New year

I have never been one for making New Year resolutions but for some reason this year I feel differently. Although I have not put too much thought into it all, I have been day dreaming about things that I have wanted to do but just haven't done for one reason or another. So here's the list so far:

2011 is going to be:

1. The year dedicated to friendship. While we were working 6 1/2 days per week and had the kids in day care from 9-5, 5 days a week it was hard to nourish the friendships we already had, let alone establish new ones! But this year business will be good (a bit of positive thinking there might help!), we will work no more than 5 days per week and we will be better friends!

2. The year I learn accoustic guitar. This is something that I've kinda of always been like, "yeah, that'd be cool if I could do that". The first part of this resolution will be actually getting a guitar! I'm not too concerned with what I learn, kids songs would do! but serenading hubby would be kinda awesome too.

3. The year that I finish my Jinney Beyer wall hanging. It has about 5500 tiny little 1 1/4" squares to stitch together. I have done 200, so I just have a few more to go. Maybe this one needs to be a little more specific... I will complete 1 block (which is a 10 x 10 square) each week! Look out for my weekly post and feel free to ASK where it is if you haven't seen it. lol

4. The year that I organise my sewing room and make it a usable space. That way I won't have to set up on the dining room table every time I want to sew, and then have to pack it all away so the kids can eat breakfast!

5. The year that I spend more time PLAYING with the kids! I will have dedicated times that absolutley no housework, dinner prep, shopping, blogging, etc can be done. Just to play and/or craft our time away.

6. The year that I will exercise! Every day (except Saturday). Not 90 minute workouts or anything silly like that. Just a 30 minute workout, EVERYDAY (except Saturday - just to be clear). Playing with the kids cannot count in this half hour, that will be bonus exercise!

... and that's it so far for what I want out of 2011. I'm working of the KISS (Keep It Simple Sarah - Ha and you thought the last S meant something else!) method and figured that this could quite possibly be achievable! Do you have any projects that you want finished in 2011? Do you have a list or prefer not too put the pressure on? What ever your plans, enjoy ringing in the New Year and I'll see blog you in 2011!

No words

... just laughter!!!

Crafting

My boys LOVE sticky tape... every morning all I get is "Can we do arts and craft please Mum?" " PLEEEEAAAASSSSEEEE!!!" Luckily for us our business provides ample boxes and containers that the boys can 'craft' and then discard at the end of the day. It's funny to think that we spend so much on them at Christmas time but the most time spent on any one toy so far is the home-made playdough and LB's tools. Second to that it would have to be the stickytape dispenser and FREE boxes!

I know that they would love to get soooo much fun out of boxes and sticky tape but it just doesn't feel right. A box will be transformed many time during the course of play...

A fort
A stage
A bike jump
A trampoline
A garage
A shop
and finally...
A ROCK STAR'S DRUM!

cheeky!

Sew Simple Skirt

Going out to dinner tonight I wanted a new skirt to wear. So I decided to make my Sew Simple Skirt. I have made a few of these before and decided to take some pictures along the way. I hope that this is the first of many more to come...

(with right sides together)

Playdough

Ok, so I’m not sure if I’m allowed to officially call it playdough or if I should use something like Moulding dough, but this recipe is awesome. I’m sure that many of you already use this great receipe in your house.

We gave LB a ‘Craft dough bucket’ for Christmas and when I brought it I knew not to expect the A grade playdough that you would get in an actual Playdough bucket. But it was half the price and came with some really cool tools! Yesterday we cracked open the bucket and without any home-made dough to use, we resigned ourselves to using the dough that came with the bucket...

And boy did I regret that! It was gross, it stuck to you and even after washing LB’s hands it was still stuck everywhere. It stuck to clothes, shoes and the floor. Now don’t get me wrong the Moulding dough receipe I am going to give you will do all these things to BUT it will simply roll off of their clothes or be able to be picked up by using another ball of dough to stick to. It will not get stuck in your nail bed, table or chairs and have to be scraped off. It will keep for... well I have opened up a container I found about 4 months after making the dough and there was nothing wrong with it, but I do like to make a new batch every month though, just to keep it reasonably fresh and give a new colour too!

This post is inspired by our Friend who dropped by yesterday that commented that he needed to learn how to make moulding dough and had no idea. This is for YOU!

I have another friend that sometimes makes her moulding dough ‘naked’. By omitting the food colouring you will end up with white playdough. You can then pick off smaller portions, press your thumb in the middle and put a couple of drops of colour into them. Fold the dough over the well and allow the kids to knead the dough and discover the colour inside. Thank-you so much for this fab idea!

A few action shots...

Pour in the dry ingredients

 

Pour in the water, oil and colour

Mix together with a spoon

Knead until it is soft and smooth. Becareful it will be hot!

Slip 'n Slide

It was such a nice (HOT) sunny day on Christmas which was great when LB got a Slip n Slide. So after all the festivities of the day, we came home to cool off. MM decided he didn't want the kids to have all the fun, so he joined in too! and the best way to slide? get the bubble bath!

MM was sliding so much better than the kids, so we put that down to a lack of clothing and stripped the boys off. Boy did they FLY down that plastic then, especially when Dad was bowling them down. All that water and soap, with a lack of clothes, left the boys clean and ready to jump straight into bed after such a big, long day. It was awesome.

MM woke the next morning complaining he was sore and I wonder why! When I showed him all the action shots he could understand why throwing yourself down a super slippery mat unto the ground would do that to you.

And you might wonder, where is the Mama in all that fun?! Totally worn out from Christmas day, that's where. I am just surprised that my action finger worked to take the shots (there were about 200 of them in total). Maybe next time...

Christmas

As I had had a very late night, it wasn't surprising that I was still asleep when Big Brother came crashing in, "MUM he drank all the milk and left the bottom of the lamington!" "Can I open the presents now?!" "Pleeeeaaaassseeee?!"

It took him approximately 30 seconds to wake LB when I told him that we have to would wait for him. Ooops. They eagerly opened their Santa gifts while we waited for our guests to arrive



The feast was set and so were our Guests!

  

When we were all very satisfied we headed off for more presents...

Daddy got a new baby

Mummy got a new baby...

and we all shared, loved, laughed, hugged and were Merry together!

Christmas means alot of things to different families, for us christmas is about

FAMILY

FRIENDS

SHARING

GIVING

LAUGHING

TOGETHERNESS

and above everything

LOVE

Merry Christmas to you all and I hope that you enjoyed your day, however you spent it!



T'was the night before Christmas

'not a creature was stirring not even a mouse..' Who am I kidding?! There was definetly some stirring up until about 2:30AM!

But the kids headed off to bed after they had gotten ready.

First it was off to pick some carrots for those Reindeer that would be bringing Santa.

Then to lay them along the 'landing strip' together with the Sparklie reindeer landing food we made.

Then inside to get a snack for Santa... 'Lower Fat Milk' and home made lamingtons. (When we saw Santa at Harvey's on Saturday he requested a Low fat milk, but this got lost in translation to a LOWER fat milk.)

Then to the Sacks...

I can assure you that 'this' face is pure excitement!

 Then we headed off to look at all the Christmas lights around town before heading home to bed.

I wanted to have placemats for Christmas breakfast but true to form, time eluded me and I was just starting this project at 10:30pm

Good thing that MM had had a couple cans of 'GO', he was wrapping gifts while I did the finishing touches on the Mats. Yes, another thing that I was going to have done before now! Then it was time to set the table, clean up a little and try to head for bed.

Who am I kidding? After all that mad sewing and setting, who could sleep? So I headed out and grabbed a movie (?) at this time it is like 1:30am. After 20 mins of watching my mind had calmed and off we headed to bed also.

Merry Christmas

Cleaning...

OMG, I only JUST cleaned out the bottom of my sewing machine a matter of weeks ago... but this is gross. I suppose I do do ALOT of sewing and should really de-dust the machine every needle change, this will be on the 2011 list as a must do.

I noticed yesterday when I was doing the hem on my Ruffle top that it was forming a funny loop on the back of the fabric every now and then. Hmmm last time it did this I re-threaded it, gave it a new needle, changed threads and still couldn't get it to stitch nicely. But then I gave it a good clean out underneath and got some real bunnies out of there! I've had friends tell me stories of finding dead cockroaches in theirs! Yuck.

Someone get a rabbit trap!

So I guess my machine just needed a little love and attention, because now it is back to stitching fantastically!

All nice and clean again! Phew

How long since you've cleaned your machine?

Ruffle Top

Wow. That was fast. I only said last night... oh that might have been this morning, I'm pretty sure that it was after midnight, that I wanted to make this top, and today I did it. I did omit the ruffles though, just because I wanted to finish it while LB slept at lunch (which only lasts 1 1/2 hours nowdays).

With a little motivation this morning by way of friends dropping in, the house was cleaned and ready for sewing action. Fueled by Chocolate brownie and determination to create something for ME that I could stitch my new label onto.

The fabric I have used was gifted to me by my Mum a while ago to make some tops for work... now that I am not working any more I have time to actually make them up though. So thanks for the Christmas top Mum, my Santa Day top for 2010. Now I just have to wait 3 more sleeps.

And what were the babes doing while I was sewing up a storm?

Adventures...

Is that my washing basket LB?!

I love it when LB runs into the house rambles off something completely random and then races back out the door with an "excuse me please" on the way past our pooch!

This swing was removed shortlty after this picture when the clothesline began to sway like a group of teenagers playing goon-of-fortune. That poor little swing. No-one liked it mmuch when they were the correct weight to be in there, now everyone seems to want to swing, at the same time I might add. Let's see what they can terrorise next...