Don't look now!

Arty Farty Party!

Before I begin this post I wish to issue a warning ... brace yourselves .... all photos in this post have been taken by my husband!!!!!!! As scary as this may seem it is the unfortunate necessity of birthday parties! Someone has to take the photos and unfortunately I am not able to do everything. Believe me when I say that this has been very difficult to come to terms with over the years, being the total anal retentative, control freak that I am! Nothing that years of therapy and a prescription wont fix! :)

 

So as far a parties go it was great and Jessie had a great time with her friends. Unfortunately, I planed far too many activities and have been left with two full crafts that will now be stored away in the cupboard for next year. I just hope that I remember that they are there, because that too has been done before!

They looked great in their art smocks. I had a few questions about these from a few weeks ago. I drafted the pattern after not being able to find one that I was happy with. It has no ties so it makes it very easy for a little person to put on and is very baggy so it fits easily several layers which is good in the freezing weather that we have experienced here of late!

The kids made pin-spinners, pipe cleaner people, watercolour paintings and a chatterbox charades game - which of course there are no photos of as by this time my husband was over the whole event and was sitting in the corner somewhere rocking quietly to himself :).

 

We never gave out Lolly bags this year instead they took home their smock, a sock monkey and a bag of loot which included coloured pencils, Texas, a sketch pad and two shadow puppet activities which again we ran out of time to make at the party.

 

   

Megan's entry in the Homespun Young Designer of the Year competition went in last week and it looks fantastic. I am not only so very proud of her for the spectacular job that she has done on this little quilt but also for having the persistence to complete it ... something that I could most definitely learn from her! I am not able to show any pictures as yet due to the rules so you will have to just take my word on this one for now!

So now I must move on to the preparations for our sweet Ben's party next Sunday ... and then I can get back to some serious quilting! 

Oh and just a sneek look at the fabric that I have for Ben's birthday quilt (the plans for this one have been living in my head for quite some time now). See, I can also buy fabric that is not girly! Thank you Jenny for provinding me with so many opportunities to spend my money!

Have a great week everyone!

Kellie

PS. Please forgive my absences this past week and what will probably extend on to this week ... alas the kiddo's come first!

Saturday Night .... Don't Look Now!

I have spent the last two days here learning to refine my machine quilting skills with Deborah Louie. Deborah is a well known quilter, teacher and regular contributer to Australian Quilters Companion ... but unfortunately she is blogless and does not have a web site that I can share with you.

I had a great couple of days and learnt many new skills. I tend to approach most things in life like a 'bull at a gate' and hopefully Deborah has helped me to at least try and overcome this trait! She is also very knowledgeable when it it comes to Bernina Sewing Machines so I also learnt many little extra things about my machine that will make it even nicer to use!!! Is this possible???

If you have the opportunity to do a class with Deborah or if you like the look of machine quilting and would like to have a go then I would highly recommend that you do a class! This is now my 3rd machine quilting class and I have learnt so much every time, little skills, tricks and techniques that could never be learnt from a book or by just having a go by yourself.

By the way do you remember this quilt? 

The pattern for this quilt, Rainbow Lollypops, will be in the Australian Quilters Companion magazine's yearbook (that's a mouth full!) which goes on sale in January. My family are so very excited about this and if there is actually anyone out there that might like to purchase a copy of the magazine then I suggest that you be waiting for it to hit your local news agency or maybe get your self a subscription before January as I fear my family may well buy them all! :) Thank you Tracey!!!!  

Tonight I am taking part in a blog sleep over, over at Fiona's place in her new creative space!!!!! Should be fun however my husband needs to do some reports so my participation will be spasmodic unfortunately. While the girls appear to be hitting the spirits I will be sipping tea, watching Star Trek Voyager & may be some DS9. So now that the kids are tucked in bed I need to decide my activity for the night .... sock monkeys...

pencil cases ...

or invites to Ben's birthday party. Mmmm what to do, what to do????

I hope you enjoy your Saturday night!

Kellie

PS. Thank you all so very much for the kind birthday wishes for my beautiful babies. They had a fabulous day and are now looking forward to their parties which will be next week and the week after.

PSS. I also need to post about something else that has happened to me in this bloggy world but I have been told that I must hand over the computer to DH or else (not sure what the or else would be?). Thank you Lisa!!!! :)  

Six years ...

I can hardly believe that is has been six years that these two little people have been in our lives! They were so very tiny, well at least Jessie was! She was only 4lb 5oz and Ben on the other hand was 6lb! They escaped 6 weeks early after giving us many horrific scares of even earlier arrival in the 14 weeks before they were finally born. I barely remember any of their first year and only a precious few moments of their first 3 months. These guys have been both a delight & a hell of a lot of work!

They are so very different not only in physique! They adore each other and annoy each other to the point of distraction. Not so long ago when something would go wrong in the life of Jessie she would promptly bop Ben on the head! Thankfully I have been able to abolish this habit! Benjamin is such a kind and loving child. Just this morning on the way to school he pledged his undying love for Jessie, which apparently lies "deep in his heart". 

I am so very pleased to have you both in my life! I have been so very grateful every day of the past 6 years that not only the Dr chose you both but also that you managed to hang in there where others had not. I love you guys so very much!

Happy 6th Birthday Jessica & Benjamin!!!!!!

Thanks for indulging my loves!

Kellie

PS I would love to share the recipe for these delicious cupcakes! Which I can most certainly confirm are so very yummy, however, Betty Crocker has sworn me to secrecy! Sorry! There you have it I am no domestic goddess!!!!!!!!!!!

An Art Smock anyone?

Or maybe 9!

Thats what I have been doing this past week ... among other things of course!

The kids return to school tomorrow, it's a 'pupil free' day today .... what is that? I never complain about 'no school' days as I am always up for a sleep in! But a pupil free day ... they never had those when I went to school!

Jessie's birthday party is planned for Sunday fortnight & Ben's is the Sunday after so I have a heap of things to do between now and then. Plus they have been invited to a Star Wars birthday party this Saturday, so I will be making costumes for this later today. I'll actually be at a class on Saturday so my poor husband who 'doesn't do girl hair' will be left to make Jessie's somehow resemble Princess Leia :) ... I haven't told him yet!

It is the most beautiful, mild & gloriously sunny day here today, by far the nicest day this winter! The children are all out running around, yelling, screaming, giggling and generally annoying the neighbors ... at least they got to do this one day in their holidays! 

Have a great week!

Kellie

On the weekend ...

I collected a pile of pretty spectacular fabric, some fusible web, a permanent maker and a pair of scissors and started work on an idea that has been bouncing around in my head for a while now.

I ended up with this ... 

and this .....

 

and this ....

106 flowers, 3 lady bugs and 3 butterflies all arranged on some linen.

This will become Jessica's birthday quilt. Now it's off to spend some quality time with my machine!

Have a great week!

Kellie 

Monkey Business!

So now I am sure you will remember Shelby ...

She has shown little improvement in her housekeeping skills. The ironing basket is overflowing to the point that I fear entry into my laundry. Beds remain unmade until after lunch and when I asked her to clean the windows last week she just laughed!!!!

So why do I keep her on I hear you all asking ... well it's the kids! They love her and she's very good with them. But the real concern are all the 'family' members that she has 'visiting' with us. It seems that every time I turn around there is someone new sitting up to the dinner table and you know it's just gotten TOO much. And just between you and I, I've started to wonder if their legal! The last thing I need is the immigration police knocking a my front door.

Take a look at what I mean ....

First there was Shelby's younger twin sisters Lilly & Milly ...

Then came Sophie who we managed to farm out quite quickly ...

Then Lu-Lu turned up who is Shelby's second cousin on her mother's side. Jessica and Lu-Lu are inseparable so I doubt that I will ever be able to find alternative housing for her!

On Monday Amy, Annie & April moved in. These guys were also easy to re-house! They found new homes and new identities over at Lululollylegs with her lovely girls. Louise made us a lovely afternoon tea and the kids had heaps of fun playing together. Benjamin was in good form and helped himself to half a loaf of fairy bread, I kid you not!

Yesterday these two guys showed up. This is Thomas & Timothy and I have decided that these delightful and very well mannered boys are going on a journey far, far away!!!!!! Sorry about the frightening background colour they are actually very sweet boys.

But the last straw was this ...

How can I tolerate this? I now have a sock stash ... we need to buy a bigger home!

Have a great weekend!

Kellie

PS.  You do realise that this is all your fault Kitty!!!

A Slumber Party with little sleep!

Thank you everyone for your kind birthday wishes for our sweet Megan! This photo was taken on Friday the night of her actual birthday.

Her party started on Saturday afternoon at 4pm and for all intensive purposes was a great success. We kicked off with a craft activity where the girls were to design a pillow top for a 50 x 50cm pillow insert using Megan's birthday quilt as inspiration (by the way we have called this quilt Garden Party). I provided the girls with pattern pieces, fusible web, a perminant marker, sissors & a huge pile of fabric choices. I also made up a sample to help them in case they got stuck which they most certainally didn't need. 

The girls first traced the pattern pieces onto the fusible web then roughly cut out the shapes. They then selected fabric for each piece, I then ironed the fusible to their fabric.

They then cut out the applique shapes and began auditioning them on their background fabric. Once they were pleased with their design they removed the backing paper and I ironed them in place.

I then made a quilt sandwich using each of their tops and secured the applique using free motion quilting. I then intended to then quilt the backgrounds and finish off the pillows so that the girls could take them home in the morning. Well, when I staggered to bed at 2am only the applique was completed. I am never good at recognising achievable targets!!!!

So now I will finish them off over the next week and Megan will take them to school with her when they go back after the holidays. So far the quilting has been done on one of them :) . 

The girls really did a great job of this activity and I was amazed at how enthuastic they were even though their part of process took 3 hours! 

Once we had finished the pillow tops we all went out for dinner. The girls sat at a table by themselves and did their own ordering and generally behaved like delightful little ladies! Other than this they watched 2 movies (one of these twice) ate lots of popcorn, painted their nails, did eachothers hair and chatted and giggled and giggled some more until around 4am. I made them French Toast for breakfast and they headed home at 11am. And I felt like a zombie for the remainder of the day!!!! 

Instead of lollie bags I made the girls a denim tote, lined with the same fabric that I used for their PJ's and appliqued their names on the front. I also made them a sock monkey each. 

These guys are begining to take over our lives! They are multipling like flies!!!!

This little cutie is Lu Lu and she has become Jessica's closest companion!

 

So that was Meg's party ... now I only have 16 days until Jessica & Benjamin's!

I hope you are all well and for those of you who are in the midst of school holidays I so hope that you are enjoying them as much as I am!!!

Kellie

PS. This is the second time that I have written this post and it is only through absolute determination that I am actually writting this again. The last time I wrote it I was at the spell check stage and the page froze! So I wont be checking the spelling again this time so I appologise in advance!