Fig Tree jelly roll......

last night i decided to begin quilting this long over due project. I had pieced it together months ago and it just sat folded, patiently waiting......

introducing the quilter's cat....

otherwise known as Lucy.

she is such a big help......

and a cute little diversion.....she just loves the craft things i do.....she's often asleep in our study, curled up on my fabric or scrapbooking paper. she loves winter when i knit....she and the kids have had countless hours of fun playing with my precious balls of yarn...she loves playing with the tools i'm using and ruffing up things.......
i just find her so hard to resist.....especially when she climbs upon my lap and purrs......i am a cat-person

It's HERE!!!!!!!





I ordered these little beauties before Christmas and the wait has been unbearable......

Yesterday #3 came and told me there was someone at the door - the only morning I've stayed in bed and had my shower after 9am, so of course the Australia Post delivery guy would knock upon my door THAT morning. Thankfully - God bless his little cotton socks, he had left them at the door for me to grab once I was dressed.

Now if only dust, grime, hungry children, laundry (clean and dirty) and husband would leave me alone, I could 'get to it' with The General.......

Merry Christmas

.....so this year

I wanted to decorate our tree in red/turquoise.

Simple.

None of the shops here had those colours

and by the time I discovered this

all of the online shops were sold out.

Every year it is the same - I leave it to the

very last minute......

so like last year we just had silver on the tree

which looks ok at night when the lights are on,

but during the day it's plain.

Next year.......

Oh. My. Goodness. holy smoke batman - guess who has gone and got their passport?????

Sadly, not the Fireman's Wife, yes you guessed it, the fireman.......

Sam will leave our fair shores and fly away to the grand land of the USA in February.

A friend of his so kindly invited him to meet him in Daytona for the Nascars - how could he refuse??????

So, while I will be here, with numbers 1 to 3 and school, Sam will be living it up in Florida.

I'm not sure whether to celebrate or commiserate..........

My dream is to travel to the USA......

He is going without me......

but only for 10 days and he wont be sight seeing.

I've 'googled' and there doesn't appear to be any great fabric shops near where he will be. I had hoped to send him and his mate to buy up a whole lot of Moda fabrics, but I think that's just a dream too........

update

remember this from quite some time ago.......

when it was just 2 charm squares joined together

with a brown border?

Well, now it is half a quilt.

So, do you get what's happening?

It was the most annoying thing to figure out.

I saw a picture of one of these quilts - can't even remember

if it was in a magazine or a picture online,

but I decided that I wanted one.

So, one Sunday afternoon I spent 'googling' and measuring

until I finally got the proportions correct and then

cut out and marked my template.

Now to measure up, trace, cut and sew the rest of it!

Excited girl.....

There comes a time in every girl's life when

her mother decides that SHE'S ready (the mother, not the girl)

to teach her daughter how to use........

the sewing machine

......and thus the lesson begins.

Now I am the first to admit that patience is not my

strong point, but I think I managed this ok

as we are still talking to each other!

SOMETHING SHOCKING!!!!!

Remember that beautiful new ironing board cover

I so lovingly made????

Well guess what Sam did to it......

He burnt it......

It's now brown and ripped.......

It looks plain awful......

I know, I shouldn't complain because he does iron,

but how could he have done this???????

He knew how much I loved the fabric......

and how proud I was of the cover (sewn without a pattern).

Oh well, it's back to the shop to buy more fabric to make

a new cover.

Rain

We had a lovely spring thunder storm yesterday afternoon. It was very hot and the rain drops were quite large. While I was looking at it out the back, little did I know what was going on out the front.....
........as you can see, #2 and #3 were having a high old time in the rain, while Sam looked on. They were drenched......Happy, but very wet. Then as soon as the storm came, it left.

Hamilton Island

This was the view from our room. The tide would start to go out at around go out at around 11 am and then come back in at about 4 pm. While it was out we could walk to the island, it was made up of rocks and had a couple of trees growing on it. When the tide was in, it was completely surrounded by water.

One afternoon we all walked out and about the little island. The ground was very muddy and very thick. Sam's thongs broke in the mud and #3 sank in up to his knees. It was an entertaining afternoon.

There were many creatures in the shallows and muddy sands, plenty of fish, crabs, stingrays, clams and the like.

Sea World Resort

This is the view we got every time we left our apartment for the 5 days we spent at Sea World. It was great, we had unlimited access to the theme park and the water play areas. The kids had a ball.

Vacation

I know it had been rather a while since my last post, but we had a little trip. Yes, our first ever family holiday. Not just a trip home to Sam's Mum's for a vist and not just an over night trip. I'm talking plane rides, motels and dinners out!!!! The whole package.

Work in progress, cont.

I love the way these Moda precuts give off little bits of fluff as you use them. It's generally when you iron them and then the ironing board is covered in 'snow'.

From two squares chain pieced, to this;

Four squares joined together, twice as there was two packs to form the base of this quilt.

This is the base of the quilt finished. Don't you just love #2's feet sticking out the bottom?

(I'm sorry for not rotating the photo)

New quilt - a work in progress.

So, this is the beginning of my latest project. Do you know the fabric? Yep, it the Beach House charm packs all chain pieced together.

I got a parcel !

Look what I got today!!!!! Two Beach House charm packs.I ordered them on Saturday and they arrived today, all the way from Tassie. I found this really cool fabric shop online, called Patchworks Plus. Sarah, the owner is very helpful. I'm still unsure of what I will create.

Memories

I've been looking through my photos and came across this little gem. It was taken 6 years ago......gosh they've grown.
I can still remember that morning as though it was this morning.
#2 found a blue texta and drew all over #3's face. We couldn't get it all off. In the colour version of this photo you can see blue.
Come to think of it, in all of my photos taken of the three kids together, something has happened.
One shoot, #2 tripped over the leg of a table, fell and ended up with a massive bruise over one eye.
One shoot #1 had run into a wall the day before at school and had cut up his face around his nose.
Other times various children have been missing teeth.
I guess the point of all this is just memories. None of our children are perfect. Sometimes they are dirty, sometimes they are missing teeth, sometime they cut their own hair (yep, #2), sometimes they have black eyes (yep #3), sometimes they have cuts and bruises and sometimes they are just plain cranky. This is all what makes our stories ours and what our memories are made of.

Double celebration

How cool is this.

One of my most special friends, (lets just call her Devine Miss M)

and #1 share the same birthday!!!

Cool, I know!

We all went out for dinner tonight to celebrate.

Here are #2 and 3 with the Devine Miss M, gotta love those cheeky kid smiles.

#3 loved his meal, as did #2.....

but # 1 was M.I.A until the cake arrived and finished off with this nice shot.....

#1 turns 11

I find it hard to believe that this person has been with us for 11 years!!!!!!!

It's strange to think of how tiny he was - 7lb 1oz. Now, well he is just huge.

He was up at the crack of dawn, well actually before the crack of dawn and just lay curled up on the end of our bed without a word, just waiting for me to wake. He has never been so quick or eager to get ready for school (I told him he needed to get dressed before presents). Mmmmmm, maybe I should try that line more often......

It seems like only the other day that everything I said was still so magical and perfect to him.....Now he wants long hair (shocking I know) and to choose his own clothes.....

I know I have to start to let go, but I just want soooo badly to protect him and keep him safe. Maybe next birthday I'll be ready to let go.....

Happy Birthday, Storm Trooper.

Sorry if you are squeemish, but I mentioned in an earlier post about Sams accident. This photo was taken a week after the surgery, it shows the cut/stitches on his wrist where the graft was taken. The bruising is a combination of trauma from the vein graft and blood thinners. Fortunately, you can't see the finger that was damaged, it was a partial degloving and very nasty. We had a wonderful surgeon who did 4 hours of microsurgery to save the finger. We now just have to hope and pray that all of the physiotherapy works and he gets more movement/usage.

So we wnt to visit Sam at work on Saturday. It has been ages since we took in real coffee and cake. I think before Sam's accident ( it has been almost 3 months now).

The kids love climbing in and on the trucks and since they've moved into the new station, it's much easier for the kids to look at the trucks. They love their Dad being a firefighter. He is the luckiest guy, turning his favorite hobby into a full time paid job.

This face is the result of the sundae I bought after we picked #2 up from dance class Monday night. He still has sooo much trouble getting food into his mouth. We still love him all the same (even if it is only a face his mother would love!)

When Sam went to work (night shift) on Sunday night and after the kids went to bed, this is what I did.


From this........



to this......




Poor old Sam had tried to be the perfect husband and meddled with the iron, hence the big burn mark. He promised he would buy me a new cover but I just couldn't look at it. I had some lovely red floral fabric, the photo doesn't do it justice, but it is much nicer to look at than the old cover. How long will this one last, before Sam wrecks this one too!!!!

This little number has been sitting in my U.F.O. pile for quite some time now and all it needed was backing and binding. I finally did it the other night while Sam was on duty, the kids were asleep and I was watching The Bachelor.

we had a car rally today with the boys scout troop. sam and i needed the good stuff to get us going.......

then we saw the competition..... we waited for our turn to get started, we were the last to leave.

part way through the morning we were greeted by this stuff.....

wont complain as we need it too much. our morning progressed nicely, until.......a little voice from #3 said he wasn't feeling well. not too long after that we were delightfully given a deposit in the bucket, this was soon followed by #2 alo adding to the gift, but hers was nowhere near the bucket and all through the 'fire-engine-that-would-be-if-it-could-be'........needless to say, that was the END of our car rally and we were awarded with a D.N.F.

back to work tomorrow

weekend

so after being sick earlier this week all i wanted was the weekend..........until it started - the whinging that is. 3 independent beings all wanting their own way at once and nothing would sway them. fireman sam is on duty, so he's no help. what did i do????? i made amanda's bag and hoped it (the whinging) would go away......it didn't but the bag is finished!!!

So after winning this fabric (Seaside Rose) on Ebay I decided that it would be perfect on #2's bed. She loves it!!!! Every morning for a week she would ask if it was finished - she has no concept of time or effort! I took it to school to show my mums and a few of them asked if they could have it for their daughters, I was tickled pink. It is a beautiful little quilt and I hope #2 will treasure it always (and not drag it around the floor building tents with her brothers).

Happy Birthday

Can you believe that we have two birthday's at our house in August? How did THAT happen?????

#2 turned 9 - what happened to that clingy little babe that would not leave my side nor go NEAR anyone else. For the longest time I thought we were destined to be together forever........My how time changes that. Now she is her own person and cuddles EVERYBODY (but I think I'm still the special someone - for now anyway).