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.