My little girl is big and other matters

So I am back from the world of campdrafting and being secretarial and away from home for five days straight. The joys of volunteering!

Long story short, it all went quite well, despite my short stint as an ambulance driver (multi tasking!  all good – a lady had a fall from her horse and needed to get to hospital, and the ambulance can’t drive itself when the paramedic is tending to the patient!) I was most pleased to get to bed Monday night after packing and tidying everything up at the venue, and doing the banking.

Anyhow, before all of that campdraft who-ha, my second daughter had an early birthday celebration, seeing as I was going to be away for her actual birthday.  I decided to do the bunting thing for the cake.

She liked it, and I have to say this was one of my better cake decorating efforts..despite adding the number six in those sparkly things and regretting it! (she liked it though!) I could have made the flags a touch smaller – and I considered piping her name on top of the cake instead of the conchos, but I was short on time.

  She scored a new bigger bike from Granma, and I think she was very pleased to get her very own tea set, just like her big sister did for her birthday.  It seems to have been well used over the past weekend!  The only problem with this great little set, that Shannon found for me at Aldi, is that the cute cardboard suitcase that they come in isn’t all that durable for my rough kids who have tea parties out under the tree and cart it around the flat.  I will have to keep an eye open for a different, more durable storage container for each set (probably just a plastic cake dish from silly solly’s!)

And in the most exciting news for this now six year old girly – she FINALLY lost a tooth, just days after the actual day!  She was SO excited to have reached this milestone (her big sister loosing teeth at a rapid rate from the age of 5 and a half onwards!) and that little gap at the bottom is terribly cute!

I must set the girls up in their birthday tutus with their tea sets for a little photo shoot one day….I have been neglecting my camera lately, which has to change!

Right, off to catch up on some more sleep and rest this exhausted brain of mine!

This is me

Inspired by Nicole’s and Amy’s self portraits not long ago, I thought I would give it a crack, body issues and self loathing aside! ;-)

I had visions of using swathes of patterned paper which I “thought” had downloaded last night but appear to have disappeared into the ether.  But instead I have gone the total opposite way and used NONE. Not quite what I had in mind but it was quick, and easy. When printed I’ll either drop onto some plain cardstock or maybe even add a tiny strip of patterned paper somewhere.

I COULD print it at home right now, but really I should be doing something else entirely like organising myself for the chaos that the next 10 days are going to bring (um…six year old birthday and then going to town and back preparing for the campdraft and then FOUR days of driving to town and back and only being here to shower, sleep and check on the girl that is looking after the kids for the duration of this wretched campdraft! Oh and that last ONE day of driving to town back to do the banking and clean up AFTER the campdraft. And was there a kids birthday in there somewhere? Poor baby.)

Anyhow, after all that, here it is:

 

So that’s about it. Oh, and that crocheting effort from my last post. COMPLETE disaster.  Did not work past the first line of instructions. So I did something else instead and did quite a few meaningless but non the less addictive rows of simple crochet which will probably be claimed as a dolls blanket or something (as really that is all it is fit for!)

See you in about ten days time! off to do some of the something else’s that are awaiting!

Technorati Tags: scrapbooking,digital,me

Trying something new? I’m all about flowers apparently!

I saw this I think on the WCS blog, a new release from some company or other. Made from felt.

Now you know I don’t get carried away with fiddly embellishments (fast and simple being my motto) but I actually thought I could handle this sort of flower + felt, even if I DID substitute the stitching with glue if I were feeling particularly lazy! Pretty simple aren’t they? (although I do think the leaves make things too bulky)

 

And I decided to see if I could really crochet, and got out the “how to book” and discovered that I could indeed crochet (however I have found my book is American, and of course Americans have different names to each stitch than the rest of the world!) Sigh.

That regardless, I might have a go at these cute flowers tonight (with much bigger wool and a much bigger hook!)  and a careful eye on how each different stitch is done – although the blog from where this comes from is American, so I might be OK!  Seeing as I learnt the American way!

I’m down to two kids, and no husband (the biggest kid off on school camp at Great Keppell Island – I KNOW such a hard life they have! and the husband is at the prickle farm mustering, where the remaining kids and I have to be, bright and sparky, tomorrow morning).

So I’m thinking baked beans on toast, some Dancing with the Stars, and some figuring out of US v AU crochet terms, might keep me entertained this evening.

That’s if these two kids here EVER stop fighting and squabbling and bickering and driving me BONKERS, as they have done about 2.5 seconds after their big sister left on the bus for camp.

If I drank wine, there is a distinct possibility that I would be consuming a great deal of it in a very short time during the baked beans and Dancing With The Stars plans for this evening, instead of tangling with wool.

With that, I depart to deal with the poopied panted ratbag boy who is old enough to know better and is currently tanty-ing on the bathroom floor as I dared suggest to him that is where he should be, cleaning up his own bum and pants. GRRR.

On that note! bye.

Technorati Tags: scrapbooking,inspiration

the best thing about fencing

Ah, windows live writer how you have changed my blogging life. Folks, you can download this for free from Microsoft if you don’t have it already….you won’t regret it!

So, fencing.  A few weeks ago my husband sweetly requested (snort) that the children and I (well, it was more that if he wanted my assistance, the kids had to come too, as there were a lack of babysitters) go fencing with him for the day.

My joy at this request was unbounded (snort again!) but we did indeed don our work boots, jeans and hats and head off into the wild yonder for some family bonding fencing time.

Turns out, this was a great day – especially so as I got to drive the tractor – COMPLETELY unaccompanied by any person under the age of ten, and HE got the pleasure of all three kids in the front of the ute with him.  Ah…bliss!

(my view as I bounce along behind, in my tractor..)

Turns out it wasn’t so much fencing with wire and steel pickets, but cementing  in the gate posts and strainer posts and the like (before the barbed wire and pickets happen)

This involved quite a bit of shovelling on behalf of my beloved (see the little cement mixer on the back of the tractor) and wielding of the level and other dogsbody jobs by yours truly – as well as the expert tractor driving of course.  We had to cement in around 21 posts spread over about 11 kms of prospective fenceline.

This also involved about 16 in and out of the Toyota movements for the kids… as they wandered out from under bushes and behind trees or from balancing on top of log,s at the threat of being left behind. His blood pressure was tested as of course the kids were never in ANY sort of rush.

My handy dandy little magnetic level…that fell into the cement on more than one occasion as it apparently isn’t as magnetic as one might believe.

And in effort to YES include myself more often, here is a timer shot from the back of the ute, as we had lunch with the cows. 

You (as was I) will be pleased to note that no photographs were taken of the peeing behind bushes, especially of the episode where I explained to my oldest daughter HOW to do so without peeing in ones boots and on ones pants (jeans obviously are an obstacle, as I KNOW she’s had to do this before!)….I had to walk away and let her figure it out for herself.  Youngest daughter has no problems with this concept as she can pee squatting on the ground with one leg behind her ear and singing the national anthem. Boy obviously has no challenges whatsoever, apart from what target he can find to liven up the whole process (with luck not a moving one, although those provide much amusement apparently!)

And an end of day shot that I begged the Grumpy One to take :-) (he had after all been in the front of the ute – not a whole lot of space -  with three kids all day! but he got over it) I call it poetic justice for not being home to spend more time with the kids lately. Catching up all in one BIG dose! ;-)

And one last one:

Bit o’ sun flare there.  Did it deliberately, I swear! 

All of these shots are SOOC, and the only thing I have done is reduced them for web from within Live Writer (have I mentioned how I love it so?!) I have many many other cool shots from the day that of course I will have to do something scrapbooky with them.

Housekeeping:  I have a huge new screen – and the images on the blog seem medium sized to me – are they slow to load or the same as they ever were?  Would you prefer smaller images, or happy with the way things are?

feeding the other new obsession

I have one cake stand.  Which I really like.  So why do I find myself oohing and aahing over the likes of this one?

perhaps its the colour – its so overcast and rainy and COLD here today, the bright yellow is calling me (and the whole colour scheme of the table too!)

Its fairly obvious I that I should be finding things more important to fill my mind. Not that I haven’t got other things to do or think about – I have a nice long list in my diary here to attend (exciting things like invoices…and those school photos I need to finish editing).

Fairy floss. That is what my brain is made of…la la de la la….

Technorati Tags: random,inspiration

Bunting and Doilies

Allright, so I am late to this bunting craze, and recently have also been reintroduced to the simple loveliness of paper doilies. Combine the two, and well…some quick and easy decorating for the sixth birthday coming up in two weeks!

And here’s some more to inspire you as well (I can see this done in a shadowbox frame with either fabric or paper as well – and pen or computer printing instead of the embroidery)

And more (made from hankies!  I can see this, made very quickly, hanging up around the kids “new” cubby house!

  

A modern twist on the old fashioned crocheted doilies.  Although I am not that sure that I can bring myself to die the ones in my possession from my granma – even though I don’t use them!

And the discovery of this cute but oh so simple birthday cake may very well change my plans for both the cake decorating AND the cupcake birthday invite I had whipped up for my daughters upcoming birthday.

My next new obsession – that bakers twine…anyone know where I can get my hands on some ?  (mind you, my local supermarket carries paper doilies, so who knows what they might have in their string and glue section!)

Hmm…digital bunting brush for pse as well? anyone seen one?

Technorati Tags: birthday,inspiration

The Races

yes, Annual Race Time again, and as our P & C major fundraiser, back into the food shed I was again this year.

The kids dressed up, and the boy won Boys Fashions!  (a $20 voucher at the toy shop in town!) 

And just in case you were thinking this was a fancy sort of race meeting, here are the workers in the food shed. its not called a shed for nothing!

 

  That’s our teacher, Miss Mac – she won the trendsetters Fashion award in the little grey dress and gorgeous big flower fascinator.  (and no, it wasn’t cold at ALL on race day!)

Are you sick of seeing ME yet?  Another one, this time from within the shed, with the physco fitness crazy teacher aide (and obviously former model by its pose when the camera came out!). Peruse the background – no lawn or manicured roses at our race day! But horses and fascinators, well there were plenty of them!

Can you tell I gave myself a haircut?  by the stage this photo was taken, the lovely hairstyle I had carefully crafted before leaving for the races had morphed into my normal do-what-you-will mop.  I think that happened on the way to the car!

Technorati Tags: races,me

Cake Stand

So, for awhile I have been looking at other people’s lovely cake stands, and admiring them, wishing I had one of my own. Possibly in the mistaken belief that the cake stand will miraculously give me some non dodgy cake decorating skills.

Anyhow, until just the other day any cake stand I had seen was way to expensive for the occasional use it was going to get.  I even contemplated making one out of a plate and candlestick holder like other crafty people out there in blogland, should I ever have find the right bits for its creation.

I was in town (our very small regional centre) on a very quick see-the-accountant excursion when I walked past the secondhand/junk shop.  $15 later, this was coming home with me.

Bohemian crystal it is not, but it is a lovely faceted glass, and while the clear plastic top isn’t probably something I would have deliberately sought out, it does serve a purpose and no doubt will be very handy.

We have a 6th birthday in the house in under three weeks, so lets see if has the desired effect on the appearance of the birthday cake.  If nothing else, it will be well presented! ;-)

PS Loving Windows Live Writer!  If you haven’t used it or have it, its brilliant!

“Quick, its dripping!”

You just know when you hear that coming from the kitchen from the kids, and you are in the bathroom, its not something that you REALLY want to know about. Just sayin’.

Anyhow, here follows a couple of mini posts slightly heavier on photos than words.  More to follow as I get my act together!

May I share some just-because photos I took one warmish afternoon, as the kids blew bubbles and played on the lawn soaking up some late afternoon warm sun. Tried a bit of sun flare fun!

And then I remembered that I needed to include myself some more, fat rolls and all. And in this case, VERY much in need of a haircut! Yegads! (don’t fret, I gave myself one with the thinning scissors. Not very professional, but it worked!)

Kate was off watching TV instead of playing outside, so that’s what happens when you don’t do as you are told! you miss out on a photo with mum.

And one with the three of them mucking about. Treated with some PW Sunshine action. I like!

  

See you shortly!

testing

Yes I know, been quiet the last few days. Right now I am in the process of setting up my spanking new computer, which has windows 7 AND windows live writer, which is a pretty big step up for this former XP user!

I’ll be back soon(ish) with lots of photos and tales from the past week or so. 

Unless my fingers freeze off beforehand…feeling most frosty up here in the semi tropics tonight!  On that note, dear readers, I must go and find that warm doona,  and I promise I will be back soon!