Cushion covers

The first one is using the left over material from my chair and the second one is the little hessian one on my bed. So quick and easy to do and they make such a change to the lounge and bed room! I'm loving having time to be creative!!

Two before and afters

Some recently completed pieces of furniture.
And an almost after. I have to get a key plate to cover the whole in the door and some white paint needs to be painted blue.
And my other beautiful cupboard.
And the after.

Recording baby's milestones

So does baby number four have to have what baby number one, two and three have had? Are you recording all those little milestones and achievements for prosperity because one day they'll look back and want to know what they were like when they were a baby? Well poor Isabella (being number three) made me feel like an awful mother when Hamish was born and we were going through the older two's baby books to see how much they weighed etc. Poor Isabella had the figures and anecdotes, but absolutely NO photos printed off. I felt so guilty that I spent an entire afternoon and evening finding and printing off photos to put in her baby record book. She was so happy! It made me realise that I had better do Hamish's book too or I'll be hearing about it when he's four!

Well today Hamish was exactly 6 months old. I measured and weighed him and wrote down little bits about his routines, likes, favourites and more. Here are his stats:

Weight at birth: 3260g

Weight at 6 months: 9kg

So my lovely little love muffin has put on nearly 6kgs in 6 months!! Wow!

Birth length: 51 cm

Length at 6 months: 67cm

That's growth of 16cm! I think he's going to be very tall! Dave checked a website out that says it can predict your height from your parents height, your age, length and weight. It says that Hamish will be 6'3". Shorter than Dave, but taller than Josh who will supposedly only be 6'1". I'm not so sure that you can predict height, but Josh is already put out that his baby brother might be taller than him. I can't wait to find out.

Hamish slept for the second time this week, from 7:30pm until 7am. I woke up on those two mornings with a smile on my face and Dave said that I almost reminded him of the normal me. I hope that this is the start of some sort of sleeping routine. I would be so excited if I could get two nights in a row where I got to sleep longer than 4 hours! Of course I'd like to think that it's something that I've done and give myself a big pat on the back for being such a good mummy, but I don't think it's me. Some babies love to sleep and some don't. Partly it's just luck of the draw, partly nature and of course some of what you do. I've tried to keep to a routine at night which has helped, but have not had any luck during the day and just try not to stress about it. He'll learn to sleep when he needs it and I can't do anything about having to do grocery shopping or take the kids to activities or cook dinner or take Isabella out.

Tomorrow I've got to remember to take his foot and hand prints. I've done it with all the kids and so I need to make the time to do it for him too. I really love looking back at those little hand and foot prints and remembering how small they were.
Here are the prints from 11 weeks. They were supposed to be done at birth. It only took me 11 weeks to get around to it!!

Finished freebie!

I found a couple of ugly chairs on the side of the road just before council pick up which meant they were free!! My lovely husband even drove around the block to pick them up. He called me to find out if I wanted all of them. I said no just the two best. So he rummaged through the pile of chairs like a homeless man and brought me two back. What an absolute sweet-heart. It's taken a few months to actually sand them, paint them, choose the fabric, cut the pattern, find a store to cut a new cushion etc etc. This is in between caring for a new baby. Mad? Totally!! Here are the befores, firings and after.

Exhausted!!

What do you do when you're exhausted and at the end of the line. Everyone wants to be fed at once and you only have two hands. What are you to do? Get the four year old to feed the baby! I don't know if she managed to get much in but they were both quiet while I cooked omelets for dinner. Easy dinner option!

I should've taken video. This was very funny and greatly improved my mood. I did feed him once Isabella was eating!

Hamish has a tooth

Here's a photo of me trying to take a photo of his tooth. I promise there's really one there. Isabella was prepared to do whatever it took to get to that tooth. She was very eager and I had to stop her before there were any tears.

Boronia Fete

I've been a bit slack with my blog posts since I went over our downloads by $200!! So a little upload shy, but trying to get over that. So since it's late at night and I should be sleeping here goes with a whole lot of short posts and some photos. Here's Bella with her trophy for dancer of the week! So cute. And a photo with her big sister. All of us at Boronia fete to watch Sammy dance. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of that as I was to busy watching her.
Here's a close up of Bella's painted face. We then raced home to get Sammy dressed for her Halloween party. She dressed as a witch and I did her make-up. What a cute witch she made! Our weekends are not usually quite so busy or manic.

Sneak peak of furniture

I'm almost finished some of my office/craft room freebies. I thought you might like to see a sneak peak.
My chair as you can see is black and my one cupboard is black and the other one is blue. What colour should I do my desk? I'm not sure if I go blue, black, white or try and strip it back to wood? Also the blue on the material is dark and the blue paint is light and kind of greyish. So many decisions and so many projects to do before Christmas!

Saturday dress rehearsal and then the big Concert

On Saturday Sammy was taken to both dress rehearsals by Sandra and I am forever grateful. I would never be able to take the kids to all their activities without such great friends to help with pick ups and drops off (with my sanity intact). So on Saturday after already having Sammy for a sleepover the night before and taking Sammy all the way to Lindfield for a dress rehearsal and then bringing her all the way back home so that she could have lunch Sandra then offered to take her back to the venue for her next rehearsal before the evening performance. It was so appreciated!!
The girls arrived from the first rehearsal looking so cute in their black tutus and I couldn't wait to see them all dressed up for the concert.

Back from rehearsal in their black tutus.

Rhapsody Studios always put on great concerts and we weren't disappointed. The choreography really showed off the girls dance skills and their costumes were wonderfully theatrical. The girls had so much fun playing dress-ups, doing their hair and putting make-up on and they looked so grown-up. I can't believe my little girl is almost a teenager. Before too long I think that Sammy and her friends will be wearing make-up on a regular basis. I hope not too soon!
After the concert the girls were well and truly pumped up and it took a while for them to calm down. Unfortunately as soon as the concert was over we had to take the older two up to their dad's place and try and find them some dinner on the way. That always means junk food. Yuck! Luckily my parents offered to take Isabella to their place for a sleepover so that we didn't have to drag her along for the almost 3 hour round trip and it also gave me a chance to have a much needed 'serious' talk with my ex without having to worry about Isabella being awake or asleep.

With the flower we gave her after the performance.

Cool man in his hat.

By the time Dave and I got home we were exhausted and it was close to midnight! Too late for someone who gets woken up during the night!

Waiting for the concert to start. Hot and no airconditioning!

Feeding Hamish Vegies

Josh is such a great helper and after we came back from our cafe trip he helped to feed Hamish so that I could get ourselves organised and packed to go and watch Sammy's end of year dance concert. He didn't feed Hamish standing up the whole time. He found himself a chair to sit after realising that his brother spits out half of what goes in and that feeding him was going to take a lot longer than he thought. Hamish loved being fed by his big brother!

I love this photo. Josh is so big compared to Hamish!

Saturday dance lessons and a first time treat for Josh

Aren't they so handsome!

Usually on Saturday mornings it's just Dave or I that take Isabella to dance class. Sometimes we do it together. Those are nice days where Dave and I have a quick breakfast (dance class used to be 45 minutes and has only recently changed to one hour now that she's gone up a level) a proper cup of coffee, sometimes a little read of the paper and a chat while I feed Hamish. He always seems to need to be fed at the same time as me!! We haven't let on to Isabella that we're enjoying treats away from dance class or I'm sure that she'll want to come with us!
Josh and Sammy have been spending most Friday nights to Saturday night with their dad which has really disrupted our lives. Luckily from this weekend we're going back to fortnightly Fridays and Saturdays and fortnightly Monday afternoons. That means that the kids will still see their dad weekly but without so much disruption to our lives.

Tucking into bacon and eggs.

Anyway Sammy had a sleepover on Friday night and so on Saturday morning there was just Josh to take along for a treat. (Dave was grateful for an hour of peace and quiet!)We quickly dropped Isabella at dance class with her brand new dance shoes (she was VERY excited to finally have proper jazz and tap shoes!) and we walked up to a local cafe for breakfast. I was happy to just have a cup of tea as I'd already eaten breakfast. So I fed Hamish and Josh got to have eggs and bacon and a milkshake. It was so nice to have my boys with me. I'm sure it won't be long before Josh's social calendar is filled on the weekends and visits to a local cafe with mum are few and far between.

Lovely Friends!

Today I went to hang out with my new friend Carolyn for a mummy playdate. She is so easy to talk to and be around that I feel like I've known her for years. We hung out at her place and had tea and some delicious brownie muffins that she'd cooked while our two girls, Princess Isabella and Princess Jessica played together. They both had many outfit changes as usual (I think that the dress-up box is well-used when we visit) and held on tightly to their mobile phones (old non-working ones of course) just like us mummies and even did some craft for a while (they played with the hama beads but quickly got bored). Poor Will wanted to hang around with the girls and they put up with him to some extent. I felt sorry for him as it'll still be a couple more years before Hamish is any fun to be around. Hamish was happy to sit in his pram in the shade and watch the others eat their peanut butter sandwiches made with freshly baked bread. Isn't Carolyn great!

Carolyn and I had a long conversation about bread makers as funnily enough we had both used the same bread mixture within 12 hours of each other. There must be something in the air! My bread wasn't nearly as nice as hers and my bread maker makes loaves half the size of hers. I'll have to play around with the bread maker as Dave and the kids loved the bread even though it wasn't great. A bit of an incentive to make bread again!

Pavement find

I love council pick up time when everyone puts their junk on the side of the road to be thrown away. It's like Christmas time!! Well last time I was able to get my very patient husband to go and pick up some chairs I had seen on the side of the road that I wanted to recover. They're closer to being finished today. I took the staples out of one of the seats and as I type my wonderful husband is taking the staples out of the other one. It took me a lot of muscle to do one seat and I am very grateful that he's doing the second one. Here's a peek at the seat frame I did before I took off the webbing. It was an awful job!

Rockdale and Kernell

On Saturday we decided to go to The Heritage Building Centre in Rockdale to see if we could find some glass handles for the cupboard that I painted. I've seen some handles that I like and now I'm trying to find them. No luck so far! I also don't want to buy them off ebay until I've had a chance to hold them in my hand and find out if I actually still like them. So at the moment I'm just exploring places that many sell them. The Heritage Building Centre was like a treasure cave, but everything was seriously overpriced. Dave and I love 'The Pickers' (an American show on TV about two guys who scrounge for old things and then sell them for a profit) and this place is like one of the properties that they visit. It's full of interesting stuff. Unfortunately it's already been picked and a hefty price tag has been attached. Pooey! We didn't find the handles that I wanted!
So while we were in Rockdale we decided to get something for morning tea. Everyone was hungry and when we saw a little cafe with cute cupcakes on display and a parking out the front for our huge bus we quickly pulled in. I was sure they were closed as no-one was in there. But as we approached we realised that they were open and they had a shopful of treats to choose from. Yummy! They're called 'Cupcake Dolly' and unfortunately they don't have a website but they're on Rocky Point Road in Ramsgate and really cute. Sammy had the Tirimisu cupcake, Bella had the Chocolate, Dave had the Peanut Butter and Jelly cupcake (really!) and Josh and I had little dessert cup each. We had coffees and drinks and Hamish chewed quietly on his pram buckles while we decided where to go next. Dave decided that we should go and visit Captain Cook's landing site in Kernell. I can honestly say that I didn't know anything about Kernell and although I wasn't excited about the prospect of a history lesson on a Saturday afternoon I ended up enjoying myself and so did the kids. I think they may have even learnt something!

Tirimisu

Me and my Greek Rice Pudding. Yum!

Sucking on his strap.

A pudding called Chocolate Dirt.

Peanut and Jelly Cupcake.

She ate all the icing first!

Josh being silly for me!

Holding up the Cenotaph at Kernell.