That's a Wrap

Reflecting that many bloggers out there do a wrap up post at the end of the year, neatly cataloging all their makes, or highs and lows to look back on in the future, I lamented to Steve that I can't do that since I've got so many things that I've made in the last six weeks that are as yet, un-blogged, my list would be pretty incomplete, or at least not a good reflection on the year. I guess people who blog for work can be a little more planned about things and maybe they are working in advance, but not so much with me. Even though I've been at the blogging for nearly 20 years now....

Anyway, in lieu of a "Here are all the things I made in 2024" I thought I'd do a little wrap up post with the fun things that have happened in the last six weeks that have helped the year speed to it's ending. Things that are just small and fun but special to us and I'll want to remember. 

The girls made boats. 

With an eleven week term to finish the year, the teachers at the girls school got creative and ran a bunch of activities to make the final week interesting and fun. One of these was a boat race across the school pool. Students were invited to make their own boat and it had to carry a ping pong ball across the eight metre pool. Both Sophie and Rachel were interested so we got into it. 

Inspired by the Pop-Pop Boat in Ponyo, they investigated different engines. Rachel made her boiler from a beer can and straws which was powered by steam when the heat from the candle did it's job. Sophie tried a variety of different designs - variations on the same theme - the most complex of which was bending copper pipes to be the boiler. Unfortunately her boat couldn't take the weight of the pipes and we had to try again. 

There was so much trial and error in both the boats. Loads of fixing one thing to have something new break. Sophie's especially which went from wood, to two layers of wood, to wood with balloons (supporting the weight of the pipes), and then to a variety of different milk bottle designs (when the balloons caused too much drag and we needed to nix the pipes in favour of a more compact boiler). After we finally gave in with the boiler, we switched to fan powered and Sophie did all the wiring to make the fan work from a 9V battery, including a switch in the circuitry. Thanks to girl guides for teaching her how to do most of that! 

Rachel, testing the Carmelita 3 in our neighbour's pool.

In the end we learnt a lot and had two functioning boats to launch in the pool on race day. Neither won, (or even made it all the way across the pool), but neither did they sink, so we still counted it a victory. The boats were named after we finished reading and watching the Netflix version of A Series of Unfortunate Events,  the Carmelita 3 (Rachel's boat), Beatrice 2 (Sophie's pipe boat) and The Persistence (Sophie's final fan boat). 

Sophie has been given the leadership role of Library Captain for 2025 at school. We are pretty proud of our girl, and think the role suits her to a T. Both girls actually signed up as Library Helpers this year and were very serious about turning up for their "shifts". In the last week of school when the kids were loitering around classrooms getting given jobs by teachers, both girls were requested at the library to help catalogue the new home readers. Hilarious. 

I came to school in my staff week to find this little beauty on my classroom door. I rescued him, took this selfie and he promptly jumped on my head. Managed to get him into a nearby garden to hopefully live out a full and happy life; it honestly made my day. 

Even when my school year wrapped up (a week earlier than the girls), I wasn't resting. Typically, I volunteered to help coordinate the Community Carols event hosted by the girls' school. It was a lot of work, easily twice the size of last year, but it made my heart oh so full to see the churches of the area coming together to celebrate Christmas and serve the community. 

After that, I spent the week packing things up and sorting things out and then Steve and I went off to Bundy for a quick one night (the girls started their holidays with sleepovers at grandparents) to celebrate Steve's sister's 30th. 

I got to make the cake. Which was a lot of fun. 

We had thought we were going to miss our Street Christmas Party (being in Bundy) but the Saturday night in Brisbane was so rainy they ended up postponing until the next day. Hooray! Steve and I could make it after all. The girls had made oreo truffles and my contribution to the food was this mango and avo sushi platter. 

Mango sushi - so delicious! 

Speaking of food, the following Saturday my family got together to celebrate what would have been my Pa-Pou's 100th birthday but also, 100 years of the Greek Faros Family in Australia. We all made greek food and had a lovely evening together. I contributed this bread which was just delicious. 

It was really lovely to be together sharing food and memories. I heard a language teacher recently mention that they feel bi-cultural, and I think I often feel that way. Growing up in Australia but with a strong connection to our Greek heritage. It's even more confused now with how influenced we are by my Japanese experiences, but I think it's something to embrace. What is God's vision of the future if not a city where every nation and every tongue is represented?  

Steve has continued sweating it out at Jiu-Jitsu each week, despite some injuries this year to level up to his purple belt. It's been over four years of training and he still loves it. Sophie had a six month break but has decided to give it another shot and now we can't keep her away - even in the heat of summer. 

Both girls helped to paint some Christmas decos for Church this year and Rachel is pretty proud of her little cow in the nativity scene. 

I have sewn so much - lots of presents and then just lots of little things. Actually looking forward to cataloging those as well (it kind gives January an easy start having all these things made and ready to blog about :P), just have to find the time. 

I'll finish this post of somewhat random collection of things with what I consider to be the Quote of the Year from Rachel. Last week, the girls had come with me to grab some groceries and we drove past school. I mentioned that the playground was dismantled (the P&C are funding a new one next year). Rachel says: "Oh that playground. I didn't play there much because it was always infested with children."

Headbands

It feels like I made these headbands a life time ago now, since it was January and we are suddenly in May, but here we are and I thought I'd document them anyway. 

I was honestly trying to make headbands for the girls to wear at school (the blue checked fabric) from an old school dress they were no longer wearing, but thought I'd mess around with other scrap fabrics I had on hand as well to tweak the sizing and style. 

Rachel liked the style with the bow on the front, while Sophie preferred it to be flat. I used a couple of free headband tutorials from the internet, but ended up redrawing and lengthening them, so they kind of feel like mine now. 

And even though I did make all of these (and more actually!) the girls have subsequently lost a number of them and neither of them have bothered to wear them to school this term either. 

I try, you know, I try.

Greek Heritage

Harmony Day, celebrated in March each year, is when schools encourage their students to celebrate their heritage. It's about recognising we are different, but that together we can all be a part of the same community. I love it. It's a glimpse of the world that God wants for us - every tribe, every tongue, every nation, coming together. 

Previously, the girls have worn yukata since I have so many on hand, but this year they wanted something a bit more about who they are, rather than just another culture that we also love. Luckily we have Greek heritage, and the girls (particularly Sophie) are super into Greek myths and legends, mostly thanks to the Percy Jackson book series. 

So I offered to make them a Greek costume, and when I stumbled across this post/tutorial on Make it Love it, the girls were on board. I did specify that I was probably only going to make the dress, though they still have dreams they will get a cape, bow and quiver too.

To the cupboard and the plethora of bedsheets I've been given to find what would suit a Greek costume. Turns out I had plenty to choose from and quickly transformed them into some flowing gowns. The girls chose the trim from my stash so no purchasing anything for this project. 

After we were finished though, Sophie told me nervously that she wasn't sure she wanted to wear it after all. Not that she didn't love it, but talking with kids at school, she'd noticed that many of them weren't going to bother dressing up. While I'm sad about it, I know the reality that when kids get to grade 5 and 6, they are somewhat less excited about things that could bring potential embarrassment. I did however, specify that since I'd made this costume, if she wanted something for halloween, or book week in August, that this was likely to be it. Sophie was happy with that and hopefully some of her friends will decide that costumes can be cool so she feels comfortable wearing it then. We shall see. 

These were very straight forward to sew, Rachel's was trimmed with some random satin bias binding in my stash from who knows where, and Sophie was trimmed with self made bias tape left over from my tragic Harmony Day costume. You'll have to come back another day to read about that. I'm not over it yet. 

One of Those Cakes

Some days, you've just got to make a cake. Rachel went off for a play a couple of Saturdays ago, but upon arriving at her friends house, things unfortunately did not turn out as she had hoped. Her friend was there, with nothing to do, but it still being only 9:30 in the morning on a Saturday, didn't feel ready to actually have a play. Poor Rachel came home in tears. 

What's a mum to do, but suggest some quality one on one cooking time. Surely cake will fix everything? If not, it will come pretty darn close. Coincidently, a day or two before, Rachel had seen this video of cake making on YouTube, and so requested to make something similar. Why not? 

We made a very thin chocolate and vanilla cake (as well as a round of cupcakes) and let them cool. Then she cut circles and stacked them to make mini layer cakes. 

We had fun making a ganache to cover them (Rachel was pretty excited when she found out she could ice a cake with something made of chocolate and cream) and then I let her go to town decorating with icing and flowers that we had in the cupboard leftover from her birthday. 

This cake was just what we needed. Especially starting back to school for term three that week. Just what the doctor ordered. If the doctor were me, and cake were medicine. 

Getting ready to write this post, I realised the last spontaneous cake we made was the Duck Cake back in 2021! And before that, was the Just Because Cake in April of the same year. The world needs more cake. 

Could be though, that we haven't been making as many because Sophie has been in the kitchen much more. She made a spontaneous purchase of a Bluey Cookbook (I think back in the Easter holidays) and has been quite inspired in the kitchen ever since. 

Another reason could be that we have all been too busy reading to need to make a cake "just because". I for sure, know of no better escape from reality and am so glad to have this shared love for books with my family. 

More on that reading next time I hope. See you then!

Library Crawl

Yesterday the girls were grumpy, so today, I took them on a Library Crawl. It's like a pub crawl, but you visit lots of libraries and spend time reading books and borrowing in each library.

It really made a difference to how we were all feeling about life. So much reading and book exploring. 

Sophie was on a hunt for Wings of Fire books each time, and often would spend time reorganising the section on the shelf so the books were all in order. Is that some signs of OCD that she's showing maybe? 

I also caught her talking to the books. Librarian in the making perhaps? 

We came home with 27 books between us, and I read and returned one on our journey as well. Not a bad day at all. 

I have a slew of draft posts waiting for me to write/finish and while I've crossed off nearly all of the things I had on my to-do list at the start of the holidays, I found while chatting to Steve tonight that there are a bunch of new things to do, probably before school goes back in a week and a bit. Blergh. Hopefully I'll be able to kick my butt into gear soon, but in the meantime, I'm going to go read some books.

Misc Memories

As the year comes to a close, I'm doing a bit of organising and have some final memories to share. These are just the small moments that happened in these last three or four months that I've captured with a snap (most times just the one quick pic) that I'm thankful for now, or they likely be forgotten all together. 

We took the girls to seem Mary Poppins at the Lyric Theatre. This wasn't their first musical there, but it was the first they were genuinely excited about. They had seen a school production of it a couple of years ago but were so keen to see the magic on the big stage. 

Steve's brother's dog had puppies and we got to see them grow from tiny squirmy things to these fun little balls of fluff. They did end up getting twice this size before we had to say goodbye, but it was loads of fun to have cuddles with them before that. 

Sophie got a red stripe at Jiu-jitsu! Red stripes are for leadership and are pretty hard to come by. We were so proud of her for getting this one. 

My school music concert was themed "TV and Movies" this semester, so I dressed in Steve's Jedi costume from four years ago and told all the students I was a "Jedi like my father before me."

The girls went on a guide camp the week before our 14th wedding anniversary, so Steve and I took the opportunity to have two nights away in the city. We ate delicious food and stayed out late, did an escape room and watched the Black Panther 2 movie. Lots of fun just being together in beautiful Brisbane. 

For the first time ever, we actually did our street proud with Christmas lights. Could be the addition of the front fence, but it was so exciting to now put up those lights. Steve got excited and got them all wifi connected timers and also went security conscious with them too. No hacking our lights! 

The girls went to a ginger bread house making afternoon at my parent's church where they were very excited about all the lollies on these little houses. They actually made six in total, four of which were shared with the street kids as soon as they came home, because there was a dance practice for the street party. 

Oh do I love to see the street kids organise themselves, practice and perform their dance at our street party each year. Three years in a row, and it's not getting old. Speaking of performance, these girls also did their first on stage performance with Rachel's music school. 

Proud of their performer lanyards, Rachel played piano and Sophie accompanied on ukulele. They also got their faces rather spectacularly painted. Their music school is moving next year to the other side of the river, but we are luckily retaining the fantastic piano teacher Rachel had and he is now coming to our house to teach both our girls. Whew! 

Sophie's compassionate nature scored her this free pineapple plant from Bunnings. We were walking through the garden section while she finished of a sausage on bread when we happened to see a pineapple that was just lying out of it's pot. Sophie told the people at the front and took them to see it. The Bunnings lady then said that instead of repotting it herself, she would just write it off and give it to Sophie to take care of. Free pineapple for us!

Rachel got a geode rock science kit for Christmas (early present since my parents were traveling) and had loads of fun being a scientist with it. Her favourite thing to do was smash open the geode that came with the kit, but she also enjoyed the other things. This crystal growing one didn't turn out quite as we hoped, but it was still fun. 

I've been reading lots of books. Some to check to see if the girls would like it. Shinji Takahashi and the Mark of the Coatl, Ronia the Robber's Daughter, Enola Holmes and Dragon Rider all fall into that category. I've also read the second Dragon Rider book and am currently in the third. The first was good, but the other two are a bit busy. Still, the author has taken the time to add a thought provoking quote at the beginning of each chapter which I truly appreciate. 

I've done lots of sewing, and cleaning/culling/sorting of stuff that we need to get rid of, and other things that I guess I'll blog about soon enough. The garden is growing and the weather at the moment is beautiful. We are planning 2023 and some fun things to do there. 

I also type this with joy, because when I post it, it will mean I've finally made my goal of posting five posts a month for a whole year. I don't think that means I'll change things up next year. Maintaining is just as important as improving in some cases, but it's good to know I'm there. Maybe next week I'll think more on resolutions but for now, thanks 2022 for all of these little memories and more. 

Here's to 2023, whatever that may bring. 

Guide Camp Sewing

Our girls started Guides this year and have loved every minute of it. I'm glad, because I have great memories of being a Guide when I was a kid too, and I know they are learning so much being there with other people. It also has the perks of being two hours on a Friday night. I'll be honest, Steve and I haven't really taken full advantage of that yet, but every now and then, we do enjoy the quiet dinner together. 

So one thing Guides do, if you don't know, is go on camps. Pretty frequently actually. The girls had one in August that was just at a local guide hut for two nights. I was so excited for them, because again, I can remember so much fun on guide camps. Hooray! 

What I didn't remember was all the packing. Our Guide group is lovely, but they aren't the most organised, I'll have to admit. So we got the packing list a week before the girls were to go away. All well and good if you have been on a camp before, and it's not like the list contained too many out of the box things. Wet pack, spare clothes, sleeping bag were all there. But extra things like a plate bag, to put all their cutlery/crockery in, and a tarp, that had to be two by three metres. And a "Sit-upon" which is a square mat (preferably water proof) they can use if they need to sit on the grass for a long period of time. 

Reading the list, I felt a bit silly for not remembering some of those things, but also frustrated. We did have a tarp, for example, but it wasn't quite big enough, and I didn't have two of them. Most people would have a spare drawstring bag lying around for a plate bag, but two that are roughly the same to avoid arguments? Sigh. Even one extra weeks notice would have been greatly appreciated. 

In any case, I got my thinking hat on and then got sewing. Plate bags first, since drawstring bags are easy and I was sure to have some fabric I could use up in the scraps box. Serendipitously, I found that I had exactly the right amount of material for two plate bags from two rectangles of  fabric that the girls themselves had tie-dyed after Christmas. The tie dye powders were a Christmas present from my Godmother, and I had just given them any white fabric that I had on hand to be creative with. 

Perfect for their plate bags: hooray! Rachel sewed hers on her little sewing machine while I did most of Sophie's on Sally. She had to patch her piece of tie dyed fabric first since she'd cut a random circle from one corner for something else. (See my peacock fabric below?) Sophie did come over and do a bit, but was mostly not interested. I happened to have exactly the right amount of cord and two wooden beads in my stash as well. So perfect. 

While I was looking through the stash box for plate bag fabric, I stumbled across the strip of leftover vinyl that we had from recovering the chairs. I had to patch it together to get the squares, but they are pretty sturdy. 

For the flip side, I used a quilted Lorraine Lea pillow case that my friend Katie gave me. (I've used pillowcases before see?) I figured that the quilted bit would make the mats slightly more padded and thus comfortable on the ground. Rachel learnt how to bind things when we finished all the edges with strips of the other side of the pillow case.  

Done and done. Though it was rushed, I did feel good sending them off with home made things in their bags. Also happy to report that the girls both had a fantastic time camping and can't wait to go again. 

Fixing Moo-Moo

Since I made Moo-Moo, Rachel's cow has become a very staple member of our family. 

We celebrated her second birthday (with Vulpix) last year.  As you can see though, Moo-Moo is looking a little worse for wear. 

Rachel added that little blue heart patch on her udder, but things were just very holey where they shouldn't be, so last month we ended up recovering the udder. Rachel held Moo-Moo's hand throughout the procedure. 

Everyone was happy when it was done. 

Some times I'm not sure why I'm posting these little things, but for some reason, I'm compelled to. Is it these small things in the big noise of life that matter? Maybe. 

This patch job on Moo-Moo did start a slew of sewing for the whole house, so there are loads of sewing posts coming up. First though I need to get to finally giving the promised finished renovations post that I've been talking about. So much to do, so little time to do it.