An Evening Well Spent

I'm very new at being a full-time aunt, rather than a twice-a-year-I'll-take-you-for-icecream-every-day aunt. It's summer holidays so my niece and nephew have spent a few nights sleeping over at my parents' house this week. Too bad I've been working 11 days straight and getting home dead tired!

Tonight however, I got off at 6 and was able to spend the whole evening with them. My nephew was right away on the ipad games all night, and unfortunately rather than wrestle it from him and having two of them to deal with (which 100% of the time leads to bickering, pinching, fighting, and toys breaking) I just let him do what he enjoys while I drew pictures with my niece. Things were going fine and dandy when we were drawing animals, mine were very cartoony but nothing to be ashamed of. But then Kaylie insisted we draw pictures of each other. So we did, and both spent ages trying to perfect it, and while what she produced, I'll keep forever, what I produced, I suspect will go straight into the fireplace when her mom gets her hands on it:

The funniest part was when Kaylie said to me "Is it ok if I draw your freckles so it looks more like you?" Sure Kaylie, sure they are freckles. Not age spots on my poorly-taken-care-of-skin. Not at all.

Then she drew a picture of her brother. The likeness is uncanny:

Oh no! I've forgotten my sister's rule on not having her kids' pictures on the internet! I better make some alterations:

Pottery Painting

Depite having no creativity whatsoever, I love pottery painting. It was what I made all my friends do on my hen do, along with afternoon tea. It was a very civilized affair.

One of the first things that my sister organised for her and my niece and nephew to do was to go pottery painting. Initially it was just going to be a girl thing, but Ethan insisted that he wanted to participate, only to finish in 10 minutes while the girls were still umming and awwing about what paint colours to choose.

My niece Kaylie painted a box, even though her parents say she already has about a dozen boxes in her room for her odds and sods. I painted a dish, even though I have about a dozen dishes that I painted at pottery painting. This dish has the express purpose of being Keith's junk dish, as he likes to fish everything out of his pockets when he gets home and toss them on a desk. Putting them in a dish makes the desk look so much tidier!!

Here is my masterpiece, and a picture of my niece and I painting (censored as my sister has a weird thing about her kids' photos being online - I also put a lightning bolt across my sister's face for extra measure)

The colours come out much darker after they've been fired in the kiln, so it's always a surprise what it ends up looking like. Can't wait to pick it up next Sunday!

I've already picked out what I'll paint next - a ladle rester dish thingie. Then a mug with a slot at the bottom for biscuits. Then some chip and dip platter/bowls. This place is going to suck up all my money.

Eloisa with Auntie May

Check her out! She's 4 pounds 8 ounces so she's pretty petite. Which just makes her even cuter! You can basically hold her in the crook of one arm. And she rarely cries! Just sleeps and sleeps and sleeps. We visited her today and it was like any other of our prevous family gatherings except there was a teeny tiny baby in a cot in the corner. Hope you stay this nice and easy for your dear parents Eloisa!

Stats (that I know of, as an aunt who's seen her twice)

Days since birth: 5
Days at home: 2
Number of baths: 1
Most MLs of milk drank in one feeding: 35ml

Eloisa Ann Bailey

The world welcomes Eloisa Ann Bailey, born 2nd of May 2012, my newest niece. Can't wait to meet her!