Getting up earlier? It works.

When I went to put Elsie’s lunchbox in her backpack yesterday morning, I found in there her reading diary from last year, a few sheets of colouring in with Indonesian words and phrases written on them and lots of worksheets, mostly unfinished. (No lunchbox though, thank heavens. I have taught her to do that much.)

Things went a lot smoother yesterday than they did on the first day back from holidays last year. I got up early.

Just as well; it took me all that time to find a sandwich-sized Tupperware container in the cupboard. I should have made her leave it in the backpack with the Indonesian handouts; at least I’d have known where it was.

And yes, they are socks on her feet. After seven years.

We bought new school shoes after I told her that school uniform requirements this year were black shoes and she’d no longer be able to wear her navy-wear-everywhere-including-the-races-and-cross-country-without-socks-leather-boots (despite the fact she’s worn them for two years now). I warned her that the shop assistant was going to ask her to put a pair of socks on to try on the shoes but that she wouldn’t have to wear them to school. Anyway, the shop lady talked about how soft and comfortable the socks were and we walked out with three pairs and the new shoes.

This is progress. Now we just have to work on jumpers. There’s only one in her wardrobe that doesn’t feel funny. Fortunately it’s her school jumper. It was good enough for Disney on Ice at Rod Laver Arena two years ago and it was perfect for a beach holiday this summer.

Harvest came and went (it wasn’t that good). Christmas came and went (it was really good). The summer holidays came and now they’ve gone (and they were brilliant. Fast, but brilliant. No time even to file away last year’s school work*).

Here’s some of the action between this blog post and my last.

Header rides:

Santa visited our local fire shed Christmas party on a 4-wheel motorbike:

Elsie and Maeve got a karaoke machine for Christmas (seriously, it’s for them. No. It is.):

If they ever produce an album, I like this for the cover:

We did lots of this during the holidays:

And some of this:

And here we are, hoping that you all had a great time enjoying your families and friends over Christmas, New Year and the last of the school holidays:

This week I sent these cheesecloth pants to a customer:

If you love them, there are a couple of pairs in my Summer Sale 2014/15, but the sale ends on Saturday night at 10pm. Go on, take advantage and grab yourself any of the beautiful, handmade and unique pieces for your little one or someone you know, at a price that’s almost embarrassing. And don’t feel bad – I’m donating that 20% off my in-stock items to a wonderful cause – helping to give babies born too soon a better chance.

*I’m yet to work out that school work file actually. At the moment I’m running with the ‘keep everything’ approach. It’s not going that well. My shelves won’t be featuring in any interior design feature. Anything ever started or finished in Prep or Grade 1 is balancing on top of a few Oreo-sized cardboard boxes glued together in kindergarten and finished with a couple of dangly streamers. Yesterday I added even more to that pile out of Elsie’s backpack and I wondered at what point I might go through it and choose a few prize pieces before Maeve’s pile begins this year. But how do you choose? And where do you store it? And how do you get it all out to the recycling bin without being sprung and having to lie to your child by saying that you were just going to pop some of this beautiful artwork in the garage for safe keeping?