiful vista too. Here they are at breakfast time, just chillin'.

When The Hatchlings weren't chillin', they were particularly keen on strolling down to the water's edge and launching as many stones as they could lay their hands on into the river. It might be genetic - I like throwing stones into the river too!

Every morning, usually between 10.30 and 12.00 we took to the tennis court with our lovely friends who were camping with us. No, change that - really we were camping with them. It was their camping trip - we just decided to gate crash!

Hatchling No.1 was more interested in the post tennis swim than the tennis itself. He lolled about under the shade of a beautiful gum tree while we sweated it out.

And the experience wouldn't have been complete without cricket...

Hatchling No.2's fielding ability was compromised only by his love of wearing his hat down LOW.

Hey! Who snuck in a photo of me? I'm the one who is found BEHIND the camera, remember?!

We were both caught at a weak moment - I facing the wrong end of the camera, Hatchling No.2 with his hat flipped up...

In the evening we had a campfire (of course!). Huh, who would have thought a group of little boys would be interested in a bucket full of cold ashes, and soot, and dust, and black stuff??

It's a mystery to me - you know, being a girl and everything...

It's official, we love camping. I don't know when the next camping adventure will be, but I hope it isn't too long to wait!

Jen xx

All in the name of h2o

See these faces?

They're the faces of two little Hatchlings who knew that two BIG water tanks were about to be delivered.

The Hatchlings also knew they'd see a bunch of blokes moving them across a steep hill (rather a perilous maneovre) in order to get them into Union Jack's desired water tank location. Union Jack's face looked much the same as the Hatchlings' faces that morning.

With the smaller tank already in place, the big 10,000 litre tank was delivered to our lovely neighbour's house. Their long driveway meant the tank was closer to where it needed to be that way.

Union Jack had a few ideas he needed to share with his willing assistants:
"Errr, it needs to go over there..."

Don't try this at home kids...

The tank man scuttled into and out of the tank like the seasoned professional that he is - much to the astonishment of the Hatchlings.

How many blokes does it take to move a water tank?

The tank was off and rolling (in a controlled manner) in no time.

There is no shortage of the male of the species around our place:

• 4 big ones moving the tank,
• 6 little ones watching them move it.
  

In a remarkably uneventful few minutes, the boys had the tank right where they wanted it. With a bit of a twist and a tilt - the tank made it to its new home.

"Easy" said Outback Joe.

He's got a mischievous face, that one. I reckon we'll see a bit more of Outback Joe before long...

Jen x

1920s Chicago

Union Jack and I recently went to a Christmas party with a 1920s Chicago theme - this was the result...

I love dressing up!

Jen x