Just a morning photo

Hope you all have a lovely Sunday. xx

Two computers...two days

I must be cursed. Somehow I've managed to break two computers in two days.




First my old laptop wouldn't turn on yesterday, which wasn't too much of a surprise because it is really old and today my desktop refuses to turn on even with a new power board... ugh




What am I to do?? Download BlogPress for my iPhone and test it out that's what. Looks like I'll be relying on my iPhone for a while cause there's no place in our budget for new computers!

Hope your all having better days than me!
xx

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Getting crafty in the kitchen

Well I haven't been being very crafty out of the kitchen so thought I'd show you what I cooked for dinner...yummy chicken paella.

Also showing you someone else's craftiness. Joe went to a party the other weekend and look at the cake that the birthday girl had! How cute. Mum (or Dad maybe?) made the base and they ordered the angry birds from overseas. The kids (and grown ups) loved it.

Hope you are all having a nice week. It's just awful what's happened in NZ isn't it.
xx

Bush Walk

We spent the day down at Mum's yesterday and went for a lovely bush walk in between the rain.

Hope you all had a great Saturday
xx

Tree Climbing

The kids just had fun climbing the Jacaranda tree out the front of our house.

Ever wondered where lightsabers come from?

Joe: Did you know you can go to Nippers and learn to be a lightsaber?

Mum and Dad: Really?

Joe: Yeah, you really can, it's true.

xx

A skirt, some shorts and some decorations

We've been making things round here. First of all, a skirt (Insa from this book). What a lovely pattern. I'll be making more of these. This one went to a gorgeous girl who turns 1 this week. The lace on the bottom is left over from my sisters wedding dress and the fabrics are all from the op shop.

Next up are some shorts I made for Ella. I've just got to do the hem and probably add a frill of some sort. The fabric is a sheet from the op shop. I love the large print. This is the Dortje Trousers pattern from the same book as I mentioned above but I just made it shorter (obviously).

I try to get the kids to make some Christmas decorations each year, this year we've gone for air dry clay shapes to hang on the tree. We cut them out with cookie cutters (mostly) and have painted one side which I just sprayed with a sealer so we can do the other side tomorrow.

And this is what I don't want to be doing today, but it's going to be hard to avoid because there's no space to cook dinner. It was clear the other day. I'm still amazed at how quickly it gets like this.

Hope you're all having a nice Monday. xx

How do you do it?

How does everyone (who has a blog and reads blogs) keep up with it all?

I find I'm always so behind at keeping up with all the blogs I like to read. In a perfect world I'd love to read and comment on about 45 blogs a day, but that's just not possible. Do I cull the list? But then I might miss something brilliant. Do I just read and not comment? But then how do they know I'm still reading.

I've already cut down on the number of comments I reply to.

What do you do?

I know a couple of people who's blogs I read have had this issue in the past and I've read about it but I'm not sure how they sorted it all out so thought I'd ask for myself.

In between keeping up with all these great blogs, I have a family that needs attention and a house to keep spotless tidy liveable (my standards have dropped somewhat after having children), Etsy and madeit shops to attend to and hobbies I'd like to do.

Any tips?

A parenting course. Or at least that's what I thought it was...

...I have no idea what my husband was thinking while he was sitting in the course, but I found this just the other day when I was cleaning out the bookshelf (we did the course about 4 years ago), no wonder we didn't get much out of it.

Here's the notes I took...you don't have to read them, but you get the idea.

And now these are the notes that my husband took..

very dorky

Don't wave your arms around Billy!

That man has no forehead, Sam

Kellogs Just Right

poofy...cool

Sunday Hailstorm

It was lovely and sunny on Sunday...there were a few clouds in the sky but we decided to go for a bushwalk anyway...

...and then it started raining...

...then hailing! We hid under some trees when it started hurting.

Then my glasses snapped...what else could go wrong?

I did manage to see some nice things though.

I need book ideas

It's my birthday in a few weeks and I'm going to buy myself a sewing book (I have none) so I need some ideas.

I think I want one with patterns in it more than a 'how to' book but I'm pretty open minded.

So could you please tell me your favourite sewing book so I get some ideas.

Thanks. xx

Dodgy Door Flap

The doggy door broke the other day week

and it's finally gotten cold enough for me to want to try and fix it, so I found an old nappy and some curtain material

and sewed it all together and ta-da

a new dodgy doggy door flap! No close up photo I'm afraid as it really is dodgy but at least it keeps out a lot of the cold air.

I had to get the little bridge out again the other day. Our old dog Cody used to use it when he got too old to jump up and down from the door. What was that? You want to see Cody? How can I say no.

The last photo is him at 14 years, just before he died a couple of years ago.

Anyway, when he was gone, we took away the bridge because the other dog, Wicket, could do the door just fine. The other day I noticed Wicket having trouble so back came the bridge, the only problem now is that Wicket is too chicken to cross it (probably his bad eye sight). He looks intelligent enough don't you think?

Oh well, back to the drawing board. It might turn into a ramp or some steps or something but in the meantime Ella is using it as a surfboard.

Hope you're all having a nice Tuesday. xx

Followers gadget

I hadn't really thought about adding a followers gadget until a kind commenter mentioned it the other day. I never use them on anyone else's blog, I just subscribe through Google Reader so it didn't seem important. But after doing some reading about the followers gadget it seems to be a great way to get readers to come back (please come back!) and to let other readers find more blogs like yours, so I added one...look to the right under the archive bit.

Photo courtesy of Wood Cottage Farms

So, who's going to be my first follower? Come on, don't let me have none for too long!

Handbag clean out

I haven't cleaned out my handbag for months so this morning I tipped it up onto the table and was amazed with all the crap in it! No wonder I can never find anything.

Besides my wallet, glasses, bag of essentials (sunscreen, tissues, bandaids etc) was:
3 hats
3 pairs of kids undies
My sewing bag (lots of hexagons in there)

1 pair of kids shorts
1 library book
1 pair kids dirty socks
1 kids headband
3 reusable shopping bags
2 notebooks

3 kids toys
Natalie Merchant CD (thanks Mum)
4 pens/pencils/crayons
1 Sesame Snap
2 Muesli Bars
and various receipts, rubbish, used tissues etc...gross

It feels much lighter now.