Spring is here! Big changes are coming! Life is gooooood
The first day of Spring seems as good a time as any to dust of the old laptop. Oh who am I kidding, this thing gets more use than ever. Just not by me! Those four kids of mine though like to steal it and sneak it and play it or watch the most boring and pointless YouTube videos of people opening Kinder Surprise Eggs. Or watching other people film themselves playing Minecraft. The internet has become a strange place... But I still have my little corner of it. And while I've neglected it terribly, I'm not sorry about it. It's been a nice break and I nearly didn't come back - why bother?! Blogs are dying; social media is where it's at if you want to make a name for yourself and YouTube is where the money is (I believe?) But I'm not in it for the money, I don't care about being popular and I'm certainly not in love with myself enough to film myself daily doing everyday things. I just want to take pretty pictures, record my family and home life and share things if anyone is keen to read them. So I'll potter around here - most likely in and out when time and patience allows or the urge hits - and I'll keep my little blog going for a while longer yet. And as our plans are being submitted to council this week for a large extension, there will be a fair bit of stuff happening around here soon that I really want to record. I've dreamed about this for years and we're so close. I'm SO EXCITED! We've been in this house just over two years now and at just 80sqm for a family of six with NO storage (seriously, there are no wardrobes, no linen cupboards, no laundry - nothing), we're very much ready to stretch the floorspace and give each occupant a little bit more room. It's not going to be huge - we don't want huge. We don't want glam or high-end or perfection. We just want something right for us and it might have taken a year to work it out through plan after plan and change after change, but I'm so glad it did take that time cause we've nailed it now. And I'll cry rivers if Council says we need to change something.
In the meantime, here are some pretty Spring-y pictures from my Instagram feed (I know. I am THAT person who posts Instagram pictures to their blog. BUT, you have to let me ease into this a little, ok?!) Besides, the first picture is a blog exclusive (because I'm pretty sure I've already exhausted the number of cherry blossom pictures in one week that would be allowed).
1. Cherry blossoms on my kitchen counter. I've wanted a cherry blossom tree for years. We bought and planted one when we moved in but it got smaller and smaller after Zak kept kicking his ball at it and breaking off branches. So we moved it to the backyard and last year it yielded one lone blossom. This year was a whole bunch more, but these were cut from someone's tree... I'm hoping next year it will be slightly more impressive again!
2. Gerbera ballerina. I bought a couple bunches of $2 gerberas for Layla's birthday party and as they started to wilt, I got creative with them! This whole ballerina was made from a gerbera and other bits of nature in my backyard (a camellia bud for the head and dry grass blades for the arms).
3. Exploding gerbera. One flower pulled apart and rearranged.
4. Layla picked this native vine on a bushwalk - it wrapped around her head and tied onto itself: the easiest flower crown ever!
5. We found this little bird's nest after a windy day at the base of a tree. Immy's collected flowers seemed right at home...
{All images by Belinda Graham for The Happy Home. Instagram: @belindagraham }