The Not-Dead Bonsai. With Trains and Dinosaurs.

I'm more than chuffed to say that I didn't kill Tony's bonsai with my incessant hacking. It has reshot- tiny green spikes sticking out from between gnarled branches. Which means I breath an absolute sigh of relief.

Look hard... I promise there are tiny green shoots there. Really.

It still feels like spring here in TinyTrainTown, which is close enough to Sydney to be included in it's weather cycles. There are days of rain followed by humid but relatively mild heat. And plants shoot and grow and bloom in the natural greenhouse this weather creates, flourishing in the damp heat.

After admiring my handiwork- with my Gran's voice saying 'more by good luck than good management' ringing in my ears- I decided that the very prehistoric looking bonsai was the perfect place to show off the new addition to our ever growing toy collection....

... it's a MegaBloks Dinosaur Train and it is way cool.

I mentioned a while back that there comes a point, as a blogger, where you stand in front of a table of really cool stuff and weigh up exactly how much your kids would love this toy? Well, this may have been the toy in question. And I certainly made the right choice- my kids , at two and four years old, have played with this for hours.

MegaBloks is a trusted brand amongst Aussie mums- affordable, durable, practical and usable; and they've recently acquired the license for some popular kids characters- Dora, Thomas, Hello Kitty and The Jim Henson Studio's (yep, that's the Muppets guy) Dinosaur Train.

This is a buildable train and station with no track. Only parents of train-obsessed littlies understand the absolute bliss contained in that phrase- 'no track'. No track to fall apart, for the train to fall off, to cause general meltdowns. Win.

And the Dino critters with their little bobbly heads are way cute. Their little green drinks are even cuter. I'm actually tempted to pinch this one off the kids and leave him sitting in the bonsai... he looks good there.

Anyhoo. Dino Train gets a massive five outta five jellybeans on the RRSAHM-Ranking-Stuff-Scale.

Five from five. Nom nom.

And so, for that matter, does my bonsai pruning skills.

Win. Win. Win. 2012, so far you and I get along OK.