the happy mundane #2

 

This week hasn't been without its (rather large) disappointments. Although this is intended to be a list of small day-to-day happy things, it would be a glaring omission not to mention that the trip I had booked to take our girls visit my family in England is sadly not going to happen at the end of June as planned. This is due to an unfortunate situation with the British Passport Office experiencing a huge backlog in processing passport applications from overseas since they decided to shut down all of their offices abroad at the start of the year, meaning that Pearl's passport will not be with us now for a minimum of eight weeks, possibly a lot longer. My sister and niece will thankfully still go at this time, so at least my parents will get to see one of their beloved grandchildren.

We've been weighing up our options and have decided to push back the flight dates several months to be sure the passport will arrive in time. So all being well we hope to be flying back to the UK as a family at the start of December, to stay for one month. I'm so happy that Curt will be able to join us now and we can spend Christmas with my family. I've been dreaming of taking our children home for a big family winter Christmas ever since we left in 2010. Christmas in Summer just never feels right to me and I can't wait. Every cloud as they say...

So during this rather intense week full of ups and downs, here are some things that have kept me smiling:

1 // A green and lush garden due to the mild weather and showers of this season, bringing life to the dry and brown earth scorched by the summer sun. My Valentines gift from Curt, a fuchsia tree, is thriving and it lifts my spirits just looking through the windows and seeing its beautiful pink and white flowers dancing in the breeze.

2 // A new addition to my collection of hanging planters adorning the back porch. Reduced to $10 at the garden centre, it is actually supposed to be a birdhouse but nothing beats a bit of repurposing.

3 // Tiny toes and baby thighs that are showing signs of starting to get irresistibly chubby.

4 // Afternoon energy boosts in the form of slices of apple smeared with peanut butter and green smoothies and juices.

5 // A beautiful package that arrived from my Auntie, a talented artist in the UK, with a sketch of Pearl drawn from a photograph taken when she was a few days old and little cloth bags each for Lila and Rose which she had sewn from vintage Rupert Bear fabric. Handmade gifts are so precious.

6 //  Family board game nights are in our future now that my sister gifted Lila Junior Monopoly for her birthday. This has appealed to her fiercely competitive nature like nothing else and she begs Curt and I to play every time we stand still for more than two minutes. I forgot how much fun a good game of Monopoly can be.

7 // Managing to use up the odd bits of produce from our weekly vegetable box delivery that usually languish at the bottom of the fridge whilst I ponder what to do with them, then eventually give up and feed them to the chickens. This weeks success story was red cabbage braised with grated apple and balsamic vinegar.

After four weeks of working from home to help me out with the school run and settling into life as a family of five, Curt is heading back into work tomorrow to resume business as usual. I've been so thankful for my month of leisurely morning starts and staying in bed with Pearl until 8am but now it's time to take a full step back into the real world. Wish me luck.