Of teeth, pheasants, and home decor

Well, we're officially "over the hump" of the shortening days.  Winter solstice here was a beautiful day, which promptly led into the following few days that looked like this:

It's brightened up again and it's cold.  We're burning through the wood at a rate of knots and will need to get another load in very soon.

B is off work briefly which we're all enjoying, although for him it means replacing long work hours with trying to tick off as many things as possible from his to-do list around here before he returns to work.  Wow that was a long sentence.

I've been pottering about in between baby/toddler sleep times trying to find places to put things, and starting to think about those faffy little bits and pieces like hanging pictures, decorative plants, and so on.

A hanging basket at the front door is a small start.  The garden beds around the house are absolutely overrun with weeds which I'm just trying to ignore as I have, like, no time to attend to them.  Well, I could be doing it right now but... I'm doing this.

We went to watch the rugby on Saturday night (the first match of the Lions Series I think?  NZ won by a decent margin) which was good fun.  Personally I would have liked to see a closer match, more of a nail-biter.  No one else felt that way though.

We had B's birthday earlier in the week, while he was still working, so it was celebrated quietly.  I made a packet mix chocolate cake decorated with Smarties which were promptly picked off by J.  A seems close to crawling, and is saying "mum mum mum" quite distinctly - has been for a while in fact - but I think it's more a whinging sound than her actually being aware that she's saying "Mum".

Oh and she has a tooth!  Or possibly three!  The first one popped through at last this week and I know there are at least two more imminent.  Must remember to check.

I don't share many photos of the inside of the house but I've made an exception below because I'm so proud of how J's play area has worked out.  I guessed and hoped that we'd be able to squeeze her stuff in here at the end of the living room behind the couch, and it's perfect!  She loves her little area, and I love the fact that the couch shields it from the rest of the room so if she's made an unholy mess I don't have to stare at it (and/or tidy it up eight times a day because apparently I enjoy participating in thankless tasks when I could be using that time to weed the damn garden beds but hey).

What were we talking about?  Oh yes.

Soon enough A will be in there too pulling all the baskets out and eating the crayons and so forth so we might have to rethink then but for now it's working well for all of us.

My mother-in-law took me to this amazing secondhand store or, more accurately, warehouse in town the other day.  There were racks and racks of beautiful hand-knitted jumpers and cardigans for babies and kids.  I got a couple for the girls, including the one pictured below.  Our time was cut short because I had the grumpy baby with me who was fresh out of rusks.  I need to go back solo asap and have a proper rummage.  There was sooo much good stuff there.

In wildlife news, the other morning we were pottering around doing the breakfast routine when what should go strolling through the house paddock but a FREAKING PHEASANT.  Needless to say I leapt (quietly) for my camera and took about fifty photos out the window.  Unfortunately it kept far enough away that I couldn't get a decent shot but here is evidence below.

B in typical fashion wanted to shoot it.  I mean.  Seriously.  Are we major hillbillies now or what.

Right, time to wind this up.  I'll leave you with the soothing view from our back fence.  Can you believe we have daffodils popping up in the paddocks already?  I thought they weren't supposed to emerge until spring?  I'm not complaining, just worried about the many frosts in the near future.

Anyway.  Soothing hills.  Ahh.