charlie's 16month portrait

charlie harper. that's what our little charlie hears over & over. "charlie harper" in a sing-song, happy voice when he does something ridiculously cute/ funny/ silly/ charming. "charrr-lieee-harrr-perrr" in a low, slow, you're-in-so-much-trouble voice when he sprints for the open front door and is out on the verandah, down the 2 big steps & past the front fence by the time i've caught him. seriously, this kid is fast! in the last couple of months, charlie finally started to walk, which quickly turned to running. maybe it's because his big sister chases him & then sits on him. i don't know. his favourite toy is mirka's old grover teddy & the first time charlie made a possessed like sound 'talking' to grover was hilarious. we always pick up grover and put on a grover-esque voice to say "hello charlie", so when charlie imitated us, it was pretty funny stuff as goes in this mad house. apart from sounding like grover possessed, charlie says "mumm-mumm, dad-da, memme (mirka), babbit (rabbit), grow-woo (grover), elllllow (hello) & lots more baby babble sounds that i have no idea about.. and don't forget the all purpose, whiny "ehhhh" when he wants something out of reach. he loves playing peek-a-boo & thinking he can scare the bejesus out of us. our stella acting pays off in the best, raucous laugh out of charlie. we can't believe how lucky we are with him being a champion little sleeper. we just put him to bed and say "lie down charlie" and miraculously he does.. and actually goes to sleep. just a little different from his big sister, who still tries to negotiate an endless bedtime story, song, pat, head rub, foot rub(!) etc. charlie is still a champion little eater too.. also the total opposite of his big sister. thank god banana prices have finally fallen. if i put the same amount of 'banana money' that i was spending each week away for a year, i'll have enough for a family trip to thailand. he must have been sick of me just handing him a whole peeled banana because the other day he brought me a banana, together with his mini fruit masher! so yeah, sometimes i now mash it for him. so there you have it. 16 month, charlie report, logged.

p.s.  thanks to lulu for the great 'e is for eames' t-shirt, who lent it to me, ahem, only, *cough*, about 18 months ago when i was still doing mirka's monthly portraits on the eames rocker. sorry lulu! must. return. asap.

p.p.s.  the blocks were actually from his uncle hamo, not santa & i couldn't for the life of me find the E, so 'charli 16m' it was.

xmas rainbow

1. merry xmas. again. i felt like doing another merry christmas post.

2. presents all wrapped. feels good to be organised this year.

3. vintage fan (one of a pair) i bought & cleaned up last week from a fun, new, local gallery/ 2nd hand shop in preparation for our typical melbourne january heat wave. they work a treat & it's amazing what a little steel wool scrubbing on the safety cage will do to restore it to it's former glory. hanging next to the fan is a magnetic cable card/photo holder that i bought at aero design last month. probably the best xmas card display solution i've had. pretty good for twelve bucks methinks. you can get them in quite a few colours. mine is in aqua. naturally.

what are you doing tonight? baking? wrapping presents? cleaning? (blergh!) watching movies? seeing family & friends? we're off to some carols in a tiny local park. then i'll be finishing baking everything tonight, so we don't need to have the oven on or cook anything tomorrow. we'll just assemble what we have to & sit down for a relaxed summery lunch. plus i'm off to the airport to pick up kingsley late tonight. yay! kingsley will be in town for a week and spending xmas with us. happy.

wishing you a very happy & relaxed christmas. thank you for stopping by, this here, little ol' blog of mine & taking time to say hello. merry christmas! x captn.

merry christmas

merry christmas all y'all! here's a quick collage of my favourite decorations on our tree. i normally add one or two new ones to our quirky collection each year. so, here's how i roll: 

1. real tree. it was fun to take the kiddyliwinks out to a tree farm & let them pick out one. it's huge!

2. plain lights. these go on first and i use however many i need to cover the whole tree. nothing flashing. nothing coloured. look, i'm not saying that i think flashing coloured lights are horrible, or won't do it for you, but they just don't do it for me. 

3. lots of single decorations. i never try and thread decorations directly on the branches and use twisted paperclips that hook over the branches instead, if you know what i mean. 

4. tree over angel. this one seems to divide people, but personally, i don't like the angel or star or whatever your tree-topper is to actually sit on the highest branch above all else. i simply hang my little angel just below the top. to me it's a bit like building a house on top of an exposed hill. i wouldn't do it. i think it's arrogant. you can get just as great a view by building down just a little lower so the roof doesn't stick up above the ridgeline & stick out like, well, dogs!

5. chose a colour theme and go for it. because i was too lazy to take down the paper decorations from charlie's first birthday celebrations and because i'm a little too attached to them, i'm going with the same blue & green theme for xmas. for the tree. for present wrapping. for table settings etc. if it's not white, blue or green it's gonski until next year. with the tiny exception of my favourite little red stacking santas. how could i leave their happy, squinty faces in the xmas tub out in the shed??

hello sparrow

next up in my perth series is mr. sparrow, a teeny-tiny sized shop in subiaco, jam packed with gorgeousness. is that a word? that doesn't matter. what matters is the photo evidence. you can find all the products on their online shop here. i bought some lovely xmas presents while i was in there, but i'm wondering if i made a mistake not buying a once a year book (in last photo) for mirka & charlie both. they're kind of expensive, but what a beautiful book to give them on their 18th birthdays. blue horse for charlie & green bird for mirka.

hello pigeon

this shop was on my list to check out. pigeonhole is one tiny shop full of goodness. they have a good online store if you're not in perth, including new polaroid film that will fit in your old polaroid camera. might just have to dust off my old polaroid camera this xmas. i bought some crazy fluro green stud earrings while i was there. come to think of it; don't know where i've put those. mirka is forever relocating my jewellery around the house. love that bright orange bicycle. 

hello tiger

ok. in an effort to catch up on what i've been up to & to rectify only two (eek!) blog posts in november, i'm going to post all sorts of things and in no particular order. so first up, we have 'tiger-tiger' cafe in perth, where kingsley & i stopped after a spot of saturday morning window shopping. now, i really liked the new orleans style brick courtyard space and i liked the menu design & what was on the actual menu.. and who wouldn't love that great big green tiger-tiger graphic on the wall. but, and there is a but, i didn't like that everything we asked for they didn't have and i don't mean any fancy stuff.. just a good ol' avocado & a little something-something sandwich. they had even run out of avocado; outrageous i know. anyways, kingsley & i still enjoyed ourselves despite the grumpy waitress and had a bit of a laff about zsa-zsa gabor next to us getting the last gawd.damn.avocado.sandwich!

harvest xmas market next sunday

harvest textiles are hosting what looks to be a cracker of a xmas market next sunday. who doesn't love a local creative design market, let alone right before xmas when you can scout some great presents. anyways, i do & i'll be heading there with some cash burning a hole in my pocket. hooray for xmas gift giving & guilt free shopping!

book launch

so, i'm in a book. the self-doubter in me says i'm the weakest link & how the bejesus did i end up in such good company, but the pumped up narcissist in me says yay for me! anyways, i've had a quite a few back-to-back, crazy-busy weeks; and at right in the middle was the book launch. what's a girl to do with no time to get her hair cut or buy something new to wear? get my nails done super quickly in the salon across the road from my office (convenient yes, but private no. my boss and colleague were having a good laugh at me sitting in the window & waving to me while doing so!). anyway, i couldn't just go to the book launch same-old-same-old, so new blue nails & a new emily green necklace from sedonia on my way home did the trick. i know everyone in melbourne town has one and i did already have one, but they are so damn happy, bright & addictive, so another one just screamed at me to take it home & quickly. kids picked up, fed, bathed, into pjs & ready for babysitter all in record time so i could hightail it across town to the book launch at harvest workroom. i was kind of self conscious considering there was a big photo of me up on the wall, so it was nice to spot some familiar & friendly faces, relax & have a chat.