5/52

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

BJ - Dinosaurs are huge at the moment & these scratch & reveal pictures are sort of artistic!  A fun project for the end of the holidays.
DJ - you need to lay your head down for drawing apparently.  Had fun making your dino picture too though.

Linking up with the 52 project.

Thursday Thanks

• A fabulous family holiday.
• Successful caravaning.  
• Bike success with removing training wheels.
• New found confidence & independence in the big boy.
• Some r&r for Stuart & I.
• Interesting learning experiences for us all about our own patch of the world.
• Amazing & unique wildlife.  
• Statewide bushfires that are being put out.
• No loss of life in fires.
• Firefighters that come from all over to help a state in need.
• More precious time with cousins. 

343/1000

Pictures - at the zoo, patting a sleepy baby Tasmanian Devil.  

Camping Holiday 3

We headed out of camp for a bit of an adventure at a zoo nearly an hour away.  It included a Jurassic swamp which isn't your average display at a zoo.  They had loads of real animals, but the boys were excited to go see the dinosaurs & kept asking when the dinosaur feeding was.  We saw a lot of Aussie animals & a lot of birds.  The petting zoo with the farm animals the boys enjoyed as well.  

Pedal buggies in the afternoon around camp were a hit too.  

As was the rockmelon.

Some cricket with some other boys he met in camp.  Loads of fun.  

It was an enjoyable time.  Would go back tomorrow & do it all again.  

Camping Holiday 2

Sunday was a day of relaxation around camp.  The boys would disappear for long lengths of time, on bikes or feet.  Jumping pillow was well used.  BJ mastered bike riding without training wheels & had a whole new lease on riding.  He was free!  So very free!  Was quite the expert by the end of the day.  The camp ground had it's own pool too, although not used much as colder than they are used to for a pool.  They don't last long then as they shiver too much.  

Wombats were out again in the evening & drinking at the rain water tank.  So nice to see them just wandering about the place.  

4/52

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

An interactive time at the Beaconsfield Heritage Museum.  

BJ - trying on the gear in the locker room.  Was weighing him down bad, causing a half smile & grimace. 

DJ - panning for gold.  It was a gold mine & there were little bits of specially made bits of gold for children to find.  Was very cool.  

Linking up.

Camping Holiday

We've wanted to get away like this for a while.  The boys have wanted to stay in a caravan for a while.  We finally did.

Only about an hour away, but we stopped on the way in a town called Beaconsfield where about 10 years ago, a mine collapsed & trapped a couple of men who were rescued alive two weeks later.  It hasn't been a working mine since but now is a major tourist attraction.

It was very interesting with a lot of hands on experiences to try for everyone.

A drive to the other side of the river after to fill in a little more time before our place was available to move in too.  That included driving over Batman (& Robin) Bridge.  

Georgetown had a nice fabric shop which was open for me to buy stuff  visit.  YES!  

Plus there was this really clever set of wood carvings.  

Finally at campground.  We were staying in an onsite caravan.  Awesome fun.  The park was very kid friendly with one of those amazing jumping pillows.  There were over 20 kids on there at the same time at some points.  DJ lived on this.  BJ was there a bit but made friends with others & mastered his bike riding so got around a little further.  Also a school friend was camping so he was continuously busy.  

The wildlife roaming about was spectacular.  Dusk saw the wombats come out.  Very easy to see six of an evening.  They just wandered about the vans & cars without a care.  Many wallabies & potaroos too.  Also a couple of possums we spotted.  A busy day but a great one.

Town and Country Update

I did manage to get up to date on all 21 squares to now.  I will sew them on the centre block when the round is complete.  They are rather cute.  Some machine stitching & some hand stitching.  Wording, flowers & grass, a a few of the window lines are hand stitched.

Thursday Thanks

• Great days at work.
• Fabulous customers.
• Customers doing random acts of kindness for other customers.  Such a beautiful thing to see happen.
• Conversations with an elderly man.  Nice to get to know him a bit better after all this time.  & yes, he is a customer too!
• Customers who show appreciation or thanks when you assist in ways they don't expect.  
• Opportunity to work on a craft project alongside friends that makes it so much more fun to share.
• Really fun days with the boys.
• Awesome progress on their bikes.

332/1000

3/52

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

BJ - Making bubbles!  Loads of fun with cousins.

DJ - he who pops the bubbles.  

linking with the 52...

My Town & Country

I'm VERY excited to have the first 9 blocks of my Town & Country quilt completed.  It's taken a little bit of time to do as there are rather a lot of sky scrapers & bits in there.  But I'm really pleased with it.  I love this pattern as each round you complete you are able to add it on to your quilt so you don't have loads of squares waiting for assembly.  Progress is fabulous!

Now to work on the next round or squares.

Thursday Thanks

• Summer time fun a lazy times too.
• Play with new friends.
• Helping out a friend.
• Beaut summer food.
• Summer time treats.
• Boys that are getting the hang of riding bikes - without fear!
• Home grown food.
• A great husband that has put in a lot of time on the vegetable garden.
• A cooler day that brings less irritation & better sleep.  

324/1000

2/52

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

BJ - Holiday reading, trying to finish the "Peter & Jane" books in the hopes of earning something. 

DJ - Birthday party for a friend with pool fun & a sack race!  

Linking up with the 52 project.

Snoopy

With the new Snoopy movie out it was inevitable that McDonald's put out new Snoopy toys.  

Inevitable then that I had to go to McDonald's to get them.  

Inevitable then that I had to get out all my old Snoopy's that the boys have never seen.  

11 large Occupation Snoopy's.

56 small World Snoopy's.

A couple of little ones that are phone hang tags & one was a Kinder surprise egg I think.  

Boys excited to see, but not really "play" with mum's collection.  I'm a bit sad at how the faces are yellowing on a few.  

Anyway, I have 3 new ones to add to the collection & will frequent Macca's once again for the new toys.  Toys bought but no Happy Meals I might add.  Yes you can buy the toys without the food.  Thank heavens.  I remember when the first series of 21 World Snoopys came out, they were with a cheese burger only.  But 21 days of cheeseburgers was pretty awful.  My brother & I did it though.  Never again...  

I can't remember what the second set entailed & I also managed to get a few of the overseas ones on Ebay to complete the sets.   There were a few overseas ones that were in the USA or Europe that we didn't have released in Australia.  

Now they are all freshly packed in a new box & put away again.  

Thursday Thanks on Friday

• Holidays with Stuart home too.
• New projects to be excited about.
• Good decision making.
• Fun with friends crafting time.
• Ticking off holiday activities.
• Anticipation of away time, much excitement.

315/1000

Lazy Logs

I have never done a proper Log Cabin designed quilt before.  I guess I should really say I haven't still.  But this is a Log Cabin of sort.  A very, very lazy one though.  No measuring, no straight cutting if I couldn't be bothered.  All scraps...  A very odd assortment I must say.

There are 20 squares on the floor.  I actually have 40.  Hmmm...  Enough for 2 charity quilts maybe or one really giant one.  Don't know yet.  Will leave them at this stage for now.  I might try quilt-as-you-go with one set, just to try that method out.

I don't really like this pattern though I have decided.  Too ages to make these.  Well, maybe a weeks worth of nights.  Not sure.

Also, I still have a lot of scrap fabric left!  Not getting very far it seems, but having given what is left a bit of a sort I think it is getting to be less.  Finally!

A First

Big moment for the little one.  His first cinema experience.

The boys gave me movie tickets for Christmas - coincidence that there were two adult & two children ones.  lol

Also included in with their tickets were pictures of Snoopy they had drawn or coloured.  So it was the Snoopy movie we had to go & see.  They know I love Snoopy.  So we watched that today.  DJ did struggle a bit sitting there.  He did better sitting still when we went to see the musical of "The Lion King".

Anyway, we had a great experience with him.  Nice movie.  So well done I think.  They kept the look of each character so well on the big screen.  Was quite like reading a comic that moves a bit!

A New Project...

...For a whole Year!

Yes, a year.  This is the start of the Town & Country Quilt Block of the DAY!  It's an amazing piece of quilt work that the designer has come up with.  Work got on in on it with fabrics for sale.  We love it so the 3 of us at work are all making one.  

Every week I will get our 7 new patterns for the week emailed.  I can finish these 2 from this night sky set on the weekend.  I haven't actually sewn these yet.  Just fused them on.  It's going to be quite different when sewn.  So stay tuned.  Hang out with me all year while I hopefully keep up won't you?

1/52

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

BJ - In trouble at Lower Crackpot.

DJ - Amazing what you can find in the middle of a maze.  

Linking up to the project for 2016.  It is going ahead after all!  lol  

A-Mazing

We've spent most of the day at Tasmazia.  

Lots of fun.  A lot to see.  It was actually the boys birthday present from Grandma, her taking them there.  Only 6 months late, but it was worth waiting for summer.  

There are 8 mazes or something to navigate through.  The boys loved the lower ones as it wasn't quite so intimidating I think.  Lots of things to find though in the "Great Maze".  Toilets, Humpty, the 3 bears, 3 little pigs, secret tunnels, more mazes within the maze...  busy busy...