2011, The Year That Was in Pictures (and words).

In March I flew to Sydney for Sew it Together.  It was the most fun you can have with a group of friends catching up, laughing and shopping together! Blogged here and here.

In May both children were Christened at our local small Church.  I made my first fruit cake to mark the occasion and it looked pretty good to me, there was much patting myself on the back here. 

Blogged here, here and here.

We flew to Sydney to be on SBS Insight. the subject was the ethics of eating meat.  I was there to represent farmers.  I have not watched it as I fear I will think I look or sound silly on national tv and I won't like it.  Ignorance is bliss?  Blogged here and here.

I went to craft camp with friends too and managed to finish a quilt top.  

I STILL have not finished quilting it!

I had an early mid-life crises and enrolled at UNE.  

I am doing well so far and enjoying the subject matter greatly.

There was The Flood.  It came too close to the house for comfort.  We still have fences down that need repair, we have it book marked to fix in the next week or so.

We tripped about camping at Mt. Kaputar, Lightning Ridge, Bourke, Canberra Zoo, and had a day at the snow too.

There was also the usual small farm stuff, and family stuff too.  It was a busy year, but a very good one.

I hope 2012 is just as good, or better for everyone.

Finished, mostly.

I LOVE this quilt that I have been working on as a part of the medallion quilt-a-long..  I have loved watching it grow each month with each new round built around the centre medallion.  Triangles, squares, appliqué, circles.  I wish I had just a little bit more fabric for the final round which will be announced soon, but my layer cake will only stretch so far so I have to call it quits with this round instead. 

It is quite large which makes it hard to get a good photo of the whole thing.  I have my backing fabric ready, and I had said I would make a pieced back, but in the name of keeping it simple I may change my mind.  

I didn't really blog these when I made them, Possum's Christmas dress and Blue's Christmas shirt.  They have been worn for Christmas and the Santa photo and I am pretty happy with them.  The dress is a Make it Perfect cupcake dress that I whipped up the day we decided to head to town to visit Santa.  I love a quick project and so does Possum as she said 'wow, you finished something on the same day you started it', not my usual style for sewing!

I also finished a couple of very quick knits, both dishcloths.
I don't feel like I have been very crafty of late, but a few projects have been completed which feels good.  I just have to quilt the medallion quilt and I will be happy.

Christmas Day

Merry Christmas.

We slept in and then had a nice morning opening presents, eating breakfast, and opening more presents.

It took us two hours to assemble the 13' round trampoline and enclosure, but the children played with other fun things while we did it.   They have been out there jumping for hours.  I have only had to kick the dog off once so far.

We had a lovely roast lunch and once again I ate too much trifle.  In a lot of ways, this Christmas was much the same as last year's Christmas.

Possum took this photo of us today with the camera she received for her recent 4th birthday.  Don't you love  silly grins, bon bon hats and jokes?

Q. What did the calculator say to the accountant?

A. You can count on me.

Q. What insect is musical?

A. A humbug.

Q. Who invented King Arthur's round table?

A. Sir Cumference.

Q. What do lawyers wear to court?

A. Lawsuits.

Quilt Stuff

My medallion quilt-a-long efforts are slowly taking shape.  

Round three was appliqué.  I have left blank corner squares to appliqué a small shape taken from the centre medallion.  I will do this as soon as I work out what fabric I have left over, I am running low on options right now; I have started the next round (circles!) but don't think I will have enough fabric to do the final round which is yet to be announced.  It won't matter, this quilt is already large and I love it!

I will show off the circle round as soon as I finish it, won't be long now.

The Pantone colour of the year was announced as 'Tangerine Tango'.  I can't say I have any tangerine in my stash so when I noticed the Tangarine Tango Quilt Challenge pop up on Flickr I thought it would be a good chance to jump out of my comfort zone and embrace a new colour.  I have a Tangerine and Green themed Fabricworm order on it's way as we speak ready for the start of this challenge in the New Year.

I say, I hear

Blue on eating a biscuit shape: 'It's a pentagon' 

It was a hexagon actually, but he was close.

Blue after seeing a picture of the Veggietales:

'It is a vegemite!'

Possum: 'I am not octurnital because I like to sleep at night'.

Possum: 'The vomitable snowman should not eat reindeer'

Possum on her flower shop game: 'I need more custmeters'.
(customers)

Possum: 'We caught wombles'
ok, she really meant to say 'cooked rum balls' but the Mr and I both heard wombles...

Possum on her 4th birthday: '..and next year I will be five!'
Looking forward, a full 12 months forward.

2011 Santa Photo!

Merry Christmas!

Santa Photos past can be seen here.  They are worth a look too if you feel like a laugh, at least I remembered to smile (kind of) this year.

{Four}

Happy fourth birthday Possum.  

There is no denying that you are smart, and kind and beautiful.  There is also no denying you like to try to rule the house.  You are so clever that I sometimes feel that even at four, you get the best of me.

You love a joke, and you love to tell stories about everything.  You are almost never silent.  You love craft, and are getting very good at drawing.  You can read some words now and you are good at writing your name.  It won't be long and you will be reading simple books yourself.

For the past couple of months you have had an imaginary friend 'Lucy'. You tell me she is 5 and knows a lot about almost everything.  You love Pre-school, Playgroup, music lessons and Little Athletics and swimming lessons; sometimes Lucy comes along too.

Your favourite colour is red, you think this makes it a girl colour and that you own everything if it happens to be red, even if it is your brothers balloon.  You still love Charlie and Lola, but now we can add The Octonauts to the list of preferred TV viewing.  You don't have any one favourite book, you just love reading and don't mind which book it is being read at any given time.

May this year be as good as the ones we have shared so far.

We love you.

x

Sunday Stash, the Road Trip edition

 

Denyse Schmidt. Salty Aire. 

Michael Miller Ta Dot on the left.

Amy Butler on the right.

Heather Bailey on top.

I don't know what this is, it was in the random FQ box.  Any idea?

Because there was a road trip, there was also laughter, cheesecake, coffee, friends and more laughter.  Shame I don't have any photos of that stuff, the fabric shopping was nice, but the day out was the best part :)

Random Moments from my Phone

Waiting to catch her fist train in Sydney.

Same gum tree in each photo, shows how much water there was here last month. Both of these photos were snapped from the house.  Too close for comfort.

Before all the rain.  Even dry, I love where we live.  

The road home from big town is dusty (or muddy) and bumpy but a nice 45 minute drive with a great view.

Best Playgroup ever!

We have a great local library, both kids love it.

Oops. We don't always get it right, but don't often post the photos of the bungles...

K mart wishing tree.  Great cause, and this year Possum got the concept and had fun picking a gift to give to someone else.  Blue, not so much, yet.

Early Childhood Music

Today the children had their last day of early childhood music classes.  Next year Possum moves into group piano. Blue will have some time off, I feel guilty about this, but he is going through a 'no' stage.  It is tiring.  I am telling myself that a part of being a good parent is providing as many opportunities as you can, but also in knowing when your child is not ready.  Blue has enjoyed it, but he started younger than Possum so he still has time to take 12 months off and then start again at pre-school age.

excuse the dodgy editing of names on the certificates

I cannot say enough good things about early childhood music programmes.  They are wonderful and the children have fun while learning in an interactive environment.  It helps that we have a wonderful teacher here, the children love her.  

We bought Brookie a cabaza as a thank you/Christmas gift.  She uses a lot of different instruments and sounds in her early childhood music classes so we thought this might be a useful addition.  Possum is booked in for a theatre workshop at the Conservatorium in the New Year.  She can't wait!

A very bad photo of Possum's class

Letters to Santa

I have been a bit slack in Blogging our Advent activities, but we have been doing various things.  We wrote letters to Santa via Australia Post.  We printed off the letter template to colour in and then I posted* them off.

Possum was a little worried when I couldn't read hers, but thankfully Santa is a little more magical than I am and I am sure he will manage well enough.

And now we await a reply!

*I really wanted to keep these, but thought it might raise too many questions :(

Busy

You know you are busy when you draw your Blogtoberfest give away, and then forget to email the very nice person who won to tell them.  And when you finally remember last week you email and beg forgiveness and pretend that it was always meant to be a Christmas gift, even if it wasn't.

And then you forget to post it again... I may need a new excuse, or maybe I should tie a piece of sting around my finger? I am so SORRY for being this *hopeless!

And I have had great things happen that would be well worth blogging, if I wasn't too busy for blogging:

• I had a birthday
• I got two Credits and a High Distinction for last semesters uni results. Yay!
• I read a whole book, and it was fiction 
• We went bouldering
• There was a road trip with friends
• Gifts sent, and received

One of these days it will stop raining and I will take photos of things to blog.  I might also remember to go to the post office...

*Can someone please remind me at the end of the week in case I forget again?

Santa

Santa came to Playgroup today.  When he walked in Possum made a hasty retreat out the back door and hid around the corner.  We talked her out, once we found her.  

When asked if he wanted to say hello to Santa, Blue replied with "No thank you".  He is polite, even in his fear.  He did say "Thank you" to Santa when he was given lollies, even if he did avoid making eye contact.  I tried for a photo, but the tears started so I didn't push it.

Possum did warm to Santa and even moved in for a photo.  

She is so brave, especially when lollies are on offer! 

And then Santa and his helper jumped in the sled and drove off, complete with carols playing.  I love that we live in the kind of town where it is still ok that Santa jumps in the back of a trailer and drives off down the road while waving.