Hipstamatic Friday

As per usual posted on Saturday.

We organized the bookshelf in the playroom and suddenly got a lot more space. Of course we had to read a few we found again.

Pumpkin heads

While we were in Germany selecting floors and kitchens the monkeys selected pumpkins to carve.

Germany

Daddy Monkey and I had to go to Germany for a day to do exciting things like choosing wooden floors, lino tiles, rubber floors, ceramic tiles...

We drove past asparagus fields.

The wooden flooring company is in an old factory near Potsdam.

It looked very pretty. There was a nature reserve at the back for some kind of newts that are only local to this area.

Daddy Monkey has booked a nice car in form of a 3series BMW for us and was worried all during the flight that he would get a smaller one instead like the last few times. He was all prepared for driving another little Ford but alas it wasn't the case. We were lucky and got offered a very nice, shiny 6 series BMW cabrio. Not that we had any intention of opening the roof. Even though it got sunny around lunch time but it was proper October weather and temperatures.

Daddy Monkey was so very happy. He even got to drive it on the German Motorway.

It was very, very good to drive apparently and simply marvelous and he got to push lots and lots of buttons to adjust this and that and a lot of things you never knew that could be changed.

But we didn't fly all the way to drive nice German cars we came to look at nice German kitchens, which we did extensively.  Oh, the choices, what front, what colour, handles? And then all the accessories, oven in a drawer, oven with escalator? Black sink, white sink? Glass doors with big frame, small frame, metall frame... In the end our heads were spinning and that was even before we heard the price!

Birthday cards

I made some Birthday cards, Little Monkey was invited to a party so I decided to make a card myself. I think it took too long, because before I was even finished stamping which I did first, Big Monkey already showed me the one she had made. But mine was very pretty too, she said. I'm sure we'll be able to use it some day. She's invited to a party on the weekend... if my card makes the grade.

A new song...

Big Monkey has learned 6 notes so far and has written her own song. It sounds really good. She wrote down the notes and has practiced it many times. She named it "Christmas again".

Proverb Atc

Hipstamatic Friday

Feeding the stick insects

There they are pretending that they are sticks.

They forgot to hide their legs, so now these two look like dead stick insects. Silly girls. They fell off their twig so they pretended to be sticks so we don't eat them. So far we were never tempted...

Once they've realized that nobody eats them but that they will get food, they get really adventurous. There is always at least one who wants to go for a walk outside the cage when it is time to close up. 

They get brambles which they love and prefer to privet leaves and because I'm nice (and don't mind chopping down the brambles rather than the hedge that is the the fence in the front garden) I give them brambles. Which is painful, yesterday for some reason was particularly bad, my hands are now covered in cuts. Gloves that prevent brambles cuts are too clumsy to put a delicate water container into a cage. 

The Eastman Dental Hospital

A couple of weeks ago I had to take Big Monkey to the hospital again to decide on how to remove the two teeth. The milk teeth move up into her gums and there aren't any second teeth yet to push them out or stop them. The dentists worry now that the two teeth disappear completely and that is not a good thing they told me. So they will have to come out, we have two appointments in December, one to fit a space holder for the second teeth to come in when they are ready and one a couple of weeks later for the teeth to be removed. Apparently it is not uncommon for this to happen but I worry of course. At least her teeth are all healthy they just do weird unexpected things. Big Monkey is not worried at all, she will have to miss one day at school and that's all she has picked on so far.

 

After we left we took goofy photos on my phone at the bus stop. Well, Big Monkey tried to look funny and I tried to get a decent picture. We nearly missed the bus for all the laughter. In the hectic to scramble all our bags, the saxophone, the coats into the bus I forgot to save the funniest photos of us. Not sure I should be upset or relieved about that, the only thing we can say was that they were really funny but we might have looked like loons.

Monkeys live in trees...

 Big Monkey loves climbing in trees and these at the swimming pool are particularly inviting. The branches are just in the right spots for little legs to get far up. We have to make time every time we go swimming to climb the trees and have a run around. A few weeks ago, Big Monkey found a balloon with a note. That was very exciting, she thought. It was from a local school which sent them off to see how far they came. Well, not very far, I think that school is only a mile up the road from the pool.   The note asked for the finder to send back the little note to tell where it was found. As it is a race the finder of the furthest away balloon will receive a reward and a stamp. Somehow I don't think this will be us.
It reminded me of the wedding of a very good friend though who also sent off balloons to see how far they got. Hers got very far indeed, I had told friends of mine from far away to keep their eyes peeled in the sky. And would you believe it one of them made its way to Australia! And another made it at least to the southern part of the US. How cool is that? For some reason she suspected me to have something to do with it. I only told my friends to have a good look... Such good fun that was.

I have to say it's not as much fun to stand under the tree staring upwards. Even though Big Monkey is very sure footed. The branches really are well spaced and one can't climb too high before getting the head stuck between twigs. It does give my heart a little flutter. But monkeys do live in trees...

Photo of the Day

Cars for Monkeys

The Monkey car had to go into the garage for an eternity, 10 days it was there! Not there was anything too mayor wrong with it but when it was at the regular service they found an error message in the sat-nav and were very insistent on changing this. Free and all. While the little voice in my head screamed, no, never change a running system, never change a running system... I agreed. And you know? I was right of course. After trying to quickly fix it in a day they had to take the car in and they gave me this:

as a replacement. Now I don't want to complain too much, it was a nice enough car, free... Brand new with that new car smell but it was a bit on the tiny side. The car seat eventually only got into the car by brute force giving it a good hard push. Yesterday, after fiddling with the Monkey car for 10 days and with the help of Audi Germany, the mechanics accepted defeat replaced the whole navigation unit and returned the Monkey car. Which made for two very happy Monkeys. Me and Big Monkey that is. Somehow the boys aren't nearly as excited about this as we were. So far the sat-nav works, but I'm cautious. We will see. Big Monkey is delighted that she has space for her legs again and she has her own door! I am delighted about the air suspension and the strong, strong engine.

Marvelous. Isn't it sparkling, they cleaned it so well you can see the neighbour's house reflected.

I met some friends for tea this morning and I thoroughly enjoyed myself. There is nothing better than a hot cup of tea after a brisk walk through the Autumn chill. Lovely.

Scrapbooks

I've organized my scrapbooks again, mainly I've given up on the Stacy Julian concept of storing layouts in a seperate binder before I put them into the final album. Way to complicated, the layouts just ended up on top of the binders gathering dust. So I've now prepared all the albums with enough page protectors and then once I finished a layout I will just drop them in. Or so is the plan. 

In any case they look much prettier than the black plastic binders I had in the shelf before. And there were only four of them. Now there are seven ! albums instead. That's because the binders were too big to store upright so I had them lying down taking away lots of space. I'm very pleased how they look but I feel there is something missing, orange maybe?

Hipstamatic Friday - Dancing

A bit late but here it is:

They were dancing and jumping round to various cds. Little Monkey chooses them and puts them into a rather old player. It even has a cassette desk which amuses them both a lot. I don't think they believe me that this can also be used to play music. It's hard to explain because the last two tapes we owned were taken apart by a very Little Monkey who was very fascinated by the fact that he could pull the actual tape out and it was nearly never ending!

Here, I just found the photo of him taking the tape apart, he loved doing  it and it occupied him for ages, well at least five minutes, which was a lot back then... But it means I can't demonstrate how we recorded songs from the radio back in the "olden days" as Big Monkey calls them. Or generally how to use them. So they just push the buttons and open and close the deck a lot.

Mainly it's the cds which Little Monkey just shoves in with the result that most of them jump and squeak, doesn't stop them from enjoying themselves. We normally have to add the sound of rattles, bells and then the dance through the room madly.

Breakfast

Little Monkey was very excited to see Daddy was home for the day and insisted it was time to celebrate and go to the bakery for pain au chocolat. Once they arrived back home Little Monkey decided to bestow the biggest treat to Daddy: he would sit next to him!

And because that was not enough to celebrate that Daddy was home Little Monkey decided that Daddy should walk him to "school". Now that is a proper treat, don't you agree?

Pears...

When Daddy Monkey goes shopping...


He brings home the strangest things.


Yes they are pears, tiny wee little pears.


They are cute, aren't they? They taste just like the big ones they just are gone so much quicker.

News from the Saxophone

Big Monkey still loves to play the saxophone she assures us. However, practicing isn't her favourite thing to do.

Summer days

The last few days have been really nice and sunny. We spent the whole weekend outside in the garden enjoying the last sun for the year no doubt. The hottest day in October since records began. It even made the news in Austria.


We played with tricycles, bicycles, sand, water and a train track. The playmobil train is allowed to come outside and so we had a big train rushing through chairs and the table.