A QUIET week.......

Talia went back to Kindy on Monday which has meant that our house has been very quiet this week...... Kalem and I have taken advantage of this rare 'quiet' time and I have been teaching him to knit (yes Dad...knit!!). He has been wanting to learn for a while, but I have been very wary of teaching him as he gets very grumpy if he can't get the hang of things straight away. Lucky for me, he has picked it up quite quickly and apart from the occasional squeal of help mum, he is doing really well knitting a scarf for his bear! It is so cute watching him concentrating on every stitch, he does however seems to be adding a new stitch every row which should make for quite an odd looking scarf, but I don't think he will mind! We sat together on the couch for ages just chatting and knitting, it was so cool.......

He also spent a morning making a pom pom and then turning it into this lovely tarantula called 'Tuffy'...... Lola loves it and keeps trying to eat the eyes.

I have been wanting to make felt bangles for a while now, so yesterday morning I gave it a go. They were much harder than I thought and I don't think that I was doing it right. I did kind of make one and I will post pic when it is completely finished. I found a great book yesterday afternoon on felt jewellery at the library, so am going to give it another go when I have a chance....

I have to say a huge thank you for all your lovely comments and emails about my last post. You all made me feel so much better with your kind words!!!!!! X

POOR LITTLE OLD ME.....

If anybody reading this is due to visit the dentist STOP READING IMMEDIATELY!!!!

For the last couple of months I have had a slight niggling in one if my back teeth, recently it got slightly worse so I made the DREADED appointment to see the Dentist. First off I have to say that I am TERRIFIED of the Dentist, always have been and am pretty sure now ALWAYS WILL BE......

So Friday morning (after almost cancelling my appointment due to the fact that my tooth had been absolutely fine for the last couple of days) I headed off nervously, but trying to be as brave as possible. Once I was sitting in the chair the sweat started pouring and I even started to shake a bit... obviously my inner self knew what was to come. Anyway the Dentist found some decay inside my wisdom tooth and told me I could either have it filled or taken out. She advised me that if I did have it filled it would probably need doing again in the next couple of years.

SOMEHOW by telling me that it cost the same to remove the tooth, the tooth is not needed anyway and that it would only be the same pain as a filling, she managed to get me to agree to having it pulled.

FLIPPIN HECK... I can't even begin to explain how much I would rather have had a filling, 20 fillings even....... After having to listen to the crunching and cracking of bone, gagging on the horrific amount of blood and feeling like my head was being pulled off, I then had to endure stitches that seemed to take a lifetime to put in. Apparently my tooth had 4 roots instead of 2 and it was also fused to the bone which made it much harder to remove, stupid tooth!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was all quite traumatic and I had to sit out in my car for at least 5 minutes crying like a BABY once I had ESCAPED from the dreaded place! Now I have been known to be a BIT of a drama queen and I don't handle being sick or in pain very well, (how I ever birthed 3 babies naturally is beyond even me!!!) but I was seriously in shock. Luckily for me my wonderful mother-in-law was at home looking after the kids and one look at me, red eyes, swollen face, blood smeared on chin she gave me a hug and told me that she would have the kids for the rest of the day. THANK HEAVENS!! Wonderful, wonderful MIL am forever in her debt!!!

So now 3 days on I still can't talk properly and am in pain and having to take antibiotics WHILE BREASTFEEDING......... I don't take anything other than paracetamol if really needed normally while b/feeding so this is the worst part for me, I have checked with everyone and apparently what I am on is okay for babs, but really I would rather not be taking the risk.

I guess the moral of the story is HAVING A WISDOM TOOTH TAKEN OUT IS NOT THE SAME AS HAVING A FILLING!!!! Oh yeah and I am a great big Sukey la la BABY........... I have no idea how I am EVER going to get myself back to the dentist to have stitches removed and if anybody ever tells me that I need a tooth pulling again I am going into hiding.........

Sorry about this moany old post but just had to get it off my chest and also wanted to let my mum and dad know what their poor little girl has had to endure..... can't phone them as can't SPEAK.... Hope that everybody else is having a lot more fun than me this weekend.......X

A TEA PARTY........

Today we had a tea party or should I say that Talia had a tea party. She has been wanting to have one for a while now so we invited Nana, Aunty Ness and cousin Joe to join us this afternoon.

We needed something tasty to offer our guests so this morning we made cup cakes and chocolate chunk oat cookies. We all mucked in together to get the job done....

Then of course the cup cakes needed decorating....

Then the table needed to be set. Nana brought round the beautiful flowers for Talia as it was her special party, needless to say she was thrilled. As it was a very special tea party we got to use our very special tablecloth. This beautifully embroidered cloth was given to me by my mother-in-law and was made by her mother. I feel very privileged to be the keeper of this family treasure.....

So much work went into making this and I'm pretty sure that Julian's Grandma would have been very happy that it was being used for a tea party hosted by her great granddaughter. I love the colours she chose and the stitches are all perfect, it is a true work of art........

He may have been born in NZ, but he drinks his tea like a true Englishman, just look at that little finger Talia had great fun pouring out cups of tea (water) from her little porcelain tea set.

What a lovely way to spend the afternoon, thanks Boo........

Someone was missing though.....all I could think was how much Nanny would have loved this, wish you could have been here mum....... X

My weekend...

This weekend I FINALLY got round to watching Mama Mia on dvd and I loved it. There were moments when I just wanted to get up and dance on the table. I probably would have done just that if I had been watching it with my FUN girlfriends and not with my hubby who was snoring next to me on the couch!!!! Surprised that he could sleep actually with me singing FAB Abba tunes at the top of my wobbly voice! This is definitely a film to be enjoyed with other like minded girlies......

I also got to do a bit of sewing while Lola slept and the other 2 were out with Dad. I made this little bib from the book Bend-the-rules Sewing by Amy Karol of Angry chicken blog fame. It turned out a bit smaller than the ones in the book as I did not have a copier to enlarge the pattern, so just drew it freehand. I found it a bit tricky sewing on a curve so it's not perfect, but it fits Lola just fine so I am thrilled with my first ever bib. I have since photocopied the pattern at the correct size, so am planning on making lots more. I may make some as presents as I have a few friends with babies due this year!

I got to use these lovely sparkly scissors that Julian got me for Christmas, aren't they professional looking????

Talia did some painting... Am I the only mother out there who sometimes wishes she left the paints in the cupboard????? I love doing crafty things with the kids, but painting does drive me a wee bit crazy. It is more the cleaning up afterward really. Talia was covered from head to toe in paint, it was all over the carpet, the kitchen and the bathroom and even the deck had splodges of paint all over it. She only did 3 paintings and it took me ages to clean up after her. I even went to the supermarket with green paint all over my arm without realising.....grrrrr!

The painting kept Talia busy though while Kalem went out with Dad to choose this new addition to the family. Meet 'Twitch", Julian who is also know as Dr Dolittle around here felt that Tinkerbell our Velveteen rabbit needed some company so off he went to get this little cutie.... We can't leave Twitch in the hutch with Tinks just yet as she is too little only 7 weeks old, so we let them run around the lounge together at night to get used to each other. Twitch is still very frightened poor little mite and we didn't know where to keep her, then Julian thought of this little toy farm shed that we were throwing out. She fits in just perfectly and is all snug in our laundry until she moves in with her new pal.........

Lola

Today Lola is exactly 11 months, wow in just one month she is going to be 1 year old!!!!! It's true time does fly when you are having FUN. Here are a few pic's of my little cherub enjoying a juicy plum from our local farmers market...........

I'm pretty sure she enjoyed every mouthful....X

Happy Hols.......

Since we returned from our trip to Nelson we have been keeping busy and having lot's of fun. We are all really enjoying the relaxed feeling of the school hols. It has definitely helped that my children are now waking more at 7-7.30am rather than 6am, much more acceptable I'm sure you will agree. The AMAZING weather we have had recently has also helped to keep smiles on faces.

Kalem has been very busy using the craft box that we gave him for Christmas, here he is writing a book about art....

Lola got lot's of lovely wooden blocks for Christmas that Kalem and Talia have had hours of fun with. I'm sure that they will let Lola play with them one day soon.....

Do you remember 'pick up sticks'??? kalem got this for Christmas and it is such a great simple game, brilliant for those fine motor skills.

We have also been enjoying the fruits of Julian's labour and eating lot's of yummy veg from our garden.

I even had time to whip up this necklace for my good friend Tracey's birthday. It is made with felt balls, turquoise and Thai silver beads. I haven't made any jewelery for ages, it was good to get my beads out and have a play.....

Hope you are all having fun wherever you are........ X

Pencil Rolls

I made these 2 pencil rolls/holders for 2 special little girls in Nelson for Christmas. I also made one each for Kalem and Talia, but don't have a photo of theirs. The idea is from the fabulous book the Creative Family by Amanda Blake Soule. I made them using some thrifted wool jumpers and a rainbow blanket that I had knitted for Lola. These items were all felted in my washing machine, then my handy dandy sewing machine got another work out. I think that I was probably supposed to change my needle and stitch type for thicker material, but I didn't think of that at the time!!! I am still a complete novice after all.....
These little tree's were not my idea I actually saw them on another blog and thought that they were really cool, can't remember which blog though! I hand stitched these together and then onto the pencil roll.

I needle felted this little fairy, Talia's is very similar only her fairy has yellow hair.

12 evenly spaced places (well kinda) for pencils. It is such a great idea as it keeps pencils together and the thick wool felt protects them. The kids were all really thrilled with them which is always a bonus, they even brought them camping. I will definitely be making these again as they make brilliant presents, especially together with the lovely thick eco-pencils that I was lucky enough to come across.

I love making something new from something old, it makes me feel all eco-warrior like inside! Bye for now... X

Some pics.....

Thought that I would share a few photo's taken while we were on our little holiday....

Lola eating her very first 'ice cream'. Actually it was frozen yoghurt made with real berries and it was only a little dollop on the end of a cone, but boy she loved it!!!!
Kalem feeded the eels, in my hat for some reason......

Lola in my hat, what is it about my hat????

Kalem and Talia at the start of a bush walk.

A beautiful walk with wonderful friends......

3 little munchkins, I love this photo.....

Kalem and Lola playing in the river. Kalem jumped off the bridge in the photo, giving me a near heart attack, it is much higher than it looks and my wee man is much braver than I thought!!!!

Chilling out in Nelson at the Jazz festival.....

Kalem go carting at the place were we camped.....

We camped at one of the only places in NZ were you can have a campfire, they even supplied the wood. Toasting marshmallows, YUM!!!

Him Tarzan , me Jane!!!!! Julian had hours of fun on the rope swing along with all the other grown up 'boys' there.....

At the river drying off in the hot NZ sun.....

Talia cooling down.....

Lola loved this big tyre swing and screamed (very loudly) every time someone tried to take her off. She sat there for ages rocking backward and forward gently, humming to herself.....

TILLY.....

This is Tilly the doll that I made for Talia for Christmas. It is a Steiner style doll made from all natural products and stuffed with wool carding. I really enjoyed making her and considering this was the first time I had used my sewing machine I don't think she turned out too bad. I wanted her to resemble Talia so she has brown eyes and long blonde(ish) hair. Talia seems to really love her and she has already been camping with us so she is definitely part of the family.................

Of course once I had made her she needed some clothes, I found a little pair of knickers and the pants at a lovely handmade toy shop. I then made the little dress and designed my very own shrug like knitted top which I am very proud of, but it was VERY SIMPLE!!!! I used some of the gorgeous yarn that Claire sent me last year.

I read this somewhere online and I thought that it was lovely,

A handcrafted doll is one of a kind. It carries the spirit of the maker in it's stitches and absorbs the spirit of the child that loves it........ X

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!

I have been on a bit of a blogging break as we have been away since just after Christmas having a wonderful time at the top of the South island in Nelson visiting friends. Happy New Year to you all by the way, a bit late I know. Hope that everybody had a lovely Christmas, we had a great day and I thought that I would post a few pics of our Christmas morning mainly for my mum and dad who I know really miss the kids at this time of year. It seems weird looking through these photo's as Christmas seems like a distant memory.................

It all started in the very early hours, one very tired daddy and one very excited young lady eager to start her very first Christmas....
and then there were 3 little monkey's bouncing on the bed......

then began the crazy unwrapping of what seemed like a million presents...

Happy Christmas faces......

Talia's gorgeous new purple bike bought with money sent by my lovely generous brothers. Just what she wanted all purple and sparkly with dingly dangly bits and the all important seat at the back for her doll. A very happy wee girl.........

Errrrrrr who is gonna tidy up this mess???????

My Christmas angels.........

So now we are back home, unpacked, the 3 billion loads of washing have been done and it's time to get on with 2009. I am looking forward to a crafty year, hopefully involving the use of my sewing machine. I made a few things for Christmas that I used my machine for which I will post about very soon. I also tried to teach myself crochet while I was a away, I had some success, but I still have a LONG way to go. Hope that everyone is enjoying the beginning of 2009, I am off to catch up on all my favourite blogs............... X