It was a cold, wet morning but the boys enjoyed party snacks in the old train dining car.
After looking through some of the old steam engines we went for a walk outside.
Both Oliver and William enjoyed several rides on the mini train which took us on a loop around the museum.
Luckily he passed the street directory to Inger who then directed him to the railway station. Finally we boarded a train and made it home in one piece. Using public transport was another one of those experiences which we just weren't ready for. I think we will continue to watch trains from the safety of the playground for the time being.......................
Postman Pat made a guest appearance.
Brighton Jetty after the show. We stopped to watch the fishermen.
Oliver enjoying a ride on Inger's shoulders.
William was looking down at the water and commented on all of the stars shining on the water's surface. He then asked where the plug would be!
William was very pleased to find a puddle to jump into at the beginning of the walk.
We then came to this massive tree which was covered with gumnuts and vivid red flowers. The boys thought I said that the tree had donuts and their wild whoops of joy quickly turned to disappointment when they tried to bite into the hard brown nuts.
It was a simple activity but one we all enjoyed so much. We were only 10 minutes from home but as we were climbing the hill in the late afternoon and listening to the birdsongs we could have been in remote bushland.
Mrs Diamond
Ines and Isobel
The thought of knocking over someone else's sandcastle never even entered my mind!
Yesterday we decided to have an art afternoon in the warm sun. Art is always a huge production with small boys! Everyone wants to taste the paint, submerge arms in the painting water and paint objects around the yard. The boys took to the painting with gusto and had a wild time slapping on plenty of bright colours.
We received a welcome letter from the Principle of the school which they will be starting next year. The school has an Early Learning Centre which they start at the age of three. The Principle has asked them to draw or paint a picture of their family and write about why they want to come to the school. Both of the above paintings are depictions of our family. I think they bear a fairly good resemblance and show the varying forms that we can take depending on the day in question.
Here William is making a worm for the chooks to eat.
Uncle Rowan (my brother) has been a great source of discussion this week. Earlier this week William was playing with a big calculator and announced that it was Uncle Rowan's phone (Rowan has a blackberry). Yesterday I bought the boys a really beautiful wooden fire engine made by Pintoys. I also bought them a set of four wooden firemen which are terrific as boy dolls. William looked at one of the firemen and announced that it was Uncle Rowan! As I have always known Rowan to be a librarian I was most interested to hear that he had changed professions! Even more interesting was the fact that William noticed a pair of Inger's shorts hanging over one of our chairs this morning and he was quite certain that they belonged to Uncle Rowan. Perhaps Uncle Rowan is lurking somewhere in our house??
William loves his lion suit so much that it is hard to get him to part with it. He wanted to wear it to bed that night after kindergym.
Here is Oliver during group time where the children sing and shake streamers.
The children love this huge parachute.
Here they are watching it billow over them.
Judith the coordinator is leading the children in an action song. Our favourite is "Rock-a-bye Your Bear".
They have shown a clear preference for cobs of corn, rocket and lettuce but do not care much for basil. They are very inquisitive and friendly. They don't seem to mind Oliver and William checking their nesting boxes several times each day in search of eggs. We hope to get a couple more chooks to join them in the next few weeks.
You may remember earlier photos of the eggplant flowers. As you can see there have been some promising developments! Oliver calls our vegetable garden 'Mummy's Farm', which is very sweet!
At the opposite end of the playground was a towering fortress with drawbridges, dungeons and huge slides careering down the mountainside. Like a little mountain goat William ran up nimbly and before I could stop him the little chap had jumped onto a slide meant for much older children. I could see him looking quite shocked when he arrived at the bottom and mummy was nowhere to be seen!
Both boys had a ball on the old pirate ship complete with a jailhouse under the deck.Because the park was so extensive and had such a lot of interesting equipment I soon lost Inger and Oliver. I realised that I had left my mobile phone back in the car and so had no way of contacting him. After William had finished playing we made our way back to the tram museum where I collected my phone from the car. I tried ringing Inger but to no avail. Little did I know that he had also left his phone in the car. Starting to get concerned after about an hour I decided to make our way back to the park on the tram again. About 1km along the line I noticed a tall figure with a little boy on his shoulders. As we got closer I could see that it was Inger. He had missed the tram and had set out to walk back to the museum. The conductor very kindly arranged an unscheduled stop for the tram so that Inger and Oliver could board. He was grateful because it was quite a warm day and Oliver was getting very restless.
There were three huge sheds containing trams and trolleycars lovingly restored and in pristine condition. We all climbed up into each one and sat on the worn leather seats. We were transported to a bygone era.
Every half hour there were 2km tram rides which were included in the price of admission to the museum. Several different trams were used during the afternoon. We took a ride out to the St Kilda Adventure Playground which is at the end of the tramline.
A sign in one of the trams.
The conductor who was very friendly and full of knowledge about the trams.
The end of the line. The boys were itching to get to the playground.
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