Hey Bubbles

Better Homes and Gardens LIVE Ticket Giveaway (Melbourne)

2012-02-15T22:28:00.001+10:00

The friendly peeps at Better Homes and Gardens have offered 10 free double passes to Better Homes and Gardens LIVE event in Carlton on the weekend of February 24-26. All you need to do to win a double pass is be one of the first 10 people to comment on this post.

I wish I could go, I'm feeling decidedly uninspired lately and could use something like this to get me going again. But with less than a month before bubba #3 is due, ma weekend trip to Melbourne isn't really on the cards at the moment... so if you go and get some good ideas (dinner ideas and keeping my house organised would be great), you need to share them with me! That's not really a condition to getting one of the double passes, but I could use the help :)

From Better Homes and Gardens -

"Enjoya great family day out at BetterHomes and GardensLIVE 24th- 26th February 201 2at the Royal Exhibition Building, Carlton.

Thisfabulous LIVE event brings to life the pages of Australia’sfavourite magazine, providing home makers, DIY enthusiasts, keengardeners and aspiring cooks with inspiring new ideas for their homeand garden.

Don’tmiss live stage shows from your favourite TV presenters, inspiringideas, workshops and products for you to try and sensational shoppingfrom over 250 exhibitors. Plus, with plenty of entertainment for thechildren, this is an unbeatable day out for the whole family!

Allyour favourite BetterHomes and Gardens TVexperts will be there and you can see them LIVE! GrahamRoss,TaraDennis,'Fast'Ed,KarenMartini,JasonHodges,RobPalmer andJohannaGriggswill take to the stage to share their creative and original ideas tohelp you make yours a better home and garden! Clickhereto view the stage timetables."

Oh and don't forget to include your email address in the comment, or email me your email address so I can send you the details and get your tickets to you.

Home

2012-02-02T22:44:00.000+10:00

We've been home for about a month now (and we were only away for three weeks) but it's taken me this long to finally feel like we're getting back to normal life and routine.

I blame January, I always seem to feel a little bit out of sorts at the start of the new year. I think because I'm keen to start the new year all organised and efficient but before I can do that I still have to clean up the mess and sort myself out from December which all feels a bit too overwhelming and subsequently takes me about 3-4 weeks before I can get my act together.

So I'd like to suggest that from now on the new year doesn't start til February, I'm about ready for it by then. Or I could just go with the Chinese new year, at least it would be a bit closer.

Plus, around here we've been starting to get organised for a new baby sister (read: freaking out) who is due to arrive in little over six weeks. That seems seriously too soon but I guess that's what happens when you find out at 19 weeks!

So Polly's moved into a big girl bed, and she's doing really well thankfully. Both my girls seemed to make the transition to a big bed really easily (at around 20 months). I'm not sure but I think it's got to do with the really long toddler rail we have for their beds - they've both seemed to think that they're still in a cot. It took Matilda a few months to realise she could crawl down to the bottom of the bed and get out and by then she was used to sleeping there. Polly seems to be following the same pattern (fingers crossed it stays that way).

And both girls started at a new Day Care centre this year, Matilda for 2 days and Polly for 1. Matilda is loving it and loving the new centre, she also seems to be enjoying the 2 days and seems to be making more 'real' friendships as a result. Polly still isn't sure about the whole deal, before we leave home she gets all excited and carries her bag around for about an hour before we leave but once she gets there she's still getting pretty upset about me leaving which feels so awful, but the upset time is getting less and less each week so hopefully she'll start having fun soon.

We also snuck in a couple of little trips to the beach throughout January although with all the bad weather we've been having up here they've been cut short. So well and truly back to life as usual around here.

Catching up : the rest of our Victorian holiday

2012-01-22T10:56:00.003+10:00

A couple of days after Christmas we packed our bags again and set off for Bright with the rest of G's family.

We did lots of swimming in the river and playing hide and seek in the kids pool near the river (eww).

Picnic'ed at T ronoh Dredge Hole, swam in the freezing water, paddled a rowboat and put flowers in our hair.

Had dinner at the Wandi Pub, which is a great place for a meal in the garden (nothing fancy, just a great location and easy with the kids).

Visited Mt Buffalo, although Matilda was very disappointed that there was no snow!

Ate ice-cream.

Waited down the bottom of the mountains while G's brother and girlfriend paraglided.

Had a great ye olde Devonshire tea with homemade jams and lemonade, milkshakes and spiders in Wandiligong.

And eyed-off these cool preserve jar-lights at a cafe in Bright, which I think I need to hang all over my veranda at home.

Then, a bit tired and weary we drove home.

Our Christmas

2012-01-05T21:46:00.002+10:00

We arrived home yesterday after a great holiday in Melbourne and Bright. So nice to be home though.

So a few catch up posts and then on to the new for 2012!

So our Christmas started with G's family celebration on Christmas Eve. The girls got to wear their special Christmas dresses which I bought ages ago from here and they'd be sitting in their wardrobes ever since. I have a rule that if I buy clothes for a special occasion they can't be worn before then.

We had a great dinner and then it was present time. Matilda was so hyperactive it was ridiculous, she stayed awake for the whole party and didn't even fall asleep on our 30 minute drive back to our apartment in Carlton. She was awake until about 1am!! Even Polly made it until about 11 and their normal bed time is about 7.30pm. Luckily we'd left our reindeer food, gingerbread and chocolate milk out for Santa before we left for the party.

We thought the late night might have bought us a sleep in on Christmas Day, wrong. We were up around 8am to see what the big man had left behind. And apparently he went overboard again.

So the kids got straight into it.

Then we played with the new toys for a little while before heading over to G's cousin's for a pretty low key and lovely Christmas lunch.

Then we drove home with crazily tired kids and through some crazy Melbourne weather for an early night and a lazy Boxing Day that only required us to get out of PJs for a trip to the local park and some sliding.

Too tired to even try and convince Matilda that her princess costume was not suitable park attire.

Boxing Day was our last full day in Melbourne before heading off to Bright for our last week of holidays.

PS If you're ever in need of a place to stay in Melbourne the apartment we rented on Rathdowne Street, Carlton was perfect. We'll definitely be staying there again. Great location and really really spacious.

Melbourne for Christmas

2011-12-24T09:46:00.000+10:00

We've been in Melbourne for about a week... running all over town catching up with family and friends. It's been really good to see everyone again but today we're happy to just be hanging out in our apartment waiting for G's family's Christmas festivities tonight (G's family are Chilean so Christmas well and truely begins on Christmas Eve). In fact the kids have just been sitting down checking out the Christmas tree, as you do.

I'm hoping I can get both girls down for a sleep sometime this afternoon before their late night tonight. Both of them are a bit out of whack with all the new people, places and late bedtimes they've had all week.

Amongst it all we have had a chance to get into the city to check out the Christmas windows (which I had always been led to believe were better than the Brisbane ones, but they are exactly the same!) and the trees in Federation Square.

And we've been still getting through our Advent Calendar.

Making reindeer food

And gingerbread

And snowy scenes (using these instructions from Cakies)

And I have a new favourite wrapped present, for kids. I love these Santa mailing labels from Babelisme.

Hope Santa visits you tonight and that you and your families have a wonderful Christmas together!

Craft Day

2011-12-13T00:36:00.002+10:00

Our internet has just returned today after being out of action for about a week, hence the crazy number of posts. Sorry!! This is the last one, promise.

Although we had our last craft night for 2011 a few weeks ago, we snuck in an extra session during the last week to get some Christmas projects done. I had a few projects I really needed to get finished for the girls Christmas stockings so I was on a mission.

I made two fabric necklaces, I think the greeny coloured one will be for Polly and the other for Matilda.

And I finally finished my baby oobees that I had cut out about 2 months ago.

Matilda's -

Polly's -

I still have three things left to make before we go although I don't really like my chances of them actually happening. We'll see, one late night could knock at least 2 of them over.

An early Christmas lunch

2011-12-13T00:16:00.004+10:00

Over the weekend we celebrated lunch with my family as we'll be in Melbourne with G's family this year.

My job was to bring desert so I made a pavlova with berries and lemon cream out of the latest Donna Hay magazine. So yum. The cream was meant to have limoncello in it, but I didn't have any so I added the lemon zest of about 1 and a half lemons to the cream and it worked really well, if I do say so myself. Can't go wrong with lemon and blueberries.

Of course there was also bon bons, too much food, lots of presents and the necessity for a nap afterwards.

(Polly making her pirate face)

Christmas Baking

2011-12-13T00:11:00.002+10:00

North Pole cupcakes for mothers group. I've been a bit keen to try these since seeing them on Pinterest or Tumblr or somewhere, I think they originally came from here.

Santa's hat brownies for our Brissy family Christmas lunch.

And that may be just about enough crazy themed food for this Christmas.. except gingerbread men, which are on our list of advent activities to do once we're actually in Melbourne.

More Advent activities

2011-12-12T23:58:00.003+10:00

Package up reindeer noses for our last mothers group of 2011.

Head into 'town' to visit the big Christmas tree and the Myer windows.

Check out the local Christmas lights. Matilda loved it, Polly went nuts (good nuts).

Christmas Days

2011-12-06T23:15:00.001+10:00

Well, the Advent Calendar is a hit with the girls, particularly Matilda who is wanting to check the day's pocket as soon as she wakes up.

Monday was 'make a Christmas tree collage' day, which I think took me longer to organise that it kept the girls entertained for. Although they did go back to it a few times during the day to add more glitter to their trees and themselves.

Today our activity was to wrap Christmas presents, which was never really going to be a good idea with a 3.5 and 1.5 year old. Polly wanted to keep on adding sticky tape until you'd need a saw to get into the present and Matilda wanted to keep all the pretty paper for her presents. Matilda also wanted to wrap her presents and declared that she did not want any surprises. We got 3 presents done, but it's a start.

Tomorrow we have a busy day so I'm cheating a little and the pocket contains a freddo each for the girls. A few free passes are ok though, right?

We'll make up for it on Thursday night though, we're going to visit this local house which enters the Christmas lights competition every year and opens up their garden so you can walk through all the lights. Matilda loved it last year (she keeps asking about it) and I think Polly will go a bit mental for it this year too.

Advent

2011-12-01T23:46:00.001+10:00

After it being on the 'to do' list for a few years now, seeing Leslie's DIY Advent Calendar panel finally gave me the boost required to actually get it finished. That plus I figured Matilda at least is old enough to get into some activities and get excited about Christmas.

Of course, I didn't finish it until today. But it's up and after day care today, Matilda got to check out the first pocket and we decorated the tree.

My calendar is just some very simple linen pocket bunting. It took me ages to decide what to do and I am pretty sure that anything more complicated wouldn't have happened so I'm happy with it.

I had some 'helpers' with the sewing, so it's a little 'rustic'.

Polly helped me string them up and set up the tree today so we were ready to decorate when Matilda got home, I'll have to take some photos of the tree tomorrow.

Our Christmas tree is up on it's little table for a couple of reasons.. it takes up less space and we can put all the presents underneath and it also makes it harder for the kids to pull down all the decorations. At least that's the theory - last year our Christmas tree was safe behind a play pen, I'll let you know how we go this year.

For the most part the calendar has little activities to do but with a few choccies and other little surprises mixed in. I'm not sure I could sustain 24 days of activities.

Our activities, borrowed from a few others around the place with a few of our own added include:
Decorate the Christmas tree
Read Christmas stories
Go for a drive to see the Christmas lights
Walk through the Christmas light garden (there's a great house near us that goes a bit crazy with the Christmas lights and opens up their yard so people can have a walk around and have a look)
Christmas lunch at Granny and Pa's house (we'll be in Melbourne this Christmas, so we'll have an early lunch with my family)
Watch Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer movie
Sing Christmas songs (this ones for the drive to Melbourne)
Make snow globes
Go into town to see the Christmas windows and big tree
Wrap presents
See the Myer Christmas windows in Melbourne
Count how many Christmas trees we see (another one for a day of driving)
Make reindeer noses to give out at mothers group
Make reindeer food
Make gingerbread men
Turn on our outside Christmas lights
Put a present under the K-mart wishing tree
Make a Christmas tree collage
Christmas craft with C (my sister)

We have been partaking of a few pre-Advent sneaky Christmas activities too. Last trip to Spotlight I bought (because Matilda begged) some $3 watercolour sets with a few Christmassy type pics in them and we've been working on them. Despite really not wanting to buy them, the colours are actually really vibrant for kids watercolour sets so we've been having lots of fun with them.

One girl takes this very seriously, the other one not so much.. I'll let you figure out which (they have such different personalities!).

GOMA (Yay for fun weekends)

2011-11-27T23:04:00.001+10:00

So often these days, we find that the weekend has been and gone before we've had a chance to enjoy it. By the time we get some stuff done around the house and usually some uni work for me or work work for G it seems to be over. So we've been trying to plan a little bit more and try and get some time to do some fun family things too.

Today we headed into GOMA to check out a couple of exhibitions in the Children's Art Centre.

First off we checked out the obliteration room that is part of a Yayoi Kusama exhibition. I don't think there's many more exciting things in life for my girls than to be given a sheet of stickers and told they can stick them anywhere.

Polly still choose to stick most of them on herself.

Then we headed down to 'We miss you, magic land' to check it out. Pastels, glitter, little creatures and sugar art. Perfect.

(more pics on flickr)

Then through the gallery to go and have a coffee/milkshare, and discover air vents in the floor.

Finally, off to the Corner at the State Library for a bit of crafting and mucking around.

Yay for fun on the weekends. Now I just have to stay up for a couple more hours to do all the stuff to get ready for the week ahead, hmmm. Hope you had a fun weekend too.

Struggling

2011-11-22T17:36:00.001+10:00

I need routine in my life to get things done. It doesn't have to be a very strict routine, it's more that I need some rhythm to my days to keep things moving along. And so when my routine changes (like after finishing uni for the semester) I really struggle for a couple of weeks to get myself going again, find a new rhythm for my days.

I think I'm slowly starting to emerge from that funk. Deadlines also seem to help move me along, and the reality of Christmas and everything that I need to get done before heading down to Melbourne is finally starting to sink in.

That's not to say nothing has been happening around these parts for the last couple of weeks.

We had our last craft night for the year, which calls for a little bit of Christmas celebration.

We ate and drank well, talked a lot and perhaps ended up doing very little crafting but that's ok. If you're after a couple of refreshing summer drinks to celebrate I made a guava punch (non-alcoholic) and also a lychee granita and sparkling wine cocktail from the latest Donna Hay magazine and they were both very yummy. I have never made a granita before because for some reason I always thought there would be too much effort involved, but it's actually very easy. Everyone got a little box of some peppermint bark to take home, well someone missed out because i found Matilda scoffing a big piece of it that she'd nicked from the table.

I also celebrated in fairly quiet style my 33rd birthday. A good excuse to eat some yummy cake (recipe here).

And an even better excuse to get totally spoiled with bunches of peonies.

And some other lovely presents, including an ice-cream maker which I haven't tried out yet but I'm looking forward to playing with now that I'm slowly getting myself more organised.

So I'm off to write some lists... Christmas presents left to make and buy, spring cleaning to be done before the Christmas tree goes up, jobs to do before we leave for Melbourne. Getting organised and finding a new routine.

Surprise!

2011-11-10T17:00:00.003+10:00

So, we got a very (very!) unexpected but happy surprise last week.

Yep, baby number 3.

Oh, and I'm already 20 weeks. So we also got to find out that we're having another girl :)

My due date is March 24th and now that I'm kind of over the surprise, I think this little bubba was just meant to be.

I am actually a little bit excited and if I had ever thought this would happen to me I would have guessed that I would be totally freaked out! G on the other hand is a little bit freaked out, he's worried about how he's going to pay for three girls' weddings... umm, we have a little while to figure that out.

Busy Busy

2011-11-10T16:32:00.000+10:00

Thankfully, I have pretty much finished uni for the year. I have a research project to work on over summer but that is all. I can not wait for life to return to a little bit of normalcy. The last month has been ALL about assignments and not a whole lot of anything else.

Although we did manage to escape for a few days to the beach at Kingscliff which was lovely.

I'm looking forward to getting back some balance in my life, thinking about Christmas (I already ordered dresses for Matilda and Polly to wear) and making even doing some fun stuff!

Birthday Wish List

2011-11-04T11:28:00.001+10:00

Birthday Wish List by heybubbles on polyvore.com

Replica Eames DSW Side Chair - Plastic by Charles and Ray Eames - Matt...
79 AUD - mattblatt.com.au (x2)

Hop Skip Jump, Fiona Dalton - Shop Online for Books in Australia -...
24 AUD - fishpond.com.au

THOMAS SABO charm club

Farmer's Market Basket, Small Square
$14 - anthropologie.com

Tea Towel from here
Horse platter from Mozi
Love Mae melamine set from here
PS Desserts by Philippa Sibley
Anything from Rifle Paper Co

A few pointers for my husband, brothers, sisters and kids :) Plus the bag G, you know what I'm talking about!

PS I'm still alive, one more assignment to finish and then uni is over for the year!

KCWC Day 4

2011-10-14T11:21:00.002+10:00

It was Matilda's turn today. If I ever dare make Polly something, I better make sure Matilda gets something the next day. Anyway, I've had this idea of making a t-shirt for her with some of our old baby wraps so we gave it a go.

I used this tutorial, which was great except I have not sewed much with stretch and I obviously need a lot more practice, it's a bit of a fail. Especially around the neckline, and what's worse.. this is the second attempt at the neck, the first one I did was even more massive and wonky.

All good practice I guess, and it will be fine for hanging out in the cubby house this summer. Plus there's still heaps more of the wraps left to try something with them again.

KCWC Days 2 & 3

2011-10-13T13:07:00.001+10:00

It took me two days to finish this top.. but both days was pretty late at night so I think my poor brain was going very slowly.

We're off to the beach next week so this should be perfect for Polly to wear down there.

I've had this little top in this fabric for Polly in the back of my mind for awhile, so I'm glad I finally got around to making it.

I still need to make some little bloomers to go under it, but I ran out of elastic so I need to get myself off to Spotlight. She's got some plain white ones though so it won't be the end of the world if it doesn't happen.

KCWC Day 1

2011-10-13T13:01:00.000+10:00

Well I haven't been able to blog about it... but I have been doing some sewing or something related to that for an hour a day for the last three days.

Day 1 of the challenge was spent planning and cutting.

The brown floral is to make Polly a crossover smock, the middle one is for a paper bag skirt for Matilda and the blue and pink floraly one is to make some shorts for Polly.

Then I quickly made up a Lazy Days skirt for a friend of mine's daughter. We're doing a trade. She's making me this dress for Polly and I'm making her a chic chic dress and skirt like Matilda's. Since I can not crochet to save myself (apart from the foundation chain.. i can make a great chain!) this is a great deal.

Lately

2011-10-04T23:26:00.001+10:00

Or perhaps, always.. there are not enough hours in the day. But this is what we've been up to.

Picnics with friends.

An early Christmas present for the girls. We're not going to be home for Christmas and we had decided to give the girls a trampoline which will obviously not fit in the car so we had a 'special' discussion with Santa and he let us deliver it early. We couldn't really decide when to give it to them, but since we'd decided to do it early we figured there was not much point waiting and besides, they are too little to notice one less present on Christmas morning. So we set it up on the weekend when both girls were sleeping and told them that Santa had delivered something early just for them when they woke up.

Walking outside and seeing her present for the first time..

And a few minutes later..

Yes it is very pink.

And finally, sewing a little baby oobee sleepy set for a little baby, only about eight months late. I have another two sets cut out for the girls Christmas stockings, they're going to love them... anything that has multiple 'bits' and comes in a bag and they're all over it. It's a fun pattern to make, and I was surprised how quick it was to make really, especially once you've got all the bits cut out.

Apart from that.. same old uni, trying to control the never-ending mess in my house and two sick and therefore whingey little girls.

I've still got some uni stuff to get finished this week, but I'm kind of ready for this week to be over already. And just cause I'm a bit mental, next week I'm going to try and do Elsie Marley's Kids Clothes Week Challenge, kind of looking forward to it. I like a bit of structure :)

Anwyay, back to it.

Dressing Polly

2011-09-25T22:26:00.000+10:00

I had 2 assignments due on Friday, one of them I finished at an obscene hour which was really Saturday morning. So to reward myself (and in an effort not to go insane) I spent my Saturday making a dress for Polly. Yes I am a party animal, however, sewing does mean a bit of time to myself and believe me that is a rare commodity around these parts.

Of course when I finished it, it wouldn't go over her head (I think my kids have big heads) so I had to improvise. I cut down the back of the dress a little, finished it with some binding and added a button and loop.

And now, it fits!

This is the pattern I used for the dress.

Polly has been rocking the dresses lately. Matilda and her were treated by their Granny to go and see The Lion King during the week and Polly wore an old dress of mine (vintage!) from when I was her age. Love that Mum has kept some of these.

She wasn't really interested in having her photo taken in it though.

So that's all we've been doing around these parts. Writing assignments, trying to keep kids amused in the mean time and then sewing.

And apart from mum taking them to the movies, I did get a fair bit of work done during the week by writing letters on paper with glue sticks and then letting the girls cover them in sand. An idea I stole from here.

Matilda has been having fun trying to spell our her name and Polly's which she gets right some of the time. She also likes trying to write out their names and can kind of do most of the letters (if you use a bit of imagination) but she hasn't really got down with the idea of writing the letters next to each other and just puts them where ever she likes.

I'm not really ready for another week to start yet.

The red dress

2011-09-19T17:26:00.000+10:00

So I said the red dress fabric would be for Polly, but Matilda had other ideas. She was determined that it was going to be for her, and I caved. Really she does need more clothes than Polly does because Polly gets all her hand-me-downs, poor little second child.

So here's Matilda's dress.

It's a version of the chic chic dress from too sweets but i just made the sleeves short. She loves it, I'm pretty happy with it... it's definitely nice and cool and easy for just hanging out in in summer. I would have liked it to be a bit longer, I think I stuffed the hem a bit but it's ok.

I'm a bit obsessed with the idea of making her a cream coloured plaited yarn necklace with a few brass beads but I probably don't really need to be accesorising my 3 year old's outfits just yet. Well maybe, she'd probably love it.

study + spare room

2011-09-18T23:08:00.001+10:00

Over the weekend we got everything in our study/spare room tidy enough to take some photographs, at last. We actually finished most of the work back in July but finally having a proper study/sewing room/spare room that G and I share meant sorting through stuff in all different corners of our house to get it into the right spot. Lots and lots of cleaning, sorting and throwing out.

We're really happy with the end result although we've ended up with more stuff in here than I would have liked. But when you're trying to combine all those functions in one room and you have a geek husband who has spare computers as well as boxes of cables and stuff like that that need to be housed a bit of prettiness had to be sacrificed (not to mention all my boxes of random crafty bits and a cupboard full of fabric).

At the end of the day I'm just happy to be rid of the ugly green and peach carpet, tartan curtains and the yellowy walls. Very 1994. So here's the photos.

Before:

After:

Before:

After:

Our desks are actually a couple of saw horses and 2 big planks of wood painted white. An idea I completely stole from Claire. We had been thinking of getting desks properly built in as we wanted them to completely fill the wall. But we didn't want to spend too much money and it all seemed a bit too hard once we had seen this idea.

My grandma had given me her old sewing cabinet - one of those ones where you can lift up the sewing machine when you open the top of the cabinet. I wasn't going to keep it cause it's pretty ugly, but it's turned out to be really useful so I gave it a bit of a makeover with some Lara Cameron birch removable wallpaper.

It still has a little bit of it's ugly, but I think it's a big improvement.

We also had this old ikea coffee table lying around and we bought some foam, recovered it and made a little bench seat for Matilda and Polly to sit on.

It hides some storage bins from Ikea with some paper, pencils and duplo that the girls can play with while I'm trying to get some uni work done (that was the theory anyway), they've also got their dolls house down here.

The yellow wardrobe stores all my fabric in it. I've had it for ages, just sitting waiting to be used for that purpose. At the last minute I decided to paint it yellow, I decided we needed a bit of colour. (I still need to paint around the handle with a little brush, so just ignore that bit.

The curtains I made (and I use that term loosely, think heat & bond) from a Joel Dewberry fabric.

And that's about it, but a few more pictures just for good measure.

Much nicer.

craft night

2011-09-12T22:43:00.001+10:00

Last Tuesday was craft night, my favourite night of the month. Friends, yummy dinner, lots of talking and silliness and a little bit of crafting. A proper 'night off' every month.

This month we ate from Greg and Lucy Malouf's Saraban cookbook, I love Middle Eastern flavours. We ate baked layered rice with spinach and lamb with yoghurt and herbs. I also made the chicken version. They were both yum, but the lamb one wins hands down and I can't wait to make it again.

The recipes are available through google books at these links:
Baked layered rice with spinach and lamb
Baked yoghurt chicken with rice
and you also need this recipe for cooking the rice (this is the best way to cook rice, really nice and fluffy).

The recipe may seem a little complicated but it's actually really easy, you just need to do it in a few stages (start the day before). I actually find this kind of cooking easier with kids because I can do little bits at a time and there's not too much to do right before serving.

And we did actually do some crafting, we made some of those fabric and bead necklaces. This is a good craft activity that you can finish in a small amount of time, I think they took us just over an hour. Plus we figured they'd be good for some summer outfits.

Here's mine, which I made quickly the night before to make sure I knew how to do it. It's a little bit messy and I'd like to retie some of the knots, which may happen one day.

And as modelled by the big girl..

These were pretty fun and quick to make, I think I might make one each for my girls for their Christmas stockings. Yes, it is time to start thinking about that.

There are tutorials for them online, but basically all you need to do is sew a tube of fabric, slips beads/polystyrene balls/marbles inside and tie knots between each one. I made my tube about 150cm long and once I'd added 7 balls and tied the knots I had lost about half the length.

Sunday night supper club: lamb + hommus + flatbread

2011-09-12T22:20:00.000+10:00

I've been suffering from dinner boredom again lately. I think it has to do with changing seasons.. bored of winter foods, not quite ready for summer foods.

So this quick, easy and tasty dinner was a bit of a life saver.

Recipe found here, on the Melbourne Vintage blog.

Raspberry, yogurt and lemon loaf

2011-09-09T20:59:00.000+10:00

Raspberry, yogurt and lemon loaf for mothers group morning tea. Yum. Recipe here.

Polly's crazy pants

2011-09-09T13:07:00.000+10:00

I finally got a chance to sew up the pants I had cut out weeks ago for Polly. I love them although I'd wish I'd made them a bit wider at the top of her legs so they were a little more baggy.

Can't wait until the weather is warm enough for her to wear them with a little singlet, I think she'll look cute. And i kind of want to buy her a pair of yellow salt water sandals just to go with. But my sister, who is currently on holidays in New York has just bought her a gold pair and a bright pink pair, so I think one of them will have to do (if you want to buy some sandals that's a great place to get them from, if you're buying more than 1 pair then with shipping to Australia it's still cheaper than buying them here).

Next project is a dress out of this fabric. I think it will be for Polly too.

Only problem is I can't decide which dress. Here are the candidates.

1. Pockets are best dress.
2. Mini maxi dress or
3. Smock top dress
4. Something else??

Thoughts?

Fossicking

2011-08-29T15:18:00.000+10:00

Yesterday we went up to the Sunshine Coast for the day to help celebrate my sister-in-law's thirtieth birthday. After lunch we went down to the beach to explore the rock pools, it was a nice warm day and I hadn't brought any togs with me so the girls went a little free range.

Listening for the waves in the shells.

Such a nice day, need to do this more often!

It's nice to actually get out and do stuff on the weekends, but life gets so busy sometimes it's easy to forget to do it.

Things that are making me happy this week...

2011-08-15T22:04:00.001+10:00

That some of the bulbs I planted actually flowered. Admittedly, it's not quite the bouquet I was hoping for but I do have a few flowers and a few buds coming through.

Flowers from my sister in law.

Filling up the biscuit tin.

Cutting out some crazy pants to sew for Polly.

Being (almost!) up to date with uni reading.

And a sneaky chocolate cupcake with a cup of tea.

On the other hand, I'm not so sure about installing Disqus on my blog for comments. I thought it was cool because if I replied to a comment on my blog it emailed the commenter, but I'm not sure it's working properly. So if I owe you a reply or email, sorry!

Polly's new hoodie

2011-08-06T00:20:00.000+10:00

I cut out this hoodie for Polly on my first week of holidays from uni. So what better time to actually sew it together than my first week back.

Nothing like being a week behind right from the beginning.

But I had to hurry up and finish it because soon it's going to be too warm around these parts for her to actually wear it and then she's going to grow too big for it!

It was a really fun pattern to make and I'm really happy with the end result, it's even pretty neat by my standard.

The pattern is from Heidi & Finn.

Mermaid Party

2011-08-01T16:43:00.000+10:00

Matilda and one of her cousins shared a birthday party yesterday, in the middle of the two of their birthdays. They both love mermaids so it was easy to pick a theme for the party, and then to go with the mermaids everything else seemed to become blue and green and silvery.

We had random bits of blue/green sparkly organza for a tablecloth and hung hula hoops with ribbons and silver beads and other bits and pieces above the tables kind of like water or seaweed. We also used this printable mermaid sandcastle play set in the middle of the table.

The cake was a couple of toy mermaids swimming around on the 'beach'. A brunette mermaid for Matilda and a blondie for the other birthday girl, A :)

We also ate cupcakes, whoopie pies, jelly, cinnamon and vanilla madeleines, seaweed pies (spinach and feta), fish and chips and some other bits and pieces - cheese platters and smoked salmon dip.

We did a little bit of craft with some foam art with under the sea creatures and some pirates. And played pass the parcel with these cute little wooden mermaid watches and bracelets and some pirate watches again for the boys.

To take home everyone got a little mermaid swag of fish lollies, sea creature bubbles, some stickers, a beautiful (?!) toy ring with a big green or blue diamond, mermaid hair bands (pirate eye patches and a little torch for the boys), a glittery pencil and a lollipop.

And I actually achieved something I had thought of a long time ago and didn't know if I'd ever get around to and made special mermaid dolls for the birthday girls. I used the Poppy doll pattern from Hop, Skip, Jump but made up a tail instead of the legs. I also used this tutorial for woolen hair, found via Leslie.

And that's the end of birthday parties for me for the year, which I must admit I'm kind of happy about, even though they are fun.

Some little changes in Matilda's Room.

2011-07-27T23:50:00.000+10:00

Wowsers, I haven't been blogging much lately. Our office/spare room renovation has been dragging on and on forever. Not with stuff that still needs to be done to it (other than prettying up a few things) but just the cleaning and sorting that has resulted. Our house has 3 little floors and finally clearing out and setting up our study properly has meant getting stuff out of our attic on the top floor, cleaning out our front room that's meant to be a formal lounge/dining but was being used as my study and a storage space on the first floor floor and moving things down to the study on the bottom floor. So we have been unpacking and sorting and moving and cleaning for weeks now and we are so close to finished but just not quite there yet.

Anywhoo, with our study reno I've been doing quite a lot of painting and while all the paint bits were out I finally finished a couple of other jobs that have been hanging around our house unfinished for way too long. Two of which belonged in Matilda's room, which hasn't really changed much since we fixed it up last year.

For Matilda's birthday last year my Dad made her some bookshelves and we bought her a little bean bag to make a reading corner in her room (the girls loves books). In my usual last minute fashion I ran out of time to finish painting the shelves properly so it never got a final coat of paint and as a result we never put them on her wall properly, they just sat there leaning up against the wall for more than 12 months.

So good to finally have them finished!

Then for her birthday this year, my Mum gave Matilda her old dolls clothes wardrobe from when she was a kid. Mum had intended to give the wardrobe a bit of a paint job before her birthday but didn't make it in time either (wonder where I get it from) before she left for an 8 week holiday!

So I finished this one too, and now Matilda has a baby corner in her room too.

The wardrobe used to look like this..

.
I liked the green actually, but it didn't really go with her green and was a bit yucky after being stored under mum and dad's house for a long time.

Haircuts

2011-07-20T22:28:00.000+10:00

Yesterday Polly had her hair cut for the first time, if you don't count the dodgy hack jobs I used to do on her fringe. It was getting a bit out of control, especially as she had long sides but a short patch at the back.

We went to the Magic Moose because they do hair cuts for kids, and have DVDs set up at each station as well as bunches of toys to distract the kids attention away from the actual hair cutting. It's a bit of a drive for us but definitely worth it as both girls were happy to sit there and watch Tinkerbell or play while their hair was being cut.

Polly looks so grown up now! Not a baby any more.

Matilda got a hair cut too, her first in a long time.. she just got a couple of inches off the back, I was tempted to cut lots off but I couldn't bring myself to do it. I never had long hair when I was a kid so I think I'm living vicariously through her.

I think she was kind of bored with the whole thing actually.

On her actual birthday

2011-07-20T22:13:00.000+10:00

Matilda woke up (in our room) and found a few presents that I had to hide for her (at her request).

Polly had to come to terms with the idea that none of the presents were for her.

Then off to the park on her new bike for a birthday picnic lunch.

And take photos of everything on her new camera - she was just walking up to other kids in the park and snapping off a couple of photos of all of them, so funny to watch her do things like this with no inhibition

Eat some party food. Including these vanilla whoopie pies with nutella butter cream (totally yum)

And more birthday cake (white chocolate layer cake with raspberry cream filling).

It's fun having birthdays on the weekend.

Three

2011-07-20T21:40:00.000+10:00

Matilda turned three on Sunday. Seems bizarre to me that she's been with us for that long and yet it also feels like she's been with us forever.

Anyway, birthdays are a big deal around here - not big as in have to have a bazillion presents (although that does kind of end up happening) but big as in whatever family is in town has to join in the celebration and there has to be some kind of celebration. Even if it's just a few people and a birthday cake. What normally ends up happening is a few celebrations in order to catch everyone.

My mum and dad have left for a bit of a holiday (they're turning into those old people that drive around the world with a caravan) and they were leaving the day before Matilda's birthday(!) so our first celebration was a birthday dinner on the Thursday before Matilda's actual birthday.

There always has to be invitations, I used the vintage hanky templates from Amy of Eat Drink Chic, Matilda picked which pattern she liked.

But that's kind of where the pretty ended. It got all Dora and ugly after that, which Matilda loved, of course. My mum made an ice-cream Dora cake. My grandma always used to make us ice-cream cakes with multi-coloured piped cream on them when we were kids so it was nice to have it back.

And despite being very tired after her day at day care, Matilda had a good time.

The Help, by Kathryn Stockett

2011-07-20T20:55:00.000+10:00

I just finished reading this book for my book club (first book I've actually finished on time for ages) and I loved loved loved it. So if you're thinking about what to read next or have been thinking about this book, do it. It's great.

It's set in the sixties in Jackson, Mississippi and is about a girl returning from college to her rather boring life going to Bridge and League meetings with all her white friends. In her search for a career as a journalist she ends up writing a book which includes stories of 12 black maids and what it's like to work for white women.

My kind of stories - I love stories that are fictional but are about a real part of history, I love stories about women and how we help or work against each other and I love stories that you can make an easy emotional attachment too but it doesn't feel like it's tried to hard. The main characters in the book are all great, interesting and I think, realistic.

I was so sad when I finished reading it, I didn't realise I was so close to the end and I just wanted it to keep on going.

a trip to the farm

2011-07-01T23:53:00.000+10:00

Today we went on a little trip to a family friend's farm up near Gatton.

It's a beautiful spot and the girls had a tonne of fun investigating and roaming around.

Finding bird's nests and filling it with nuts for the birdy's breakfast.

Feeding the sheep who is going to have a baby soon, so we might just need to take another trip up to visit the little lamb.

Jumping on the trampoline. I think the girls might be getting one for Christmas, they had a great time.

Digging up some veges to bring home, lucky us.

And some fruit.

Eating a yummy lunch.

And getting freaked out by a little visitor.

We had a lovey day.

And if you're not totally bored by now, there's some more photos on flickr.

story time

2011-07-01T23:36:00.000+10:00

This is Matilda, all dressed up in her PJs and ready for twilight story time at our local library. Each fortnight (I think, we've only just started going along) the library has a story time from 6.30 - 7.30 and we try and arrange it so that G can take her for a special daddy-daughter time.

It's pretty cute, the kids are all in their jammies and they sit on the mat, listening to stories and singing a couple of songs and sometimes there's a little craft activity to do too. It's also fairly quiet and easy going so it's a nice and a bit of a special way to finish a day.

our big day out

2011-06-30T00:12:00.001+10:00

My sister and I took the girls on a big adventure today. We caught the train into the city with G in the morning to go and visit the museum. It was both girls first time on a train - Matilda was a bit nervous and sat quietly for the whole trip, Polly loved it and bounced around sticking her head up to the window and waving goodbye to anyone hopping off the train.

At the museum we had a look at lots of animals and some dinosaur skeletons. Matilda loved the dinosaurs and this time Polly sat quietly in her pram just checking it all out. There's also a Torres Strait Island exhibit at the museum at the moment so we looked at the canoes and beautiful head dresses. We watched an exhibition of some island dancing which both girls really loved (and all the other kids seemed to also).

Next we caught the city cat ferry across the river and into town (i love saying that we went into town, it sounds all ye olde to me) and met up with G and grandpa for lunch. And the girls even got balloon animals from the guy in Queen Street Mall.

They were exhausted by the time we got home and Matilda was asleep on the couch by about 5.15 this afternoon and didn't wake up for dinner.

Crumbly

2011-06-26T22:22:00.000+10:00

We had a big Sunday lunch today. And for desert - rhubarb, pear and ginger crumble with vanilla creme anglaise. Yum.

well..

2011-06-24T23:42:00.001+10:00

So much for daily posting. There just aren't enough hours in the day to do everything I'd like to do.

I have achieved some stuff while I've haven't had to worry about uni work. My house is almost clean again (yay!), my spice shelf in my pantry is even alphabetised! Still a little bit to go...

I've finally ordered some carpet to get our office/spare room renovated and I'm off to buy some paint tomorrow. I'm hoping that it's finished by the time uni starts again at the end of July.

Apart from that there's been trips to the grandparents, visits to the library - Matilda and Polly got their own library cards which was very exciting (for Matilda anyway), crazy stops on the side of the road to pick wattle and play dates.

I'm hoping that next week I actually might get some crafty time because I have a list a mile long of things I want to do while i have some time! But I never feel like I can make stuff if my house is too messy, so need to get that finished first.

work in progress: mermaid dolls

2011-06-21T20:38:00.000+10:00

Matilda and her cousin have their birthday's within a month of each other and they both love mermaids... so this year, right in the middle of their birthdays we're having a joint mermaid birthday party for them.

I wanted to make them a special present for the day so I'm planning on making them a mermaid doll each.

I have a plan, that I'm not sure will work but we'll see how we go. I'm thinking I'll use the Poppy Doll pattern, but replace the legs (and some of the body) with a mermaid tail. For the tail I want to use a bunch of random shimmery strips of fabric all sewn together maybe with a few bedazzlers on them.

Then I'm thinking the doll will have to have some long hair (brunette for Matilda, blonde for A), kind of like this, but mermaid long.

I hope they work out like they look in my head :)

Chorizo

2011-06-20T19:07:00.000+10:00

Apparently winter means chorizo around these parts. It seems to pop up it's lots of things we've been cooking lately.

First up it was fennel, chorizo and bean soup for lunch last weekend (recipe below).

And last Friday night it was beef, chorizo and bean pies with green salad, chips and aioli for dinner. How naughty is that? It was yum though. The pie recipe is in the latest Donna Hay magazine.

Fennel, Chorizo and Bean Soup (serves 4)

1 cup (200g) black eye beans (I had cannelini beans on hand so that's what I used and I used a 400g tin so I didn't have to soak them overnight - which made this a really quick soup to make).
1 large bulb fennel, finely chopped
1 large carrot, finely chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
2L chicken stock
400g tinned chopped tomatoes
1 chorizo sausage, finely chopped
salt and pepper
1/4 cup Italian parsley, finely chopped

Soak beans for 6 hours or overnight in cold water. Drain.
Put beans, fennel, carrot, onion, stock and tomatoes in a pot and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 1 1/2 hours until tender. (Because I used tinned beans, I just simmed until the veges were soft).
Stir in chorizo, season and simmer for 10 minutes.
Stir through half the parsley and serve soup sprinkled with the remaining parsley.

Strawberries

2011-06-18T20:09:00.000+10:00

There's a little strawberry farm around the corner from my mum + dads place and we get a little excited when it reopens every year.

They grow the best strawberries I have ever eaten, and every year they are just as good. Absolutely full to the brim bursting with flavour. With the added benefit of buying a punnet and being able to eat the whole lot, not throwing out 6 slimey ones like you buy in the shops.

We had some this morning for breakfast on pancakes. And ate the rest after lunch. Yum.

On holidays and daily blogging

2011-06-18T01:13:00.000+10:00

I finally handed in my last assignment for the semester on Wednesday, so now I have a break from uni until 25 July. Yay! I don't really like to call it a holiday because I'm really just returning to the way life was before I started uni and that wasn't really a holiday :) But that is all beside the point really... no more assignments, yay! So I'm hoping to blog daily until I go back.. we'll see how we go. More than once a week would be a big deal in itself.

So on my first day of holidays (which was yesterday, but we'll start this daily blogging thing from today ok? and i know technically it's now Saturday but it's really Friday night so that's what we're going with, and I know I just said I'm not calling them holidays but whatever) I finally finished and posted off a very over due baby present.

In fact, I was running to the postbox, express envelope in hand desperate to make Thursday's mail because I had to post the baby present before his first birthday (this Sunday). I just made it.

A long long time ago, before kids and Brisbane I used to work with a team of four girls in a training job for a Melbourne financial services company.

We are good friends to this day and freakishly last year, we were all pregnant at the same time. Two of us with our second babies, one with her first and one with her third.

So I got it into my head that I should buy all three babies the same kind of present, so everybody was going to get a fabric ball, a book and a little piece of clothing. No problems, except I had to make the balls.

Polly was also due first, so I was trying to be fairly organised. And with the first two I did really well. Number three on the other hand, not so good. He had to wait a looong time. It got to the point that I was just determined to make it before his first birthday and I barely did that... in fact in the process I've returned 2 items of clothing that were going to be included in the present but he would have grown out of by the time I'd sent it.

Anyway, yesterday it was sent off and it made it to it's destination today. First birthday party is on Sunday. Just in the nick of time :)

New skirt

2011-06-05T08:57:00.000+10:00

I quickly made Matilda a new skirt yesterday. She's into skirts and dresses at the moment, it's all I can get her to wear most days and I really can't find any in the shops that I like.

It's Oliver+S's lazy days skirt with Made's gathered pocket added to it.

Cooking with herbs

2011-06-04T16:41:00.000+10:00

This morning I went to a little cooking demonstration by the owner and chef at Sprout Cafe, Richard Webb, at the Samford Valley Garden Centre. It was a really interesting and fun morning and luckily my sister, mum and neighbour came with me so when Matilda got a bit bored my sister took her for a little walk and brought her back just in time to try some basil ice cream which Matilda downed in seconds.

Richard cooked a lovely menu of:

Seared hervey bay scallops with nasturtium and persimmon gazpacho

Crispy Asian pork belly with Asian herb salad

Grilled crows nest goat tenderloin with creamy mash and vanilla lavender jus

Basil ice-cream with strawberries

Lemon myrtle panna cotta with wild bush honey

This is what I learned

you can use nasturtium stems anywhere you'd use spring onions or onions
a pretty and nice tasting edible flower is borage - and apparently it grows easily, so i'm going to give it a go
the lemon myrtle panna cotta you can make by just adding a few lemon myrtle leaves to a basic panna cotta recipe when the cream is boiling and let it infuse and it produces a strong lemony flavour that was really nice with the little bit of honey on top
warrigal can be cooked like asparagus, but you need to blanch it first
geranium keeps possums away from your garden! excellent, I need to buy some so I don't have to clean up possum poo from my verandah every morning!

So after this yummy talk and demonstration, I went crazy and bought a bunch of new herbs for our garden.

And come craft night this Tuesday, I'm going to give a couple of Richard's recipes a try. You can get some off his blog. I'm going to try this one and this one.

Sunday night supper club: mmm risotto

2011-05-29T19:31:00.000+10:00

Some days there's nothing better than a full of flavour risotto with some parmesan and crusty bread, delicious.

This one is porcini and pancetta and has so much flavour it's almost ridiculous, ridiculously good. If I'm allowed to say that about something I cooked.

It's from this book, which has quite a few yummy recipes in it actually. The blueberry and lemon tea cake is very good too.

Porcini and pancetta risotto(serves 4)

25g dried porcini
1L chicken stock
1tblsp olive oil
2tblsp butter
1 small onion, finely chopped
1 garlic clove, crushed
100g pancetta, without the rind and diced
250g aborio rice
80ml white wine
20g parmesan
2 handfuls rocket

Soak the dried porcini in 80ml just boiled water for 10 minutes. Drain, reserving the soaking liquid and chop the mushrooms finely, set aside. Pour the chicken stock into a large saucepan, add the porcini liquid and bring to the boil, then reduce the heat to low and keep at a simmer.

Heat the olive oil and half the butter in a large pan over medium heat. Add onion and cook, stirring occasionally for 5 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and pancetta and cook, stirring from time to time for a further 5 minutes. Add the rice and porcini and stir to coat the grains of rice in the oil. Pour in the wine and let bubble until almost completely evaporated.

Add the stock, a cupful at a time, stirring constantly and making sure that each addition of stock is absorbed before you add more. Continue adding stock for about 20 minutes or until the rice is al dente and creamy.

Remove from the heat, stir in the parmesan, remaining butter, rocket and salt and pepper to taste. Put the lid on the pan and leave to sit for 3 minutes to allow the flavours to develop. Serve with freshly ground pepper and extra parmesan, with a big green salad on the side.

And if you can't be bothered with all that Charlie's controversial 5 mushroom risotto is pretty good too.

Matilda's new dress (aka the procrasination continues)

2011-05-29T11:14:00.000+10:00

Being a bit obsessed with sewing kids clothes since the kids clothes week inspiration and also more than happy with any excuse not to work on my assignments (I'm really going to be paying for this) I made Matilda a new dress over the last couple of days.

Out of one of my old t-shirts. Old t-shirt:

New dress:

I used this pattern, except I added cuffs, just because. I was thinking about making one cuff red and the other one yellow but then I thought it might be a bit too Punky Brewster.

It fits!

And I made a little woolen flower brooch to go with. Maybe because I bought one of these awhile ago and hadn't had the chance to use it yet.

Ok, now I really need to go and do some work!

kiddie craft

2011-05-29T01:07:00.000+10:00

We three girls spent the day at home on Friday, so while Polly slept Matilda and I decided we'd make some bird seed shapes to hang in a tree that hangs close to our verandah.

I had a box of bird seed hanging out in the pantry because well it's a long story, but i was going to grow little pots of grass for our Easter Egg hunt and never got around to it so anyway, it was just sitting there. I had seen this recipe to make bird seed ornaments a little while ago and thought it might be a fun thing for Matilda to do, plus I happened to have all that stuff in my pantry so it was easy.

Matilda mixed it all up and then we pressed it into some different shapes and left it to dry out. We had to leave it overnight in the end and they still weren't as firm as I would like them to be but they have hung in our tree for a few hours now without falling out so maybe they're ok. I remember making these when we were little and we mixed the bird seed with PVC glue and those shapes were really hard although I'm not too sure how good they were for the birdies.

I have no idea if there will be any left in the morning... we caught a cheeky possum digging into one of them earlier tonight. Oh well, if they're all gone Matilda will be happy that the birdies (or possums) liked her bird cakes.

And that hasn't been our only bit of kiddie craft this week. Earlier in the week after being asked for about the 6 billionth time what day it was and what were we doing we made Matilda a weekly chart so she can see what she's up to.

I completely stole the idea from my friend and it's a really good idea, Matilda loves it, she helped me make it and she understands it. Added side benefit, she only asks me what day it is about 10 times a day now.

And in case you were wondering where this burst of activity came from, I have three big assignments due in the next 2 weeks - so procrastination is in full swing :)

Ikea Spice Racks

2011-05-24T06:51:00.000+10:00

Have you seen the Ikea spice racks turned into bookshelves?? Like here and here.

I am completely in love with the idea and in Australia those shelves are $2.50, crazy. Anyway, my problem is I have no where to put shelves like this in my kids rooms. My Dad made Matilda a forward facing bookshelf for her birthday last year (which I will show you all one day, when I finally put the last coat of paint on it and attach it to the wall) so she doesn't need one. And Polly doesn't really have the wall space for it in her room.

Maybe there might be space in our spare room/office/playroom but we're slowly slowly slowwwwwly renovating that room and I couldn't wait that long.

So they now hang in my kitchen. I had this stupid bit of wall about my bench which always seemed a bit empty to me, but it's right next to a window so I couldn't put wide shelves on it. I also really wanted somewhere in my kitchen to have my babushka measuring cups out cause theyr'e cute!

Plus I figured one day we'll be painting the ugly blue wall and hopefully renovating the kitchen a bit too, so if the shelves didn't work out it wasn't really going to be the end of the world. But I love them, so even when we paint they may end up sticking around.

Playschool

2011-05-21T10:52:00.000+10:00

The girls and I went to the Playschool concert yesterday, and today we're going to a local fair to meet Dora the Explorer. How much fun can 1 person have?

The Playschool concert was actually pretty good. It was at a PCYC hall just down the road from our house, went for 40 minutes, which basically meant they did 1 episode live and it wasn't too packed (because they do lots of local shows and 3/day).

Matilda really loved it and danced up a storm.

I have no idea how people take good photos at things like this...

And Polly had fun with a bit of dancing and a bit of rummaging through people's handbags and stealing their tissues.

We went to the wiggles concert late last year and I think if I was to choose between the 2 I'd pick playschool again - lots easier in terms of size and location, much cheaper and I think the kids had just as much fun.

Elsie Marley's Kids Clothes Week Challenge

2011-05-20T21:56:00.000+10:00

Have you ever participated in one of these? I have never but I like to think that one day I will (maybe after uni, or if there's on in holidays). Anyway, this week just past has some amazing inspiration for making kids clothes. I've just added about another billion things to the list of things I'd like to make.

I think when mid-semester break arrives (not long now!) I might try and have my own little kids clothes week and see what I can get done.

This is what I'd like to make...

A dress like this one.
This triangle t-shirt is really cute.
One of these.
I love the colours in this skirt.
Definitely this dress.
Little knot shorts.
And maybe these shorts.

I also love this shirt with the big strong-man mustache, but I don't have any little boys of my own to make this one for.

And then I discovered the patterns you can buy on etsy...
From Heidi & Finn (I'm definitely doing the 5 patterns for $25 thing).
Mani-Mina.. how cute is the little mademoiselle dress?
Too Sweets

Finally, check out these crazy cool wings for kids. Love them, and I'm pretty sure my kids need them. Matilda's birthday is coming up though and she wants a mermaid party.. how good would this look as a mermaid tail. (Am I insane?).

Obviously I'm not getting anything like that made in a week, I'd be happy with more than 1 thing. But it's good to have a long list right? Maybe I should do a craft weekend, anyone in Brisbane interested??

Polly's Ducky 1st Birthday Party (warning, lots of photos!)

2011-05-15T09:30:00.000+10:00

My kids kind of have colours... a little odd maybe, but it's really just the main colour their room is decorated in. Matilda's is red, Polly's is yellow. Matilda did have a bunch of red clothes and accessories when she was a baby though and her 1st birthday party was ladybugs so her colour kind of stuck. So when it came to Polly's first birthday party it had to be some yellow and it had to be cute, cause Polly is cute :)

I remembered seeing a beautiful ducky birthday party around the same time as I did Matilda's party and the idea has stuck in my head ever since, so ducks it was (it was nearly babushkas, but I think we'll save that one for another year).

I contacted Krystina from Bit-O-Me, who created the ducky party Polly's was inspired from and asked her if she would be able to make Polly's party invitations for me and she was lovely enough to update them for me. Thanks, Krystina ( I love lovely bloggers)!!

There were party hats. That were meant to look like this, but I completely ran out of time to add the pom poms or fringe (so if anyone's looking for some lemon or lime crepe paper and tissue paper, I have bucket loads).

My mum made Polly's dress from a vintage book of patterns my Grandma gave me.

We played games... catching a duck that had a number on the bottom and then you got the prize with that number on it.

And pass the parcel, does this game get played all around the world??

There was birthday cake, which was devoured.

There was ducklings walking around our backyard that the kids got to pat. Who knew 2.5 week old ducklings were so big??

The lolly bags had personalised flags made with Sharilyn's tutorial (I love these, I had to include them somewhere, even if they have nothing to do with ducks!). And bead sets, I had found some wooden duck beads somewhere.

And of course, there was lots of food (too much actually).

And for Sev's benefit, this was the menu..

Sandcrab arancini with aioli
Mushroom and goats cheese tarts
Potato and chorizo empanadas
Corn fritters with smoked salmon, sour cream and avocado
Pancetta and ricotta triangles
Honey jumbles
Homemade jersey caramels
Mini doughnuts
Flourless chocolate cakes with peppermint buttercream
Orange cupcakes with this delicious orange buttercream
Neinish tarts
Mini lemon meringue tarts
Chocolate custard cups
And a few little bits and pieces for the kids (including pizza which I made my poor cousin cut into ducky shapes with a cookie cutter, sorry Bec).

(and I didn't even get around to making everything I had planned on, think I went a little OTT).

So that was that, another party over. Great fun, but not a great idea to have on the week that you have 2 uni assignments due - there may have been a bit of a breakdown and some tears on Saturday morning when I thought the cake was ugly, I was upset that I hadn't cooked everything and the party hats weren't made (I had perhaps lost a bit of perspective).

Polly's (real) first birthday

2011-05-11T13:39:00.000+10:00

Yesterday my little sweetness turned 1. I know everyone says it, but this year has gone by impossibly fast. Surely it was only a few months ago that we were bringing her home from hospital?

We opened lots of presents (with help from her big sister), went out for milkshakes. Then opened more presents and had a little birthday dinner for her, with more cake of course!

I made her a little embroidery which I think I'll frame for her birthday. I made it because this song played lots while I was pregnant and I always really liked it, and I like the idea of it.

And today my poor little thing had to go into hospital just for a few hours to have her blocked tear duct fixed up under general anaesthetic. I was a bit nervous for her, but she was fine and it's all done now so now more sticky gooey eye for Polly. Yay!

Her birthday party post is coming..

A quilt

2011-04-25T12:25:00.000+10:00

A few weeks ago I started planning a quilt. It was a gift for my Aunty's 60th birthday that we celebrated last week. It has taken me this long to download the photos off my camera.

I finished it the night before, as is my usual style (of course the night before was at my brother's house because the party was up at the beach - so I had to lug my sewing machine etc up there with me).

The fabric had to be Heather Bailey, because my Aunty is making a cushion out of some of her fabric on our craft nights. Most of the fabric actually came from my stash and its from a few different collections but I did buy a little bit more to finish it.

This was my inspiration.

I am really happy with it, although my binding is a little messy (and I probably should have ironed it). I just love the colours, it's so bright and cheery.

Easter morning

2011-04-25T01:04:00.000+10:00

Our Easter Sunday morning was a little more subdued that our egg hunt on Saturday. The girls woke up to find a few more eggs (just what they needed!) in their Easter baskets.

The Easter Bunny came and left his evidence, and ate his carrot like a good bunny.

And the girls ate chocolate for breakfast. I'm not sure I let Matilda do this on her first Easter, so already Polly is getting away with things earlier than her poor older sister!

Egg Hunting

2011-04-24T22:50:00.001+10:00

Last year we hosted an extended family Easter egg hunt on Easter Saturday and we did it all over again yesterday. Hopefully we can continue and it will become a little family tradition. There's a bunch of kids now in the next generation all aged five and under, so it's pretty fun.

We get up early and set up.

There's lots of yummies for morning tea.

I have been wanting to try making danishes for awhile now, so I made rhubarb and custard ones out of this cookbook. They were very yummy (if I do say so myself).

And homemade hot cross buns, which thanks to Pip's tips I made the dough the night before and let them rise all night and then cooked them Saturday morning so they were nice and fresh.

And homemade musk sticks, just because. Packaged up for the kids to find in the hunt with cute labels from Babalisme.

There are games, which we take very seriously around here :)

And craft.

Finally, we have an egg hunt.

And of course, two of the cutest little bunnies around (who refuse to look at the camera).

Hope you and your family had a great Easter too!

Sunday night supper club: at lunchtime

2011-04-10T21:51:00.000+10:00

Ok, I'm back in business. Hopefully to stay, although I have more busy weeks coming up.

Tonight's supper club was actually our lunch today and it's from the latest Donna Hay magazine. It arrived in my letterbox on Thursday and amazingly I actually read it this weekend (unlike the other massive pile of unread magazines on my coffee table going back at least six months now).

Anyway, it was an absolutely beautiful autumn day in Brisbane today, so we sat out on our verandah and enjoyed a slow lunch. Chorizo, tomato and feta frittata with salad and crusty bread. I was very tempted to open a bottle of wine but I had stuff to do this afternoon and I think there's a good chance I would have fallen asleep.

I couldn't be bothered going to find the magazine for the recipe but I'm pretty sure I don't need it, so here goes...

Chorizo, tomato and feta frittata.

1 red onion, diced
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 chorizo, sliced
some dried hot chilli flakes
1 x 400g tin crushed tomatoes (the recipe actually has 2, but i thought that might have been too much)
6 eggs
1/3 cup milk
200g feta

Cook onion, garlic and chorizo, add tomatoes and cook for a few minutes until it thickens up a bit. Whisk together eggs and milk and then pour into frypan. Crumble feta on top. Cook until eggs set and then finish under a grill.

It was yummo.

Hello blog!

2011-04-07T22:36:00.000+10:00

I miss you. I have been busy busy busy and keep running out of time to take photos/make stuff/write about stuff.

I have been...
doing assignments
listening to lectures
keeping our family alive, fed and in clean clothes
desperately trying to get Matilda out of nappies, again
planning an easter egg hunt
having craft night (yay!)
planning a first birthday party
planning catering for a wedding we're doing in a few weeks
trying to do fun stuff with matilda and polly
trying to clean up our very very messy house
organising a garage sale because my grandma has moved into a retirement home

Hopefully I'll be back next week with some fun stuff next week, because sometimes little blog you keep me sane and I need it!

Some woolen blankets from my Grandma's house.

Bunny bits

2011-03-24T15:23:00.000+10:00

I've got a basket full of bunny bits. Slowly being transformed into bunnies that will hopefully look as cute as this one.

Some of my bunnies are for Easter, but more importantly, some of them will make their way over to Japan. Pottymouthmama is organising for toys to be sent over to some of the children in the recent earthquake and tsunami disasters. You can join in here if you want to.

Randomly, I got a newsletter from Purl Soho today with these cute spring flowers on it, and now I want that machiney thing to put flowers on my bunnies. How cute would that look? Required? I think yes.

In unrelated news I found a lovely recipe for orange flavoured buttercream the other day. It goes very nicely with organge cupcakes. Just in case you were planning on baking some :)

Sunday night supper club: fail

2011-03-20T20:37:00.000+10:00

Things don't always work out the way you want them to. I had a nice family dinner planned for tonight - it's been grey and rainy all weekend and a bit cooler so I thought a nice autumny meal and some pudding around the kitchen table would be lovely.

I had a bit of spare time this morning and I actually flicked through a cook book. I decided on lamb with hot feta dressing from this book and plum and chocolate clafoutis from here.

But a nice family dinner around the table it was not... Polly got grumpy, then Matilda got grumpy and didn't want to eat anything. G got grumpy because the kids were grumpy. The lamb and vegetables were undercooked and the kitchen was smoked out so I was grumpy. I don't think it was the recipes fault. It just didn't happen. Don't you hate that?

Desert was ok, the kids were in bed. Not sure it was anything to write home about though - but that could just be a grumpy hangover.

Blah. I nearly didn't put this on my blog, but then I figured everyone has fails like this sometimes.

Colourful

2011-03-20T17:06:00.000+10:00

We've had a super busy week with catering, uni, play dates, day care and cleaning out my Grandma's house (she's moved into a retirement home). There's been no time for anything much more exciting than that.

And we've had a grey and rainy weekend, blah. But, that has made me notice all the bright colours that have been around our house this week and that's something to smile about.

Another thing to smile about is some fun mail we received this week. Hopefully we'll be able to play with it soon.

Now.. back to listening to my lectures!

Sunday night supper club: arroz de perol

2011-03-16T00:29:00.000+10:00

Oooh fancy, arroz de perol. Well maybe not - the English title is wet rice with chicken and that sounds a bit gross really.

Maybe the picture doesn't look that appetising either, but I can tell you it's yummy. I have made it a few times now and I'm into it. It's out of the Movida cookbook, I love Spanish flavours - saffron and paprika, yum.

Here's the recipe for you:
1.6kg chicken or rabbit cut into pieces (I have only tried chicken, so far)
sea salt
80ml olive oil
1 red capsicum, finely diced
1 green capsicum, finely diced
4 tomatoes, peel, seeded and finely chopped
1.5L chicken stock
300g calasparra rice (or use aborio if you can't get your hands on it)
pinch of saffron threads
1/2 teasp sweet paprika
1/2 teasp thyme
1/2 teasp black peppercorns
4 garlic cloves
200g green flat beans, cut into 3cm lengths (i generally just use normal green beans because they are easier to get)

Season the chicken. Heat olive oil in a large, round-sided pot over high heat. Add the chicken pieces, reduce the heat to medium and cook until browned on both sides. Remove and cover.
Add the onion and capsicum and saute 5-10 minutes, stirring frequently, until the onion has softened. Add the tomato, stir through and cook for 15 minutes, or until pulpy, stirring occasionally.
Return the chicken to the pan and pour in hot stock. Increase the heat to high and bring to the boil then reduce heat and simmer for 40 minutes until the stock has reduced by about one third.
Add rice and stir through. Continue cooking for 5 minutes.
Meanwhile, crush the saffron threads with the paprika, thyme, peppercorns and garlic using a mortar and pestle until the peppercorns are well crushed. Add a few table spoons of hot stock from the pan and mix well. Add the spice mix to the rice and stir through.
Add the beans to the pot and continue to cook for 15-20 minutes, or until the rice is just tender and chicken well cooked. Season to taste. Remove from heat and serve immediately.

-------------------------------

Now, I know that may seem like a lot - and it does take about 1 1/2 hours to cook - but I actually like this as a mid week meal. Mainly because you can do little bits at a time and then leave it and I find that an easy way to cook with Matilda and Polly running around. Cook a little, play a little, cook a little, feed Polly her dinner...

Finally, the plan is that this will not be renamed Tuesday night supper club... I just need to get my life back in order a little. I'm playing catch up at uni, but I'm nearly there and then I hope my life will have a little bit more normality to it again.

Balance

2011-03-09T10:04:00.000+10:00

I really enjoy being a mum and staying home with my kids, who are seriously cute most of the time. They can drive me nuts and I go a bit crazy but overall I am grateful that I have been able to do it. But as Polly is getting a little older now and we're not planning on having any more kids I've been trying to work out what I am going to do with myself and it's a really hard thing to work out. How do I balance kids, my own interests and all our financial goals happily??

I could be a full time mum, but in reality a bit of extra money would make things a fair bit easier in this household and allow us to do a little bit more fun stuff so I figured I needed to earn some money somehow.

Since we sold our little cafe last February we have been doing some catering and it is fun and going really well but we've really been doing it a bit more like a hobby. I think I could turn it into a successful business but that would take some financial investment, staff and me working full time (like most small business owners that reads 24/7) - stuff I am not really prepared to do at the moment.

I thought about trying to make stuff to sell or maybe an online party kind of business, but I think really that would be in the same boat as the catering, plus I don't know that stuff I make would be good enough to sell :) So I think the answer for me is a part time job, ideally 2 days a week, but 3 would be fine.

Then I had to work out what kind of job I wanted. In my life before kids and the cafe I used to do some project management and business analysis stuff and my last job was managing a team of Business Analysts and System Testers for a financial company - I did enjoy it but it took up all my head space and really finance isn't that interesting, I mainly enjoyed it because I worked with a really ace bunch of people. That's out. Maybe some kind of admin job or retail job?? Yeah, that would have been ok but nothing really to get excited about.

In the end I've decided to go back to uni. I'm doing my masters so at the end of it I can be a Librarian. Being a Librarian was always something I thought I'd like growing up, still do. I've spoken to a couple and I think it could be a good job to do as a mum (I really hope so now).

So that's the plan. I'm enrolled, it's happening - I've already missed 1.5 weeks of classes :) Nothing like a last minute decision. I've enrolled full time, 1.5 years as opposed to 3 years seemed like a good idea to me. I have no idea if I'm going to cope with that, it's been ten years since I was last at uni. I figure I can always change to part time if I need to.

Arghhh!!

Birdie Cushion

2011-03-08T22:27:00.000+10:00

While my internet has been sleeping I did a little making.

A birdie cushion for a new little baby girl.

I want to make another couple of these, they are easy and I think cute.

Sunday night supper club: using leftovers

2011-03-08T22:17:00.000+10:00

I know it's late (we've been having some internet troubles), but I still need to do it. I am compelled, I can't leave things unfinished even it takes me years to get around to it.

Anyway, this weeks supper was made from leftovers. I was quite impressed with myself if I do say so, I am not really that good at using leftovers unless giving them to G for lunch the next day counts. And I really don't like throwing things out unnecessarily. I digress.

It was craft night again last Tuesday night... we ate chicken roulade with spinach, mushrooms and goats cheese and prosciutto around the outside. There was a ridiculous amount of chicken left over and it wasn't really the kind of meal you could just pack up into a lunch box.

So for dinner the next day I made a white wine pasta sauce, chopped up all the leftovers, added a bit of fresh spinach and parmesan and there you go. Yummy prosciutto, chicken and mushroom pasta. Tasty and leftovers were all used.

We had creme caramel for desert too, inspired by My Kitchen Rules. I have cooked it before, no probs and I have to admit after watching it on MKR I thought 'I can do that easy peasy... how could they stuff it up that much'. Then proceeded to second guess myself the whole time I was making it and freak out that it wasn't going to work. So of course, it didn't work. They were a bit underdone... still yummy though, we just ate them from the ramekins. Lucky Pete and Manu weren't here! I wonder if they can craft :)

Sunday night supper club: yumminess within

2011-02-27T21:06:00.000+10:00

We actually ate this for dinner tonight, and although it doesn't look very pretty... there is a lot of yumminess going on inside those layers of filo (if I do say so myself). It seems a bit odd to be having a pie in the middle of summer, but this one works I think. We ate it with some green salad.

It's a moroccan chicken pie from Everyday in the Kitchen, which I think may be out of print now but really is a great cookbook to have around for some every day inspiration.

Anyway, here's the recipe so you can give it a go!

1 kg skinless chicken thigh fillets, diced
Seasoned flour
Olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 teasp ground cumin
2 teasp ground coriander
1 teasp sweet paprika
1/2 teasp allspice
1/2 teasp ground ginger
1 teasp chilli powder (optional - I don't put this in but actually I think it would be nice)
500ml chicken stock
salt and pepper
1 tblsp pomegranate syrup (optional - but I use it, it's yum)
Handful or coriander leaves
3 small zucchini, halved and cut into 1 cm slices
6-8 sheets filo pastry
Melted butter (for pastry)
Sesame seeds (for on top of the pie.. I didn't have any tonight)

Toss chicken with flour and shake well to remove excess. Heat a casserole pot over med heat. Add oil and cook chicken in batches until golden brown, set aside.

Using the same pot, cook onion and spices until fragrant. Return chicken to the pot and add stock, salt and pepper. Bring to the boil; reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, until chicken is tender, about 45 minutes. Check seasoning, add coriander, zucchini and pomegranate syrup. Remove from heat.

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Grease a 20cm springform cake tin. Brush butter on 6-8 sheets of filo and arrange them in the tin, allow excess to hang over the sides. Spoon chicken filling into pastry and arrange excess over the top, adding extra pastry if needed to enclose filling. Brush the top with butter and sprinkle with sesame seeds.

Bake in a preheated oven for 30 minutes or until crisp and golden brown.

Serves 4-6.

Random craftiness

2011-02-27T08:41:00.000+10:00

Do you remember my Christmas Tree stump? Well it's been sitting in our living room ever since Christmas (despite all the other Christmas decorations being put away ages ago). Matilda has taken to sitting on it and so it inspired some random craftiness.

We made up a little cushion for it and stuck it to the log with some velcro so for 11 months of the year it can be a proper seat.

Job done!

Sometimes I look at Matilda at 2.5 years old and thnk I'm looking at a teenager, and then get very scared!

Pom pom Ooshka for Polly

2011-02-25T22:08:00.000+10:00

On my day off on Thursday (when Matilda is at day care) I crossed another item off my project list. Polly's Ooshka is all done!

Well almost I think, she needed something around her neck so I made the pom poms which I like. But at the moment they are just tied on with a piece of wool, I think I might crochet a chain to put them on instead.

I was given the Ooshka kit for Christmas, good present peeps! I love the little faces.

And while I was mucking around in her room to take the photo, Polly found her box of hats and tipped them over. I think she kind of looks like her Ooshka.

Cry of the Peacock by Gina B Nahai (and bookclub)

2011-02-25T17:15:00.000+10:00

In my book club we all take turns picking books and this month's was my pick. I had read Moonlight on the Avenue of Faith years ago and found it really interesting so I wanted to read another book by Ms Nahai.

I like reading about histories and other cultures that I don't really know much about and this book follows a family or Iranian Jews from about the 1700s through to the 1980s so there's a lot of history there!

I really enjoyed this book too although there are parts of it that are fairly brutal. Persian history and culture is really interesting to me and the story really nicely told. Plus there's a little bit of mysticism and magic throughout the story which makes it all a little bit special.

I also hosted book club this month, so among other things for supper we ate (to be totally cliched and obvious) figs and persian feta. Plus Middle Eastern baklava that has Turkish Delight in it and was so easy to make for how yummy it turned out. It doesn't hurt to be a bit obvious some times.

Treasures

2011-02-24T12:36:00.000+10:00

A few treasures I've saved (from the op-shop bag) or been given lately... from my mum and my Grandma.

Yellow plate, salt pot and flower spoon rest.

My Holly Hobby tea cup from when I was a kid.

And to balance more 'stuff' coming into my house, a bag of toys went in the donation bin this morning.

There's a donation bin in the carpark of Matilda's day care, and I'm planning on dropping a garbage bag in once a week.

Sunday night supper club: comfort food (and doughnuts!)

2011-02-20T21:13:00.000+10:00

Sometimes there is nothing else for it, you need comfort food for dinner.

And I was put onto a new recipe last week which was delicious (and comforting). But I was lazy and didn't take a photo, I would have had to snap out of the couch mood I was in for that. You do get a link though, with the recipe.

Here it is: Baked chilli and coriander pancakes. Eaten with some sour cream, avocado and a squeeze of lime, totally yum.

Plus I got a tip when I was put onto the recipe - you can buy frozen crepes at the supermarket, use them and just sprinkle some coriander over the top. For me, that turns this recipe into a weeknight option.

In a non-supper related subject, I made baked mini doughnuts this weekend. Double yum. I was obsessed I tell you, and I couldn't find the tins anywhere here so I had to order them from Amazon. G thinks I'm a mental case. But he ate the doughnuts. Now I want to try this and make pretty coloured sprinkles for them.

my big girl

2011-02-17T20:55:00.000+10:00

Went to 'school' for the first time today. Well, she started day care anyway. She is going to be going one day a week.

I have been thinking about doing it for awhile but never got any further than actually thinking about it. Then finally last week, I went to visit a local centre where I know a few of the other kids that go and they had a place available for Matilda if I wanted it.

I kind of freaked out a bit because I wasn't expecting there to be a place, I thought I'd be on a waiting list for a few months at least. But there it was, on a day that suited us and she would be in a room with another little girl we know so that was it. She was booked in.

Matilda and I have been talking and playing schools all week, so she was pretty excited to be going, and she knew that she was going to 'big girl school' and that mama didn't go with her. Still, I expected her to perhaps be a little upset. She was fine. A little nervous to meet all those new people but there were no tears and she had no problem with me going.

I rang the centre around lunch time and she was still fine. I picked her up in the afternoon and she had a great day but was a bit tired.

In the mean time, Polly and I went and had coffee with a friend at an actual cafe. We did some shopping and some cleaning and some cuddling and while she slept I watched Life at 5. Indulgent!

Couldn't send her off though without a proper homemade sheet bag..

Sunday night supper club: boring weekday dinner

2011-02-13T21:18:00.001+10:00

Ok, tonight's one is a bit boring but it is a rediscovery in my household and it's been working for us for a weekday dinner.

We've been a bit low on iron lately so I've been trying to find something that has some red meat in it as well as some decent vegies that I can get our toddler to eat (sorry people out there without children, I warned you this was a little boring!).

Anyway, baked potatoes have been part of the answer for us. Topped with beef mince (like bolognese) that has grated carrot and mushed up broccoli hidden inside it and topped off with some corn (and some sour cream isn't bad too).

It's pretty tasty actually.. if you can't think of something to cook one night this week, give it a go. It has the G + Matilda stamp of approval.

Quilts for Queensland & Matilda's Panda (finally)

2011-02-13T13:15:00.000+10:00

I don't know where she finds the time but Corrie from Retro Mummy is organising Quilts for Queensland - making quilts for the victims of the floods in Queensland and cyclone Yasi. So for our craft night a couple of weeks ago, we decided we would like to join in and we all made some quilt blocks to post off.

I would have loved to have made a full quilt to help out but I knew if I did that it would never get to anyone because I'd still be working on it in three years time. Plus my binding is still really dodgy, so whoever received the quilt would be feeling a bit dudded when they saw all the other beautiful ones on Corrie's blog. But hopefully our little quilt blocks will help out a bit.

This weekend I also finally finished Matilda's panda bear (and can cross one thing off my project list... yay!).

Originally I started this panda planning to give it to Matilda on her second birthday (last July) but then I did something wrong on one of the legs and so it sat in a bag, unfinished until now. Better late then never though right?

I just hope he can withstand the love... he's been doing a lot of dancing so far.

I made him from this tutorial, which I can definitely recommend, he was pretty easy as long as you have a really big needle to sew the arms and legs on with.

Dressing a toddler

2011-02-11T08:42:00.000+10:00

We're going on a play date today.

I am not sure if any of you remember this dress, but it still fits Matilda (just as a top now). Anyway, I wanted her to wear it but she didn't want to. I basically had a sook until she agreed with me that she would wear it.

She looked so cute with it on, little denim shorts, red saltwaters and her hair in braids.

Within about 3 minutes of wearing it though she was whinging. The bow was annoying her, she kept thinking her top was falling off. We were heading for a tantrum.

So I gave in, she is now wearing the boring blue t-shirt with a caravan on it that she wanted to wear all along. Not nearly as cute, but she's happy.

No fair! At least Polly still lets me dress her, although even she won't let me put anything in her hair.

Fabric Hunt

2011-02-11T07:21:00.000+10:00

I need help, does anyone happen to know what this fabric is called? I'm a bit obsessed!

Getting organised

2011-02-08T17:46:00.000+10:00

January is still holiday month. February is the month to get organised!

So I'm trying.

I am using TeuxDeux. Even for my small little daily tasks, mainly because it's motivating to cross things off and I also don't get to the end of the day and think I've done nothing again because I can see all the little bits and pieces I've crossed off.

I've started a list in my sidebar of all the projects I want to do. These don't really have deadline but at least this way I'll remember them all (and maybe try not to buy more stuff for new projects before I've finished some of the ones on this list).

I have even come up with a solution to make my keys easy to find at the bottom of my massive handbag. Because they always end up underneath the nappies and milk arrowroot biscuits, amongst the dummies and bottle lids and random scrunched up dockets and then I'm standing at the car holding on to one baby, trying to make sure the toddler doesn't run out in front of a car while searching for my keys. So I put them on a lanyard.. and because they are always pretty ugly, I covered mine. It's working well so far.. very easy to find in my bag.

And the big one... I've booked Matilda into day care one day a week. I've been talking about doing this for awhile but never actually did anything about it but today I got my butt into gear, went to visit the local centre and they had a place available - so I'm taking it! I am a bit nervous about this, but I think Matilda will really enjoy it, she's getting a bit bored at home with just Polly and me for entertainment. It will of course, also give me some time to do some of those things that's its really hard to do with two little kids around (like my tax). Fun. I am still a bit freaked by it, I was expecting to have to go on a waiting list.

Anyway, it's good to get some stuff done... I am hoping my organising binge sticks around a bit longer.

Sunday night supper club: casual dinner party

2011-02-06T18:01:00.000+10:00

On Tuesday night our monthly craft nights started up again for the year. A bunch of ladies meet at my house on the first Tuesday of the month and we have dinner and do a little bit of crafting (read talking).

With a couple of kids running around and a house to tidy up before they arrive (my house is always messy) I like to make something easy but a little bit special for dinner.   Also there's a couple in the group who don't eat red meat - so we're chicken, seafood or vegetarian.    And to top it off it's been ridiculously hot and humid up here lately so the food had to suit the weather too.

So what to have?? I was giving the recipe for the fish curry to one of the ladies a few days before craft night and she suggested that we have it for craft night. Winner, it's easy to make... can be easily doubled or tripled so there's enough for everyone and it fits all my other critiera.

But it needed something to make it a bit more of a special dinner than just curry. So we added Thai prawn cakes, chicken satay skewers, roti bread and a salad made from shredded lettuce, shredded cucumber, pine nuts and a Thai flavour salad dressing to the menu - now we're talking about a craft night feast.   And nothing particularly difficult to make, plus lots that could be done beforehand.

For desert, perfect for a hot summer's evening we ate lychee ice cream with raspberry puree.

I'd like to leave it a that so you can all think I'm terribly clever for making my own ice cream. But in truth all I did was puree a big tin of lychees (drained), mix that into 2L of softened vanilla ice-cream. And added some raspberry puree to the bottom of the tin and to the top of the ice cream. The recipe was in a Real Living magazine a couple of months ago and if it wasn't so yummy I wouldn't have told you and then you would all continue to think I was terribly clever. But it was yum, so I had to share.

What have you been eating?

A whale of a time

2011-02-06T10:42:00.000+10:00

What's a good blog post without the dodgiest pun title you can find?

I can't believe another week has gone and we're into February already. I like February, I feel like I'm getting back into the swing of things and getting things done. I don't really like January, it's still kind of holiday time and the thought of a new year seems overwhelming so I'm glad it's Feb!

We've been down the beach for a few days again... for the last time now, back to normal routine. We ate cupcakes and played cards and swam, fun.

We got back on Friday night and yesterday Matilda and I made softie whales (while Polly and G slept). First of all we made one using this tutorial, which is cute on the blog but mine looked more like a shark and I wanted a really cartoony looking whale. So we decided to just wing it and then add a bow tie.

I do think he is kind of cute, but I would like the yellow fabric underneath to not go up so high. Ahh well.

He's a present for a baby Jonah. Another dorky pun. Nice.

Sunday night supper club: Spinach, prosciutto and cashew salad

2011-01-30T14:00:00.001+10:00

One of my mum's friends gave this recipe to her a few years ago and it's a great salad.

We actually had it at a little BBQ we had on Australia Day, but it also works really well as a light meal - especially on a hot summer evening with some crusty bread.

The secret is in the dressing, which is really half the salad by itself.

You mix together:
2 diced roma tomatoes
2 diced hard boiled eggs
1/2 diced red onion
1 diced avocado
2 cloves garlic
2 teaspoons dijon mustard
2 table spoons white wine vinegar
1/4 olive oil
1/2 teaspoon sugar

Let the dressing sit in the fridge for about an hour and then add it to your salad of baby spinach leaves, crispy prosciutto and cashew nuts.

Fail

2011-01-30T13:44:00.003+10:00

I never sew anything for G, because really what do you so for a man.

But before Christmas I decided I would make him some PJ pants to go with his present. He likes knee length PJ bottoms - I figured I could do that. So I snuck a pair of his out of the washing to draw a pattern from and I cut out the fabric. And that's as far as I got.

So I decided this weekend I would finish them...

And I totally love them, they are even finished neatly since my Grandma gave me her overlocker. Small problem though, they don't fit. Not really even close, he can't get them over his bum. Nice one me, I don't even know where I went wrong. So now I'm going to try and pass them off onto someone else :)

I think the only other thing I've ever made for G was also earlier this year.. he got a Kindle for Father's Day and he wanted a cover for it. So I made one (took me about 5 months to get around to it), and I always end up making that kind of thing too big so this time I made my measurements a bit tighter. It didn't fit either.

What's going on?? G thinks I subconsciously don't want to make anything for him.

Project stash reduction

2011-01-25T16:55:00.000+10:00

Yay! I finished something and it was from the stash! Well, I think you can call it that.

I bought the backing fabric and the kokka trees fabric a few years ago with the intention of making a little quilt for the couch but they have been sitting in the fabric stash ever since. Plus the rest of the fabric in it was all from the stash, so I'm counting it.

Not really colours I usually pick but I think I like it for that reason. It feels kinda 70s to me, but that could be because my mum's kitchen was that green colour in the 70s.

I did the binding on machine and it's particularly dodgy, so don't look.

The fabric on the back is from Ikea. I bought it intending to make it into a quilt, although at the time I thought I might hand quilt around some of the flowers. Yeah right, then it wouldn't be finished until 2021 (like Matilda's quilt which is forever ongoing).

And currently it's living in its summer home on the shelf, because we're not likely to need a blanket around here to snuggle under for awhile. However, it has already been used as a tent to hide from the bears in and as a hospital bed, so who knows.

Today I...

2011-01-24T22:19:00.000+10:00

Made chocolate cupcakes for my Grandma's birthday and made binding for my couch quilt.

Meanwhile.. Matilda pulled out all the fabric on my shelves to make beds for her dolls who were all very sick and had to rest after their visit to the hospital (which involves everyone getting sticky tape bandages).

And Polly apparently learned how to climb stairs.

I learned that I will never have a clean and tidy house (I will have forgotten this lesson by tomorrow and will continue to live in the hope that one day I will) and that I need to get my stair gate thingy out from the cupboard it's hiding in.

I also learned that this recipe for chocolate buttercream is really yummy.

Sunday night supper club: One pan fish curry and jasmine rice

2011-01-23T13:15:00.001+10:00

My brother likes to fish, a lot. When he visits he often brings some fish for us and in the past week he bought us some dolphin fish or mahi mahi.

I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it so I started to flick through my recipe books and found a recipe I'd cut out of a magazine awhile ago, for one pan fish curry and jasmine rice. I think the recipe is either from Delicious or Donna Hay, not sure anymore.

It hits all the boxes for me - simple, yummy, Matilda eats it. Plus it has the added bonus of only using one pan, less washing up is always a winner. It's going on the dinner rotation for us.

So here's the recipe, in case you want to give it a go.

One-pan fish curry and jasmine rice

20g butter
1 tblsp olive oil
1 onion, thinly sliced
1 teasp finely grated ginger
1 cup jasmine rice
1 1/2 cup water
150g fish fillet, skin removed
1/2 cup coconut milk (I used light for all the difference that would make)
1 tblsp red curry paste (I used yellow because it's not so hot and I wanted Matilda to eat it)
3 green onions

Heat a large non-stick frying pan over high heat.
Add the butter, oil, onion and ginger and cook for 1 minute.
Add the rice and stir for 2 minutes or until the rice is coated with the oil and butter. Add the water and bring to the boil.
When tunnels form in the rice, place the fish on the rice. Combine the coconut milk and the curry paste and pour over the fish.
Reduce the heat to low, cover with a lid and cook for 7 minutes or until the fish is cooked through.
To serve, top with green onions.

Serves 4.

Mine actually looks more dry than the one in the magazine photo, but i think that's because after the 7 minutes cooking time was up it sat there for about another 15 minutes while we got Polly to sleep.

Still tasted yummy.

If you would like to join in and share something yummy you've eaten this week, just add your name to the list.

Work in Progress: Couch quilt

2011-01-23T12:40:00.000+10:00

I have a quite a large pile of fabric set aside to make certain bits and pieces that has now been sitting on a shelf for at least a few years. And it just keeps getting bigger.

I am determined to get some of those little projects finished this year. That's not to say I'm not allowed to keep adding new ones to it though.

So I started one of them yesterday - a little quilt for our couch. For watching TV in the colder months, and for hiding under with Matilda.

Japanese Tana

2011-01-22T21:41:00.000+10:00

I went to Spotlight yesterday with my sister. She needed something for school (she's a teacher) and if someone wants me to go along to Spotlight with them and help me look after my two girls at the same time, who am I to say no?

They have some fabric there called Japanese Tana, which I'm guessing is a subtle hint to let you know it's meant to look like Liberty fabric. It is pretty, I bought some for Matilda. I'm planning on making this top with it.

I bought Girly Style Wardrobe years ago, before I had kids when I was just new to blogging. I have never made anything from it, so we'll see how we go - I am hopeful, but I also haven't started.

And do you like my lovely new (to me) stool? My Grandma gave it to me. I am not sure what I'm going to do with it yet... some plants on it in the bathroom? Or maybe a bedside table?

Sunday night supper club

2011-01-16T20:52:00.001+10:00

I was reading this magazine the other day and in one of the letters from a reader they were talking about how they used to meet up with friends on monday night and share a meal and take a photo of any particularly memorable ones. And that got me thinking.

I love cooking and baking and I generally read a lot of food magazines and cookbooks but that doesn't stop it being hard to think of something to cook every night for dinner. So I thought it might be a good idea to start an online Supper Club.

I'm thinking that every Sunday anyone who wants to participate can post a photo of a dinner they have had in the past week - it could be out a restaurant or something you have made. You might want to include a recipe or you might not want to but it would be nice to share some ideas.

So to start with this was our dinner on Friday night, some of my family were over and this is our easy and tasty last minute BBQ stand by. It often just involves grabbing whatever you can find but on this occassion we had lamb cutlets barbecued seasoned with a bit of this, salad with rocket, sweet potato, semi-dried tomato, olives and pine nuts, cucumber with lemon, bread, turkish bread with hommus and beetroot dip, chorizo and a little bit of haloumi. Its a good summer dinner that you can just pick little bits and pieces of whatever you want.

And to finish, a homemade choccy ice-cream using my Grandma's recipe (below). I loved these ice blocks as a kid and they do live up to my memory of them. They are chocolatey but still icey so they are refreshing.

Chocolate Ice-blocks

3.5 cups milk
3/4 cup sugar
1 desert spoon arrowroot dissolved in 3/4 cup water
1 desert spoon cocoa dissolved in 3/4 cup water
pinch salt
teasp vanilla

Bring milk to boil, add sugar, then arrowroot and stir well, add cocoa. Boil for a few seconds. Remove from heat and add vanilla. Cool before pouring into moulds and freezing.
It makes about a dozen paddle-pop sized ice blocks.

Anyway, let me know if you'd like to join in and I'll make a link list and add your names to it!

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonson

2011-01-16T14:30:00.000+10:00

It's been ages since I've read a book properly. Probably since before Polly was born. It feels so good to be reading again and this was the perfect book to get back into the grove with.

I was given this book for my birthday by one of my Auntys who also loves a good read and I really did love it. I read most of it when I was down the beach for a few days last week but when I got home I couldn't put it down and had to keep going to finish it - Matilda and Polly bored running around the living room pulling absolutely everything out of the shelves while I read.

I don't mean this to sound as bad as it's going to, but who knew a love story between two elderly people could be so lovely. Add it to your lists people!

Flooding in QLD

2011-01-16T08:28:00.000+10:00

It's been such a bizarre couple of weeks, it feels like months.

Only a few days ago we were hanging out at the beach, doing a whole lot of nothing.

Then we come home and have the most massive amount of rain (last Tuesday) that I can remember in a long time.

This is the park down the bottom of our street a few hours after the rain had stopped. There's usually a trickle of water in the little creek about 2m under the bridge. In the middle of the rain, the water was nearly up to the top of the handrails. Around lunch time I got a call from G, his office in the CBD was being evacuated along with hundreds of other people in the city.

And then of course, everyone knows what happened in Brisbane and Ipswich after that. Such devastation - and the Lockyer Valley. Just so sad and so unbelievable. But in some ways it has been amazing, the community spirit and volunteers have been incredible. I like this article about it.

Luckily we live in an unaffected area of Brisbane so we have been fine but, I think like everyone, we know people whose house was flooded up to it's second story room and others who just had the basement of their apartment buildings flooded. We have done a little bit to help out, I have been doing some baking and sent it off to some of the affected areas but there's a long road ahead.

In the middle of it all was G's birthday and he was home from work as no one could get into the CBD, but it felt a bit odd to be celebrating. The four of us ended up having a little party at home.

So who knows what the next few weeks will bring, G is back to work on Monday so in a way it will be life back to normal for us but we'll be looking for more opportunities to volunteer our time and anything else we can to help out the clean up and rebuilding that I guess will be going on for a lot longer.

In case you haven't seen them and want to help, here's some links for you.
Baked Relief
QLD Premiers Fund
Make it Perfect auction
Fight the Floods
Brisbane City Council volunteering
Volunteering QLD
And there are so many others..

Christmas and New Years

2011-01-04T19:58:00.000+10:00

Well, Santa came and did his work. He may have gone a little overboard in fact, but that's ok... G and I both have big families so the girls got totally spoiled from everyone.

The girls got into their Christmas stocking first thing. Wearing their special Christmas pjs of course. I must say, Christmas is much more fun and exciting when there's a 2 1/2 year old in the room who really 'gets' it for the first time.

I finished making Matilda's nightie on Christmas Eve.

Then, after a little brekkie it was time to get on with the present opening.

After that marathon effort we headed to my mum and dads for a fairly quiet lunch and then on to my aunty's house for the big family Christmas night. So tired by the end of it, but so much fun.

Boxing Day 2010 we no longer speak of in this house because we sat on the highway (carpark) for four hours on our way to visit my Grandma in hospital in Caloundra (normally a 1 hour trip). With two grumpy girls and one grumpy husband, fun for the whole family.

And apart from that we've just been hanging out. Spending time at home, playing with new toys and at the beach to welcome in the new year.

G is back to work today so reality is kind of seeping back in but I think there'll still be a few more holiday beach trips yet so it's not all bad news.

Happy 2011 everyone!

Christmas Stockings and other random Christmassy stuff

2010-12-23T20:00:00.003+10:00

I finished my Christmas stockings for the girls last night, and I must say I totally love them. I had to wake G up at midnight (when I finished) to tell him how good I thought I was/still am!

And then because I was on such a roll, I finally finished Pollys' santa sack this morning (which I started last year when I made Matilda's). So both girl's are now ready and waiting for the big man. Matilda is so excited it's ridiculous and keeps asking me during the day "Mum, are we excited?, are you excited? Is Santa coming to deliver presents in the bag today?" It's pretty fun.

I think I want to put the girl's names on their bags like the stockings, but I think that project can wait until next year.

And just to get your further into the Christmas sprirt, here's our Christmas tree. I got my Dad to drill out a log for me to stand it in after seeing this one. And yes, the little fence you see in the background is part of a play pen which normally surrounds the entire tree. Keeping presents and decorations safe from little hands.

Actually I think I might need to make the hole in the log a bit deeper, but again that can wait until next year.

And a few presents that are now hiding under my tree.

Next year there is no way I'm buying gift tags there are so many great ones out their in blogland it's amazing. I have gift tag pdfs spilling out of my computer. If you're having trouble finding any How About Orange has a list of a few, as does Meet me at Mikes.

Oh and here's a little sneak peek of one my presents for a certain little girl.

Some magnetic paper dolls and a little magnetic blackboard to play with them on. I downloaded the pdfs from Babalisme (where you will also find even more gift tags to download) and printed them out on magnetic paper (which I found at Dick Smith if you're looking for it in Australia). I made Matilda a few too and she loves them, but she mainly plays with them on our fridge.

So there you go, a quick pre-Christmas brain dump now I'm off to try and finish cleaning up my house and then baking tomorrow.

So if I'm not back here before (and let's be honest, there's no way that's going to happen) I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas filled with lots of love and fun.

Presents & Wrap

2010-11-28T21:11:00.000+10:00

A little spot of sewing, a gift for a big grown up 5 year old. Made using this tutorial, I especially like the cheat's method for gathering in this tutorial.

I don't especially like my photo. This is probably due to the fact that I was finishing the skirt at the last minute, at my mum & dad's house and had to wrap it and leave for the party about 5 minutes after this photo was taken.

But check this out...

Fabric tape! Like this one, except I made it myself (if you can call it that, the process takes about 30 seconds). Here's the instructions.

This has added confusion to my Christmas wrapping plans though people, cause now I want to do more of this too.

I'm starting to feel that end of year urgency bearing down on me. This week I need to get myself organised so I can deal with it.

Catching Up

2010-11-22T19:54:00.001+10:00

The last couple of weeks I have been taking photos of things I've wanted to blog about, but haven't had the time to actually get on to the computer for long enough to do it. So here goes...

Mathilda's market was in Brisbane a few weeks ago, I went with the intention of buying some Christmas presents or some stocking fillers for Matilda and Polly and I did none of that.

I did however manage to buy Matilda a cute dress (from here), I especially love the fabric. Ages ago I had seen this dress and wanted to buy the material and make it for Matilda and I never got around to it, now I don't need to worry.

Polly got these bloomers (from here), I love these colours on Polly.

And I bought some paper straws from Details, Details. Blue and green because I have a 2 1/2 year old obsessed with mermaids and a cousin's 3 1/2 yr old is similarly obsessed - so we're planning a joint mermaid birthday party for them next year.

I was pretty tempted to buy something from this store, but I think I'll save that for next time. I also ran into a friend I used to work with in Melbourne who now lives in Brisbane and makes beautiful origami mobiles. Such a small world, don't you find it amazing when you see how creative some people are and you never knew that about them?

I have done some shopping for stocking stuffers though and I scored Polly this oobee which should just about fill up her stocking.. what else are you going to buy for a 6 month old?

I am actually about half way through my Christmas shopping now which I'm feeling pretty good about. I have done a lot of it online which is so much better than taking the two little gremlins to the shops, which are already packed up here! I have done so much online in fact that I've started to keep a list of what packages I'm expecting in the mail to keep on top of it all (that and I'm a list nerd). There are a few bad things about buying online, like deciding at about 11pm that you really do need bakers twine in 4 different colours at 240 yards each. Who doesn't need almost a kilometer of baking twine?

I got mine from here, in case you're feeling the urge.

And all of that has got me thinking about how I'm going to be wrapping this year. I'm thinking mainly brown paper with red and white and a little bit of pink.

Maybe some washi tape bunting, did you know you can buy this tape at Borders now? I had been wanting to buy some for ages but hadn't and then when I saw it just staring up at me at Borders I figured it was the perfect opportunity. My cute gift tags are from Style Me Gorgeous, who have a really cute free printable colour-in letter to Santa which I must also print out soon.

What else have I been up to... Last weekend I turned 32, my birthday was on a Sunday... love having my birthday on the weekend. We went for yum cha with the family which was really nice and I had a lovely day. I was given some great gifts including this stunning book. I had told my sister that I needed some spatulas, boring present I know but I really did need some - so everyone in my family gave me one. I should be sorted for a few years now.

My dad had to be in Sydney for work on the weekend, so he was going to take a trip to the Donna Hay General Store for me (as penance for missing my birthday) - but then they opened an online shop on the same weekend so we just ordered from there instead. I got a lovely big package last week with my beautiful pink cake stand in it. Love. I am into pink at the moment.

There you go, I'm feeling a bit more sorted now.

A couple more quick things...

If you haven't already done so, you need to check out Gifted magazine from Creature Comforts. It really is beautiful and there's lots of good ideas in there and some pretty cute free printable gift tags and stuff.

And Amber from Giver's Log was hosting a virtual handmade gift-making retreat with lots of different home-made gift ideas. I did a guest post for her which you can see here. I think I am going to be stealing a few ideas from here too.

The end, I really must update more regularly so they don't need to be quite so long!

Some baking

2010-11-12T12:25:00.000+10:00

Because we've had lots of lovely visitors lately.

Persian love cake, I served it with honeyed whippped cream. Yum.

Blueberry-Lemon Bundt cake.

Chocolate mousse and marshmallow pie.

The pie was actually in a recent home magazine. And it was yummy, but I think the idea is actually better than the execution. If i did it again I'd use my own chocolate mousse recipe and use a little less gelatine in the marshmallow. I also wouldn't put quite so much marhsmallow on it. The base is really yummy. I am actually keen to try it again though with those changes.

All this baking is making me feel festive! I think I'm in the Christmas spirit early this year.

6 months old

2010-11-12T12:12:00.000+10:00

My smiley, cheeky and sweet little chubba bubba is already 6 months old. I can't believe it.

She's such a placid and easy going little girl and she's made our little family of four complete. She and Matilda play so well together and giggle constantly with each other like they already have their own little private jokes.

Too cute! (we think.)

Tagines & Things

2010-10-31T19:15:00.000+10:00

A good friend of mine was married in Belgium about a month ago. We gave the couple a Le Creuset Tagine for a present.

Unfortunately we were not able to go over for the wedding (although I would have really really loved to go) but she is back visiting Australia with her new husband now and there was an Australian celebration of their marriage last night.

So... I wanted to take along a little present because I don't like showing up empty handed, that's boring. I wanted to get something that would not take up too much space and be nice and light for them to take back to Belgium with them. I also wanted to get something that 'went' with the tagine.

In the end I decided to make a set of placemats for them as well as a few pretty coloured Moroccan tea glasses with tea lights. Happy with my decision, but a procrastinator through and through I didn't start to make the placemats until yesterday (the BBQ was last night).

So it wasn't until the last minute that I realised I didn't have enough fabric... der. Disaster. I was planning on making 6 placemats and I only had enough fabric for 5, which is a bit odd so I ended up only giving them a set of 4. I am hoping it doesn't look too dumb when they open it... oopsies.

If you happen to read this A, I will try and find some more matching fabric to make it a full set. Sorry!

Church Garage Sale

2010-10-30T17:07:00.000+10:00

Once a year the Samford Community Church holds a 'monster' garage sale.

We went a couple of weeks ago. It's good to get there early but we didn't get there until about 11am and I still found a couple of goodies.

First of all I found this old school chair for $1. I've been looking for one of these for ages so I was excited. It was covered in stickers but after some goo remover and scrubbing I think it looks good. (Remember those diaries you used to get in primary school that closed with a big magnet down the side and had a few pages of stickers that looked like they were done by Quentin Blake and said things like 'Radical'.. it was covered in those)

I also found this little game of Arithmetic Lotto. I love the illustrations on the little number tiles.

So I took a set of the numbers and I framed them. I am really happy with it.

I was going to put it in one of the girls rooms, but I think I'll wait until we've finished fixing up our study (hopefully before 2020) and maybe put it near my desk.

Good garage sale.

I have a totally rad little brother

2010-10-28T21:06:00.000+10:00

My brother has just today returned from a trip to Europe and the US.

My little family and I were very spoiled by him and we all got some lovely presents.

Saltwater sandals for all the girls (me included, yay!)

Another Alice to add to my little collection. This one is from Portobello Rd, the guy told my brother he was lucky to find an Alice because "that Alice is hard to come by".

London in a bag for G, from Muji.

And from Anthropologie a cardigan for Polly for next winter and a dress for Matilda.

Totally spoiled, thanks T! We're glad to have you home.