Fraser Island Holiday

Thank you, Sally, for having us at your holiday house at Fraser Island. We had a wonderful, sunny beach holiday!! What a truly spectacular and magical spot.

Little Advent Socks

Ooh, sweet little Advent socks, how I love your cuteness! Even if you took me a while to make and weren't ready until the 9th of December, I still like you. All 24 of you.

I have found a secret supplier of many vintage Golden Books (a bag for a dollar) and I just love their sweet illustrations. This one was perfect for tracing numbers for the Advent socks.

In the socks, I am putting an occasional sweet, some Christmas activities like baking gingerbread, and some suggestions for kind deeds. Thank you Martine, for this great idea.
I always enjoyed opening the little windows on my Advent calendar as a child, but it's hard to find nice ones these days. Children find it hard to wait such a long time until Christmas, and I hope this will help put it into perspective. And I also hope it will help Kees learn his numbers, then we'll be ahead a bit on next year's lessons. One day I would love to make a calendar like this beautiful one, but I think I need to keep sane this year.

Dancing: NO. Embroidery: YES!

At the Kindy Christmas celebration, almost all the kids had a great time! When it was time to sing and dance, they all jumped around and shook their little booties. Except one. Who was totally awkward and not into dancing at all? Why, the son of a dance teacher, of course! Yes, I've given up any idea of my firstborn following in my shoes in that department. But....he does love to sew!
Kees embroidered the lavender bags above for his teachers, with minimal help from me. I made the pencil cases. Even Jimmy can now push the needle in, turn the material, and pull the needle through, which I found surprising. I think the embroidery hoop really helps a lot, and I make sure I have a few needles ready-threaded so I can quickly knot off and get them going on their next colour. Any delays and they start jumping on the couch.

I'll leave you today with another shot from the Kindy party: Kees sneakily trying to have a look down his teacher's top. I saw you, cheeky! xx

Where I Live #3

How funny is this??!

But my favourite was this:

STOP

Hammertime

Somebody wiped it off :0( but it really always made me smile. I love MC Hammer. xx

PS: We've all just recovered from vomit bug and off to Fraser for a week tomorrow, so blog ya later!

Grandpa's Retired

Dear Dad, we're so glad you've retired! Now we get to hang out with you during the week and do fun stuff. We loved spending the afternoon at the park with you, playing and smelling the roses.

We're looking forward to lots more exploring days, and we hope your back gets better soon. We hope also that it didn't have anything to do with us....

Love from Jimmy, Kees and Cath. xox

All You Need is LOVE

Shameless craft hussy that I am, I have brazenly copied this banner from Nick of Collecting Feathers. I hope she doesn't get mad at me - this banner was her idea, all hers! I fell in LOVE with it at the BrisStyle Eco Market but I had already spent my money on this gorgeous cushion she made (above) and also, I thought it would be really fun to make, and it was.

I spent some much-appreciated alone time eating toast with goats' feta, basil and tomato and cutting out the letters. Cutting out! It is sooo relaxing! It's been too long. When I am cutting out paper....it feels like I have plenty of time on my hands. Things slow down. I got the stencil letters here, for free, then spent a lot of time faffing around at the Post Office getting them the right size, while the kids made a nuisance of themselves and I kept apologising.

The fabric is mostly vintage sheets and pillowcases; some of the sweet pillowcases I found very hard to chop into, but took a deep breath and did it. The backing was an old wrap-around skirt. And I don't know where those pom-poms came from; mostly in the craft cupboard and under it in dingy, dusty, hairbally corners. But they scrubbed up all right. And the kids are on pain of death if they dare pull them off. (You can see on the cushion above that little hands already got started on the pom-poms before I noticed. Ahh...So that's where the white ones came from! Uhh.)

At this stage, the banner refers to Family LOVE, because Matt and I spend most... okay, all...of our nights sleeping with either one of the cuddly children, but I hold out the hope that one day it will, once again, refer to Romantic LOVE!

A Moment of Peace #2

This was my latest sacrifice for five minutes of peace: the sewing machine cover. Yes, I know, it could've been wayyyy worse. I got off easy. Jimmy loose with fabric scissors in my sewing room? Yikes! Could have been a disaster. So I'm not too worried about this one - I'll just turn it around.

Actually, the only reason I'm getting the time to write this is because I gave Jimmy a lit incense stick to play with outide. He is fascinated by the smoke! Hahahah! Such a bad mother!

Oh no, he was actually squashing a banana! Nooooo! Not wasting food!

An Afternoon with Kasia and Sophie

It was so nice to see you last weekend, Sophie and Kasia. We just love spending time with you! Thank you for making the journey to come and see us, and for the afternoon tea you were not supposed to bring! xxx

This Week

Enjoying the lovely sunlit flowers in my rear-vision mirror as we reverse out of the driveway
This little doll inspiring me to keep trying with Dutch

Enjoying a swim and a picnic tea with friends

You can guess who delivered the wedgie.

Getting back into cycling-as-transport on the days I only have Jimmy

Sewing gifts for our much-missed Esme

Painting!

Finding someone's sneaky snack - David, the painting and the cheese totally remind me of you at Jimmy's age!

And a lovely family bike ride through the Boondall Wetlands to Pam's Cafe at Nudgee Beach for a fish and chip dinner - I really recommend this to all you locals!