Blogtober 16th: on working with children.

Finally, a wrap up of the items I completed in the KCWC.

I wanted to get some great modeled shots of the kids' new clothes, but working with children... yeah well we all know how that saying goes...

Mr-O tells me this is the best way to look at his new pants. By looking at the cool green fabric through the light of the window.

I was able to get him away from the window for a second before he went back...

Miss-R LOVES her new skirt, and as soon as she put it on, she ran out to the back garden to complete a very important test...

The twirl test... and it passed with flying colours.

Maybe one day soon I can get some great modeled shots for this blog, but for now, we can just see the clothes being enjoyed. That's all I wanted.

Are your kids unwilling models too?

Do your daughter's insist on checking the twirl factor on every skirt or dress?

Are you keeping up with Blogtoberfest?

Blogtober 4th: my creative space

This week I have been working on making a coffee date dress. I did finish off my dress yesterday but it is too small in the bust ever so slightly so I need to let it out a touch. I have it sitting in my cupboard anyway though.

I'm following with the rules and all of the fabric came out of my stash. I didn't have enough to make a ruffle for the front but I think it looks good as it is.

And I spent some time thinking and remembered how to do a blind hem on my machine.

Now to just figure out how I am going to fix my bodice and I will have a lovely frock for spring and summer. And also modeled photos to show off!!

Have you done any creating this week?

Head over and check out some other spaces over here...

Blogtober the 2nd: thumbs out again

I've mentioned before about the colour of my thumbs. I am far from a good gardener, and until recently I have left the majority of the gardening around here to the MR. 

I am starting to take more of an interest in the state of our garden now. Is it that I have more time on my hands? Is it that I want to teach my kids how to look after the earth? Is it that I am sick of seeing my ugly garden?

Probably a bit of each basket to be honest. 

I love getting out in the sunshine and pottering away doing some work in the garden. Mr-O and I tend to garden on Tuesday mornings but today was immunisation day for my big brave 4yo boy, so we saved the gardening til this afternoon.

We moved some of our seedlings into the garden bed because they were ready. I had my camera on hand too to take lots of photos. Mr-O had his with him as well because let's just face it, Mum is awesome and everyone wants to be like her especially this boy.

We did some watering.

We even watered the fence. Very important for optimal fence growth.

We also checked on the growth of our seeds. Some more will be ready to go into the garden soon. We now have some beetroot, some beans and some peas all in the garden bed. We are waiting on our tomatoes and watermelon to be ready to go in too.

It is nice to see green things growing in our garden after a long period of nothing but weeds and dirt.

I also made the decision to attack this today. This is the pathway that leads from our laundry to our clothesline and I NEVER use it. The trees are overgrown, there are dead leaves and spiderwebs everywhere and I am terrified of getting eaten by a spider. I have been asking the MR for a while now to cut it back as he usually does it for me so I am not attacked by any Amy-eating spiders. I made the decision to do it myself today (OH yeah sisters!)

There was a lot of grunting to try to get through branches with my cutters and I had to brave the spiderwebs with my outdoor broom which is the longest cleaning instrument I could find. And then there was the sweeping... gee there was lots of old dead leaves on that ground!! But two bags of green waste later I had this..

No spiderwebs, only a few branches that I simply could not cut with my cutters and a beautiful clean path. I can use this pathway now! All I need for perfection is one of those laundry trolleys so I can get rid of the old kids table sitting at the clothes line for me to sit baskets on so I don't have to try to bend right down to the ground (quite difficult with metal rods in your back I have found).

What are you up to today?

Do you have gardening rituals like us?

Are there dark paths at your place that you simply don't use because of the spiders?

Head over here to see what Blogtoberfest is all about...

adventuring

Saturday turned out to be a beautiful day here in Melbourne. So after calisthenics photo morning finished up for Miss-R we packed a picnic and headed out to Werribee Open Range Zoo for an afternoon in the sunshine and fresh air.

I love that the zoos here in Melbourne are all about promoting animal conservation and fighting extinction rather than just putting animals in cages for people to stare at. This teaches our kids to value the animals that we have and look after them for the future. They even have a project where you can recycle your old mobile phones to help save the gorillas. A good idea for all of you who have just upgraded to the iphone5!! I have a few envelopes around here that I intend to fill. It gets rid of all those old mobile phones laying around too!!

We enjoyed eating our picnic lunch out on the grass and the kids loved the fact that there were lots of other kids willing to play with them. Apparently everyone else had the same idea as us and the carpark was actually full when we got there. The zoo staff are wonderful though and were parking cars in a field close by. Even though there were lots of people at the zoo, it didn't seem crowded which meant I wasn't stressed out all afternoon about losing the kids.

We went on a safari after lunch. For those who haven't been to Werribee Zoo, they have all of the animals in BIG enclosures sorted by their country, so there's an arabic enclosure, an african enclosure etc. This is included in your ticket price and they book you in at the gate making it very family friendly, no massive pushy lines and no extra money to fork out for safari bus tickets.

Miss-R noticed as we were going through past the giraffes that one of them was licking his nostril. She tells me that this is because he has no fingers to get out the boogers. (SO CUTE!!)

There are a lot of endangered animals at the zoo and the zoo does have lots of breeding programs to try to build up their numbers which is great.

The zoo also has an area set up called the village dance party. There's a big screen, music, dancing and pots and pans to play. This was lots of fun for the kids after our safari. 

We also got to look for dinosaur bones.

All in all, it was a great afternoon out and with the zoo not being far from our house it wasn't a long drive and I am considering becoming a member of the zoo so that I can take them more often not only to Werribee zoo, but also the others around Victoria.

Do you like to go to the zoo?
What is your favourite animal to visit?

midweek musings

When I step outside my house at the moment, I smell Spring and it is beautiful.

Spring time makes me think of New life. Promises. Warmth. 

We go for our morning walk and we smell flowers growing and freshly cut grass. We hear birds chirping and frogs singing to each other. We see our noses all red from the crisp air as it is still quite cool here when the sun is behind clouds.

We go for a drive and a few streets away we can see the baby lambs in the fields.

I go out in our back yard and I see that the trees are growing new shoots.

New flowers are growing on the branches too.

Our beetroot is also getting bigger and should be ready to move into the garden bed in the next few days.

Springtime makes me think about how grateful I am for the four seasons that we have. After the cold, fruitless winter, comes the spring, the promise of new things to come. The promise of growth. The promise that it wont stay cold forever.

We're still wearing our jumpers and track pants, but Spring brings the promise that soon we will swap our boots for thongs and our jumpers for singlets. For now I am enjoying the smells and sounds and sights of the beautiful season that is upon us. I am enjoying the promise of the growth and fruitfulness that is to come.

What is your favorite thing about Springtime?

on the colour of my thumbs

 
I have never in my life been much of a green thumb. Despite this, Tuesday morning is quickly becoming gardening time at our place. Mr-O and I like to get out in the sunshine with the dirt and worms and pull up the weeds, plant seeds and tend to our garden. I'm actually enjoying it too!

I am making plans to make our garden beautiful. Ways that I can use the small amount of suburban backyard we have effectively and beautifully and yet still leave room for playing. To give a mental image, our backyard is not big enough for a trampoline or a swing set, but it makes a marvelous cricket pitch!

During winter we planted a veggie patch. Growing and eating our own home grown veggies, as few as there were, was really good for the kids as they knew that they had grown them themselves, they made it! But this was our first instance of trying to grow veggies, and we have a lot to learn and a lot of improvements to make. For instance about the quality of our soil, the soil on our block is very hard and generally quite awful. The front yard somewhat resembles concrete, even though I know there's none in there!

I now can see lots of worms in our garden bed as I dig in it which makes me excited about our soil improving.This has inspired me to keep it up and last week we had a bit of a seed planting day at our place.

This morning we went out and had a look at our seedling pots and some of the seedlings are starting to sprout and in a few weeks they will be ready to go into the garden which will be really exciting.

Mr-O and I are really excited about making a really awesome veggie patch this season. We are all really looking forward to eating our own veggies again.

Do you have a veggie patch?
What colour are your thumbs?

The Little Things

My little man has been quite unwell the last few days with yet another ear infection. Sometimes when you're out of sorts, all you need is some sunshine, Some warm weather, some hugs and of course a run over a bridge.

Well it cheered him up anyway :-) It was such a beautiful day today, we took the time to spend lots of it outside getting some vitamin D.

I hope your week has started with beautiful weather too, wherever you are.