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A portrait of my boys once a week for a year.

Sorry, poor quality phone photos.  :-(

BJ - climbing about at the park.

DJ - he does an hour of "school" a week & the room had a farm area.  He loved the chicken house.

Linking up with the 52 project.

Crafting ADD!

Yep sometimes I think I have CADD...  Craft Attention Deficit Disorder...  I really can't do one for long...  there are so many things to do that I have to do a bit of all of them at the moment.  

But that's OK I think.  For me it has to be.  I do what my mood tells me to do & what time & situations allow right now.  

A couple of nights & I had this crochet square done.  Almost finished the CAL which will be sad I think but good too.  I have a load of squares to join though so that will be another thing to decide on & add to the list of things to do.  

This is a scarf, Gathered scarf, that I have been working on & off of for about 3 months.  It's a teacher gift for the end of year so there was no rush & it was handy to just whip out when I went knitting or needed something to pick up that didn't take much thought.  

This is the Eco- bag that I made a bunch of last Christmas.  We got the sheep fabric in at work recently & I need a present for a friend & I really had to use this fabric for her.  It was just a matter of deciding what to make with it.  I decided on this as it will be an easy mailing thing too.  The sheep are adorable.  I sewed this up last night while tea was cooking & watching the boys so they didn't kill each other.  

So I'm quite pleased - two Christmas gifts done.  Yay!  

Another Crossed Off The List

Yay, I was able to cross off the 6 ornaments I wanted done that is on my list.  That list on the right that has my craft list of things that I would like to see done but know it won't all be done...  

I think I have 10 ornaments done but can't even remember right now.  

The boys both picked another.  BJ picked the Santa with the owl.  

DJ picked Polar Bear.

I needed a smaller one to do before I did the santas after doing the last big Santa.  So I did the Happy Holidays.  

I was told it was still Stuart's turn to pick!  Oh, so he has picked one now.  Have to get onto that.  Soon...  lol  

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A portrait of my children once a week for a year.

BJ  & DJ - both just playing around silly with Dad.  Cheeky faces, cheeky grins...  the same but different.

linking up.

Week Of Crafty Bits

It's been a bit of this & a bit of that week in craft world this week.  

A friend of mine did this embroidery...

Like the embroideries I did a couple of weeks ago, my friend got interested.  She got it all stitched up, picked some fabric & I sewed it into the hanging for her.  It's cute.  

A friend of DJ's is having a birthday on the weekend.  He is a tractor mad little boy.  So I made a tractor hat!  DJ is modelling it for us.  It's been a while since I did a hat & well, I guess it won't be the last for a while...  summer is coming!  

Also picked up the crochet hook while sitting outside trying to avoid the boys yelling inside.  Unfortunately they followed me outside & it just got louder but I got a bit done out there in the warm spring air.  This one is for the CAL that I am still running.  Only one square left to post & we have 20 for the year.  Not bad really.  I have skipped a couple as one I am scared to go back to.  Have to print up another 2.  Then almost done!  

Hope you are all getting some crafty things done too!  

A Quilt Moment

 Way back in February, we got this cute fabric in at work.  The Retromobilia cars...  it's cool.  

I was bored at work last week.  Been a bit quiet lately.  I got it in my head that I would hunt out some fabrics to go with the cars...  

On the weekend I sewed this one up.  It's a cot quilt sized only.  

It's from the book Growing Up Modern which is a terrific one.  I did DJ's tractor quilt out of it at the start of the year.  This one was pretty simple.  9 fat quarters is all it takes & it was sewn up in about 2 hours.  It's a great pattern for a quick gift or anything like that.  Feature a favourite fabric maybe.  

It was good fun to do a bit of sewing again.  Must be summer on the way...  

More accurate colours in this one...   

Ice Breaking

If you remember the other week, at the start of the holidays here, I started freezing animals in a bucket.  Well we dug it out of the freezer on Saturday.  The boys didn't know about it & it proved a hit.  We all had turns whacking it with a few different things.  Some worked, some didn't.  

We spent an hour on it on Saturday.  It ended up being a bit of ice play with ice bits going down shirts.  To be expected of course.  Was rather fun.  An hour though chipping away!  Not bad.  

It went back in the freezer for Sunday afternoon then.  Still another hour & unfortunately I spent most of the time rescuing the animals.  Unfortunately some come out a little worse for wear, missing limbs, ears or antlers.  Oh well, the boys won't lose any sleep over that.  

It was a fun experiment & they really enjoyed it so it was worth the little bit of trouble it took to make in the first place!  Really, almost no time at all to make!  

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A portrait of my boys once a week for a year.

BJ - trying to chisel/bash/hack through the rather large block of ice to rescue the animals.  

DJ - watching the rest of us hacking at ice...  

linking up.

Celebrate Spring

For the last few years we have been to the local Celebrate Spring event at the arboretum nearby.  It's always nice & has some nice activities for the boys to do...

A weaving wall - 

Kite making - 

Face/arm painting - 

Rapt with their designs...

They did all go to look at the reptile display but I kept away from that bit...  I can't look at them.  

A walk around some of the tree park!  They remember what they did last year & so we repeated a lot of that.  

A walk up the big hill to see more trees, but mostly for a bit of a view.

Bbq sausages for lunch on the lawn listening to the entertainment.  They have a selection of musicians & bands scheduled throughout the day.  

A bit of relaxing in the sunshine...  

& some really good icecream while listening to more entertainment & watching the "Bright Stars Dance Troupe".  They were a group of people with Downs Syndrome of all ages.  They did such a great job.  

It was a really nice few hours out to something different in the middle of the holidays.  

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A portrait of my boys once a week for a year.

BJ - showing off the painting of a snake on your arm at the Celebrate Spring day.

DJ - playing at home under the sprinkler again & acting up for the camera!

Linking up with the 52 project.  Not long to go now!  

Dinosaurs

We finally got to the local children's interactive science place.  They have had this exhibition on for about 6 months & it ends next week, so we were fast running out of time to visit it.  BJ doesn't forget either that we still had to go see the dinosaurs.  It was an exhibition of the Permian Monsters so whether that technically makes them dinosaurs or not I don't know.  But according to the time chart (which I should have taken a picture of) it showed this lot became extinct & dinosaurs were still living for a while after.  So there you go.  

But for the benefit of the boys, we will go with dinosaurs.  This first guy greeted you on the way in.  He was very life like & roared & moved.  An amazing piece of work.  Unfortunately though, the lady that let us in must have had experience with little ones that were scared as DJ was.  He was trembling & I couldn't actually put him down near this or the next one for quite some time.  

There were 4 of these tub things that you could "dig" in & find fossils, bones or bits of dinos.  They were all stuck down the bones etc, but it was fun for the boys to try to find what was in there.  

Some very impressive looking creatures that you wouldn't really want to see in real life, walking around the bush!  

If this makes any sense to any of you sciene types, then you may find it interesting.  

Took DJ a little while but he finally decided he liked dinosaurs after all & would actually venture a bit closer to the big ones, but not the one on the way out.  

Christmas Help

The other week I let the boys both pick a Mill Hill ornament from my box for me to do next.

BJ picked the Merry Moose ornament.  

DJ picked the Lapland Santa.  He really wanted me to do a Santa.

Finally got Santa finished Wednesday.  He was a bit bigger & slower of course.

But I have had a help with the Santa one...

DJ sat on my lap a few times pulling the needle through for me.  Nice for him to do a bit.  He watches me do so many things, that it's nice for him to try something too.

Cooking

Monday was a nice home day.  That was good.  No rushing off, getting the boys out the door in a hurry or anything...  

We made some gingerbread biscuits.  

They were so excited about picking which cookie cutters to use.  I mean, they went through them all picking & choosing for ages...  there were cutters every where!  They had fun though.  

DJ was happiest as that meant there was food at the end of this activity!  lol