Banana cases

I was very excited to buy some banana cases off eBay. They are super cool. Yes? My excuse for buying them was that the novelty would encourage our children, mainly Ellamay, to eat banana's. For two days, that banana filled banana case has gone to school with Ellamay for fruit time. And for two days, it has come home again. Pretty sure that means Ellamay hasn't been tricked into fruit eating by the pretty banana case. Oh well, surely sometime she will start eating them. Meanwhile, what a happy thought is a bunch of banana cases. Makes me smile.

Lined felt baskets

Just a quick post today. I am having trouble with this computer and the Internet and blogger at the moment. Very frustrating.


I used this great tutorial (great blog too) and created these. I didn't make the label window for the front because I am too impatient. Plus, I thought maybe I might make some flowers to sew on later. (If I can be bothered).



I am so happy with the way they turned out. I will give them to the girls to put out for Easter bunny to put their eggs in at Easter time. They came together really quickly. I like when I can make something in one sitting. Even better last night because I finished all three and started two more little bags like I made for Christmas. These ones will be for upcoming birthdays. I will post some pictures when I'm done.

I have also been working on more hair stuff and my own version of a cloud mobile. They are VERY popular on the net at present. Mine is frustrating me though so I don't know when I will get back to it. It's in a pile with all the other projects I get to the middle of and get stuck or lose interest in. Or something more interesting comes up.


Oh... One more thing. I just have to fill you in. Amelia has finished on the pump for the time being. She has had her last week on there and is now off until she is sick next. HURRAH! It has been a long time coming. She started treatment on it in September and has just finished this week.

I should finish up here. The kids have been entertaining themselves while I write this so I should go and see what mischief they have caused!

Project 52 - The fifth date and the sixth date

The fifth date - I had another headache. I have been getting a lot lately. We decided to continue on with the date anyway. Since I was feeling so... dull again, we decided to watch a movie. Another DVD Tim had gotten for his birthday. The Dish. A fantastic movie. (Check out this trailer on YouTube) We laughed out loud for the first half and then I got a bit dozy by the end. I should clarify though, we have seen it quite a few times. It wasn't the movie that was dull.

The sixth date - It's now my turn to come up with the dates for the next month. I was really struggling to settle on a plan. The last couple of weeks I have been struggling to keep up with everything. It's been so busy chasing after kids and school activities, and endless fighting to get kids to go to sleep at night, not to mention the contant house work stuff. We had a trip down to the big building with Amelia and Tim's work hours have been long of late.

After all that, I decided that it was about time I did something for Tim. He does so much for me. I gave Tim a back massage. Tim is a sales rep and is in his truck for many hours a day. He also does a lot of lifting so he is always happy to get a massage. So it was him that got dozy for a change! He talked all about work and the fire brigade and the kids and our house and anything. I tried to listen. Sometimes (often) I like to say my piece too and it becomes me talking and Tim listening. So I tried to stay quiet.

That about covers it. I had hoped by this stage in Project 52 that things would have settled into some kind of date night routine... as in it would be easier to make the date time work, but it hasn't. I guess it's really about making time for this - even when it's hard to. I have a few ideas for the next dates so I hope I can get sorted a bit better for the seventh.

The big building

Today we went to the 'big building'. Actually it is the Royal Children's Hospital in Melbourne. It was time for Amelia's clinic appointment.

Amelia has Cystic Fibrosis. I have been trying to decide whether or not to talk about this on here. But you know what? This is our life. We are living this and so I am going to talk about it here. Sometimes things are okay. Sometimes they are not.

So anyway today, we went to the 'big building'. (Esther and Ellamay named it this - it is a big building.) Amelia had a check up with her specialist. This visit was great! Amelia is healthy. Her lungs were sounding good and the doctor was very happy.

As part of Amelia's ongoing treatment, she has been using a strong saline solution in a nebuliser pump twice a day since September, to help with mucus clearance. Today the doctor said that we could go back to just once a day for a week and if all was well then she could finish using it altogether for the moment. Hooray! Go Amelia!

It was taking up to 20 minutes each treatment before and now we are in sight of the finish (for the moment). I couldn't be happier about this. It will mean the work load will cut back a bit until she needs it again. And Amelia will be VERY happy not to have to be on there.

We are very worn out now. It's about two and a half hours to Melbourne. It is a big day once we go down, see all the people we have to see and then turn around and make the trip home.

The kids are all in bed asleep. Amelia has had her physio. And I am trying to catch up on this blog. It's been a bit neglected. I hope to be back tomorrow with a Project 52 and maybe a crafty thing. Finally.

Felt flower hair clips

I found a link on One Pretty Thing for some felt rose hair clips. One Pretty Thing is a fantastic site. I look at it every day. They have links to so many different sites on all manner of crafty topics.

There is a tutorial and pattern over here. These clips are so easy to make. I loved them. And I am still making more. I have made two in the girls school uniform colours and two just because they are cute colours. This photo doesn't really show up the colours very well unfortunately, but I really do like them. Do try them out. Nothing like wearing a flower in one's hair to make you feel pretty I think.

Tim's birthday cake

Just a few photos of Tim's cake from last week. He is a great welder - even though he hasn't done too much in the last couple of years. He has been so busy. I thought a welder cake would be fun. The cake is just a basic chocolate cake recipe, covered in buttercream icing. Not the easiest stuff to do details with.

Tim lit the sparklers (the welding rods). I love these photos. Ellamay was not happy.

And then the sparklers light! Funny.

Photo quality is a bit average. Wish I knew how to work that camera of mine...

Hope to be back this week with some actual crafts.

Self cover buttons

Look at these. Mum got the new Birch self cover buttons when she was at Spotlight recently. The others were part of her button collection. The brown, green and blue buttons are off Mum and Dad's old lounge suite. Mum thought I might be able to do something with them. The smaller green floral ones I might make into some clips or hair ties.

Isn't the packaging cool? No sense of style for the new buttons.

Can't wait to make some things with these. Although, they will probably all end up as hair accessories. I LOVE hair accessories. Unless I can find some other grand ideas to make.

Project 52 - The fourth date

Our date for this week was hardly a date at all. It very nearly didn't take place. I had been up during the previous night with Amelia as she had been sick. And I was feeling fairly average myself. Tim was really excited to take some more photos to start the date... but I really didn't feel like having my photo taken.

I got into my pajamas (first rule broken) and curled up on the couch. We ended up watching the DVD set I gave Tim for his birthday this week, Grand Designs. It's a great British TV series with all these fantastic homes that people are building. We really enjoy watching it. (TV - Second rule broken).

Tim got us a cold drink and he watched, I dozed. We were together though and we did manage a bit of conversation. And I do like when we get to talk.

(Just in case you are interested, the cake is meant to be an arc welder. Tim is an amazing welder. He has made steel furniture and mirrors. He is very creative and clever. You can see a picture of his outdoor chairs here.)

These date nights are fun. Life certainly does do it's best to get in the way of us though! Check out the latest Project 52 Dates here.

Our Darling Girls

Our children are driving me crazy at the moment. Esther and Ellamay have just started school and they are tired and cranky. They will not sleep though! Up until 10pm is not okay for five and a half year old's, in my book. They are fighting between themselves and with Amelia.

It's hard to believe, at times like this, that they have a sweet bone in their little bodies but they do. Last week when I was feeling lousy from the migraine, they put on a concert for me in the backyard to make me feel happy (better). There was a special chair for me to sit in.

They sang and medley of their favourite songs and a few made up ones. There was a few disagreements who would go first or if they should sing together.

Esther

Ellamay. In the end they all had a turn.

Amelia sang in between eating an apple.

And there was a special flower (off my favourite rose bush!) "for the lady in the audience."

So look at that! My kids do drive me crazy. And they do misbehave. But in them... beats little heart's of gold! They were trying to take care of Mummy. I love them.

Black Saturday - One Year on

We remember those who were lost. We remember those who were hurt. We remember those whose lives were turned upside down. We remember what was lost.

We thank God for those who were saved. We stand with those who rebuild their lives and their communities.

We thank God for the countless volunteers. We thank God for those who fought.

Thank you.

Project 52 - The third date

This week's Project 52 date was a homemade photo session.

I am not great at photography. (It is on my list of resolutions for this year but let's just say that this side project to Project 52 is going to be a learning process too.)

We clamped a muslin backdrop (which I got for Christmas a couple of years ago and have never used) to the kitchen curtain rod. Tim got a halogen lamp from the shed (next time I think we might need to diffuse that). We fiddled around with the camera settings til we got something kind of right. I had bought some funny glasses from a discount store and we tried to get smiley.

We had our usual problems, kids not settling and we were both tired. Tim particularly. He had gotten home late from an overnight trip away for work. We found though that once we were organised and because we had to pose happy - we got happy.

I am so grateful that Tim was willing to do this. It ended up being lots of fun. A chance to be silly together. And we don't do that much anymore. We miss that. We don't get our photo taken together often so I hope we can do this regularly. Some serious and some silly pictures.

We are enjoying our dates. I look forward to Friday nights. I know that we can steal a bit of time for us.

Check out other date nights at Simply Modern Mom.

Head bands for first day of school

Our daughters started school today. Our house is significantly quieter today. Only Amelia around to make noise and mess. And really she has been fairly well behaved so far.

I recently decided that Esther and Ellamay needed some school hair accessories that matched their uniforms but were different so it might help everyone tell who's who. I have been really wanting to make some rosette head bands for myself but true to form, made some for my kids first.

These are from this tutorial I found. So easy. I got the headbands from The Reject Shop marked down from $3 for 3 to $1 for 3. Bargain! (I bought about 5 packs! I like to stock up when I find a bargain). They were already school colours so all I had to do was add the rosettes. The maroon flower is actually an old dress ... an attempt at re purposing. Suited perfectly.

Here is a picture of our babies. All grown up and ready to go in the front gate today. Sporting their new head bands. Amelia didn't want to miss out on the photo.

I have got more plans for school hair things, I hope to post soon. By the way, my head is much improved now, thankfully. So maybe I can get back to stitching and such.