Tone Finnanger

Yesterday, while on a hot date with Bradley, I found and purchased this book at Hettie's Patch. I love it! It is soooooooo pretty. (the cover does not lie) Saturday I will be spending the day in my sewing room. I love sewing!

An uncle!

Hard to believe I know, but we are still really consumed by this baby and all he does! This is Mr 7 being an uncle. It's pretty amazing. Every now and then Mr 7 says, 'Hehehe, it's a baby!'. So there's not much else going on here. Yesterday we went to Hettie's Patch to get some backing fabric for grandson's quilt. I am now committed to finishing his quilt. Something to do tomorrow!

Don't ya wish.....

this was you? How fun would it be to be quilting with your family or a bunch of friends? I have an urge to make something. Perhaps I will tomorrow!

Busy week.

This past week has been so busy, so full of long anticipated events, that I'm approaching a bit of an anteclimax.

Friday night we had Miss 18's birthday party. She, and a friend who shares the same birthdate, decided to have a joint party at our house. I think it was quite a successful night. We had a room for singstar (you know, the playstation game that's like kareoke), a room for eating and a room for quiet chatting. We also had a 6m square tent in the back yard with fairy lights and a fire for toasting marshmallows. A succession of tealights lead to the tent which was right up against the back fence. Miss 18 had a great time despite saying that she'd never have another party again. (We'll see!)

Of course, the birth of the long anticipated grandson was another big event last week. We spent much time ooohing and ahhhing over him. He's a sweet fellow and terribly good looking too! (Well, if you can't be biased as a grandmother, what's the point!) Nine months is a terribly long time to wait excitedly for something! Mrs 23 and her bloke are so very happy. They have been waiting for this little guy for quite some time now. She had trouble falling pregnant and I think she only did so after giving up and deciding to concentrate on study instead. It's funny how often in life this seems to be the rule. Stop wanting something so much and it will come to you!

Last week also saw the passing of a dear neighbour. She has been unwell for much of the past two or three years so this was a blessed release for her, despite being a sad event for her family, friends and neighbours. Her funeral was on Thursday, which made it a bittersweet day for us. We heard the good news about our grandson and then attended our neighbour's funeral. I am grateful for the knowledge I have about this life. Whilst we remembered our neighbour and farewelled her at her funeral, I know that her spirit lives on and is in heaven. This life is just one small part of our existance. Our grandson's spirit lived in the premortal world before his body was made and our neighbour's spirit exists in heaven where she has been reunited with her loved ones and will wait to be reunited with her family that is still here on the earth. I believe that families can be together forever. I have been sealed to my family in the temple.

So, on to this week! Right now it seems that nothing much is happening this week, but I am sure it will be just as busy as last week! Hope you all have a great week!

It's official! I'm a Grandmother!

Mrs 23 gave birth to a son this morning. He was 4.07 kg and 53.5cm long. She was able to cuddle him for a couple of hours, but then he seemed to be having trouble breathing and was put in an isolette. That's where he is tonight. Hopefully he will be out of the isolette tomorrow. He is just beautiful!

Our new dining room.

I have mentioned here many times that we are renovating. We have been doing it for seven years now. We started by building an extension to our three bedroom home. (Yes, there were ten of us when we moved in!) Then we began renovating the spaces in the original house. Our ideas evolve every other week. This room was originally the master bedroom. It is near the front door. Initially I thought that we would use this room as a lounge room or sitting room, but it just never really worked. We moved the doorway and put in double glass doors togive it a 'living room' vibe rather than a bedroom vibe. Bradley built some book storage, because this room is also our library. Just recently we began thinking about having a dining room rather than an eat-in kitchen and decided that this room would work quite well as a dining room. So we emptied it of all the junk and put our HUGE table in there. We bought the table at a secondhand shop. I loved the size of it and put it on lay-by immediately. It wasn't until we picked it up a couple of months later that we measured it and realised that it was way too big for our kitchen. ( It is 1.25M X 2.4M and extends to 3M) We sighed and put it outside in the shed thinking that it could go on our deck one day. (The deck comes after the house.) The new dining room works beautifully so I thought I would sort through all of our books and tidy up the bookshelves. (There are books behind the doors too.)

They look much better in this photo! This room was named 'The Semaphore Municipal Library', which worked when it was a sitting room. The kids think it's really funny having such a long name for a room. Of course, you can just call it the library, but where's the fun in that? Now that it's a dining room I think it should be called 'The Semaphore Municipal Library and Cafe', but there's a little resistance to that! Do you have names for your rooms? Crazy or otherwise?

My baby!

It's really quite strange when your baby grows a baby. This is Mrs 23 at 39 weeks. Of course she doesn't look like a baby and she hasn't been a baby for a long time. I think she is very excited and can't wait to meet her baby. She is due next weekend. She and her bloke are ready to go any day now!

Happy Birthday! (again)

Saturday June 14 is Miss 21's birthday. She turns 22 today. Two in a row! We have a couple of birthdays in a row at our house. It was quite stressful when I was pregnant with Miss 18, because Miss 22 really didn't want to share her birthday with the new baby! That makes her sound like a monster, but the year before on her 3rd birthday my sister gave birth to her first child. Miss 22 said she didn't mind sharing with her cousin, but didn't want to share with a brother or sister. The baby was due on the 11th of June and I felt quite confident that it would not be born on the 14th. On the 12th I started to get worried, but felt relief when I went into labour just before midnight that night. (It had never taken me longer than 12 hours to have a baby, so I was pretty sure that the baby would be born on the 13th.) So, while it's not great to have your birthday the day after your sibling, it's way better than sharing a birthday! Happy birthday Miss 22! We love you.

Happy Birthday!

Miss 17 turned 18 on Friday June 13. I took this photo today because she was out and out and out yesterday! Miss 18 is child number four in our family and Mrs 23 pointed out that half of our children are now legally adults. Wow! I feel old! It's not too bad because I quite like the adults they've become.

Shelves by Bradley

These are the shelves that Bradley made last week for the girls. They loved them so much and were so desperate for the storage that they decided on the 'mdf' look. (Couldn't wait for them to be painted!) Miss 16's shelf is above and Miss 18's is below. They are now sharing a room. Miss 16 has the pages of a novel (one of her favourites) on her wall. She managed to get one secondhand at a library sale, and since it was falling apart she felt that it was asking to be put up on her wall.

Miss 18 was inspired by the look and decided she would do the same thing on her wall. One of her nicknames is 'dictionary queen', so she decided her book would have to be a falling apart dictionary. (She loves reading and reads the dictionary for fun. I know, I have weird kids. Don't they say that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree?) Anyway, they now have shelves. Which is good because Miss 18 got five books for her birthday !

Homeschooling - covering all your bases.

Just incase you want to run away to the Circus your mother arranges Circus skill lessons for you at Cirkidz. You need something to fall back on and for this homeschooling family - it's the Circus! You get to Cirkidz and meet your trainer. He wears funny clothes and his hair is... well....... shall we just say, 'different'. But he looks somehow familiar, and you know you're going to really like him. Then he gets you to run around like a mad thing and you know for sure you're going to love it!

Well, that's kind of what it's like on Thursday mornings. When our older children were younger, and we were homeschooling them, we took them to a homeschool Cirkidz class. We enjoyed joking about the kids needing something to fall back on. They had great fun and learnt life skills like juggling, stilt walking and unicycle riding. Mostly it was a chance for them to hang out with homeschool friends. Very often we would go for a picnic or to someone's house to play afterwards. Some of the kids took it more seriously and formed their own Circus troupe and became trainers for Cirkidz. In fact, one of those kids now runs the homeschool Cirkidz class that I take our younger children to. We kind of thought that we should offer our younger children the same educational opportunities we gave the older kids. Afterall, everyone needs something to fall back on! They enjoy the Thursday morning class a lot. They started this term and will be finishing this term too. It is just so expensive! I don't remember feeling that the classes were expensive last time. Maybe it isn't the classes, maybe it's everything else. Food is so expensive and fuel keeps going up every week here. Anyway, I'm here to tell you that having the Circus as a backup is a lot less affordable than it was before! Hmm....... gotta go find another backup!

Blogging - be nice and make it pretty!

I am a 'big blog' addict. I love meetmeatmikes and mellyandme and leanneshouse and all sorts of others. I get so excited reading their blogs and looking at all their comments. I used to sigh a lot when reading them and wish I lived in Melbourne, cause then I could meet them all and be their best friend and talk crafty things to real people in real life. But then I would remember how much I like Adelaide and realise how crazy I am. So I started looking out for Adelaide bloggers and it turned out there's quite a lot of them! And they're cool! And they craft excellent stuff! And some of them will be at Hettie's Patch this Sunday (biggest morning tea) and it's getting exciting!

I have been reading Pip's blogging hints at www.meetmeatmikes.blogspot.com and I think my blog is due for a prettiness overhaul. I think I'm going to try some things out. Stay tuned!

Teeny, tiny nighties.

This is what the teeny, tiny nighties I'm working on this week look like. The flannelette is so soft! These are nighties two and three (number one escaped the house without being photographed). Some have buttons and buttonholes, and some have snaps.

This is a snap one. Wow! They are so quick and easy to do. I'm really loving our snap press purchase. So worth it. I'm thinking of taking a photo of the snap press to post here in order to memorialise it. Wonder where the camera is?

A long weekend

This is what Bradley spent his time doing today. On Saturday he made shelves for Misses 17 and 16 and a change table for Mrs 23. Today he made a new doorway into my laundry. The old doorway has yet to be closed in, but Brad will be working on it in his spare time this week. Don't you just love a handyman? I have been sewing. I have sewn tiny little nighties for the new grandchild, but haven't taken any photos yet. Soon.

Lego

It was a lego kind of day today. I love a lego kind of day! It's one of the great joys of homeschooling. Having the time to spend a whole day building, dreaming, imagining, creating and playing.

Busy!

I have been taking my camera with me everywhere this week, but haven't managed to
remember to take any photos! I love the photo of this tree!

I have been busy running around this week. Appointments. Physio, doctors, x-rays, school councellor, Cirkidz, bookshops, you know the type of thing! Tomorrow I hope to get back into my sewing room. Today the only thing I did that is anything remotely like sewing was to visit Hettie's Patch. It is such a pretty shop! Next time I rob a bank Hettie's Patch will be my next stop! Well, okay! I don't really rob banks. I guess I would just like to take a wad of cash to a fabric store and spend it! Strange goal, huh?

What I did yesterday.

Finished this hat. It's little. And it has no seams. I like that a lot. Hopefully it will fit the grandchild.
It's made from leftover Cleckheaton Country. Leftover from the rug I knitted. I love this colour.
Finished another nightie for Mrs 23. Flannelette is so soft and warm. I love sewing with it. More flannelette looms in my sewing future.

Rugs and other things.

I was thinking about the 'hello June' post from earlier. I do sew just about everyday. There seem to be so many things to sew, other than clothes. Like rugs for the new baby. Early in May Mrs 23's sewing machine had a health crisis (a breakdown, in fact!) and had to be at the fixit shop for ten days. She missed it so much. Not just 'oh no, I can't sew', but she was surprised at how much she repairs and quickly uses her machine for all sorts of bits and pieces. She wondered how people who don't have a sewing machine get by. I guess I'm the same. I frequently have repairs and alterations to make. Some kids need hems taken up (Miss 16, shortest girl) and some (Mr 19, tallest boy) need hems let down. All the kids seem to rip their clothes. Young ones rip clothes at the knees, but as they get older they outgrow this tendancy and rip their clothes in all sorts of places. And then some mother fixes the rips. I am also busy making bags and covers as part of my 'declutter the world and get organised' journey.

I make basket liners, cushion covers and I sew curtains too. I just love to sew!

It's June!

I know I've said it before, but this year is really racing away! It's June already. Almost half-way through the year. Time to take stock I think. I had all kinds of goals for 2008. Some of them you can see in my side bars.

1. Knit six items.
2. Sew 52 items of clothing.
3. Finish 6 quilts.

I'm cruising along with the knitting thing, as you can see. Thanks mainly to the promise of our first grandchild (due in three weeks!) which has inspired me to knit some small, achievable projects.

I'm way behind with my sewing goals. I should be up to garment number 22 to keep the clothing goal real. The idea behind this goal was that, being blessed to have a permanent sewing space, I should be able to sew an article of clothing each week without really trying. Perhaps it's the "without really trying" phrase that's letting me down! Perhaps I should begin trying! I have spent a lot of time sorting things, though, and my sewing supplies are more organised than they have been for years. I guess I decided sometime in February or March that I needed to get rid of some stuff that I was never really going to use. The resulting purge has been wonderful. It's such a relief to get rid of things! Especially things that have no home. This feeling has led me to embark on an organisational/purging binge of the whole house. Something which is going to take the rest of 2008 I think, but well worth the time I'm investing!

The quilting goal has gone by the by, but there's still hope! Now that I'm more organised I may get to the quilting.

This is a pictureless post, which doesn't happen very often here, but I was keen to assess my progress. More photos soon!

Another Beret

Miss 11 liked Miss 16's beret so much she requested one for herself. I used a different yarn for this one. A New Zealand yarn. I can't remember the name of it now! I don't like it as much as the Cleckheaton Country. It's okay. It was cheaper, hence the difference I guess.

I finished this beret on Friday afternoon. It took me longer to knit than the first one, I think I was sick of the pattern with the second one.