Our Advent Adventure - Week 1

I thought I'd share some of our advent activities thus far with you. 

The boys are loving getting the next number each day and talking about the lead up to Christmas and Jesus birth each day.

Paint toe nails red and green
Put up Christmas decorations
Buy a present for someone who has less than us
Make Mary, Joseph and a donkey (the start of our toilet roll nativity set)
Read all the Christmas books we can find in our shelf
Choose the cake we are going to make for Jesus birthday cake
And yet to happen today - make shepherds & sheep.

I'll try to give another update next week but no promises. I might just be too caught up in the activities to remember to report in!!

A little sewing - a little late

Here is my most recent sewing project.  It has taken me more than a week to finish this one.  It is for my friends birthday that was more than a week ago.  I have been planning this for months but actually getting to it was harder than I expected.  I think if I sat down and did it in one go from start to finish it would have taken just over an hour.  If I had of used pre-made bias binding, instead of making my own, I think I could have done it in about 30 mins.  It's hard to believe that finding an hour to sew is so hard but lately it has been.

Anyway - here is my latest pot holder.  Made with fabric from the Venda tribe in South Africa.

New friends

Here are some new, much loved friends we spent our time with on the weekend.

Isaiah spent much of the weekend in the box with the chickens he inherited from his daycare.  They were hatched at daycare and the kids enjoyed watching them grow for a couple of weeks.  The kids were allowed to take them home.  We ended up with two that were left without homes.  Isaiah was so excited to bring them home.  They spent the weekend in the box in the laundry. They are now outside in the chicken pen and are visited at least once a day.  They seem happy with their bigger space.  I'm just hoping they are girl chickens so they enjoy a long life on the farm. 

More Pink...

I had a few scraps left after making these pillows so I decided that a cute little matching flag banner would make the perfect birthday present and complete the set off nicely.  I had great fun making these. Using up every last little scrap I had, playing with the stitches on my machine and not having to buy anything - all sourced from my supplies.  Makes for a great, quick and easy (last minute) present.

When I hung them on the wall in our room for the pictures, they looked so good I've decided that I need to make some for myself one day, but not in pink.  If you know me - you know I don't do pink!!

I wrapped them around a cylinder for easy postage and even sewed the gift tag on!

Happy Birthday Nozipho.

After swimming

We have just been swimming at Nan's pool - a short 3 min walk from our house.  While I was getting changed into dry clothes, I heard the boys bedroom door shut.  I went to check what was happening a few minutes later and found this.

Weekend Celebration

Simple cake with family - perfect for this one year old.

Someone's watching!!

Things have been a little slow here lately.  Our house has been filled with sickness of all different types for the last month, so only the essential things have been happening - like cooking and washing clothes.  Any other things have been a bonus.

Saying that, I still have at least one well boy to work with while the rest of us feel like resting and sleeping so there is always something happening.  To try and maintain some level of normal, I try to keep certain things in our day.  One of those is something we started just before we got sick - its called Before Five in a Row.  We read the same book 5 days in a row and then do activities together related to the book.  (I'll hopefully show more of what we do another day). The first book we did was called Runaway Bunny.  One of the pictures in the book has a veggie garden with a scarecrow.  We talked about this and why he was there and then if we needed one for our garden.  It was decided that we did.  BUT then we got sick and the scarecrow didn't happen.

Finally on the weekend, we were all starting to feel better so I brought my sewing machine out to the dining room table and we started the scarecrow.  After sewing him together we headed outside to the hay bale ready to stuff him.  When we got there, Isaiah was greeted by a rather large brown snake sitting on the hay.  The scarecrow was quickly abandoned and we went back inside, with a promise of doing it another day.

Yesterday was THE day.  Meet our scarecrow.

We are still trying to come up with a good name for him so any suggestions would be appreciated.  He is also in need of a little back bone so he stands up better.  But for now he sits in the corner of our garden keeping watch and making us smile.

How does the garden grow??

Here are some photos (most taken by Isaiah) of our garden on the weekend.  It is growing so well at the moment. Also interesting to see what he likes to take photos of.

Redfest

Last month we went to Redfest - a festival celebrating music, art and community in Redland Bay.  What drew us to such an event?  Our favourite musician.  Colin Buchanan.  He happens to fit favourite for all our family as he does the coolest kids Christian music and he is also a Golden Guitar winner for his country music.  So when we found out that he was performing for adults on Saturday night and a kids show Sunday morning, I was hooked.

We had no idea what Redfest was, we were just going because Colin was going to be there.  Anyway, it turned out to be a wonderful weekend of fun for all.

Sorry about the terrible photos - I forgot the camera and had to resort to the good old phone camera!

We enjoyed

• show rides, 
• lantern making for a parade, 
• fireworks at a kid friendly time of 6:45pm,
• animals for touching,
• show food,
• we got to talk to Colin for 30mins after his Saturday night show 
• Isaiah got a really close and personal show with Colin on Sunday
• And Colin sang 'Edge of the Kimberley' specially for us. 

Such a fun family time together.  So many special memories made that weekend.

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Finally Finished

Sewing has been a rare event in my life lately.  I've snatched a few minutes here and there, working away on some cushions for a friends little girls bedroom.  However, when the same project has been moved from the sewing table, to the ironing board, to the bed and back again numerous times, one tends to get a little tired of the fabric, the colours and even the whole project. I have visions of a sewing room where I don't have to put projects away, but can just leave them out, mid project ready for the next time I have a few minutes.

Anyway - I finally finish this prolonged project last week.  I actually had lots of fun, using pink fabric, putting hearts on them and making something girly.  Not something I get to do much of around here.

Our Weekend

We had a super busy, family filled weekend.  On Saturday we planted 199 trees along our little patch of creek.  Yes, not 200 but 199, don't ask me why, it's just how it worked out.  All the family was there plus a few extras helping out.  The kids did a great job, helping, playing together and generally enjoying being out in the sun as a big family.

I love warm spring weather and fun family projects. What a great combination.