Morning and Evening

In this morning's early light the flowers open so fresh and new. Above is a paw paw flower, below an everlasting or straw daisy beginning to open again.

    

Miss E busy creating "people and aliens".

Miss N assisting Miss E to collect today's mail.

Miss E delights in  "reading" the mail to me.

More of today's garden treasures.

Returning from last night's walk the almost-full-moon came through between the clouds.

I trust you can find some beauty each morning and evening too......

Sharing at This or That Thursday, SkyWatch Friday.

Today's Garden Glimpses

Sharing at Aussie WW, Tina's WW, Alicia's WW.

A Birthday Book

Last week saw us celebrate becoming a two vehicle family and also a special birthday. Miss E has turned FOUR!
I am so grateful for photos which help us remember those precious early days. Miss E was 5 days old when I took this one (and many more). As with all our children, we chose not to know their gender before birth, leaving that secret as a surprise, a reward to look forward to at the birth. She was over 4kg/9lb and simply beautiful in every way.

After the success of the Christmas Shutterfly calendars and a family yearbook which I made through Blurb, I thoroughly enjoyed creating a special little book for Miss E, celebrating her year of being three. This time I used Shutterfly for which I had a good discount. If international postage was cheaper I would create books more often.

Blurb and Shutterfly work differently to each other, yet I have been pleased with the quality and service of both.  Most the photos I planned to use I had previously uploaded to Shutterfly's free online storage facility. This made the book creation process much quicker.

I chose a large, easy-to-read font as I hope Miss E will learn to read her own special book. For now she loves to "read" it making up her own sentences to fit the photos.

Another chocolate cake which Miss E very enthusiastically helped Miss E (19) to make, ice and decorate. She was also very determined to cut the cake into pieces, rapidly wielding a large, sharp knife.......thankfully she let someone else help in the end!

Sharing at And Then She Snapped.

Everyday Marvels

I spotted this colourful little fellow on a passionfruit late yesterday.

Our largest passionfruit really are larger than a tennis ball.

Covered in pollen, yesterday's caterpillar was enjoying nibbling on some passionfruit leaves today. 

Four new bromeliad flower spikes are beginning their adventure.

The largest tadpoles are beginning to turn into tiny frogs.

Loving my new macro lens! The closer I look, the more miraculous I find the everyday happenings in our garden. My eyes only see a tiny sliver of all which is continually unfolding, I marvel at God's creativity.

Sharing at Shoot.Edit.Submit (last photo chosen in Weekly Top 5), Sweet Shot Tuesday.

In The Blink Of An Eye

All summer long I have been trying to watch the opening of a passionfruit flower. After much observation and amazement/frustration I tracked their opening moments to the hottest part of the day, somewhere between 1:30 and 2:45pm, while we are working on our afternoon lessons.

1:39pm

They open very quickly because try as I may, I hadn't caught the critical moments once all summer. Today I just managed to catch the special moment. I saw this poised bud and decided to walk around to the other side of the fence.

29 SECONDS later!!!

By the time I walked around to inside the pool fence, it had sprung almost open! This is in 29 seconds. No wonder I have missed each one.

40 seconds more

A slight further opening, then the remaining petals sprung open right in front of my eyes.

 Another 15 seconds

I was excited to have seen it and stunned at their speed. I looked around and found another bud about to spring open and just watched it. I was delighted to actually witness the three seconds of action. They really do literally spring open.

10 minutes later

The petals stretched right back over the next few minutes until the flower was merrily dancing it's short life away.
By morning it will be closed up as the fruit begins to swell.

 Taken early this morning, you can see the succession of sizes along this section of the vine. Some of the largest fruit elsewhere on the vine are the size of tennis balls. Last year it had no edible fruit, I nearly removed it from the garden.

A few days ago one of the passionfruit fell of the vine. After witnessing this afternoon's little miracle, I cut this one open to taste, yes it is beautifully sweet. Many more sweet moments ahead by the look of the vine this year!

Sharing at The Creative Exchange.