Jikana Damaru

@ my house

what's happening @ your house?

Circus Bizircus

Two little Tsunamis rolled up when the The Great Moscow Circus was in town on Saturday. I'm not entirely sure what they were doing in these photos, but I thought they looked a little Agent 99 and 86.

After the circus they were too busy doing elaborate acrobatic moves to stand still for a photo. The verdict on the show was that the bendy girls weren't real (which is comforting for if they were real they were super scary). They both agreed that they too would like to try climbing a 'curtain' and dead-falling at lightening speed until they were about 5cm off the ground. 'But, when we're grown ups", reassured Cappers.

Maxi-Taxi, who at 6 is just 'so over' forced joviality and was 'so booooooored' the whole way through, admitted that he 'nearly lost it*' when 4 motorbike riders came on and rode 80km an hour inside 'the cage of death' which was about the size of our bathroom.

Along went I expecting to be horrified by the awful carnyness of it all. But it was a very professional, outstanding show with amazing lighting and a ripper soundtrack. Even the clown was tolerable, helped along by the fact that he was mute, had a black nose and his outfit was all neutral shades of brown. Sort of a clown homage to Nirvana.** The only low point (and it was admittedly pretty low) was that the amazing magician guy who made a girl turn into a dove seemingly before my very eyes, sold us a lemonade at half time. I didn't quite know where to look. I mean, did we take the opportunity to congratulate him on his outstanding performance in the ring while he counted out our change? Bit carny that.

* I don't exactly know when the child started speaking like a 16 year old American teenager, but I suspect Ben 10 has a lot to answer for.
** But he still wasn't funny.

Circus Themed Baby Shower!

This gorgeously girlie circus-themed baby shower was featured recently on Style Me Pretty, and I thought it was too special not to share! I'm loving the pink and orange colour scheme, the handmade decorations, the beautiful flowers and THAT TENT!

Of course, its gloriously OTT and the sort of thing that really only works in magazines (or if you have friends in the business of events/ styling with way too much time on their hands - which this lucky pregnant lady did!) but I think there are lots of individual ideas you could steal for your own shower!

Enjoy the feast of images below and view more here:

Sweet Paul

Back in January I did a post about the wonderful prop stylist, Paul Lowe. I love Paul's styling as I find it very sweet, delicate and charming as well as being very clean and simple in approach. Well, imagine my joy when I discovered he had launched an online magazine called Sweet Paul. It is full of his gorgeous styling along with craft ideas like the gorgeous Frozen Flowers which would look amazing at a garden party, or the drinks umbrellas which you could make in a print to match your tableware. The magazine is also packed full of gorgeous recipes and tips on styling.

Have a sweet day!

Etsy Find {Family Rules}

Loving my latest Etsy purchase which arrived today.

Great rules for everyone in our house - you can find it here at Harper Grace

The also do this great Birth Notice which would also look lovely

Thanks to Claire from Scissor Paper Rock for pointing me in the right direction. I am now off to find the perfect wall to place it on!

Feeding the ducks and one warm neck...

Feeding the ducks in Centennial Park was beautiful...and the navy scarf my grandmother knitted kept one little boy very snug and warm.

Brown paper packages, tied up with string

What did we do with Maxi-Taxi throughout the winter school holidays? Neither LOML or I could get time off work, so we prepared for lots of Holiday Care and WMG. Not so. We hadn't factored in the generosity of the Kinder Mum Brigade. Maxi-Taxi spent only 2 days out of 10 at Holiday Care, 2 with me, 1 with LOML and the rest in a variety of homes, all linked by kindness.

We made extra-special choc chip cookies (they have 3 types of choc bit plus mini-M&Ms) and took them along as a little thank you for having me.

It's amazing the difference in the way people live. One Thursday we drove up through the 'lawns' and parked in front of the 'staff quarters'. A horse wandered by. It was like walking onto the set of one of the house-porn shoots. To make matters worse, they're a really lovely family. I liked them so much before I saw their house.

The next home had a note on the front door 'I'm in my pjs, let yourselves in!' Place was a wreck. A child ate breakfast sitting on top of the table. Another child was in underpants only and promptly hid in the pantry never to be seen again. A motley dog wandered by.

No prizes for guessing which home I was more comfortable in.

Regardless of how or where or even what you live, we love you Kinder Mum Brigade. Thank you.

PS - This post is part of ♥Much Love♥'s [made it myself] week...