MERRY CHRISTMAS

from our family to yours
have a very merry christmas

farewell preschool

well we had the preschool and christmas concert today. hard to believe that a whole year has gone by. i remember how happy i was when we moved and lilly had a preschool placement. something she wouldnt of experienced if we didnt move. and she so loves preschool. its gotten her super ready for school. traditional (c&k) preschool is so lovely. its been a nice opener to the school experience....:) emily is all signed up for a kid u not 3 year old in 2010. come off it! it will be werid to not go to preschool at all next year.

sorry to my readers but this is a for the grandparents post really..:)

sorry for the white out faces. lilly was a chicken in their first skit to the story stone soup. i made the chicken head hats.

sharing the yummy stone soup with the other animals and the fox. so very cute! i was shocked to see my outgoing little girl in all the songs of the concert. some of the kids were not in all the songs. getting up in public wouldnt of been my strong point either!

This is for the song mr teddy. lilly loves this song, she is often found singing it. its quite catchy now i think about it! he is in a box and he jumps out to sing his happy song? i didnt know it or remember it.

In the song "i want to be a ..." lilly was a dancer..:) im going to take her to dancing next year.

and last of all jingle bells. serious business that bell ringing. lol
of course there wsa also a visit from the man in red. in the firetruck no less. lol i love small towns.

lilly recieved a book

now our big man in red SHOCK. Emily, she is quite taken with santa this year. last year i remember the looking and talking and the backing her in for the quick pic and back to mummys arms. there was none of that today. she loved getting the present from him. walked away to unwrap it and then was off to show him her book. yelling at the top of her lungs "hank you santa." so very cute and such a good cue in to our myers santa photos next week.

look telling lilly to "go way" hehe

apparently u cant share your santa time.

now we r watching tv. the kids r buggered after running around all day at preschool. it was nice to share lunch together on her last day....

salt dough ornaments

yesterdays advent activity for us was to make ornaments

so we used the salt dough that mel goodsell has on her blog as part of her handmade christmas posts.

its great. the kids had a blast

one dough makes HEAPS. we split ours up and made it into 5 different colours.

this first christmas tree lilly and I did together. using the christmas tree cookie cutter. we of course did this one a few times!

then lilly started working on her own tree

she then made a snowman

while the kids were working on their ornaments i made a few with them. sadly lilly thought this was a spiky green mountain! i was going for christmas tree

and this is my snowman

this is emilys tree.

emily had fun squishing the dough up, she didnt really get onto making many ornaments. all good therapy for her hand but. lots of squishing!

these were in the oven for a few hours and last night were coated in modpodge

i can see us using salt dough way more often now.

home made

So ive been one of santas elves this season, by choice, making my kids some of their gifts.


this is for emily. a fairy dress up. Its a mccalls pattern this one. it also has a gown that im going to make for lilly. Both of them will get wings. new wings for lilly and first wings for emily. im going to go and buy them a cheap clothes horse so they can hang up their dress ups. u know the ones with the tray at the bottom, which they can put all the other bits that seem to go with the growing pile of dress ups they have collected.

next is my version of a tutu. a ballet skirt really. i made it out of soft material on purpose because my two tend to dress up for hours and play other things while still in their dress ups so i wanted something that was soft and wouldnt scratch up their skin like tulle might. no pattern for this...2 metres of material cut in half lenght ways. Half for each child. I then halved lillys again and started to gather it up.

Emilys tutu. I made it shorter and smaller of course, but with the same idea as lillys in mind.

next some nappies for their dollies
for these i used the pattern off the link from mel goodsells blog. its easy to follow.

next the crowns

heres the link

http://juicy-bits.typepad.com/juicy_bits/2008/09/32-felt-birthday-crown-tutorial.html

i find this blog can take a while to load...but its so worth the effort.

i do wish my crowns looked just like hers...but alas no.

we r hoping they last longer than store bought ones. my girls got new crowns last year and they were broken in seconds.

and finally a new lunch bag for lilly for school next year.

heres the tutorial link

http://blissfulbyquenna.blogspot.com/2008/09/tutorial-zippered-top-lunch-bags.html
this was pretty easy to do. its insulated with the inside of a plastic insulated bag, u know the kind u would use a few times and then throw out. i pulled it apart and recycled the insulation. zippers im still learning thats for sure...but its functional.

thats it for the photos

but we r also working on a tent and hopscotch mat

and i may tackle a material dolls house too. we will see.

i also have a summer shirt on my knitting needles for emily made from a sock yarn i got from http://www.onefatslug.esty.com/ NICE YARN, hand dyed.

it sounded great when in the last week of november i decided to buy us a new christmas tree. we have wanted a new one for ages but the price oh my god the price. it always turned me off. anyway enter ebay. and this lovely 650 tip 6foot christmas tree $26! i love it. its not quite as bushy as i would of really liked but then i didnt want to spend upwards of $300 to get bushy because lets face it thats a waste of money and a little silly. but the kids love this big tree..:) forgive the bad santa! topper somehwere in two moves this year i lost our lovely star

some present tags i made

a tour around my house

today im showing off my kitchen...clean and tidy...but that didnt last long..u know lunch and dinner to be made..:) this is our art hanging wall. the piece of wood was covered in wadding, and then material. i screwed in 6 or 7 small bulldog clips along the bottom and then daniel put it up for me. we change the things up here each week after lilly has been at preschool usually. atm its a mixture of preschool stuff and home stuff. i love this part of our house. its the newer section, and i especially love the exposed brick walls.

our kitchen. not much to do in here. we would like to change the bench tops eventually to granite. its amazing that my kitchen is clean and tidy in this photo but it still seems to look messy!, we have a very lived in house thats for sure. all the slate is heated for winter...hmmmm nice

and the view from our sink back towards the back of the house. we have a little glassed in sun room off the back which is lovely to sit in, the kids enjoy playing there too. nice place to a wine and a chat with dan when he gets home. the kitchen opens out onto it by bifold doors which is nice.

heres my diary swap. thankyou daisymum7 it is just so pretty i love it. im going to collect information in it this coming year about our garden, rain fall and what grew well where when and how. i also recieved a lovely teapot cosy which will get used come winter as we have taken a liking to drinking green tea (im allergic to black tea, it tastes like tin to me) and a coffee plunger warmer. which will also get wrapped around the plunger during winter. thankyou daisymum7 its all so lovely. daisymum7 and i are also doing a swap. im swapping her a few cards (which i have ready to post to u on monday) and she sent me her lovely and so cute hobby horse heads for my girls for christmas. i will share later when they r all together.

arh our potatos in the bins. they r doing well. actually growing like wild flower. we hope they keep going, there is room for one last hilling up of soil and then we will let them do their potato growing business. we have no idea what we r doing i will point out and r learning as we go. lots of finger crossing going on hehe

last a zucchini flower. woohoo and i see other buds on all the plants. woohoo. success at the moment anyway hehe.

i havent scrapbooked inthe longest time, months, but im itching to get in my room tonight and scrap! i so dont have time to scrap with all the things i have to do for my kids for christmas, but im sure i will get it done in time...:)

so tomorrow i hope to come back with at least a page to share. ooer and some of the things i have made my kids so far to stuff stockings with. with lovely night time flash photography! seeing as i have tokeep it all hidden..:)


lastely im thinking of my dear friend sally right now, going through a bit with her youngest and the hospital. sending cowper all the good get well vibes we can find sal.

guess what i got back today

lets see if u can guess!
hmmm lots of photos on this post!
yes i got my camera back all fixed and good to go...woohoo. cheaper than expected too so another good thing.

we went to melbourne today for emily...more on that later but waiting for me when we got home in the post was my handmade christmas ornament swap. are these not the cutest stockings...a big thanks to em from http://www.embelish.blogspot.com/

thats our handcarved main fireplace in the lou nge area too. its so beautiful. and its nice to have it to playwith over christmas too..:)

a close up of the detail....they r just so cute

would u look at this cheeky monkey!
i dont think its any secret that i so didnt want to do our hospital visit today. i wasnt really ready to do the hospital thing again. but i told myself to tough up yesterday. well we had a great visit. emilys doctors cant believe the range of motion she has gained back and decided that they would wait on surgery to see just how far she can go. they fully expected to be booking us in for surgery and had been discussing all sorts of complicated reconstructions in the background. and while it will still be needed it was all postponed today. thankyou! so her next review is in march and again we will expect surgery to be in april. i walked out today peaceful. happy that i wasnt going to spend the new year juggling all sorts of things and can just focus on a short visit home, and setting lilly up at school before we go off to melbourne. where i will then be able to focus on emily without alot of other worries. so finally good news really. i am so happy that emilys doctors saw the range of motion that jen and i see each week during therapy, her doctors cant believe that she has certain up movements that by a text book she really shouldnt have. her thumb has improved out of sight and they witnessed her use of the left arm, which emily now includes normally. all music to our ears and eyes really. its given them a clearer picture of what reconstruction they will need to do and its all less than expected. i love that she excided their expectations. we were sent home with a large keep doing what your doing chorus.
well done my beautiful girl your amazing!

now i do wish i turned these cards...but im way to lazy right now to go fix the problem and upload again so u will just have to turn your head hehe.....but i made these cards for the december dare. http://www.aussiedares.blogspot.com/ the dare isnt due til tomorrow..:)

ps diary swapers...your swaps should be in the mail or very close to it..:)
i recieved a love box of goodies which i will photograph and share ove rthe next few days..:)