The Dower Family

I started this blog when Ollie was a mere six weeks old.  Since that time I have endeavoured to update it regularly, usually once a week.  But this year it has been a real challenge to maintain that pace.  The thought of not pushing on with it saddens me greatly and isn't something I could possibly do.  But I do have a lot more on my plate these days.  An extra child and a growing business have definitely taken up what little spare time I already had. This has been even more of a problem lately as we have prepared for Supanova.  For those of you not in the world of geek, Supanova is the equivalent of Comicon, where all of the nerdiest of nerds converge upon a conference to worship their favourite actors and writers.  We were lucky enough to take Mini Mayhem along for the three day event at the RNA showgrounds.  We have been working like crazy people for weeks now to get all of our stock ready and ourselves organised for me being away from the...

It's been a while again. But I find myself at the hairdresser watching this sweet big boy getting his haircut and I just wanted to share this pic of him. Doesn't he look like such a grown up boy? I can hardly fathom that he will be starting school in three months. We've been easing into summer a bit with lots if hot days, swims in our pool and trips to the local pool. Ol's swimming is coming along so well and his confidence is through the roof. We had a bunch of his mates over for a swim today and they were all dive bombing and fetching things from the bottom of the pool. Real big boy stuff. Just in case you were wondering how my adventure to Indonesia went the other week, all went well and I am home where I belong with my loves. The shorts I went over there to produce turned out fabulous and the response to them has been extremely positive. Perhaps because of this or maybe because he was in charge of packing orders while I was away, Nick has really come onboard with Mi...

Possible reasons why it has taken me forever to knock out a blog: 1. these kids are REALLY hard work at the moment.  Ol is especially trying in a deliberately driving me bonkers kind of way.  Eve is tough in a sooky want to on me/with me/all over me way.  Love them both to bits but, you know, they are hard work. 2. I've been slowly editing a movie of some footage I have taken over the last month or so.  I thought that would have been posted by now but time seems to escape me. 3.  I'm on a ridiculously steep learning curve as I prepare to head to Indonesia on Sunday to set up some production of boy's clothes.  This is super dooper exciting but taking up a lot of my mental energy as I get it all together. 4. We are all just having way too much fun together.  Lots of lovely family outings and activities going on. So now that I've finally gotten over the "must do a blog" hump, here are a bunch photos from the last month so you can catc...

Two years.  Where did that go?  Only milliseconds ago I was coming to grips with you turning one and now you are two.  You are so officially not a little baby anymore.  But as you turn into a little girl before my very eyes, here are some of the things I love about you right now. - you still love your Wooby.  So much so that we had to pick up a spare.  Nooby.  I'm a bit concerned by your Wooby devotion.  I'm pretty sure that there is a Wooby intervention in our future at some point. - I love it when you say "mummy, mummy, mummy, mummy" and I reply "EB EB EB EB". - you have only just turned two but you know the important words like 'lego' and 'ipad'. - you have the best 'sad face' I have ever seen. - I just melt when you put your little head on my shoulder when you cuddle me. - you are so cheeky, you stand at the door to the pantry and point to the top shelf where we keep the good things like lollies, bikkies and vitamin...

These two are TOUGH right now.  Really tough.  Thankfully we have two sets of parents on board every day as we really need it.   They are also awesome and lovely and hilarious.  And luckily that outweighs the rough times.  But there are some days; like yesterday when we were at Ikea and Eve was chucking hysterical tantrums about not being able to carry a container of beads that was too heavy and she kept dropping it, and Ollie was being Ollie and talking REALLY loudly and million words a second and just NOT. SHUTTING. UP.  Like ever. Those times are tough. What were we doing at Ikea?  Well since Miss Eve is turning two this month we thought it was a good time to move her out of her cot and into a big girl bed.  Actually I wasn't planning on moving her out of the cot for another year, but I picked up some gorgeous wall prints the other day and there was no wall space with the cot there so I was prepared to sacrifice my stance for som...

The weeks just fly by around here at the moment.  I think having Nick around the house all the time is helping the weeks blur past, with no weekends to mark the end or the beginning.  But in between those blurry days there are some lovely little moments happening. Ol went up a level at swimming.  This was no great surprise, I think I might have even foreshadowed it to you the other week.  But it was still super awesome when it did happen.  And especially as I was the one watching him swim that day.  I just couldn't believe that the tiny little baby I took to those swimming lessons four years ago has now become this boy who swims freestyle stroke.  How did that happen?  The next level sees him adding proper swimming breathing to his arms and his kicking.  It seems terribly tricky to do it all at once but he is getting the hang of it and I can see that in no time he will be swimming whole lengths of the pool. While we are talking about...