New Skills

So DJ has been watching me do some stitching.  Just back stitch out line stitching.  He wanted to try.  Of course it's at bedtime that he wants to try these things.  

We did get him started though.  He picked a picture on line of a candy cane.  Just a colouring in page from the internet.  They make great designs for stitching.  

He traced it on the light box & got stuck in.  He did a good job of the little he has done so far...

 

It was nice to get my Christmas tree up again.  This one is mine.  I decorate it & only with my ornaments I have made.  There about 110 on there now.  Doesn't look like it really but yeah, there are.  I love it.  

Bookweek Prep

So I did a bit of the work on the book week costumes like usual.  I still haven't bought a shop made costume yet!  Go me! 

Op  shops are fabulous.

A ladies skirt which was lined & super swishy, made a fabulous Harry Potter cape.  I got to test out the over locker too which I have figured out a little!  Go me again! 

A girls jacket from the op shop was another great find.  Trimmed off the fluffy edges, cut out the sleeves & turned the collar inside & stitched it down.  Turned into a tweedy type looking vest that the Fourth Doctor Who required.  A bit of hand stitching & it did the job.  I needed to remind myself that it is for Bookweek.  One day of dress up.  That's all.  The kids aren't going to inspect the finished products to see how perfect or not, they are.   

Bookweek 2018

And He's 7!

Well this kid turned 7!  Crazy really! 

A little family gathering for tea & cake! 

The cake!  Yeah. well what can I say?  He wanted a Harry Potter theme birthday. So what better to include the Harry cake like Hagrid made for him in the first book.  DJ was very impressed especially with my spelling mistakes.   (it's tricky to spell wrong on purpose!)    Not the finest of cakes but he loved it.  I guess I got off lightly this time! 

This Happened Too

Before school finished for the term we had a last assembly.  DJ does surprise!  He received his class award for the term for "Respect".  That's pretty good if you ask me.  

The thing that followed wasn't quite such a happy thing.  My poor girl Juneau had to have an operation.  She had to have an eye removed.  It was pretty tough firstly leading up to it for us.  Then waiting for it to be done & then having her home recovering...  It's been pretty hard.  

But we are on the other side now & Juneau may have forgiven me a little.  

New Year Break

The new year has started of quietly at our house.  

DJ finished his rather large Ninjago Lego set he got in Brisbane.  Yes, he built it himself.  The only thing Stuart or I have to do is either sort the blocks of push something on harder that he can't quite get.  But finally he put in the effort & followed the instructions & did it himself.  

My challenge for myself this year was to learn Brioche knitting techniques.  Well funnily enough it came up in a January challenge on a group I follow.  So well, here I am giving it a bash.   It's fun.  This is my practice piece.  

Why! Just Why!

It happens of course, at the worst times...

DJ had to bring home the class bear.  Why now?  Why THIS week?  Far out.  For two nights too!

Well we didn't do anything interesting.  But apparently the bear wanted to try on the chicken suit for size.  Turned out DJ could fit it in easily.  Only he would think of such a thing!

If only it were that simple!  It's to do with school isn't it?  So no, it's not that simple.  We get a little whiteboard, card games & dominoes & a display folder as well.  This bear is apparently really into Maths.  So the well presumed intention is to include maths somewhere in the folder about what bear did at your house.

Cuddles (the bear) wanted to be a chicken.  One chicken.

Plus 2 chickens = 3 chickens...

Cuddles + 3 chickens = 4 chickens!

Day 6

Douglas & Maggie decided they wanted to be chickens too.  

He's 6!!!

It was a VERY early start as I am sure most can imagine.  I did have to get him back to bed at 3am, 3.30 & 4.  Not sure if he wasn't already feeling a bit off at this point.  

School day for him though.  The first time he had his birthday on a school day.  

Also his first party with school friends.  So he was very excited.  

If you remember from my preparations the other week I was working on Pokemon things for it.  Well the theme continued. 

Pokeball lanterns.  White lanterns that we coloured in.  Used these instead of balloons.  (I am really starting to hate balloons.)  

 

Pikachu fruit boxes.  Free printable on line.  

There are a lot of cool ideas on Pinterest so I made some food labels.   

Parties these days need fruit.  So a Pokeball it is.  Handy serving dish from the cheap shop for $2.

We coloured in 24 table tennis balls & Stuart hid them in the back yard.  They had a good time running around finding them all.

I had prepared a pile of Pokemon eggs.  Found this idea on Pinterest too of course.  What a perfect thing for 5 & 6 year olds.  I even labeled an egg carton specially.

They spent ages doing this.  So lucky it was warmish.  Sun was shining so we could do it outside at least.  Each egg had one of those little plastic Pokemon instead.  So they were excited to do this.

Lots of food, & then some cake.  At this point I could see DJ was crashing out.  His eyes were glazing & he wasn't his usual crazy loud fun self.

A Pokemon cake & some Diglett Dirt cakes.  Children don't eat cake really.  So I tried the little chocolate coconut slice.  Most of them were demolished.  Only a couple weren't I noticed but the worms in the top of the dirt had gone.

The children left & the grandparents came for tea.  DJ had zoned out completely by this point.  We had obligatory cake pics with him & sang to him & then we enjoyed his birthday tea of sausages, mashed potato & gravy while he went to bed with a temp.  Poor kid.  Had a day home today feeling miserable.  Oh well, these things happen.  He still enjoyed it & was very spoilt.

Fair Day

Well the day arrived!

Just to add to the busy crazy time that has been this week, why not throw in a class dog!

Oh I was excited on Friday evening to find out that DJ had this weekend to take the class dog home & record it's exciting weekend with us!  I guess it was nice that we had things to report about other than making a fence!

Daisy Dog had 2 birthday parties for our family members to attend.

& of course the fair.  So yes, DJ had to carry her to school.  The family all walked down.  I went down at stupid early o'clock to help set up our craft stall though it was half done the day before.

Daisy & DJ at the craft stall in front of the slippers that Gran & Aunty Sheila knitted for the stall.

DJ & Daisy with the stand for the hamper prizes. 

DJ & Daisy dressed in the costume that DJ got in his show bag.  

It was a massive day.  The fair was a huge success as usual.  The boys had a great time.  I was flat out on the craft stall.  It was good fun really.

OK, a report on my stuff.  Success or not?

Peg bag aprons - all gone!
Fabric cover notebook holders - all gone.
Souvenir tea-towel tote bags - just over half gone I think.  Also hopefully networked a little to try to get hold of some more.  hehehehe
Hanging hand towels - not many gone at all.
Framed inspirational pictures - all but one lonely one gone.  The last one was never going to go once it was all that was left.  But the target audience of the school kids was a success as mostly they went to kids.  Good price & trendy product currently.
Fabric Baskets - Half went...  happy with that.

So there you go.  If you need some ideas for your own school, that may be a help!!!

Footy Day

Did you know that the Hawthorn Hawks are kind of a Tassie team?  Well the Tassie government give them lots of money, so Tassie is kind of their home ground.  They had a match in Tassie on Friday night apparently.  

Saturday morning saw a kids coaching clinic in our town!  So being a family of mostly Hawks supporters, Stuart was happy to drag the boys along.  Actually they went willingly.  (as did I!)  The boys joined in in the 2 hour clinic which was fun to watch.  There were 4 groups of kids & 4 Hawks players split between them.  

It was really a great day.  What a great thing to do for people though.  I imagine it would be quite a struggle for the players at times to put on a happy face for something that becomes quite frustrating, boring, repetitive for them, but they did a good job, especially after coming after a practice match the night before.  

Heck, I even got a bit of coaching done with Ben myself.  Hahaha...  yeah, watching a group of 4-5 year old's trying to follow instructions from way above their level is funny, so umm...  I helped.  I don't know if Ben was happy about that or not, but hey, I can send them off in the right direction so the plan of the footballer kind of works.  Four & five year old's just don't get it.  

We managed the autograph session where Stuart managed to get 2 of his hats signed, but the boys were wearing them of course!  lol  Plus the photos...  awesome fun.  Apparently this is worthy of "journal writing" come Monday at school!  

Boys & Ben McEvoy

Boys & Kade Stewart

Will Langford & Shaun Burgoyne

School Already?

Birthday Celebrations Begin

DJ had seen the bowling alley recently when BJ went for a party.  So we decided we would go bowling today for him for an early birthday treat.  

The bonus was that my brother & his partner arrived yesterday so they came too!  Been such a very long time since us grown up had bowled.  Reminded me of how much fun we used to have.  We all really enjoyed it, but DJ did especially.  Was funny to watch him try to shift that ball.  I bowled bumper with the boys.  The 3 other grown ups used the next lane.  

An afternoon treat of the most vibrant rainbow I think I have ever seen...  

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!

Ticked Off

Some more done for Christmas.  Two more table runners.  Another couple of things ticked off the list.  Enjoying these.

Not sure how I have managed to get as much sewing done as I have lately.  Turns out I was a bit sicker than I thought.  Not just a cough & cold.  It's good that I haven't been stuck in bed though.  

I obviously do too much of this too...  

Picture drawn by DJ today of me playing Candy Crush.  Bwahahahaha...  I love it...  I like how he drew the lollies so well in rows.  

Superhero Days

It's crazy but the little DJ turned 4!  So quickly!  This time has passed so very quickly...

He was super over excited for days...  Everyone he saw, if they stood still for a second he was telling them it was nearly his birthday.  

All he ever wanted he got...  You would not believe the excitement!  Seriously!  So excited about his police house...  

It was a Super hero kind of day(s).  

Cake which scored him an extra toy!  & a whole lot of chocolate!  & a reasonably easy but effective cake for Mum to make!  (score for me!)

Being his birthday Friday, which only had the family for pizza tea that night.  Saturday was a little party play time with some invited friends.  

More cake!   (kids do not eat cake!  Icing yes.  Cake no. )  

An assortment of Super heros were in the house.  

Party bags!  

I love making these things.  You know they are all for my benefit!  

But it turns out they are an important part of a party these days...  the children ask wait for them.  They really do!  Lucky I enjoy finding that stuff.  Everything seems to just jump out at me though.  

Back is a smallish figurine.  An assortment of Avengers went in the bags.  DJ wanted the Hulk.  The box of Candy sticks, a couple of sheets of superhero stickers, a superman chocolate lollypop, a couple of Avengers lollipops, & the square Hulk thing on this is one of those facewashers that grows in water.  I was so excited when I found those.  I had 4 different ones I think.  DJ wanted Hulk again.  At least BJ has something different.  

We had one little girl at the party so instead of the little figure I found a Wonder Woman softie for her bag, & there was also a littler boy invited so he had a Superman one like this instead of the figure.  His big brother got a figure instead.  Oh cool, she got the Superman facewasher.  The one I thought she may at least know or have heard of.  For a very girly girl, something with Superman was going to be a bit of a change for their household I expect!  lol  

So there we have it.  The birthday is done.  A very excited boy has to come down from that high which I expect will happen with a crash probably on Monday!

But now the school holidays have begun so it's good.  Some very quiet times & lots of Lego building I expect!