outdoor inspiration

Love these miniature japanese garden sculputres found here, I would love to commission someone to do some large ones like these for our garden, carved from different woods or even sandstone.  

Love this inspirational outdoor area from heavenishere blog, would be lovely to personalise an area of our garden with certain letters.  Mmmmmm, will keep my eyes open for some extra large letters, the children would love to have their initials permanently in the ground!

Bucket Baths and Best Friends

The last week has been a challenge, with 4 children and 3 adults packed into the Hyundi IMax (the fun bus, I think not), on the road trip from Sydney to Adelaide.  Loving the buckets given to us by The Pretty Ladies back in the 'rith when the twins were born: can't explain how many uses they have had, the latest being a bathtub whilst on the road.  Boring old baths are never this much fun.
Also loving catching up with my gorgeous niece Lizey Lou, and her dog Bonnie. I love this photo of a casual "you're my best mate hug" (even better that Lizey is cuddling up to a Tacklehug product!)  Eliza is a crack up, she named her first Tacklehug Doll "Nikky" and when she was given her second, after much deep thought she named her "Nikky-kai-yay" Goodness knows where that one came from!  Now we have safely arrived back in Adelaide, glad to have survived the onslaught of locusts and a little bit sad that dad couldn't quite avoid the massive goanna that decided to catch some rays on the Sturt Highway.  Sorry Anna Goanna. RIP.
Also very happy to have made an etsy sale amidst this chaos. Batman and Robin are on their way to the United States very soon.  I will make a public promise here to do more housekeeping on my etsy site and try try try much harder to get some more products up soon.
Aaahhhh, Hello Adelaide. Nice to be here again.

My little drummer boy

Our last week in the Blue Mountains was spent madly trying to pack boxes, buy/make christmas/farewell/birthday gifts and holding our last Ticklebug/Tacklehug market stall at the Glenbrook Rotary Markets.  However, the absolute highlight of the week was being able to attend a rehearsal for the boy's Christmas Concert at pre-school.  The lovely staff included the boys for this performance as they were not able to make concert week due to our move interstate.  Sammy bought tears to my eyes as the Drummer Boy - a role which he took very seriously and Charlie shone as Joseph for the performance (very biased, I know!)  My camera doesn't seem to work too well indoors, but I love this photo of my little man, as it seems to capture the concentration it takes to keep the beat to "rumpa pum pum"