Day to Day

Keeping quiet

I've never liked the idea of having a sick child stuck away in the bedroom.  When one of my little ones are not well I wrap them up on the couch and let them sleep the day there - all cozy and near Mum incase they need anything. 

James woke up at 3am this morning vomiting and as I type this at 2pm he is still quite unwell being sick every hour or so inbetween sleeping.  So Bella and I have been trying to keep really quiet and have been filling in our day with some Playmobil action, sewing, baking and as I type there are more blankets and jumpers being felted in my washing machine (thankyou Mum!!).

I thought I'd be okay with putting the Playmobil castle together but for the life of me I can't figure the instructions out properly - so we're anxiously waiting for Dad to come home and finish it off for us (actually build about 90% of it for us lol).

So inbetween trying to figure out the flipping instructions I sewed two eggs.  Over the last year Lissy (http://liscassey.blogspot.com) has emailed me through the most gorgeous pieces of handstitched fruit and vegies that she has come across on her internet surfing, but I thought I'd start off with something super easy.

They took all of 5 minutes from start to finish.  I'm in love with the little yellow piece of felt stuffed full for the yolk.  Truth be told I could have sewn a dozen or more of these and I really wanted too - but Bella thought two would be enough for her game. 

Here I was thinking her game was going to be a cute picnic complete with tea set and toys but instead they are being used as rather comfy pillows for the Playmobil people. 

Cute hey!

Next I think some tomatoes might be in order - they seem easy and quick enough to fill in the afternoon...maybe a whole sandwich of food - I'll see how I go.

Today's cooking was a brownie slice which is now cooling and waiting to be sprinkled with icing sugar.  For some reason it seems to be sticking slightly to the greaseproof paper that we lined the tin with - annoying, but we'll still scrape it off and gobble it down no doubt (secretly hoping that it doesn't all come back up again tonight if we also catch James' bug).

My washing machine is beeping at me (the jumpers must be all piled up on one side of the machine) but before I go here is last night's crafting.  I picked up some really cool fabric crayons (you iron the design to set it) from the local art shop after seeing a cool idea on http://belladia.typepad.com/crafty_crow/.  James and Bella made a teeny pillow each (I sewed it up for them) to give their cousins (Oscar and Bonnie).  They turned out really sweet and I think they would make lovely presents to give to their grandparents etc.. for Christmas (maybe with a floral design or a hand drawn picture of their Nan & Pop etc..).

Mmm Yum!

I've been doing a little bit of cooking today - actually it seems like I've been in the kitchen all afternoon and I really haven't made that much.  Anyhow one of things we cooked was some really delicious crunchy caramel popcorn - super easy, quick, crunchy and well, we loved it.  The recipe is over on my recipe blog (I still can't figure out how to link grrrr...but you can find my recipe blog link in my side bar).

Speaking of cooking - James did his first batch of cooking the other day.  From start to finish completely by himself, including icing the slice and the washing and cleaning up.  It was delicious too!

The holidays are going far too fast.  Next week they will be both back at school :(  At the moment we're having a mammoth lego-a-thon in the lounge room.  Bella is working on Fort-Legoredo and James just finished putting his Star Wars AT-AT together.  James has his own blog now so I'm not allowed to post the photo of his finished lego creation on here (apparently lol).  Here's his link incase there are any young (or old) Star Wars fans out there: http://www.melissagoodsell.typepad.com/starwarsboy/

We've also been working on some more of his Star Wars Dagobah - who knew that paper machier could be so much fun!   There is still a fair bit to go before it's all finished though.

I have lots more to share but the washing up is calling me :(  Before I go here's a couple of layouts that I scrapbooked for the Tarisota gallery this month.

Yay for school holidays!

Yay for two weeks of school holidays starting today -   my favourite times of the year are the holidays.  There's nothing nicer than having my babes all to myself.

We've kicked off with some cooking - I was going to link the pikelet recipe but my link button doesn't seem to work anymore since the typepad changeover - grrrr how annoying.  How do you fix that? anyone?  Did I mention how much I'm not enoying the new format? A blog post with pics used to take me 5-10 mins tops and now it's taking double the time.

This morning also saw James back into his model making and now the boys have headed up to town to check out a Sci-Fi convention that's being held at the casino.  Bella has gone for a sleepover at Nan and Pop's house.

Who would have thought that my cardigan would nearly be finished?  My inbox is overflowing badly (I'm blaming the knitting) and my poor blog has been badly neglected (oops)...but just one more front plus the button hole bit and I'm all done :)

Bella has also been busy - I found this little masterpiece in the making on her bedroom floor after lunch.  There's been some hand stitching happening from her box of fabric scraps and I see a few of my quilting pins have found their way onto the item as well....can't wait to see it all finished :)

Before I go I'd like to thank everyone so much for taking the time to write some tips etc.. about arthritis.  The heat pack idea has especially helped with the aching, so thankyou very much :))

Knitting, trees, sand and feet.

I'm still plodding along with my new cardigan and so far I'm really thrilled with how it's turning out.  I actually can't believe I've stuck with it too - since I'm a beginner knitter I was under the impression that I'd lose interest fast and perhaps I might even be left with a half knitted cardigan and a few balls of wool....but no, it looks like I might just finish this :)  The blanket for James is coming along nicely too - nearly finished :)

The weekend was a little cold here.  We started off with soccer for James which followed some high scaling tree action (I just try to close my eyes and really hope that he doesn't ever fall out of the tree - at the same time telling myself that I used to climb the silver birch at my Dad's house at his age).  They've been using a bucket and rope to pull notes and letters to the top of the tree, cute.

Can you see him up in the top of the tree?  The tree house is already about 2 metres off the ground, so I'm not sure exactly how high up that is.

Talking of James, he has really bad arthritis in both of his feet.  We're currently seeing a podiatrist and have a paediatrician appointment in a month's time to try and find out more and investigate the back pain that he also has.  Just from walking around at school his feet really ache when I pick him up each day and by night time the pain is sometimes horrific for him.   I was just wondering if any of my readers have children with arthritis in their feet?  If so, have you found any ways to ease the pain?

Back onto the weekend - there was also some serious sand castle action happening in the backyard - Bella and her Dad spent quite a while working and playing on this city:

Family Fun Night

We've all been bogged down with colds and sore throats this last week, hence the little blog break.  Actually I've really enjoyed just hanging out on the couch every night watching t.v. and fiddling with my knitting.  It's been nice.

I wanted a cute pic of our board games to share for this post, but the camera battery needs charging so just text will have to suffice :)  Every Friday night we've been doing something special for the last couple of months - we call it our Family Fun night.  We started off making pizzas together but we're all a bit sick of pizzas now so we're just cooking a nice meal that we all like and enjoy - whatever takes my fancy on the day.  Then we either play a board game together or watch a dvd on the couch.  James and Bella love this and it's a nice bonding experience that we can all look forward to each week.  They both talk about it as Friday approaches - how many sleeps until Family Fun night, what are we going to watch or do etc...  At the moment we're working our way through all 6 Star Wars dvds together - we've only seen then all a million times already, but it's all about doing something together and that just happened to be what we decided to do for the next 6 weeks in a row.  We also buy a treat for after dinner (chocolate to share) and make popcorn.  It's turning into a really nice tradition for us :)

Speaking of fun stuff, the Tarisota newsletter is out and our layout theme this month was 'Happy'.  I created this 'be happy' layout of Bella for it.  I really loved the sequins in the collection this month, so pretty and such a lovely shade of green.

I also scrapped this one for the Aussie Scrap Source blog (eek - how on earth do you add a link with the new Typepad format?).  Bella brought home the bulb for me from school as part of my Mother's Day present. I added the french knots to the acetate tree as I thought the layout looked a little bare.

Well, I think that's all for today :)

Cross

I woke up so cross with myself this morning.  Apparently the first day of winter is June 1st, so that's exactly one month until James' blanket is due.  How could I be that silly/stupid to be thinking winter begins July 1st....(insert appropriate swear word here).... I know I've been going on a lot about the blanket and in the big scale of world problems the blanket is just be a tiny dot barely visible on my pinky finger...but I so want it finished for James.  I have sore throat too and feel blah. James stayed home from school with a headache.  I had to pick Bella up from school in the morning as her stomach was really sore.  I wanted to veg out and scrap today and just hang around the couch with my two sweeties....I managed two cards and a layout and no couch hanging out.

But then Bella started to feel better and made this sweet little boat for her puppies.

So, I decided to snap out of my sooky--la-la miserable mood and start cooking a rich chocolate pudding complete with cream and ice-cream for dessert....that's surely going to lift everyone's spirits a little! 

Sydney & Goulburn

We're finally back home from our awesome little holiday.  It truly feels like we've been gone for a month, so nice....and we all had a fabulous time.

There was plenty of horse riding, shooting (of a tin can variety), whip cracking (learning how to crack one), cow chasing, kangaroo spotting and dog feeding/tricks (11 cattle dogs).  We also squeezed in a visit to the zoo, Bondi beach, a day in Canberra and some serious shopping.

The treehouse {part 2}

They started off the day early, making paper hats out of their new favourite book (Dangerous book for boys).

Mid morning saw a trip to the hardware store to stock up on a little more wood and screws. 

Auntie Beth and Uncle Malcolm called in for a surprise visit which equalled more Easter eggs  :))

Then it was treehouse building time - followed by the first coat of paint - wow, I didn't realise that tree houses could be built so quickly! They are all pooped now and yes, James had fun scrubbing all that fence paint off his face.

Building the tree house.

Yesterday we went on a picnic to Richmond with Richard's Mum and Dad.  The weather was glorious and the highlight of the day for James and Bella was pottering through the maze there.  I find mazes a bit frustrating so I very happy when we finally found the middle!

Today we spent pottering, eating Easter egg chocolate, dinner at Mum's and late in the afternoon before we headed off, James started reading out the index in his Dangerous Book for Boys.  He mentioned that he'd really like to make a tree house, so Rich (Daddy of the year -well, we think so) jumped up and said 'let's go and get started then!'

They spent an hour dragging some wood to the front yard around the silver birch (goodness only knows if this will kill the silver birch lol) and screwing the base of the cubby into the tree.  I've never seen them both so excited and they have all sorts of plans now for lists, spy notes etc.. that they want to create ready for when the tree house is finished.

I'm still plodding along with James' blanket...slowly crocheting some squares together.

Oh...isn't she cute!!?

Happy Easter everyone :))

Picnic

Bella's Easter canvas is finished and I'm in love with the teeny basket overflowing with eggs and the egg trail that leads off the side.  James is still working on his :)))

We ventured out on a picnic today to a little park in Judbury that has the coolest cubby houses made from hollowed out trees.  It was hot though, super hot so we kind of felt like we were melting away towards the end...thank goodness for air conditioned cars! We took the gas cooker as Rich had promised Bella bacon and eggs (since it's our bacon and egg day today).

Thankyou all for your super sweet comments too!  Here are the answers to the questions (some of them I've emailed you directly but here are the left over ones that I haven't managed to answer yet).

With the left over egg from the egg blowing we made omelettes in the omelette maker :))

Meagan the holes for our eggs are reasonably small - as in skewer size - so larger than a pin hole.  If you give the yolk a really good poke (with the skewer) once you make the holes inside, it breaks it up and lets it blow through the egg much easier.

Yes Denise, we always blow the egg.  Each year (except for this time around because we're keeping them for ourselves) we make little Easter baskets and put the dyed eggs into them as gifts for people.  We don't use them for an Easter hunt (what a lovely idea that is though!) instead these ones will sit on the table in a bowl to look pretty.

Lastly - Sarah, I'm probably a strange kind of scrapbooker. When I'm starting a page I usually don't think too much about what is going where or what I'm going to use.  9 times out of 10 I just grab a photo and decide on a background colour for the layout.  Once that's done I just more or less start adhering bits of paper here and there leaving room for a title and some journaling.  If I think it looks a bit bare I add some embellishments...but once it's adhered down that's it...I never unstick anything or change my mind.  Most pages take me about 20 - 30 minutes from start to finish unless I do some handstitching.  I used to spend forever obsessing over which embellishment looks best etc.. but now I just like to get it finished and in the album so that I can start on the next layout.  Sorry, that probably wasn't very helpful for you :((

My lovely assistant James just drew out the giveaway/RAK winner:

That's probably a bit hard to read from the pic:

I just stumbled across your blog and I'm so excited I found it. What lovely
inspiration you provide with your projects. This bunting looks gorgeous,
will have to try to make some for myself.

Posted by: Sarah | March 15, 2008 at 08:29 PM

Sarah, if you would like to email me your address (goodsellmx@internode.on.net) I'll get your goodies in the mail for you.

I'm sorry that there wasn't a prize for everyone - I'll try and have another giveaway sooner rather than later :)))