garden birthday cake

While lilly may turn seven on the weekend, this is (thankgod) the off year for birthday parties, yes im one of those mothers, every second year is plenty if you ask me.

but that didn't mean in lillys eyes that she still couldn't have a cake worthy of a party. This cake was meant to have a crown instead of a seven, but the crown met an untimely end, i droped it. swore up the kitchen and then dan presented me with a seven and all was well once again..:) hehe. Anyway this is to share with her class at school tomorrow.

excuse the bench that is still covered in corn flour and icing sugar. i just finished the mother things. i have spent all day putting this together and lets not forget the days prior actually making the damn flowers! i tell you who does this??


im happy with it but. way to cute.

have any of you looked at cupcake wrappers lately, there are so many on the market, and they r all so damn cute! i got these at my local house store in ballarat and went with the pastel because of the garden look on top, but they had some really very cool ones.

Last Week

What did you get up to last week?

ME? Well it seems it was a mixed matched bunch of things.

Emily learned to write her name. How cute is that. She forms all the letters without help, we only told her the order. Now she writes it on everything. Not bad for a just turned four year old.

I love old bus scrolls, but have you ever priced the things. Reproductions are a ridiculous price. so while i loved the look i was unwilling to spend that amount on something that would so easily be placed on a wall and only appreciated once in a while.

until i watched better homes two fridays ago and watched her make one. How easy was that!

IM one for cost cutting and bargins, so the whole thing only cost me a bit of glue, white card and two tubes of paint.

i had the boards sitting in the garage from something else that were actually taking to the tip. a bit of retrival, a double coat of black paint, and using my trusty electrontic cutter all the letters were cut and glued in place. And there you have it, a london bus scroll.

this one a more personal one, all the placed that dan and i have lived during our relationship. the bottom half is blank ready to fill with places to come. It was fun to remember and think back on all these places and we r looking forward to placing some more interesting names on the list.

We filled the cookie jar with choc chip cookies and apple muffins. Needless to say they never last long!

We were kept warm by this. I heart this thing especially as we suffer or enjoy depending on your preference the last surge of winter this past weekend and coming week. We have had hints of spring promise, its coming.
I planted out the green house with seeds for the spring garden in a few weeks. We have an onion crop to look at in a few weeks hopefully. but its been an especially wet winter down here, the wettest in fourteen years. There are now full dams in our district that haven't been full in that long, its kind of amazing really. It also shows us that to much rain is as bad as no rain at all as the walls of dams crack under pressure. Anyway we r not all the confident in our crop because of it. what can you do? :)

We have been toying with the difficult decision on moving these past few months. Since emilys op actually. wondering if living in melbourne would help us cope during those times. but between the both of us we just couldn't get fully on board with the idea. we do love our house and the things a small town provides. Anyway last week dan accepted a new position with a very large pay increase in a town about 50 minutes away. so he is going to communte and we become a two car family again. its an odd feeling to get a car back, i have been without one for so long, but the wet weather makes the school walk largely difficult so the decision was made. Anyone own a suziki alto?? very effecient and lots of saftey features. and a pretty good price as well. we test drive it on monday. but it looks like it will be the winning choice.

this week life is all about lilly turning seven. will share pics of her soon.

Crochet fun

I love to knit and crochet during winter down here. I first learned to crochet in Mitchell, small country town in QLD where i did my country teaching service. I made the traditional granny square blanket that everyone has. YOu know the type that goes around and around that you add to every year.

Making things for the kids while Emily is in hospital calms me. I sit beside her and knit, I knit or crochet during her operations, something mindless that keeps me from pacing a hole in the floor of the parent waiting room.

After emilys stay eariler this year I walked away with a poncho for Em, and a shawl for myself as well as something for Dan that isn't quite finished yet. Its nearly done. BUt I also started a blanket for lilly to use at night in front of the TV. It tends to go to bed with her as well..:)

So I started my crocheting in long lines and then edged it, it is so very warm. She now wants a bigger blanket for her bed and im inclined to agree that it would make her bed toasty warm during the winter months so its on the list for nextu years winter projects.

Not to be left out of course is miss emily who wanted a blanket as well.

I found this pattern
http://www.lionbrand.com/patterns/60689AD.html?noImages=&r=1

i love the colours in that pattern, but do you think i could get the pattern to work, no way. but i also couldn't get the hook they used or the wool. im guessing that had something to do with it heh!

so the pattern wouldn't leave me alone and so i went searching on google, gotta love that thing and found a how to video on crocheting an octagon and off I went. 4mm hook and regular 8 ply wool and here you have it.

it could do with another two rows added to the width, but right now im calling it done, i am sick to death of crocheting around eight sides. it has taken weeks and weeks, but emily loves it and i have to say it is warm as. so i figure in a few weeks i might look at it again and feel like adding the extra rows to it.

if you have never crochet before and you want to learn google how to crochet in a square and video a million will turn up. With easy to follow steps to watch. Start with a granny square which is the traditional round and round blanket and go from there. They grow pretty quickly and are super warm.

Organised Chaos.

Almost two years we have lived in this house. Two years without a linen cupboard. Thats a long time! I have had two metal garage shelving units in this perfect spot for a built in cupboard in the hall way to our bathroom with all our linen stacked on it, including our drinking water from the rain tank. Yes our tap water isn't the best to drink. Its the country what can you say.

Anyway, below is what it looked like, well not quite I had started the big move out of this spot so its missing a shelving unit that was relocated to Emilys room, and actually has the cute industral look going on now. I hated this spot. It drove me nuts. But by the time I had people out to make the cupboards and paid travel time etc, it was becoming an expensive problem to fix, so we sat on it and just put up with it. UNTIL!


This! Same space, only fantastic now. Flat back cupboards that installed ourselves, all built in and attached to the wall. And the best bit, just for 300. Our kitchen is white, and just off this hall way and it all matched perfectly. And thankgod too, because I hated the way it was! I even have the perfect spot beside the cupboards where our heated floor switch is for the vaccum cleaner.

We have had a birthday girl this week and what does this little girl want for her, her ears pierced. So off we went on her birthday to have it done. Both ears at the same time, and thank god too, cause i don't think that she would of let us do it a second time.

We had told her it would hurt, she all like ok, i know i'm brave.

she was a little nervous, but it didn't stop us at all.

and lets just say she was shocked when it happened and for a few seconds i didn't think she was going to cry, but oh did she. Sigh, beauty is pain! Anyway, she loves them.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BABY, four, how did that happen??

They somehow make her look so old don't you think? But still so sweet.

Lilly is a no go on the earings, she took one look and went i don't think so. hehe

Some making

Well thats what emily calls it..:)

I have had the softies book forever. And this is the first and only thing I have made. Polly. For my niece. She is so soft. And i love that amy butler fabric.

Next is a change mat with pocket, that i found on one pretty thing. The pattern was easy and the whole thing was done in a matter of an hour. It to went in the baby present..:) Ps i really had to talk myself out of buying the Amy butler baby book...oh my god, its so nice!

And a card to go with the gift..:)

sorry about the pics, camera needs new batteries so its just an iphone in this house atm.

Later

Jacqui

Long time between posts....

Well its been a while I know.
Is there anyone out there anymore??

What do you say. I just stopped. Everything it felt like.
I haven't scrapped in a very long time.
I haven't taken a proper photo in longer.
Sewing, not even thought about it
The garden, well it needs some attention but we did have a crop while I was gone.

After Emilys accident i threw myself into life as a way of coping. But as we drew closer to the year of that accident and it got colder last year things started to fall apart for me. I just didn't want to do anything. Depression was a title thrown around. And I guess i was. PTSD is still an issue. Even two years later I still have flashbacks? I stopped talking to people and as a results friendships suffered, but no matter what I did, I couldn't stop it all from happening. I lost hope.

With my husband to talk to, I have slowly been putting myself back together. I'm not who I was, but I feel better. I have done nothing special, just taken some time for me. Time to quietly, in my own way deal with what happened to us. Some days I barely made it out of bed, others I got in the car and actually went somewhere. Mostly I was locked within myself trying to come to terms with myself. Getting over the feeling of motherhood failure. It still haunts me that if one small thing changed that day none of it would of happened. If I changed one thing that day. But you can't do that.

Life continues on. And so I jump back on the bandwagon of life and move forward. The past few weeks I started to crochet again. Much of it in thanks to Mel goodsells blog. I love to crochet this time of year. Keeps you warm in front of the tv and it forfills my crafty need when its too cold to be away from the fire in the scrap room.

While Emily was back in hospital in may, I turned to knitting again. And it made me smile. Finding those small snippets of my personality coming out again.

Just this past week, I have had to ideas for canvas's, one for my amazing new niece and I can't wait to start. I forget the last time I had inspiration to do anything arty. I even want to sew!

Tonight dan is going to start the fire in my art room so I can do just that and I can't wait. It feels good.


Heres my beautiful niece with my baby brother, I can't believe he is a father. Brooklyn. I'm so excited about her. I can't wait to get home and meet her, but it will stll be a few months.
Emily
hehe, she is such a ham. The things you find on your phone when you leave it where she can touch it! And just how did they learn to use an i phone before me, said owner of the at times frustrating thing. Now I can use it and have found all the little ons and offs I love it.

Can you believe she will be four in just 10 days? I can't.
The new improved arm~! I don't think I ever shared a pick of the graft she had. It covered that whole space. At the beginning of May she was admitted for the first lot of reconstructive surgery. I lovely five day stay, or so they told us. I really should of known better.

The first day, a nine hour stretch in surgery. Where they took that large expanse of skin you see from her back and relocated that, muscle, fat other tissues to her forearm and then under a microscope reattached it and the blood supply. The first night she had half hourly obs on her arm, needless to say dan and I slept very little for the first few days after.

Then Day five comes and everyone is so happy, the blood supply has been good and what we could see of the transfer looked good. until they pulled all the dressing down. Then all hell took place.

The part of the flap over her wrist was to tight, they think, it cut blood flow and the layers of skin died. They released the pressure and hoped for the best. And we sat in her humid hospital room (humidity was needed for her arm to heal) for another week and a half. It was horrible. The heat got to us all. She wasn't allowed out of bed. It is so hard to keep a three year old entertained when they want to get out of bed!


Anyway, back to theatre, another skin graft and another three week stay in hospital to add to her record. ANother month spent with Ronald Mac house. And may was over. It took so long for the graft to actually heal they thought it was going to reject at one point. BUt her poor arm was so stressed its not surprising really. So for the following eight weeks we went to melbourne twice a week mostly so they could keep an eye on it. And then over the space of five days, it just up and healed and all the worry was gone. Amazing really. Her doctor things he will be able to get rid of the graft in time without to much effort and it won't limit anything theyw ant to do next. THankgod!

so now we are on a six month recovery wait until the next part. Tendon transfers. Beginning of next year at this point. I however expect it to be anything but easy when it occurs!

Thankgod for family. My dad came and took care of lilly for a month while all this went on. She was only in Melbourne for the final weekend. My poor dad thought he would get to spend some time with us. but it wasn't to be again! And now we are all kinds of homesick and can't really find any time to get home before next year.



Lillys teacher left at the end of last term. And I had to task of making her goodbye cake. Cupcakes..:) I hadn't done anything like this in so long. And it was so much fun. I forgot how much I enjoyed making cakes and icing them. A small amount of knowledge goes a long way.


And finally my two being silly in the thai restaurant in ballarat for a girl dan works with birthday. oh the noise, lucky it was a sunday and not to busy!

My heart is with my dear friend Kirsty Piper this week as she deals with the loss of her mum. Where thinking of you and we love you and we wish we were with you. We are there even if we can't physically be with you.

have a good week everyone

jacqui