Iris

On The March

The cicadas are out in force at the moment. We've found quite a few shells in the garden.

I used to love collecting the shells from Grandma and Papa's place when I was a kid, I remember doing it around Christmas time and filling icecream containers with them.

Kids used to take live cicadas to school in buckets to show off their collection, until the teachers banned it. There used to be all different sorts of cicadas with funny names, like Floury Baker and Cherry Eyes. I don't know if they are all around anymore, we only see one or two varieties here.

Mo Town Update

Adam's mo is gaining ground - he's keeping it neat and tidy, and it's thickening up. I don't know about you, but I wouldn't mess with him.

Although he tells me he saw a man at work yesterday, who had a much more serious looking mo, who told him 'You need training wheels for that thing!"

Hamish was a little uncooperative this week so we resorted to technology to show what he would look like if we could get him to stay still long enough to 'grow' a mo!

Scary

Hamish has a bit of a fascination with opening and shutting doors at the moment. He goes into a room, shuts the door, then knocks on it till I open it, to his great amusement.

This evening, he shut the bathroom door.

And managed to lock it.

I was only a few feet away so I heard the click of the lock and rushed over, but couldn't open the door. He was locked in the bathroom! Aargh! I freaked out and didn't know what to do - I rattled the handle but it wouldn't budge, and Hamish started to get upset.

I ended up ringing Adam who left work straight away to come home and bust the door open. In the meantime, I stood on one side of the door telling Hamish a story to keep him calm, all the while frantically trying to get the door to open.

I realised the handle had a little hole on the outside, and pushed a hairclip in it - something clicked and the door opened. What a relief!

Hamish rushed out, not looking overly concerned. I on the other hand, burst into tears. Hamish thought I was laughing, so he joined in with hearty laughter of his own.

I saw him playing with the lock a few minutes later, so I think he must have pushed it out of curiosity. Will definitely not let him anywhere near it in the future!

Blue Food

Yesterday I made some playdo. It was super easy - I was surprised by just how easy in fact! Flour, salt, water, oil and food colouring.

Hamish enjoyed squishing it and pushing things into it...

...and of course it didn't take long for him to see what it tasted like!

(Not good, apparently.)

Silly Me

I should have known gardening with a toddler and two big dogs on the loose was a bad idea.

I dug a hole - Saffy joined in. I put the plant in the hole - she kept digging. In the same spot! So the poor plant got a bit squashed. And I had to heave her out of the flowerbed - she was very reluctant to move!

While this was going on, Hamish pulled a whole lot of little baby green tomatoes off the plant. Then he sat there biting into them, in between laughing at my attempts to move Saf.

I did get all the plants into the ground eventually, but not without a lot of huffing and puffing and telling the dog to bugger off...

The Mo - one week in

Here Comes the Mo - Day 1

Today, being 1 November, is the first day of MOVEMBER. Adam has started his mo - here he is with Hamish (who is currently mo-less but not for long!).

I think Ad's mo will be somewhat disturbing once it's a bit bigger...I don't know if you can tell from this photo but he's going for a Chopper Read style (!).

Thanks to those of you who have sponsored him already!