Recovering Dining Room Chairs

I finally got to the store to buy some more of the material I needed to do the recover of my dining room chairs. My baby brain had meant that when I first brought the fabric I forgot that our chairs actually have backs to them! I didn't want to start the recover of them until I could buy the same material. Well that was accomplished on Tuesday after my physio class and lunch with my mum and sister.

So here goes. I've done a little tutorial with photos incase you happen to have the exact same dining room chairs in your house! I missed a few photos in the middle, but it was too hard to insert them after I had rearranged the photos for the umpteenth time. So when you use the backing as a pattern you need to cut out two for each chair back so that you can of course sew them together. When sewing the chair backs use the yellow chalk as a guide for the edge and sew inside this. You need to sew about 1.5cm inside this line. Before turning the right way round check that it fits by sliding onto your plastic wrapped back. If it doesn't fit properly then sew it smaller checking as you go until you happy. Then cut off the excess, and use this as a pattern for the rest of the backs. The plastic that is around the chair back is just glad wrap. It will make it much easier to slide the tightly sewed backing onto the foam covered back. The rest of the photos are self explanatory. It took about 4 hours to do three chairs while taking photos and entertaining a 3 month old baby. If you had a helper you could probably have done all six chairs in 4 hours!

Before

Take the chair apart.

Lift the staples up.

Use pliers to take the staples out.

Pick the seam to take off cover on the back of the chair.

This is what the chalk mark looks like before cutting out backs to chairs.

Trace this one onto all bits of fabric for backing.

Staple the one side down.

Unpick stitches where the metal prong needs to come through.

Fold other side over and staple.

The completed back.

Take out all staples.

Use the chair cover as a pattern.

Staple new cover on stretching taut as you go.

Staple gauze cover back onto chair to hide mistakes.

Screw it all back together.

The finished product!

Ready to freeze

The food that is! Plus the taco mince is already in the freezer. I then covered them with foil and wrote on them what we're having with each meal so I don't forget to pack that!!

Cooking en masse

We're going on holiday next week and I decided that if I take our meals up I can have a holiday from cooking but still eat healthy meals. So first we have a bolognaise sauce which we will have with spaghetti and which I will also make into a lasagna later on this evening.
I also made a stew with parsnips and carrots and I used a bay leaf which of course makes me a gourmet chef!! ; )
I then made a curry and some taco mince.
I actually had all of the food cooking at the same time so it didn't take that long. So we have tacos, lasagna, spag Bol and curry for four of our dinners plus one dinner of left overs. For breakfast we'll have pancakes one morning (the bottled variety that I already purchased at Costco), eggs and bacon on one and cereal for the rest. We'll try and have rolls and sandwiches for lunch on all the days we're away and instead of wasting our money on meals out we'll go and do stuff. I'm thinking that we'll go and see whales migrating, kiss some seals, go to a butterfly farm, see some clogs being made, go down a toboggan ride and even watch a crab race. I wonder if you can guess where we're going!

Timbah in Glebe on Sunday

Rose was singing at the Timbah Wine Bar in Glebe today between 4 and 7 and we decided to drag the whole gang along to listen.

The paper on our Ikea bedding.

Playing so quietly.

In her pyjamas.

And he's in his.

Sunday started for me with a sleep in, followed by breakfast in bed, a read of the Sunday papers and then some time planning our much needed holiday. Thank you to my wonderful husband who made me breakfast in bed for no reason other than he loves me! Dave did some work and then painted the first coat of black on the cot, Isabella watched some TV and then played quietly in Sammy's room and Sammy and Josh watched 'The Big Bang Theory'.

Beautiful photo of the three eldest in their finest.

A grown up glass of red.

A glass for me too!

At 2pm we finally had lunch and began to get out of our pajamas which we'd all been hanging out in. Such a relaxing day! We showered and got dressed up and headed out with a sleeping baby. Hamish was so well behaved and transferred from home to the car with only a little whinge which stopped as soon as the car started. He then slept all the way to Glebe and when I got him out of the car and into the baby bjorn he carried on sleeping. A total miracle! We walked into the smallest little hidden away wine bar feeling like we really didn't belong with our large family of 6, but we felt really welcome and were shown to a table near the back so Hamish wouldn't be too close to the music. We had a glass of wine and some inner city nibblies which the kids didn't think much of. They were impressed with their own mini bottles of coke though.

Yes that is a glass of wine in my hand and yes I am still breastfeeding but since I hardly ever drink I didn't feel guilty in the least. We both felt young and funky hanging out in an inner city bar. We don't miss the lifestyle but it was nice to be out in a grown up space.

Rose singing. It was much busier than it looks.

Rose sang beautifully and we enjoyed being there listening to her.
Here are some photos of our time there. We only stayed for an hour and a bit. As soon as Hamish woke up I fed him and then we headed home.
At one point all three kids were head down playing with mobile phones. We were grateful that they were quiet while we made lovey eyes at each other. A great day!

Out shopping

I got Dave to come along with me to do some shopping. We popped in to KMart and had a look around. Pity there are so few of them as they're pretty cheap.
Two of my gorgeous men!

Finally photos

I've finally taken photos of all the completed bunting. Here's Sammy's room: I also made matching tie backs for her curtains. As it's a rental they're not attached to the wall, but still look cute. And here's a photo of the bunting in Isabella's and Hamish's room. Isabella is not impressed with the colour scheme at all!! She says blue is for boys. I think I'm going to have to somehow incorporate pink to make her happy!!

Grandpa and Hamish

Look at that gorgeous smile!

Granny and Pa came to visit Josh for his birthday. He wasn't really good company as he hadn't had any sleep after his sleep over and I woke him from a nap to come upstairs and say hello. We only kept him upstairs for a few minutes and then sent him back to bed. You couldn't really get anything out of him other than grunts. Poor tired boy. Granny and Pa got so many smiles from Hamish today. I took a couple of really good photos with Dave's camera, but you'll have to make do with the not so great one I got with my iPhone instead.

Moocaboolla Festival

Here's Sammy ready to go on stage.

Sammy danced on centre stage at the Moocaboolla Festival held at Boronia Park. She looked absolutely adorable. See for yourself!

Sammy is third from the left with her hair standing up above her head.

Josh's 14th birthday and his sleepover...

Josh turned 14 today. Fourteen! I can't believe that I'm the mother of a 14 year old. I can remember so many things that happened to me when I was 14 and Josh will have vivid memories of moments of his life from now.
That's just so weird to me.
Josh wanted DVDs for his birthday and we weren't really keen on buying them for him. Not that there's anything wrong with DVDs, but we just didn't want to buy them for him as a birthday present. There's not really anything special about a DVD. I suggested that he use some of his money to go toward his present and then he could think of getting some technology like a new iPod or even an iPad. Well iPad it was! And we're so impressed with it. It's so awesome! We've made sure that it doesn't have internet so that we don't have to worry about what he's doing on it. He can download stuff through iTunes and then sync his iPad through the computer in the lounge room. I'm sure people with teenagers can totally relate to this. The one rule we have is that it doesn't go to school with him. I'm sure that it would disappear if it went to school. Josh has already lost an iPod on a bus. He saved all his pennies and bought it with his own money and then left it on his school bus. We called the bus company straight away and even went to the bus depot and nobody handed it in. I was so devastated for him. What an awful way to learn about dishonest people and the ways of the world. I hope whoever found it on the bus and kept it had lots of bad luck for stealing!!
For Josh's sleepover we had hotdogs for dinner and then bought heaps of lollies for the boys to eat while watching their movies. Josh had Konrad and Emil over and had invited Aiden, but he wasn't able to come. The boys were all very well behaved, but they didn't get much sleep. At 4:00am I was woken by their laughter and shortly after Hamish wanted a feed. I fed Hamish and then fell asleep about 5ish. The boys were still awake at that stage. After I fed Hamish I wanted to go and tell them to go to sleep, but I was just too tired.
Josh came and woke us up at 7:00am for breakfast and so that he could open his presents. I said that I would make pancakes for the boys for breakfast. So once Dave had made me a cup of tea I stumbled out of bed bleary eyed and made a double batch of pikelet mixture. I cooked the whole lot into big pancakes and the kids ate them with maple syrup and ice-cream, except for Josh who had his with Nutella. I really can't believe that they had any room left in their stomachs after eating all the junk that they did.
At 10am everyone was picked up and Dave and I had a short reprieve before it was off to Boronia Park for the Moocaboolla Festival and Sammy's dance on centre stage.

Getting ready to watch the movies.

Birthday cake for breakfast!

All comfortable now...

The table of  food!

Sammy's Room

I bought some more material for Sammy's room to match the bunting. I think I'll probably make some tie-backs for the curtains and a cushion cover. Today I covered three little wooden frames with the same material. I'll probably put something on top of them although I'm not sure what yet!
Heres what I did: I turned the pictures in all the frames inside out so you wouldn't see them through the thin fabric and then I used my staple gun to attach the fabric to the frames. I was too lazy to iron the fabric as you can see by all the creases. I just pulled it tight! Now I just need to decide how to finish them off...

A day of errands

Isabella took this photo!

First off was a visit to the doctors to check out Hamish's poor skin. While we were there he got weighed and measured. He's now 7.2 kg which is on the 90th percentile for weight and is 62cm which is on the 75th percentile for height. His head circumference was also on the 75th percentile. So no wonder he's now wearing 6 month old clothes (that's size 00) and feels like a ton when you hold him for too long. He's got a steroid cream and an antibacterial cream for me to put behind his sore ears. Hopefully it will get better soon. Then to Top Ryde City for some groceries, birthday card and of course a stop at Donut King for a strawberry milkshake and donut for Bella, a coffee for mum and even Hamish had a milky beverage!! Isabella got a plastic Princess ring with her donut that she was very happy with. She also took a blurry photo of me!

Isabella with her pink donut and milkshake.