More Reading

I'm finishing the year with one more reading post. I did five of these this year, so this makes six, and I've read over 50 books. In between each blast of reading, I feel like I've read absolutely nothing, so looking back like this actually helps me to remember I did do more than scroll through meaningless junk on my phone this year.

Here is the last batch of reading,

Ottilie Colter and the Master of Monsters by Rhiannon Williams
Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
Predators Gold by Philip Reeve
Raising Girls by Gisela Preuschoff
Infernal Devices by Philip Reeve
Hunted Warriors by Lian Tanner
A Darkling Plan by Philip Reeve
A Different Land by Paul Jennings
The Ice Sea Pirates by Frida Nilsson
The Lost Realm by J. D. Rinehart
The Lost Barkscrolls by Chris Riddle and Paul Stewart

You'll notice an anomaly there if you read the titles carefully. A complete stray from my usual world of wonderful fictional fantasy, I read Raising Girls. I picked it up with good intentions, thinking it would be good from a professional view as well as a mother of two daughters. I'm still interested in reading Steve Bidulp's Raising Boys (purely professional motivation there), but to be completely honest, this version of Raising Girls was a total waste of time. If you want to hear what I really thought, just ask me, but I would not recommend reading it to anyone. Ever.

What I would say, is that the world building in the Mortal Engines Quartet by Philip Reeve is fabulous, and I liked the way the books really moved the story forward. I would recommend those to people for sure. After reading the second Crown of Three books (The Lost Realm) I would really love to read book three. Why is getting books from the library so hit and miss!?

The other thing I saw on the shelf last time I was in the library was book one (which I've read) and books three and four of Lemony Snicket's All the Wrong Questions series. My outrage at book two being absent was noted with much amusement by the pre-teen members of the library who were quietly reading before I came along.

What we've read with the girls has been James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl and Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator also by Roald Dahl. After we finished Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the girls were excited to see where the adventure would lead, and they were suitably excited about the trip to space, the space monsters and then the Wonka-Vite. It was a little harder to get through, because it was just that little bit more far fetched, and there were a lot more adult characters, who were no where near as fun as the children in the first book.

We are also reading our way through all of our Christmas books. Each year, I've wrapped 24 Christmas books and we use it for our advent calendar. We've done it since Sophie was two or three I think. It certainly helped that my mum was an early childhood teacher and had a large collection of Christmas picture books lying around still, but over the years our own collection has grown too. There is something super special about unwrapping a book to read each night and the girls love it. Their favorites have definitely been The Grinch Who Stole Christmas and The Jolly Postman's Christmas.

It's unlikely I'll be blogging again before Christmas, or even before New Years, so let me just say, Merry Christmas everyone! I hope that as you think about the year that was, you don't believe the lie that it was all for nothing, and that you have photos, journals (or blogs) to remind you that you did, in fact, achieve something. See you in 2020!

Christmas Bunting

The first bunting I ever made was Christmas bunting.

But it turns out, I didn't make enough.

So I made more.

You can never have too much bunting.

Christmas Clothes

My mum got in early this year (again), and made both girls some super cute Christmas Dresses in October. Sophie's is the same material as Hugo's shirt below. Too cute.

I was thinking I wouldn't bother to make the girls anything, but I was cutting out some Christmas fabric to make some more bunting, because one can never have too much bunting, and I realized I had enough to make them each a thing.

Rachel got this pillow case dress. Mostly because some of the fabric was already cut up to be a pillow case dress. The front half, the red with green holly print. The matching back piece was not quite all there, so that was turned into bunting and I cut a new one out of that green Christmas fabric that I've used before twice (Sophie's Christmas dress in 2017 and the first ever bunting).

It's all held together with the red ribbon that we cut for our official extension warming party. I still have so much of it.

I asked Sophie what she would prefer, and she asked for shorts, so I made her some Clover Shorts, which are still the most fancy shorts ever. There are loads of parts to it, it's pretty easy to use up scraps with this pattern too, so that was a total win. In hindsight, I probably would have gone with a red fabric for the cuffs, rather than the white owls, but oh well.

I had the owl print in the box, just a fat quarter of each, so it was good to use it, and what didn't go into the shorts, went into the next lot of Christmas Bunting, which I will also blog about soon. The pockets are two different prints of red based Christmas fabric, one from my stash and the other (which you can't see) was leftover from mum's. Oh, and the waist band is some more leftovers from my stash. So much using up of fabric! Hooray!

The girls have both worn their new Christmas outfits already (in November), and it really does make you excited for the season.

Sea Party

Sophie has been waking up early ever since the middle of spring. We don't mind too much, because she's pretty quiet about it, reading books or coloring in. In the second last week of school, she woke up one Wednesday morning and started drawing sea creatures on the colored paper. She then informed me that they were to be cut out for the Sea Party she was planning.

I told her that was a nice idea, and got on with life. But the next morning it happened again. And she started talking about a Sea Party with her friends. Then on the Friday, she was still going on about it. She had plans for games and ideas for name tags and a very specific condition that the guests had to bring a sea toy, or they would not be granted admittance.

So I asked her who she planned to invite. She listed Mia, Hugo and her friend Oliver from school. That's fairly easy really. And we did have Saturday morning free. So I told her that if she asked her friends parents and if they were free, they could come to the Sea Party. Then we came home from school and planned the Sea Party.

Invite list, game plan, food prep. Pretty straight forwards. Sophie was totally in charge of the decorating. And came up with the games to play on her own too. I kept food simple, and had watermelon cut with star shapes (star fish!) which actually, the girls did themselves. As well as a batch of cupcakes and packs of seaweed.

The girls got out their sea creature toys to have options available. Sophie put "name tags" (cut out sea creatures) on each guest as they arrived. You can see Rachel's in the above photo.

Here is our Sea Party organizer with her shark.

We used the big table on the deck, and Sophie hung her cut out sea creatures there. I added the white table clothes to make it feel more cubby like. It was pretty cool under there.

They played a game of "Throw and Catch" which was essentially, throw the sea creature toy in the air, and catch it when it came down. If you drop it you're out. I also put on music to see how they went stopping spontaneously when the music stopped. We played a few rounds and everyone got a lolly prize at the end.

Then was the sea mural craft activity. The girls and I painted the background Friday night and the kids got to glue sea creature shapes on to make a mural.

And lastly, an activity that Sophie did not plan, but I just happened to have in the freezer thanks to one of my day care kids asking for ice earlier in the week. I had frozen a bunch of green gems in containers in the freezer with layers of water and water mixed with food coloring. I tipped out the containers into the big tub and the kids had to melt the ice to get the gems out. Took a while, was nice and cool and very fun.

I was talking with Sophie on the Saturday morning about how lucky she was to be having a spontaneous Sea Party. She was so excited on the Friday night it took her ages to fall asleep, and she was up at about 4:30 on Saturday morning from that same excitement. Even with the sleep deprivation, we managed to pull off a fun event with minimal tears. It gives me great hope for future birthday parties. Can she run her own next year?

Pencil Case

The posts about things I sewed in the school holidays continues! Today, we are going to have a look at the pencil case that I made for Rachel. It matches her library bag with the awesome fabric that initially made her Nature Bag. 

It turns out that Sophie's pencil case for school is also made out of this same fabric (with different contrasts and lining). I didn't realize it until I was cutting it out and Sophie commented that it would be matching. Don't know why I never blogged it. Busy maybe?

Anyway, It's lined with some donation fabric that I've used to make skirts before and uses zips that I've horded from who knows where. Bags? Dresses? I dunno! I look at it now and realize that I put one of the zips in upside down, but can't figure out which one, and also can not be bothered to change it.

It actually took three tries to get the top zip in in the first place. I sewed it, thought I did it wrong, unpicked it, re sewed it, realized it was now wrong and the first way I had done it was actually correct! So then I unpicked it and sewed it a third time.

Moral of that story: don't second guess yourself. Trust your instincts; if you sewed it one way to start with, it was probably for good reason.

I know I haven't said anything about the fun dragonfly print yet, because I actually bought it for another project that I haven't finished yet. It was cut out waiting for ages, I finally started sewing it but it's still not finished. It's a secret present kind of project, so I need to sew it when it's intended recipient is not around. Tough call! I'm hoping to get to finishing it soon though.

Library Bag

While I was there cutting out shorts and skirts in the September holidays, I was also forward thinking about what Rachel will need for school next year, namely a library bag and pencil case. Here I will talk about the library bag, saving the pencil case for the next post so as not to bore you with sewing stories. 

Rachel's library bag was modeled after Sophie's with a few tweaks. I used the leftover fabric from her Nature Bag, which is such fun wonderful fabric that I'm sad to use the last of it. It's got a slip pocket on the inside for the library card, a Velcro closure and is fully lined. Easy. I kind of wish I had looked at the yellow corner fabric a little more because I could definitely have cut it to match the pattern, but oh well.

It's lined with some purple fabric that I found in the stash (thanks anonymous donor-person), and is fully functional. Rachel is now just a little bit more ready for school.

Cake

It was the holidays. The end of the holidays. I needed to do some cooking and was craving some ginger slice with caramel topping; something that I knew the girls would probably not really be into. When the girls asked what I was doing, I threw caution to the wind and told them as I was cooking, they could both also choose one thing to make and provided we had the ingredients, we would make it. 

Cook books out! Rachel choose some honey jumbles, which were relatively straight forward. Easy. Sophie saw this cake, and was sold. There was a lot of washing up this day, but all delicious things were made. 

The girls did all of the measuring and stirring for their respective cooking. I just sliced and iced the cake for Sophie while both girls made the bees out of fondant. They added the stripes with Nutella and used flaked almonds for wings. 

The cake itself was honey with lemon and was delicious. Unfortunately for Sophie, who had chosen and made the cake, it was too sweet for her and she ended up not eating any of it. Oh well. She liked the bees. 

This cake was a fun way to end the holidays, and I'm glad we made it. I wonder if there are any other parents out there who let their kids make ridiculous cakes on a whim too. Probably.

I also wonder if the girls will remember this, or if they will complain in the future that I never do anything fun with them. Probably that too.

Limeanade

We have an amazing lime tree that makes lots of limes every year. Usually such an abundance that even giving them away in spades we still have heaps left over. 

One solution to this has been making limeanade. Which is like lemonade, but with limes. Obviously. 

Steve usually undertakes this venture with the girls, the last time I documented it being in April 2018. Interesting. Does our lime tree fruit twice a year and I haven't noticed? Maybe that's why we seem to always have so many limes!

Anyway, it's so fun and so yum that I can see limanade being in our future for a lot longer.

Cardboard House

I made this house so long ago that I actually don't have any photos of it's construction. The box has sitting under the house for at least two years. It was gifted to us by our friends down the street who's husband works in engineering at the airport, so I assume it was initially used for some enormous part of a plane.

Whatever the case, the box itself was huge. So much so, that I didn't want to actually cut into it until I was sure it would get full use. It lived under the house and I would take it out every now and then with the other boxes, but it always went back under. After the extension of our house, I realized that we now had a space for an enormous cardboard house to live for an extended period of time, so I got it out and started working. 

Essentially the box is what it always was. I just cut one of the flaps off (the front piece) and used that for the top part of the roof. The sides and the back flap just stood up and connected to it. I used another large box from under the house (this one was a TV box) and cut it to be that front panel and support the roof. 

One side wall has two windows and the other side has one window cut into the roof. The back top has a ventilation section, which is still able to open and close, but I feel I could cut it off, because it's too high for the kids to do anything with anyway. I painted the roof door and around the windows with the very last of the red paint that has also been used for the play wall, the sandpit and the cardboard boat. The walls of the house (which the girls helped paint) were done with either leftover from our house renovation or leftover front steps paint, I can't remember to be honest.

After it was done, I was inspired by Ruby Red Shoes' caravan and added some decoration. I used the final amount of cream paint that I had previously used in the shop and the cardboard rocket. The inside is unpainted, and I let the kids go crazy on it, but every now and then I put up white paper as wall paper and they have a new canvas for their crazy art.

Even after my additions to the roof and door, the outside still looked a little plain, so I let the girls paint flowers on the walls too. I didn't let them go full crazy, like when we painted the wall, but they did get to paint, and that's what matters right?

I drew the outlines of the flowers in black pen, and then had them paint in the sections with color. It worked pretty well, and they did a good job of staying in the line and respecting my color choices.

The cardboard house has been out on the deck for a good while now, and is lasting well, if a bit dusty on the roof. The girls sporadically ask if they can sleep in it, but over winter, my answer was a pretty resounding no. Maybe in the summer holidays I'll let them give it a go.

Shorts for Hugo

Made some shorts for Hugo.

Hope they aren't too small.

Camping 2019

I want to camp more. Some days I don't even know why, because there are so many things about camping that are hard or inconvenient that it's hard to justify that the pros outweigh the cons at all. But I still want to do it. I want to be out in nature, unplugged and offline for even just a little while. Breathing fresh air and enjoying God's creation.

Steve had his fair share of camping as a kid, so he's probably more experienced, but less enthusiastic that I am. As the girls get older though, I think it's much more doable, and certainly an experience that I want to give them while we can. While I appreciate that it's not particularly Steve's holiday of choice, I'm still so keen.

So, this September holidays, I took the girls camping.

Steve doesn't get as many holidays as I do, working in the corporate world, and he is saving those up for Christmas, so I took the plunge and took the girls. Before you start applauding (or worrying) I'll let you know; I didn't go solo. We went we with a family we know. Sophie goes to school with their son. Three of them, three of us. The numbers were good, and the overall adult to child ratio was a fabulous 1:1.

We went down towards Mt Barney on the boarder of Queensland and New South Wales. It was great. The campsite was busy, but didn't feel crowded. A little rain but mostly fine, chilly at night, lots of animals to see and barely any phone signal at all. Perfect.

The second day we all did a 14k hike, which was pretty tough, but so worth it. It was seven k's to this waterhole (sourced from an underground spring), where we splashed and cooled off before heading back the way we came.

We also did all the things you usually do when camping, like sitting around in the shade eating, collecting sticks for fires, cooking marshmallows and playing card games. We saw wallabies, Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoos, a Bower Bird, Kurrajongs and a goanna. There was rock hopping at the creek and torch games after dark. Rachel's Nature Explorer Bag was in full use.

In the end the fun of going and the good memories definitely outweigh the trouble of packing even the kitchen sink to get there. Let's go camping more! Maybe one day I will even feel like I can take the girls on my own, but I think they would need to be older and more able to help out first. In the mean time, we will enjoy the time with friends. And the marshmallows. 

Holes in the Cupboard

At the change of season I do a cull through the girls wardrobes and I notice the holes. Gaps where they won't have enough clothes to get through the next few months. This brings on a subsequent sewing binge, which never feels bad because it's all unselfish, totally practical and using up material in the stash.

Enter September 2019. It's hot again, and the girls need shorts. Rachel mostly because she was down to one skirt. I think Sophie only got so many because I think she'll have a growth spurt soon, and so though she's still got two pairs from April, I don't think they are going to last long.

Sophie's haul was a skirt and two shorts. I did actually intend to make the skirt out of the pink and orange material, because it's so light and flow-y, but then accidentally cut shorts out of it instead. Oh well. The blue flower print (that has previously been shorts and a dress) is the skirt. I've used the pink and orange fabric before too (thanks Aunty Sue!)

The castle and knights fabric is new on the scene. I bought it on sale at Spotlight at least four years ago now, and every now and then I dig it out and see if the girls fancy it. At last they said yes! It's so cool right!? Can you see the bunting on it? :D

Rachel got the castle and knight material as a skirt over a surprise pair of shorts. Two in one! That red fabric is the one that has caused me much trouble in the past, but this time, I pre-washed it. Twice. Here is Rachel loving her skirt with it's surprise shorts.

The girls both love wearing their new gear, which makes me pretty happy. I know there will come a time that they won't like wearing what I make (in fact I probably won't bother making stuff then) so I'm loving it now.

I know it's because they are my children, and I love them so much, but could they be any cuter!?

Rachel's other garment was a skirt out of the crazy floral fabric (again, donated from somewhere), that was put on as soon as it was sewn. Straight off the sewing machine. She did help sew it, sitting at the machine, putting the presser foot up and down and pressing the reversing button too.

And she's such a character that I don't really mind.