It's the little things

It's waking up way too early in the morning (4am) and not being able to go back to sleep. Instead of getting frustrated, I spent some quiet time on the lounge with a cup of tea, my journal and a slowly waking world.

 

 It's having your daughter get out of bed at a reasonable time, eat breakfast, brush teeth and hair, and get dressed for school....all without one single complaint, tantrum or screaming fit. 

 

It's then having your son say to you after you've just dropped your girl off at school ..."I love my sister". 

 

It's buying a new sewing book.....

 

 

 

....which is full of lots of small (and some not so small) projects that would be perfect to whip up for Christmas gifts.

 

 



 

It's knowing that in this age of movies galore for kids, they still want to watch the classics.

 



 

...and while they're having some quiet time watching the classics, I get to spend some quiet time of my own with a coffee and my computer to catch up on some blogging.

 

It's reading about the everyday lives of people around the world and realising that no matter where we live, there are so many similarities in all our lives.

 



 

It's spending some time with my new yarn and my crochet hook making colourful squares.

 

 



 

Yes, the little things in our lives certainly do make us happy and even though I've been frustrated, upset and many other emotions lately, I have realised that I do have a lot to be thankful for.

 

 

I'm especially thankful that I finally got my hair done for the first time in 18 months!

 



 

xx Susan

Grandad's here

Grandad hasn't been around much lately as he lives where the work is.  In this case he's living out of his caravan in the small town of Marlborough in northern Queensland now so we haven't seen him for awhile.

 

 

 

The kidlettes just love their Grandad and are so happy to see him every couple of days for the next couple of weeks.  Then he'll be back up north and we'll miss walking out the back to find him sitting on one of the chairs reading the paper.  Sometimes he's been there awhile but he's happy having quiet time until the kidlettes find him!

 

We'll miss him when he goes back.

Big Night Out

Little Miss R's school had their Big Night Out on Friday night.

 

Rather than holding the annual school fete during the day on a weekend, they hold it from 3-9pm on a Friday night and I think it's a fantastic idea.

 

I had decided to stay there straight after school rather than go home and come back later.  It ended up being a good decision because there weren't as many people in those first couple of hours so getting on the rides was pretty easy.

 

There was the Jurassic jumping castle which was very popular with my two (as well as many other big kids who were pushing in line a lot by the end of the night.)

 

 

 

There was also a jumping castle for the little kids as well as a little merry go round.  There was no way my kids were going on the spinning thing that went up in the air.  Too scarey for them and as my girl gets motion sickness, it just wasn't an option.

 

 

The big slide was an option though and we lost count of the number of times the kids went down this.  It was definately their favourite.

 



 

Master M doesn't get motion sickness so he had a go on the chair ride while my girl continued to slide or jump or whatever else she was doing at the time.

 

 

You can't have a fete without fairy floss......

 

 

Once they'd spent a couple of hours on the rides, I decided it was time to walk through the school to see what else was happening around the place.

 

They got to catch some ducks and get a prize.

 

 

My girl also did well throwing the ball and got a great little prize for both her and her brother.  (He piked when it was his go and decided to throw a bit of a tantrum so his sister had his go for him.)

 

 

The toilet toss was a great novelty.  You got three balls to throw into a toilet and got a prize depending on how many you got in.

 

 

There were the usual stalls and food places too as well as face painting.  My girl wanted to be Spider Man and my boy had no interest in having his face painted.  He told the lady that.. "I like my face just the way it is!"

 

 We stopped and had some dinner before heading back out to the rides.  The sun had set, the place was lit up and it was time for more fun.

 

 

Then the night ended with a bang...literally.  They had fireworks and it was the first time my kids had actually seen fireworks.  To quote my 4 year old son...they were SUPER AWESOME!

 

 

After such a late night, the kids slept in the next day which was a relief.

 

Saturday was also Little Miss R's 7th birthday.  It was another very full day but lovely for my girl.

 

Hope you all had a fantastic weekend.

 

xx Susan

Another milestone

I'm a bit shocked at how quickly one year seems to have flown passed. Most of the time I've felt I've been plodding along at a nice pace but then I found myself making cupcakes for Little Miss R's class to celebrate her 7th birthday. 

 

That's when I realised that it didn't seem all that long ago when I was making cupcakes for her 6th birthday.

 

 

Some things in life seem to drag out but our kids seem to grow up so quickly and those growing moments are coming around a bit too fast.

 

And just because........

 

 

There are two new hippeastrum's flowering in my front yard.  I now have 4 different colour flowers.  My goodness!  I'm nearly classed as a gardener.  :)

 

 

 

xx Susan

It's finally finished!

Yes it's true. One of the projects I've been working on is finally finished!

 

My little blanket made from all those scraps of yarn has finally been completed after about 6 months.

 

This is not a big blanket at all, in fact it's probably a perfect cot blanket.

 

 



 

I did something different for the border this time instead of the usual block border with a picot or shell edge.  I love the effect of the granny border and it was so quick to do.  After taking so long to sew the actual squares of the blanket together, I was more than happy that the border was completed in super quick time.

 

 

I really do love this blanket.

 

 

And do you know what the best part is?

 

As I was finishing the last round of the border, the mail lady arrived with a delivery of bright, cheerful and colourful yarn!

 

 

The next project is already flying off my hook.

 

You'll have to wait for a peek of that though!

 

xx Susan

 

Around camp

It's a couple of week's since we got home from holidays and I think I'm finally sorted with the washing and re-packing of our camping gear. I'm sure hubby really doesn't realise exactly how much goes into packing etc when camping with a family. He's used to throwing his swag, some beer and a couple of steaks in when he goes somewhere and since we've gone somewhere as a family, he's been away working and I've had to deal with the packing.

 

Anyway........ as I said, it's been a couple of weeks since we got home and I'm really missing it.  I love my home but there's something about camping that I just love and can really relax.

 

This trip away I got to use my camp kitchen that my father-in-law gave us

last Christmas.  We haven't used it yet as we didn't really need it for the smaller trips away.

 

I LOVED IT!  I had the washing up bowl set up permanently (in the hope that someone else would do it I think but we know that NEVER happens).

 

 

 

 

I also had our two water bottles on the bottom middle shelf so it was easy for the kids to pour their own drink.  Our other folding table which I find essential when we're away ended up over at Mum and Dad's camp near the fire.  I missed it in our camp but as we were over near the fire most of the time then it really was better to leave it there.  We only had to walk about 10 metres from our camp to their's anyway so it wasn't a problem.

 

Dad's filleting table always gets packed into their van when they go away.  It's certainly another brilliant use for old ironing boards and when you walk around the camp ground you realise just how popular the old ironing board is as a filleting table.  It's a great size, can be adjusted, is easily cleaned and folds flat.  Perfect for camping!

 

 

The photo below is of our camp with my washing strung up a bit like bunting.  I do have a folding washing line which my parents gave us for Christmas a few years ago but a few days it was a bit too windy to have it up so the tent ropes worked perfectly.

 



 

The fish was just so beautiful too.  There's nothing better than fresh fish, caught that day, then cooked on the campfire.  DELICIOUS!

 

 

Did I mention the campfires? 

 

Oh how I miss them.  I'm trying to work out how we can build something in our small backyard so we can get a fire going out there without the neighbours calling the fire brigade.  If all else fails we'll just head down to my brother's place as he has a bonfire at his place pretty well every weekend.  The mozzie's are a killer there though as he has heaps of mangroves and the Bribie passage virtually at the back of his property.

 

 

 

The next photo I've put in because I just love it.  Lovely hubby getting harassed, tackled and tickled etc by Master M (right) and Nephew R (left).  There was LOTS of giggling!

 

 

 

I have no idea when or where our next camping trip will be.  We were originally supposed to go to St Lawrence for this last trip but ended up out near Warwick with family instead.

 

Maybe next trip we'll be up at St Lawrence catching some Barramundi with Rob.  Considering I hate the heat, we're heading into summer and it's cyclone season in North Queensland soon, then I'm not sure of our chances.

An afternoon project - swimming bag

Little Miss R starts swimming today and needs a waterproof bag for her to keep her wet togs and towel in.

 

The only thing  I had was a plastic shopping bag and while it would do the job, I wanted something a little bit nicer and hard wearing for her.

 

I got to have a little 'me' time on Sunday (which was awesome) and while out  I headed to a Spotlight store to look at buying some oil cloth to make a bag with.

 

Then I found the laminated cotton which I didn't know existed.  It's nowhere near as stiff as the oil cloth and had much prettier patterns.

 

 

Home I came with my little bundle in my hands and started to measure out the bag.  I ended up using an old library bag (which Master M uses as a blindfold when wrestling his toy crocodiles) as a pattern and it was just the perfect size.

 

 

I cut out four pieces the same size because I wanted to line the bag and I also decided to make a pocket for the inside so my girl can put her sunscreen and goggles in.

 

 

It didn't take long to sew up although making a button hole for the side so  I could put the draw string through proved daunting.  I'd never made a button hole with my new machine so I had to get the instruction book out and work it out as I went. 

 

 

Threading the rope through proved to be a bit of a problem too as I hadn't made the encasement wide enough for the thick rope I had.  In the end it was solved by finding some smaller rope somewhere in the house and using that.  Much easier!

 

So now my girl has a waterproof swimming bag which she loves and I'm sure it will be unique within her class so hopefully it won't get lost. 

 

Hope you all had a great weekend.

 

xx Susan