Start as you plan to continue……I’m going to give it a go anyway with my first Grateful post for 2013. Things fell off the wagon for me linking in with Gratefuls, somehow, as often happens, life gets in the way. Sometimes something has to give and for me it was regular posts and regular grateful posts.
For a new year that is incredibly hot so far, I am very, very grateful for the kind and generous gifts my beautiful Muddy Kids received for Christmas, they have made the time we have to spend in airconditioning that much easier to bear. With the novelty factor of new gifts and the perfect choice of some gifts they are that much happier to be confined indoors for a few hours each day.
From Barbie and her million accessories, hairstyles and outfit changes to the Fluro Pink Zhu Zhu Pet we have been awash in imaginative play scenarios from weddings, to babies to coffee dates, they’ve done it all. One of my all time favourites – Mobilo!! This has literally kept the kids entertained for hours, as they build so many different things, and the best bit is the Muddy Girls build things for my Muddy Baby Boy to play with so everyone is happy!
The biggest hit though, thanks to my wonderful sister and brother-in-laws and nieces and nephews are the swags, the Muddy Kids just think they are the bees knees and they make camping in the airconditoned lounge room at night so exciting and that little bit more comfortable.
So this week for the start of the year I am so incredibly grateful for the generosity of family and friends keeping my Muddy Kids entertained, inspired and happy inside.
One of the things I love about my Muddy Organiser going to school is reliving my childhood, or parts of it anyway! There’s been stories they’re reading at school or that she brings home from the library, sports I’d forgotten about like tunnel ball. I love watching her learn new songs and dances for the school social and singing along with her.
I was extra excited though last week when she bought home some string. Not just any string, but a loop of string to do Cat’s Cradle with. I can remember spending hours and hours trying new tricks with the string, I was hopeless but it didn’t stop me trying! My Muddy Organiser though has proved to be quite a whizz with the string, she can already do the Harbour Bridge and is teaching her friends how to do it. My Mum (god bless the teacher in her) has dug through her bookshelf and found a book on Cat’s Cradle and other string things which the Muddy Organiser is learning from to add to her string repertoire. She has already well surpassed my string abilities.
The thing I love most about the string is it’s portable, she takes it everywhere, it’s not electronic, it’s just good old fashioned fun at it’s best, just like my childhood. A teacher friend tells me elastics are the next thing coming back in!
People talk about farming not being a job but being a ‘way of life’ and it really is. There is very little down time, weekends while we try to spend time together as a family, it is often spent doing farm jobs together. Don’t get me wrong we definitely do lots of other stuff too, and get out and about off the farm, but ‘there is always something’. At the moment we are in the process of sending all our Wether Lambs to the Sale Yards for selling. Before we send them we have to draft off the fattest lambs which will gain us the most money (in theory).
As the sales are on a Monday often on a Sunday afternoon you can find us in the sheep yards weighing lambs. We draft off an amount of them to weigh, then we run those ones through the race into the scales where they are individually weighed and the heavy ones are kept separate to send to market and the lighter ones are sent back to the paddock for further fattening.
The Muddy Kids all love weighing lambs, they get their spot and either sit and watch or get up close in the action if they can. Muddy Bubby has just started to be allowed out of the pram for weighing and didn’t hesitate to get in amongst it all. Really it’s not a bad way to spend a Sunday afternoon together.