Yep that's Dave Grohl - really, it is!

While I was in fingal I made this amazing discovery that through the magic of bluetooth I could get pictures from my phone to my laptop, so I thought I would share these rather dodgy pics of Dave that I took on my mobile at the foo fighters show in May.

We were a bit late getting to the show, so by the time we got our beers it was just starting, so we decided to hang up the back and finish our beers before trying to get a bit closer. Unbeknownst to us, there was actually a whole second stage up the back and just as we were finishing the beers, the stage came down from the roof and Dave and all the band were right in front of us. It was sooooo cool, I think Brad got a bit sick of me raving like a starstruck teenager "f**k, OMG, wooooo that is Dave Grohl, like RIGHT there" etc etc hey I was excited, it's been a while since I got out ;)

Jen from Nappycino got way better pics than I did when she went the night before, but I am still happy to have these memories of a great night, was a brilliant show, love, love, loved it.

Patrick and Maia the little funksters also shared our enthusiasm for the fooeys, the whole way home from Sydney (and ever since actually), ABC kids CD's have got the arse and they have fought over the CD player and which foo fighters song should be on, Maia quite likes the pretender and generator, Patrick's current favourites are stacked actors (he calles it stacked in a tractor rofl) and long road to run. Patrick's next money saving mission is for an electric guitar and one of their favourite games to play at the moment is 'bands' where they get out the drums, ukelele, tamborine and shakers, plus the microphone that comes with the karoke cd player they got for Christmas.

xx

My Nephew Jack awwww

At long last, my little sis has sent me lots of photos of my nephew Jack who is growing up sooooo fast! I can't wait until I meet him in September, I get to go on a giant trip and on of the stops is to his naming ceremony, yay!!!! There are lots of pics (sorry if you're on dial up), including some of him in his fluffy stash and some of his very proud and beautiful big sister too. He looks so much like Patrick did when he was a baby, I can't wait for cuddles :D

Small snap in ib

medium sewn in ib

More of Patrick the entrepreneur

I found these pics on the memory card when looking for something else and I realised that I hadn't put them up, silly me! After seeing the stand at the expo in sydney, Patrick was desperate to have his own stand doing something and he decided that he wanted to sell lemonade. Not sure if that is because of too much curious george, or whether he had seen it somewhere else, but we were more than happy to help with his endeavours - it was a perfect way to use up a bumper crop of lemons too :)

We live on a main'ish road (well as main as you can get in the country), opposite a petrol station, so had lots of passer's by to flag down with the 'waving broom', Patrick was quite the salesman too, calling out to nearly every car that pulled into the servo LOL! He did really well out of it, making about $25 in the end, the perfect amount of $$ to get his precious orange bike off layby, which he was very stoked about!! I'll have to get a pic of him riding, he got the hang of it without training wheels almost straight away and LOVES riding.

xx

This is why I will leave softie making to the experts ;)

Maia's only request for her birthday was that she wanted a cat, not any old cat, it had to be a black one. Since we are renting, a cat was not an option, so I decided to make her a softie cat, thinking it would be a piece of cake, but I was just a little wrong.

First I thought I could draw my own pattern and just make up a cat, but my few dodgy attempts had me searching out a pattern online instead - I did want it to actually end up looking somewhat cat-like afterall. I didn't really find anything I liked, so ended up using a pattern for a door-stop that is supposed to be filled with beans/rice etc.

The face was supposed to be painted on, but in true Sue style, I didn't actually start the cat making until 10pm the night before Maia's birthday and I didn't have any fabric paints, so improvised with sewing the face on.

I managed to get it done and wrapped up, but my sewing on of the head led a little to be desired and we had a headless cat within half an hour of the present being opened, so the cat had to go back into surgery.

I finally managed to give 'black cat' it's head back on operation while I was at fingal, Maia was delighted to have her cat back and it is now competing with fairy maia for top spot on the bed. She has named her new precious 'frenny' and she loves it very much, so will probably forgive her mama for being a dodgy softie maker ;)

How lucky am I???

Not just one holiday, but two!! I was supposed to stay up at fingal for a week, but I had to cut it short due to work commitments so only stayed for 5 days. The beautiful Vanessa came up with a great plan, that I should go back home, do what needed to be done for work, then bring the kids back up for the weekend - who am I to argue with such a brilliant idea? I'm so glad I did, the kids had a brilliant time on Saturday, it was so great to watch them all playing so happily!

Patrick, Maia, Logan and Fletcher had a ball at the beach, digging a huge hole big enough for them all to play in, then we all went on an adventure walk through the 'jungle' then went to the rockpools for more fun and play. It's so beautiful watching kids have such a great time :) Fingal is definately one of my most favourite places to go - I love it there so much :D

Earlier in the week, I actually had my camera handy to catch some of the frivolity, all the kids were playing with their mop horses, seeing who's horse could reach the highest and eat the most leaves. Poor Toby though, it's all fun and games until a horse mop tries to eat you ;)

Of course I am feeling even more relaxed now if that is possible, thank you so much Vanessa and Stu!! xx

Relaxed and Refreshed :)

Well our little break at fingal did me the world of good, I am feeling sooooo relaxed, even though I know there is a mountain of stress ahead of me, I feel like I will be able to handle it without the 'omg I am going to have a heart attack at 34' sensation that came over me before Brisbane.


The kids had a brilliant time too, they LOVED playing with Logan, Toby and Fletcher and I loved all the lovely cuddles with princess Elliana :) Patrick was gutted that we didn't climb to the top of Mt Tomaree though, we got half way up and Maia wanted to be carried and I didn't have the ERGO, plus it was raining, so I abandoned the idea. I did go by myself the next day though and how pretty is the view from the top! No wonder I feel so relaxed there, it really is like you are away from the world, even though it's only an hour away.

I didn't have any problems being bored for the two days on my own, plenty of trashy mags, wine, long leisurely walks, chats with ness and yummy food kept me quite contented. I didn't end up having internet access, which was probably a good thing, as it meant I couldn't do work even if I wanted to, so it was a truely relaxing work free break, yay!

I didn't end up taking my sewing machine in the end, so didn't get too many things finished, I did get started on a scarf for Patrick, hopefully I can finish that before the end of winter ;) and I finally finished up maia's black cat softie, which I'll put a pic up of later. Don't think I will be getting into the softie game any time soon haha

I am still waiting for the situation with Brad to hit me, at first I thought it would be after he moved out, then I thought it would be when I got to fingal, then perhaps it would hit me when I was on my own, but I am still feeling rather numb about it all. Not sure whether I am just a cold hearted biatch, or whether it's been over for such a long time already without us realising that I've been sub-conciously processing the feelings of us splitting for months now, or what is going on. Brad thinks it is because we have never really deeply connected, and whether I ever was truly in love with him, which is a bit sad considering we have spent the last 11 years together. Maybe it will hit me later when I least expect it, but I managed to drink a whole bottle of wine to myself one night while I was away, and I although I felt very reflective and managed to write 7 pages of thoughts and feelings about the situation in my journal, I wasn't crying myself to sleep or anything like that. Who knows what is going on.....

anyway hi ho hi ho, it's off to work I go xx

Basketweave Headbands

I saw on Eilleen's blog yesterday about doing national blog posting month - doing a post every day for July and since I have been a blogging slacker these last few months, I thought I would kind of play along too even thoough I missed the first couple of days, it's something to keep me distracted from all the crazy goings on around me and motivate me to put some pics of my creations up :) The theme this month is food, so I will try to focus a little on that, but I will be doing well to do a post a day about anything - my life just ain't that exciting, so the food posts may be a little lean ;)

I've been meaning to put pics of this up for a while. A basketweave headband is the perfect way to tame a wild boy's hair ROFL. Patrick's teacher was concerned about his long hair getting in his eyes, but there was NO WAY Patrick was going to have a hair cut and I didn't want to force him, so suggested if he didn't want it cut, then he would have to wear a hairband instead. He thought that was a brilliant idea and chose hot pink wool from my wooly stash LOL. I was going to say no, cos a bright pink hairband on a boy with long hair is just a little too girly - even for me, but hey, who am I to tell him that he can't wear a pink hairband just because he's a boy! Lucky his friends at school think it is pretty cool too, so he hasn't copped any flack or anything, plus his teacher reckons she noticed a BIG difference in his behaviour and attention with his hair out of his eyes, so I'm happy with that :) Today he was a bit hairband obsessed and had two in - me thinks his hair is getting a bit tooooo long, but Patrick disagrees ;)


This pattern is sooo easy, I found it on ravelry, somewhere else I have been MIA from for a little while :( http://carissaknits.blogspot.com/2007/06/basketweave-headband.html is the link. It is the perfect way to finish up little odds and ends of wool left over from other projects. I must admit, when I was making one of these, I felt like the biggest nana in the whole world, I was knitting on the way to the foo fighters ROFL. I never thought I would have considered Dave Grohl knitting music, but hey, this is funky knitting! I'm embracing my inner nana and proud of it :D

my procrastinating sunday afternoon

I have a massive pile of emails to get through for work, but I have been working on it since 9.30am and slowly loosing motivation, so thought I would take a break to refresh and share a funny moment of kiddie toilet humour.

Maia was sitting on the toilet the other day (yes it finally looks like the toilet training is a go-er yee bloody ha!) She did her thing, then jumped off, looking in the toilet and with utter delight turned to me and went "look mummy!!!!! it's a swimming nugget!" maybe it's one of those had to be there things, but it is still making me chuckle now - my immature side coming out rofl

The other funny moment was Patrick telling me that honey is actually the logs from bees but we are really lucky that their logs taste so sweet and yummy. He then proceeded to tell me how wonderful the world would be if we could scoop our logs out of the toilet and eat them if they tasted like honey - eeeeewwwwww! His mind cracks me up sometimes.

Sorry if you're eating, I'm in a weird mood today ;)

xx

Some softies for Jack

My little nephew Jack was born 8 weeks ago now - wow that has flown, I'm sure for Vicky more than me! Sadly he is in the UK so I haven't met him yet - hopefully my little sis will stop being so slack and send me some more pics - especially some in his pretty nappies pleeeeease bro ;)


Of course I sent over lots of presents and he has an enviable stash of fluffy nappies, one of the presents was extra special, some softies made with help from Patrick (and a teeny bit of Maia help too).



It was my first go at making softies which is why they look a little bit dodgy lol. They are from a pattern in the Ottobre magazine - winter 08 I think, and I used some of my plentiful pile of minkee scraps to make them.


Hopefully Jack loves them :)

Megsie Rocks!!!!

I am very embarrassed how long it has taken me to post pictures of this AMAZING creation from the superbly talented megsie, have been just a little pre-occupied over the last six weeks or so :( but finally here are the pics!

I am so incredibly blessed to have people that want to trade stuff with me, especially when it is something as wonderful as this!

Megsie made a super special Maia pint AND a pint softie!! It came just in time for Maia's 3rd birthday and as you can imagine she is in LOVE with it. 'Fairy Maia' goes everywhere with Maia, and for the first few days she did not want to take her fairy maia dress off, and even went back to wearing bibs so she didn't spill anything on her precious dress, awwwww. Megsie has managed to get a perfect Maia likeness don't you think? Maia always asks for 'fairy maia' hair now instead of pigtails, it is her current favourite hairstyle, she even lets me brush it to get it up!

Thank you so so much Megsie, you are amazing and I am in total awe of your talent and sooooooooo lucky you wanted to trade with me, I'm not much of a hyena, so don't think I would ever have much chance of getting one of these most popular softies in the whole world.