"I can only imagine"

JoJo sent me the link to this video (Tusen takk!!!!), and I must admit that it made the tears roll. What an amazing father/son team. Watch the movie and be inspired!

"Aussie All Over" - almost over....

"Hide and seek" block

This is the possum mother playing hide and seek with her offspring, and there are 5 possum babies hiding in various other blocks on the quilt.
I finished quilting this block and adding the beads for embellishment and will now start quilting the border. Since the thought of doing more of these tiny stabbing stitches makes me want to go bang my head against something hard, I will do a running stitch in cotton perle on the border.

Mindquest

Doodlebug spent yesterday and today at Mindquest, learning about how the Earth works - tectonic plates, volcanoes, formation of mountains etc. They built their own plaster models of a volcano and here is a demonstration:

Life according to Little Possum

I am really going to miss my little companion once she starts school. She is a little chatterbox, and I love her view on life, the world etc. - good thing, because she shares it freely, all the time.... :)

LP on pickles:

She asked me to remove the pickle from her McD cheeseburger. When I pulled it out she said "It's the pickle of doooooom!"

LP on mud:

While making mud from builder's sand in the preschool : "I'm having a glorious time!"

LP on bouncing :

She had a great bounce around on our bed one morning, then she flopped down on her back and said "Aaaaaaahhh, that was really refreshing!"

LP's manners:

"Mum, could you possibly make me a sandwich with three slices, triple lot Nutella and the top crust cut off and bring it to me, because after walking to the toy room, my legs are going to be really tired....."

This is just a selection of the little things that have amused me this week.

My new project

I succumbed to temptation..... But, I think that I can justify a new project because by the end of October I will have completed 3 UFO's. So I have signed up for a quilt by 'Hatched and Patched'

through Honeysuckle Cottage . The first bundle should arrive today, so it's tempting to camp out in the garden to wait for the Postie.

Thanks to Kim for letting me use the image from the HC website.

The Real Neils

Rock on, Johannes!!!

For those of you completely out of the loop 'The Real Neils' is a world famous Neil Diamond tribute band from Norway.


just kidding .....(sorry, Johannes... I couldn't resist) actually it's Neil Young...... )

A bit late now, but.....

Just did another one of those quizzes.... thought I should find out what I should have studied.

	Your major should be Engineering. Logic is your friend. With enough work, you can find a solution to anything... Unless it involves dating or parties.
So....... not nurturing and caring through nursing then.......... I still get to use my engineering skills in my day to day life, constructing Lego, repairing toys, building train tracks etc.

Random music... again

I love my music collection, and I wish there was more time in the day to just sit down and listen to music. I should spend more time playing it, too.... My poor clarinet is terribly neglected. I did try to start practising regularly, but Little Possum told me to "stop the noise"..... I don't know if this was a reflection on my abilities or the scales themselves. Scales are bad enough for the one practising them.... must be mind numbing to listen to over and over again for an unwilling audience! Apropos music... Oliver Sacks has a new book out - "Musicophilia". I love his writings on various obscure (and some not so obscure) neurological disorders, so I can't wait to get my hands on this book.

Here's my "random shuffle" list for today:
1. ABBA - "Take a chance on me" (Sing out loud kind of music!)
2. Crowded House "How will you go?" (one of my favourite bands - can't beat the Chocolate Cake song, though!)
3. Jann Arden - "Good mother" (I bought this album in Venice Beach, California... lots of associations)
4. Delibes - "Flower Duet" from Lakme (was ruined for me forever after British Airways started using it for their ad campaign...)
5. Neil Young " Change your mind" (One of my favourite ever artists!)
6. Mike Oldfield- "Sunset door" (chill out music - the music video for Tubular Bells is amazing too!)
7. Massive Attack - "Eurochild" (this one is one of the darker elements in the collection)
8. Sheryl Crow - "The Na Na Song" (1994 - The Year of Living Dangerously (not) in Hertfordshire)
9. Steely Dan "The Fez" (Steely Dan takes me back to high school .... a few short years ago obviously)
10. Us3 - "Cantaloop" (very funky remix of Cantaloupe Island by Herbie Hancock... good song for housework....)

tralalala

Our Little Possum had her Kindy Orientation Day today and she had a great time! She is so ready for school, and I can't stop thinking about her as my little baby. Time truly flies when you're having fun (or when you're incredibly busy.....). While the girl herself was in class, I visited the uniform shop. LP was so excited to have a uniform she tried it straight away, and I think I will have a hard time persuading her to take it off ever again! We have to go back to school for further assessment for the streaming since she already has some reading/writing/number skills. LP herself is more than happy about this, she'd start Big School tomorrow if allowed.

Aussie All Over quilt - Quilt Show block is done!

I really wish I had sent this off for quilting instead of handquilting it, because it's taking forever..... and I'm still very much an amateur. But at the same time it is very satisfying to know that with the exception of putting the blocks together, it is all handsewn and for better or worse, it's all my own work. The kids have given up on my ever completing this as it has been a WIP/UFO for 3 years now. However, the light is at the end of the tunnel and I only have 4 more blocks to complete, and then I need to figure out what to do with the border.

New Look

Thanks JoJo for sending me the dandelion image and giving me some tips on how to alter the header!

Let's play crash test dummies!......

This is the kids' latest craze...... their own little racetrack down the side of the house. This time the Doodlebug decided to make a crash barrier at the bottom. (What does it say about my parenting skills that I am letting them do this?)

No children or animals were harmed in the making of this movie...

"Leanne's House" is UFO no more!!!!

it feels sooooo good to have finished this! I loved making this quilt, it had all the ingredients of many happy crafting moments - embroidery, applique and patchwork. It was my first quilt involving triangles, so I was on a bit of a learning curve.

Leanne Beasley has just completed another design which will be released as a BOM from Honeysuckle Cottage in November - just a few short weeks away (from the glass-half-full perspective)! I calculate that I will be able to complete my next WIP/UFo by then, so I will be ready!!

I love Lego!!

Lego was a favourite of my childhood. I had a big crate full of blocks under my bed , and I'd let my imagination roam building cities, cars, planes etc. Of course, my Lego was in the old days when all the blocks were, well, blocks.... Windows, doors and roof tiles were exciting and all our creations had lots of edges. It is so exciting to have a good excuse to play with Lego again!! Lego is very popular with my kids now. The boys tend to build Star Wars inspired space craft and bases like these ones below:

Last day of the holiday

And term 4 is about to start. But we've had some fun this holiday - lots of parks, lots of Lego building, lots of leisurely mornings without the rush to get ready for school. And now we brace ourselves for the last innings of the school year.

A rare photo opportunity where all 3 kids were in the same place at the same time in the park...

Meet Tommy....

This is Tommy Rex, T-Rex for short. He arrived in the household as Turtle's birthday present specially chosen by Peter. He had been very drawn to the Lego kit with the USB interfacing at first (he is a geek after all) but settled on this kit with a squillion Lego pieces including some high tech motor/gears/soundbox pieces and remote control. TRex was lovingly assembled over 3 hours today by some excellent family teamwork... (i.e. Peter and myself with a little help from the boys and running commentary by Little Possum). Now we have a moving, grooving, roaring, glow in the dark lego dinosaur. Cool.

5 good reasons to eat chocolate

Now you see them.....

Now you don't........



Every once in a while Peter surprises me with a special treat, like these chocolates from Jeff de Bruges that appeared from out of his daypack yesterday evening.... There were originally more chocs than in the photo above, but I naturally had to have a little taster last night! Of course the obvious question arises - how come there were any left over this morning? The answer is simple... The chocolates appeared after I had already had a dessert of chocolate mud cake and vanilla icecream..

Along with the chocolates came an endlessly useful little leaflet containing photos of the whole JdB range, as well as
"Jeff de Bruges' 7 good reasons for eating chocolate":

1.It's good for your health
2.It brings you back to your youth
3.It helps fight the blues
4.It's a source of energy
5 It fights stress
6 It's a symbol of sensual pleasure
7.Just for the sheer pleasure

So, according to my calculations, another kilo of these delights will turn me into a joyful, energetic teenager again..... Now where's that web address - I could order right now..... I'll be back later......

new identity........

I decided to give the blog a makeover.... first step is to rename the blog. I am working on the something a little more creative for the header so watch this space!

"Can I have another piece of... chocolate cake"

is my favourite Crowded House song..... truly inspired!
The Turtle and I made a chocolate mud cake today. He takes after his mother and is a chocolate fiend.
So is Little Possum as well, actually.... So the two of them were blissed out by this creation, and I have to make a strawberry cake tomorrow (ah, it's such a hard life....) for Snugglepot who, by the way, is outgrowing his nickname and is requesting a new one.

How addicted to knitting are you?

I found this on "Hildes strikkeri-hekleri-hurra" blog (here). Hilde used this movie to design her own quiz "How addicted to knitting are you?". There are 6 levels of addiction depending on how long you watch this movie before switching off (ranging from ("I'd rather watch paint dry" to those who watch the entire 2 1/2 min). It is otherwise an excellent demonstration of the continental method of knitting using 5 double point knitting needles (used for socks or other projects where there aren't enough stitches to fit on the shortest round needle).

1 week down - 1 to go

I am finding that I enjoy the school holidays a lot more now that the children are a little older. It is not quite as intense as when they needed constant supervision. Their needs are simple: roaming space, sticks, water, trees to climb and a bike track.
So far we have visited the local outdoor swimming pool (still a bit on the chilly side) and several of our favourite parks/playgrounds as well as having friends over for a visit.

There has been ample opportunity for me to do some quilting and reading this week as well. I have almost finished my "Leanne's House" quilt - yay! The UFO pile is shrinking...

Pink ribbon month!!!

October is pink ribbon month in support of breast cancer awareness and research, so please buy a pink ribbon or other pink product to support this worthy cause!

Also, by visiting the following website you can help underprivileged women access a mammogram by the simple click of a button! http://www.thebreastcancersite.com/clickToGive/home.faces?siteId=2&link=ctg_bcs_home_from_bcs_thankyou_sitenav

the Princess quilt

And here it is, after only 3 years in the making.....

The castle's a little wonky, but Little Possum is less critical than I am, and she just loves the pink and the sparkles, beads etc.

William Tell's overture for Mothers.... hilarious!!

I found this link on Stacy's blog. This movie is hilarious!! I was laughing out loud while watching it and Little Possum couldn't work out what was so funny.....

Mystery photo

We found the camera, and there was not a nostril in sight. What we did find was a self-portrait of Jake