Curly tales

I was chatting with a friend today about how my two older girls used to have really curly hair and I thought I'd pop a photo or two up to show her. You wouldn't know it now though, every since we moved to Tassie it's dropped and become really straight like mine, the lack of humidity maybe? Either way it was cute :)

 
 

Playdough fun

Easy Homemade playdough

2 cups plain flour

1 cup salt

4 tablepsoons cream of tartar

2 tablespoons cooking oil

2 cups of boiling water

A few drops of food colouring

Mix

Enjoy!

 
 

Sneak preview....

I've been working on a little pattern of my own for a while now and here's a small sneak preview. I've finally finished tweaking the pattern and it's ready to be written up, edited (thanks to my brillant hubby) and tested. I'm rather excited about it all!! (it's not clothing by the way, I'm not that crazy!)It will be available on www.autumnthreads.com.au as a PDF pattern as soon as I can get organised!

 

Waiting for the bus

 
Busy busy day today, parent help in the morning, more family history work at lunch and then out to a friends house for a playdate. Hannah and Becky have been begging me to let them catch the bus so we arranged it that I would be out county way today so they could catch the bus out there and I would meet them......knowing my luck it poured with rain the few minutes before the bus arrived and then cleared up once we got back inside! Thanks patient friend for being willing to wait in the rain with me to humour my school girls. It was fun anyway....even if Mary wouldn't share her umbrella with me ;)

New Pj's

Thanks to a lovely friend of ours and her young daughter who decided she didn't like the non-slip feet on the new PJ's her mum made her, Mary now has a wonderfully warm pair of Pj's that she adores :) This friend or mine has two gorgeous daughters and she sews such cute little outfits for them!

It was a hoot trying to get a still shot as she was running around like a mad thing!

 

Family game time

We had a ball playing some games together this afternoon, Pictionary then Charades. Charades was a really hoot....Daddies interpretation of a laptop computer was fantastic and Mummy took the cake with her life cycle of a frog. My personal favourite was Marys drawings during Pictionary. She has really come ahead in leaps and bounds lately and just loves to draw. Here is her picture for "bed"

Brrrr...

Here's what we found in our bird bath this morning. It was rather *ahem* brisk weather this morning. We've been walking to school some days this week as it's quicker than trying to chip the ice off the windows :P

                                                

Somewhere over the rainbow

The view from over my back fence.....why would you live anywhere else?

My little helper

Becky has found the best way to be a helper lately.....when she can see I'm trying to get dinner cooked or am on the phone and Mary needs distracting she asks if she can read her a story. They curl up somewhere and dive into Mary's book of choice. It's wonderful, not only does it give me a hand but it's helps with her reading confidence.

Climbing my family tree

I have a secret obsession....it's family history! Don't all groan at once....I really do love it and once I get started I find it hard to stop :) Tonight I've been delving into my families history on my mums side and trying to piece together two families that came out from England and Scotland and settled in South Australia. I find it so fasciating and love to learn all about their lives, what they did for a living etc. So far I've learnt that one was a Postmaster in his town, one was a policeman and there is even a police boat that bears his name in a museum in SA. Many served in the world wars and sadly many gave their lives for the freedoms we enjoy. With all the resouces available on the internet nowdays I can feed my family history obsession from the comfort of my own home too! (with the heaters running of course... you should have seen the ice this morning! Brrr) I don't have pics to share of my ancestors yet but I thought I'd share a few of me as a young one. No laughing!

 
 

I've hit my slump

I've been keeping the challenge and blogging everyday for 6 whole days and now I've run out of things to say........
So rather than lose the challenge I thought I'd share something that touched me this week.
Our church frequently creates these short clips about some of the beliefs we have and this one about enduring and paitence really touched me. Hope you enjoy it too.

A visit from the north island

A couple of weeks ago we were blessed to have a visit from our Frannie and Frampa from the mainland....the girls were so thrilled and it was super to have them around for a week. We did lots of touristy things, cheese tasting at the cheese farm, chocolate tasting at the chocolate factory and chatting with the monkeys in city park. It's tough sometimes being down here by ourselves with no family around so we make good use of things like Skype, email and cheap phone calls. The best part about that is when we do have family come to stay it means theres no time lost getting to know each other again, we can just get right into having fun. Here's a pic of the girls and their Frannie and Framps. (The other pics are of Mary being a nutter!)

 
 

Strawberry fields forever

Here's my biggest little one modelling her new "Hilda" hooded top from the 6/2007 Ottobre. "Blue can be a girls colour" she tells me....which is handy because her school uniform is navy and she'd better get used to it as she has a lot of years to go! Fabric is a french terry knit from SL, very cuddly.

 

Mission control to baby....are you there??

Who taught this kid to use a mouse?? I guess this is the tech generation.....with mummy in control however. We set the timer on the microwave for 10mins and she's only allowed to be on these two sites The Friend magazine (our church's magazine for young kids) and Daniel Cook (a fluffy TV show from the states with little activities to do...turn your volume down if you choose to click the link...hence the headphones in the photo!) Oh and we have done the odd episode of Charlie and Lola on youtube....we absolutely love Charlie and Lola around here, it's our favourite and our best.

 

Sleeping like a baby

So miss 3 isn't the worlds greatest sleeper....what baby is? (I don't really want to hear a response to that :P) Anyway, while carrying her back to her bed for the millionth time last night I suggested out of desperation that she cuddle up with one of her sisters for a bit in their beds. She liked the idea and both older girls volunteered which was sweet to see....she chose the top bunk and her middle sister and this is what I saw when I peeked just before going to bed myself......

(they slept all night through by the way!)

A challenge and some shirts :)

So my dear friend in an attempt to motivate us slackers has challenged us to write a post each day for a month......no matter how small :)

So this is a small one, size 3 to be exact.

3 tops I finished last week for miss 3 who has been seriously lacking some warmer tops. I was too keen and they still had all the threads hanging off them when I took the photo

All from the Otto 1/2006 edition, kids raglan top. I played around with my maxilock swirls thread and my new sewing machine to create the watermelon.

(yes I know the last two are sideways, I don't know how to fix it, you'll just have to turn your head:P)

A challenge and some shirts :)

So my dear friend in an attempt to motivate us slackers has challenged us to write a post each day for a month......no matter how small :) So this is a small one, size 3 to be exact. 3 tops I finished last week for miss 3 who has been seriously lacking some warmer tops. I was too keen and they still had all the threads hanging off them when I took the photo All from the Otto 1/2006 edition, kids raglan top. I played around with my maxilock swirls thread and my new sewing machine to create the watermelon.

 
 

Happy Birthday Baby!!

Okay well, she's certainly not a baby anymore but she'll always be MY baby :-)

Miss 2 is now offically Miss 3. She requested an Elmo cake....phew, easy shape!

We had a wonderful sunshine filled day with lots of phone calls from all our lovely family over the seas and finished the day with sparklers out on the front lawn. This was the girls first time ever seeing sparklers and they were terrified at first and then loved them after a while.....our brave monkeys :P

Here's our little squirt back in the day...

And here's her today, isn't she a hoot!

My little Sprout

A few weeks back Miss 2 was asked to be a model for a the most adorable new dress pattern by Toni from Make it Perfect......I must admit I had my doubts as to whether she would play nice with the photographer. After a somewhat rocky start she warmed up and here is the result.....(I'll be framing these for sure, what a little monkey she is!) You can see more pics on the Make it Perfect blog
Thanks again Toni for letting us join the fun!

 
 
 

Rainbow Imke v.2

 Here's the next one!! I realised while cutting this one out that I had done the sleeves wrong on the first one, lucky Miss 6 has skinny arms! I corrected it on my traced pattern and it was a much better fit :) I used the patterns suggestions for the colour blocking this time and did a rainbow applique on the front jazzed up with some Farbenmix ribbon. I choose the pointed hooded version this time, very pixie looking!

Miss 5 was rather excited about it and refused to put her jacket back and cover it up even though it's below zero outside!! (well, not that bad but jolly chilly...just checked and it's a balmy 5 degrees here!)

I can sing a rainbow!

I pulled out all my plain knits today to make some tops and spent the whole day just making this one.......a rainbow one! It's a IMKE top from the new Farbenmix book "Sewing Clothes Kids Love". I did the tapered sleeve and just the one coloured front and jazzed it up with some colour blocking and a machine embroidered heart on the front. I've done it distressed style so the ends of the knit should curl up in the wash....I hope! Anyway, Miss 6 loves it...she's rather into rainbow atm and is calling it her rainbow paddle pop top :) Now to make more for the other monkeys!

Ottobre 4/2004 "Dress Pants"

Miss 5 desperately needed some winter pants and I had some gorgeous velvet like cord that was stretchy to make them with. I searched for an elastic waisted pattern and came up with these. The originals were slightly cropped but seeing as I was making the next size up for her the length was fine. I added some rounded pockets to the back and also made the waist a casing rather than sewing the elastic in. All up a really quick and easy pattern and I love the flared leg look!