Sorry about the Delay!

I have been trying to upload photos but Blogger has been thwarting me, so am excited to see that some have finally appeared on here! Have posted the photo-of-the-day shots from the past few days on here with their little stories. Enjoy!

Today was the day we were supposed to go on the Treasure Hunt out at Bicentennial Park. Harry has been really excited about riding her own bike all around the place and solving puzzles, etc. However once we got there Harry was distinctly *not* happy about riding her own bike (with training wheels). So we went back to the hire place to get one of those 'tag-a-long' bikes. Nope, she didn't like that either. By this stage she was really crying and so we suggested she might like to go in one of those little seats on the back of Papa's bike. Yep, that sounded like a great idea!

Unfortunately the weight limit on those seats is 18kgs. And Harry is 18kgs. Poor thing, being physically tall has been an issue every now and then but this one was a bummer, a real bummer. Mainly because the treasure hunt could really only be performed on bike because the clues were too far apart for a sad, tired, not entirely healthy 3yr old. So we had to abort the day we planned and Harry ended up crashing in the car (indication that she was still sick). A late lunch and a day at home ensued.

This was taken before all of this happened. My beautiful, tall girl.

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Mike (my father-in-law) gave me an old Canon SLR with the old leather case and everything a while ago. It is totally gorgeous. Harry has played with it before but this afternoon I thought I'd see if she wanted to play with it and hoped to get a photo.

Well there was really very little chance to take a decent shot of her. Once that thing was around her neck she was leaning over every plant in 'her' part of the vegie patch taking photos, walking up to Smellie (our cat) to take her photo "because she is SO bew-tee-feel" and generally not helping me out at all. How inconsiderate! :o)

Here I finally gave up on the close-up style shot I wanted and snapped her as she was lining up a photo of Smellie. You can see how I'm getting the LOOK for not holding my designated radius of non-interference.
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Yes, those clippers are on and yes he is really getting his hair cut by Harriet!

Today Harry wanted to be a bit more hands-on in the haircutting experience than she has in the past. See here if you're not too sure what I mean: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5_oheNoMPGxtSGMJxE0aZDJnShyYsCy9p4FJM_RQxxtL2QCy5JYfhWe6HjSbz1rWWsK27H0qGfOr-t4xdA4ELDmrr9qEwvMX7PU4Xw8NCEvqPBzQeCWgLzDU6hhS9Hw9GwAwD/s1600-h/web_hairdresser.jpg

So we let her use the clippers on Jimbo. She (unsurprisingly) did a quality job of it! She was slow and steady and even over his head. I only ended up clipping around his ears and tidying up the back because you have to take the foot off the clippers for that bit.

And yes, I think that face from Jimbo is purely for dramatic effect - don't be fooled into thinking that I'm the dramatic one in this family! ;o)

My Photo Time!

Ok, I know this is a blog for Harry but today I was so excited when I took this photo that I thought I'd put it up here for everyone to see as well (shy, retiring little thing aren't I?).

Harriet in (almost) full flight across Sydney Park. I think we'll get this one printed for the wall. Click on it to see it bigger and better.

Gardening Rocks, Dude!

Not at all the sort of photo I thought I was going to upload tonight I can tell you! I only took a couple of shots all day - it was a busy one. Today was either going to be treasure hunt at Olympic Park or Gardening Day, depending on the weather. We woke up to a grey, windy morning and decided gardening was going to be on the agenda.

So we cleared out the vegie patches that we had planted in spring, where cherry tomatoes, broadbeans, snow peas, strawberries and goodness knows what else had grown. Harry loved pulling it all out, that's for sure!

Then it was off to visit the nursery, where we bought squash, zucchini, another strawberry plant, thyme, basil, cherry tomatoes again, and lebanese cucumbers. I think that's all anyway. By the time we got back out to do the hard work (digging, mixing, aerating, you know, the usual) the sun was beating down and Harry had the rapidly appearing signs of a head cold. Poor poppet has probably had about three colds in her whole life, so it was a real shock when she started sniffling.

This photo is with the herb garden in the background that she created with Papa. Putting the sugar cane mulch on top was a big hit! I asked her if I could take her photo with her little gardening bag which holds her tools and new gloves. She was swinging it right around her body and pulled this pose.

It suits her current favourite saying, which is"I'm not just helping, I'm *doing* it dude!". Cracks us up. And of course she really WAS doing the planting, in many respects we're being made slowly redundant (which she also loves to tell me "Mama I just don't need you any more" when doing something I used to help her out with).

She's in bed now dosed up on some Brauer's Cold Relief. I'm on sleep duty tonight. *eep*

January Challenge

It's been SO quiet on here because I am frantically writing and photographing Harry for my Flickr challenge. We have to take one photo a day, upload it and write about it. Of course given that I only have about 2-3hrs per evening where I can do things sans Harriet, that leaves little time for blogging as well. As a result I will try to remember to re-post the Flickr photos in here as well for those of you who don't have Flickr accounts (since my stuff is friends and family on there).

This is my photo from the 10th of January:

Harriet loves to sew. Today I was sewing up one of her dolls and she decided it was time to adorn the doll's clothing with some beautiful buttons. Lucky Andi got two buttons on her pants and one on her top today.

She is so careful and precise, I've never had to worry about her poking out her eye or stepping on a needle or anything. I was thinking about getting some basic embroidery things for her to do but am not too sure if they'd be too advanced a project just now, they normally say over the age of 6 or 8yrs.

The Sydney Festival was all about getting everyone, at 5pm, to do this particular dance they called 'The Sydney'. They had some young guys demonstrating how to do it for an excited group of children and their parents. There were all of these children watching and copying the moves intently, or at least getting into the vibe of dancing generally.

Harriet of course had to thwart the general consensus. She laid all over me on the grass for most of the demonstration and then when I asked her gently if she'd like to join in she got up and watched standing up instead. Actually, as you can see, she watched for a little bit and then turned around to watch what everyone in the audience was doing instead. James thinks it is because she doesn't watch tv and so doesn't have the Hi-5 programming. :o)

And then this is what I posted today:

We regularly go to the cafe you can see in the background of the first photo. Much to my horror someone (a tv show called Guerilla Gardeners - don't know if it is on tv yet or not) had built a gazebo over the little hexagonal podium that had been there for ages. What's wrong with a gazebo you say? Well nothing. If you have a *normal* child.

My child, however, is obsessed (OBSESSED!!) with The Sound of Music. She has only watched the songs in the movie about six times now, but we have the cd in the car and she listens to the same songs over and over and over and over... We also recreate all aspects of the movie - the cuckoo song with all of her dolls, the line-up when they're introduced to Maria, the thunderstorm in My Favourite Things. I mean everything is recreated. This girl is no slouch when it comes to details.

So a gazebo to her is not just a building,. it is the epitome of excitement in recreating her favourite song from the movie. So today I was twirling (*ahem* yes, truly) with her in it, dancing and kicking out legs, and singing 16 Going On 17 at the top of our lungs inside this thing. We had some very big smiles from passers-by as well as some very interested audience members from the cafe where we'd just been sitting.

In that second photo she is just mid-song. You can see just how much love, effort and gusto is invested in each syllable. So, so funny. But I can tell you now I'm pretty tired. :o)

Ok, that's all from me. I'll try to update the blog when I update the Flickr site too. Sorry for ignoring you all!