Mural Painting

There was a bit of a lull in January this year, about a week before I was supposed to go back to work, and I realised no one had done any painting at school over the holidays. The P&C have been quite prolific at painting things since 2020, when we started with a tuckshop mural (and then moved on to a garden themed one, the entire prep area and pavers in a garden. This year there was also an ANZAC mural of poppies and a spontaneous bush turkey, but I don't have photos of those.) 

We have a couple of murals that are pre-approved and are really just on the wait list that will get done when people have the time. The school admin also have a wish list of murals that they want done mostly to increase the kids gross motor skills. It was this list that I was looking at when I text my friend Imogen (who usually organises painting things) to ask if she was free to tick some off. 

The fates aligned and Imogen was free, so the two of us went up to school and got to work. We decided that it was time for the senior side of the school to have some love, since we had thus far painted predominantly in the junior half. The mural on the wish list from admin was a city scape with roads that the kids could walk down, give directions with, or drive cars along. 

We cleaned it back and discussed the new mural. Happy with the city scape with all it's learning applications, we began mapping things out, but of course, we didn't want to just paint a boring city with houses and trees. So what was a city, became a rather enormous zoo, complete with oversized animals of every kind, including the mythical. (My justification there is that it gives students the opportunity to use their imaginations, and increase their creativity: learning yo!)

I think between us, Imogen and I spent at least 50 hours painting the mural, and we had other people come and help out too. It's certainly time intensive when you decide to upscale and take the entire area available. When Imogen mentioned that she would label all of the animals (since that's what you'd see at a Zoo), I jumped at the chance to add the Japanese names as well. And when we couldn't find a good inspiration picture for the emu, we pivoted to add a crane. 

The whole mural is difficult to photograph, since it is pretty huge. We talked about adding cool looking insects in the two yellow roundabouts, but when it came to it, we didn't quite get there. Sophie and Rachel, who had been pretty heavily invested in the mural since I dragged them up to school with me while I painted three days out of five, have been vocal in their disappointment. Steve has come to my defence though, given the sheer amount of time I'd already spent at their school painting things. 

For the most part though, the mural is fun perfection. We've given it a protection coat and roped it off to let the paint set before the kids start running all over it. I hope they love it as much as we do. 

Chit-Chat the Squirrel

After my spontaneous decision to graciously make Rachel another cow to be friends with Moo-Moo, it only made logical sense to also make a similar toy for Sophie. Lest I be accused of favouritism. Knowing the girls' love for fluffy things, I had a look through the scraps and figured I had just enough of the faux fur left from making Sophie's Squirrel Girl outfit to make a small squirrel for her. 

There is no squirrel included in the Menagerie Pattern, but the only real feature I figured I needed to capture was that tail. I ended up just tracing out the shape that I had used for Sophie's costume but on a much smaller scale. I was on the fence about sewing it to the back of the squirrel so it would be permanently up or letting it fall free, but Sophie said she'd prefer the flexibility. 

The squirrel has been named Chit Chat, after a squirrel character from the Wild Robot books. I should say that I made both Chit Chat and Mini Moo-Moo last year, I think in late November/early December, but life got away from me and I'm only just getting around to posting about them now. Busy busy. Sophie just turned ten this January though, so I wonder if Chit Chat will be the last soft toy I make for her. We shall see. 

Here is Chit Chat, Mini Moo-Moo and Star Tiger together.  

Oh, how far I've come, and how many lovely friendly soft toys I've made these girls. Makes me hope that my newest little nephew Archie will also need some cuddly friends in his life too. 

Mini Moo-Moo

 Ahh, Moo-Moo. Was there ever a cow who was more loved than this? Since I've made Moo-Moo, she's had a very full and loved life, including a couple of surgeries to help her through. Not sure when it was, but Rachel noticed the bit of fabric that I had had leftover from making Moo-Moo in my stash and asked if I could make a second cow. 

Initially I told her no. Then when she asked again, I told her no. Then when she asked a third time, I told her I'd sell her the fabric and she could make her cow. Rachel bought the fabric. I realised I'd need to do a bit of hand holding, especially since the amount of fabric was quite small, found the pieces of cow pattern and scaled them down so they would fit. 

We spent an afternoon figuring out where to put and pin everything, then put it away for a couple of weeks before she cut it out. Watching Rachel cut the pieces I began to doubt my initial plan of having her sew the cow herself. The fur fabric was just a little too tricky to deal with for a beginner sewer. 

So I bit the bullet and sat down to make the cow. Rachel informed me that this cow, already named "Mini Moo-Moo" was a boy cow, and was not to be a baby for Moo-Moo, but in fact her friend. She even had a story of how they met and became friends written down before Mini Moo-Moo was made. 

Not being a girl cow, I was sadly deprived of udder making, but otherwise this cow came together about as smoothly as the last one. Mini Moo-Moo is made with the same cow print fur and some brown and white felt. He is about the same size as the Pikachu I originally made with this pattern, maybe a little bit bigger, and is the perfect friend for Moo-Moo and Rachel. 

And, since I was suddenly making a new soft toy for Rachel, I figured I'd better make one for Sophie too, so come back soon to hear all about that. 

Bucket Drum Dampers

One down side to teaching music to a bunch of kids is that you generally want to get them drumming and that is loud. When they are little and just using their hands, it's bearable, but a class of 25 grade 6 students all using bucket drums with sticks in a confined space is not. Last year I ran lots of my lessons outside to combat the noise factor, but it's not always feasible. 

So I took the bucket drum home in December and did a shout out to my community for anyone going through their old towels over Christmas. With the donated towels and sheets, I cut circles and sewed three layers together on Olivia the Overlocker to fit the top of the drum. Noise damping success! 

Glad I could recycle the towels before they were thrown away, and have saved my ears in the process. The sad news was that Olivia began making funny noises as I sewed the last five or so. I assumed she was protesting at the thick layers of towelling I was making her sew, but after taking her to the sewing machine guy, it turns out the plastic casing on her motor is cracked. Alas for my hard working Olivia! 

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. 

Christmas Swim

Merry Christmas and Happy Birthday to Jesus! 

This year's festivities are bought to you by a Christmas swim at our neighbour's who conveniently went to Stanthorpe to celebrate, and my first ever maple glazed baked Christmas ham. 

May the time you have spent with your people be a joyous and relaxing as you can manage. 

Christmas Outfits

It's that time of the year again, when I get excited about celebrating Jesus' Birthday and use it as an excuse to sew new things for my daughters. Sophie's shorts from last year were now too short and had been handed on to Rachel (very reluctantly on Sophie's part). 

Knowing that the dress I had made for Rachel last year had been too big and all I would need to do to have her wear it again would be to let it out, I had her try it on at the end of November. The crazy news was that Rachel had grown up, but not out at all. So the dress still fit, and now, just ended at her knees, rather than past them. This dress is going to get to be worn again next year too! Unbelievable. 

With Rachel sorted (two Christmas outfits!), I swung back to Sophie. She was keen for another pair of shorts. So I pulled out of the fabric we'd gotten last year but not used, and got to work. I used the Clover Shorts pattern again (why break what is working perfectly?) but just lengthened them, since I noticed that Sophie generally grows out of things in a length department, before she does in a width. Hopefully these will last quite a while this way. 

The other thing we got the girls was a Christmas shirt each from Tee Turtle. They had a huge Black Friday Sale and I was getting a couple of other things for presents anyway. Since the girls had shorts to wear this Christmas, it only made sense that they needed shirts to go with them. 

It's been nearly impossible to get a good photo of these girls together in their Christmas gear. I don't know if it's the heat, the end of year tiredness or just another growth spurt in their brains rewiring things, but getting them to stand for a photo is nigh on impossible. 

Oh well. At least I have these memories right? 

Pyjamas

I had been lamenting pyjamas in my wardrobe for a good year or so, before finally coming to the conclusion that if you want something done, you've got to do it yourself.  Thanks for teaching me that, Sebastian the crab. So to the stash I went to find some suitable fabric to make a (hopefully wearable) draft. 

A long time ago, I received some free fabric from a friend which I used to make cute things for kids. See here. It was once a doona cover and came with the matching pillow case. I had a small amount of this material left, so I figured I could use it as a draft of a pyjama top. I'm not above wearing PJs with trucks and diggers on them. 

I made these around the same time that I was working on the girls ladybug shorts. Found a free pattern for some PJs from So Sew Easy, and after a couple of pattern hacks (short sleeves!), I had a draft. 

The fit was ok, just a little boxy, and my short sleeves turned out a little long - nearly elbow length. Still, it was a wearable draft, so I was happy. 

So back to my fabric stash I went, and pulled out some of this stuff which I had gotten for a bargain at a de-stash market earlier in the year. I also had a quick look through my trims and found I had exactly the right amount of piping in this musky pink colour that matched perfectly. There is nothing like adding piping to a project to make it suddenly very swish. 

There is something a little off with the collar of this version - maybe the folded back bit goes down too low before it folds? I don't know, but I can wear them and they are comfy. The fabric is super light which is perfect for a Brisbane summer. 

My mum had buttons in the stash, and I just made a very basic pair of shorts (alas, not enough piping to warrant cuffs on the shorts) to match. These really do feel like fancy PJs and after the absolute rubbish I had been wearing, they are amazing. 

Work in the Garden

This post is a little late in appearing, but when I think about it, it makes me so happy, so I'm posting anyway, late or not. 

We officially celebrated our renovation as done in August this year, and then really made it feel like ours by planting all the things in the new garden beds. That happened in September, but you can see in the photos the total lack of a front fence. Our fabulous builders had attached the metal brackets to the retaining walls for us, so all we needed to do was bolt the posts to them and put the fence up. But of course, these things take some time. What a builder could probably knock over in a day and a half was absolutely going to take us a lot longer. 

So we procrastinated for a while. Steve and I weren't too bothered by the lack of front fence, for all it kind of gave the house a somewhat unfinished look. Steve's mum, on the other hand, was missing the privacy that comes with a front fence. Since she was the one living on the bottom floor, with the street view, we started to feel we should actually take care of the situation. 

Steve did some planning, and 3D modelling (because why not?) and more planning. He really thought through everything we would need and did all the research on where to buy what. Wood was ordered and delivered, and we did a couple of extra trips to get the posts and anything else we might conceivably need from Bunnings. We did the posts one Saturday afternoon, and then waited two weeks (there was a huge rainy weekend which cancelled any out door plans) before we continued with the palings. 

Are they still called palings if they run horizontally? I don't know, but that's what we did. This is where our project became really special. I think the girls might have been off playing in the creek, or just reading in the house, (who knows!) but Steve and I just got to work. It was hot, but there was a breeze, and the work wasn't hard. We both settled into a rhythm of working together really quickly. Steve would cut the lengths, I'd be unwrapping the next bundle to be ready. Then I'd take them over and start clamping them up. We'd check the plumbness together, then I'd drill the holes and Steve would take care of the screws. 

It was work, but it was together. While it took time, was hot and we did end up a little sore at the end of it, it wasn't terrible. For me, it was a real picture of what the Bible talks about in Genesis. When God creates Adam and Eve and they are in the garden, they are there together, to work. The work is good, it's not oppressive, tiresome or something to dread. This is what humanity was supposed to be: side by side, working together to look after the beautiful land and animals that God had created. 

And as I worked, side by side with Steve, complimenting each other's strengths and weaknesses to do the work, I honestly felt like I had a glimpse of that. It was pretty special. 

Now the fence is done, and every time I look at it, I'm reminded of what humanity has the potential to be, and the moment that I got to experience a small part of it. 

We had another week with a temporary mail box before installing this one from Bunnings. Getting those numbers up really made it feel done too, even though we still had to lop off the excess post bits that were still sticking up. 

And we have indeed lopped off the post tops, after procrastinating for another couple of weeks - these things take time you know! And wow, do we now feel like the work is done. 

For all that we were very excited by the fancy looking new house we have, I was also a little sad, because if the original owners drove past now, I think they would instantly think: "Oh, they knocked down our house and built a new one," because it's so unrecognisable now. But hopefully, if they take the time to look, they will see that we did indeed keep the original house there, because we love it and for all that we've done to it, it was the beginning of so many memories for us.