In which Minty turns four and I gift her with abandonment issues...

Happy valentines day everyone!  Lots has been happening about these parts, hence the lack of consistent posting.  

Minty turned four yesterday and also had her very first full day of kinder.  I think it all went OK... until I forgot to pick her up.  OK so that's not entirely accurate.  I didn't 'forget' - I got the times mixed up and thought I was supposed to pick her up at 2:30 instead of 2:15.  And then Turi and I fell asleep on the couch together and we were running late for our incorrect time.  So all in all she waited for us for… ahem… almost half an hour.

I'm sure this is the kind of story Minty will be telling her psychotherapist in twenty years time.  Lucky I'm not embroiled in a custody battle since I'm sure this would be lauded out as evidence of my extreme parenting incompetence.  (I would counter with tales of the time when the Mr accidentally slammed the car door on Minty's head).  Clearly we are both shooting for parents of the year!  As it is, I'm sure I'll just beat myself up over it for the next few months until I manage to push it to the recesses of my mind in an attempt at self preservation.

Thankfully the birthday wasn't a complete write off.  We did manage to put together a nice party for Minty on the weekend with some friends and family.

I will share some pics of the party tomorrow but in the mean time here are a few of Minty in the party dress I made for her.  She insisted on carrying her new umbrella (a present), so the shadows are a bit all over the place.  I used this pattern but left off the pockets and gave it a round neckline.  The fabric is double gauze Nani Iro, which I picked up on sale while we were in Japan.  I'm not sure why I keep making things out of double gauze, possibly I'm some kind of masochist.  This one was fraying excessively as I was putting it together but I think I managed to encase it all within the french seams.  I used much less fabric than was recommended in the pattern (which always makes me feel very thrifty).  I cut the fabric so that the top and bottom panels were densely patterned, with the lightly dotted section in the middle.  Luckily the print is very forgiving since Minty has already managed to permanently stain the front with chocolate and raspberry ice-cream!

Ever wondered how Turi would look as a girl?

Now you know.  Pretty dang cute.

And to answer your question (because I can of course read your mind), yes we did leave the house like this.  We went supermarket shopping.  And no I did not dress him like this as some kind of whack experiment in pushing gender stereotypes.  We were visiting friends and he 'accidentally' turned on the outdoor shower and soaked his clothes.  These were the only spare change of clothes I had with me, curtesy of Minty's kinder bag.

And before any of my feminist readers (bless you all) are offended by this post… yes, gender stereotypes are mostly stupid.  And yes, everyone should be able to wear pink love heart pants and a frilly cupcake shirt if they want to!

Winners and a partial house update...

And the giveaway winners are…

Manu wins the measuring jug!

Lien wins the book!

I'll be in touch with you both shortly to organise the logistics.

And now for a house update…  OK so this is a limited house update since my camera battery went flat mid-way through my last visit to site.  

The claw foot bath is now sitting in the bathroom.  It's obviously not plumbed in at this stage but it gives you a bit of an idea of what it will eventually look like.  Originally I had planned to paint the outside of the bath black and put very dark tiles on the floor.  Now that the bath is in-situ I think I actually like it pale blue and I might even just leave it shabby.  I kind of think the rustic look suits the big timber window.  I'm in the process of hunting for floor tiles and I'm honestly completely confused about what I want.  Does anyone have any thoughts?

Meanwhile, this is our enormous evaporative cooler that is currently squatting in the lounge room, before it finds its permanent home on the roof.

The main toilet has some plasterboard up and will hopefully be installed soon.  Our workforce is getting a bit inpatient to have proper facilities!!  The picture on the right is the view from the toilet.

The big changes are on the outside of the house, as much of the cladding has gone up - but of course I don't have any pictures of that.  Stay tuned!

Kinder!

Minty had her first day of kinder (preschool) today!  She was so excited and had a ball while she was there.  Her highlights from the day were that she played duplo lego and 'someone else' wet their pants and cried!  

The start of kinder of course meant that Minty needed a new bag.  I wasn't particularly keen on most of the ones I'd seen in the shops so I decided to sew her one as an early birthday present (she turns four next week).  The pattern was from Little Things to Sew.  I used Denyse Schmidt quilting cotton for the main fabric and lining (I used fusible interfacing to bulk up the main bag since the fabric was a bit light weight).  I think the red chunky zip and bright pink straps help to make the colours pop.  Minty loves it and Turi is very jealous.  He wants to have a kinder bag too.  I really think kinder is going to be a harder adjustment for Turi.  He couldn't understand why he wasn't allowed to stay and play with all the toys.

These photos were taken while we were waiting to go inside and she was too hyped up to stay still, so apologies for all the cut off legs and strange running shots!

I realise I need to announce last week's giveaway winners - I'm hoping I'll get a chance tomorrow.  I've been really busy creating so I haven't had much energy left to spend time on the computer. 

Giveaway!

Ok today is very exciting because… wait for it… I've got, not one, but two giveaways for you!  But before we get to that...

Aren't these just the most amazing cakes you've ever seen?  They're made by my very good friend Jennifer who runs a little custom order bakery in Lawton OK.  I've known Jennifer since our first year of high school when we used to sit together in class scrawling little pictures to each other and coming up with little stories to go with them.  Amazingly, despite drifting apart at various times over the years as our lives took different paths, and now living on complete opposite sides of the world, I'd still count her as one of my closest friends.  She's an amazing artist and she has an incredible talent for translating this across into edible form!  Anyway gush, gush (could I be anymore of a groupie!?!)  You can check out Sugar+Butter on Facebook or at Jennifer's blog It's Wonderful Here.

The point of this story was that I spotted a particularly attractive measuring jug on her blog (see the pic above), happened to mention in passing how lovely I thought it was and Jennifer (generous soul that she is) sent one out to me.  But Phillip Island appears to be a bit of a Bemuda Triangle when it comes to postal services and the package got lost.  In the end the kitchenware place sent out a second one, only to have the first one turn up a few weeks later with the package opened and resealed with a big 'customs' sticker (because presumably measuring jugs look suspiciously like drugs or bomb making equipment).  So now I have two beautiful measuring jugs, and I'm giving one of them to one of you lucky readers.

Here is Minty modelling the measuring jug.  She likes to be involved!

Today's second giveaway, is a book I bought when Minty was a toddler and I was going through a bit of a Steiner phase.  It's called  'Creative Play for your baby' and it's full of all sorts of toys you can make for babies (ages 3 months to two years).  Since both my children have now outgrown it, I thought I'd move it on to a new home where it might get some love again.

To enter today's giveaway, simply leave a comment telling me which of these you would like to win (jug or book) and I'll use a random number generator to pick a winner.  Entries close on Friday 3rd Feb.

On matters of life and death...

Remember our goldfish Timmy Boomda?  Well I just discovered his lifeless body floating in the fish bowl.  I'm not going to pretend I'm sad.  Cleaning out the fish bowl is now one less job on my already too long 'to do' list.  Of course the death of a pet always inevitably leads to a series of difficult questions from the smaller members of the family.  Here is a little look at what occurred when the kids discovered the body…

Minty: mummy, Timmy has laid down properly to go to sleep

Me: Darling, Timmy is dead.  He's not ever going to wake up.

Minty: I don't mind… I'm not going to die.

Me: Well… actually… everyone dies at some point.

Minty: Sometimes daddy dies… and he wakes back up

Me: Daddy isn't actually dead.  He just sleeps very heavily sometimes

and a little later…

Minty: I don't know where Timmy is.  

Me: He's right there, dead, floating at the top of his bowl.  

Minty: but where is he?  

From her tone and emphasis, my best interpretation of this is that she was asking about the thing that made Timmy alive instead of dead, the essence of him, his soul.  My internal response (you know the one your head forms before you open your mouth) was 'shit I don't know. I don't think fish have souls'.  Frankly I'm not geared for philosophical enquiries before I've had a morning coffee.  Instead I chose to pretend I didn't understand what she was asking and merely repeated myself, 'see he's floating there dead in the bowl'.  I wonder how many more probing questions I'm going to answer in a severely inadequate way as a parent.  Probably too many to bear thinking about.

If you're wondering what Turi was doing during all of this, he was basically dancing about with a big grin on his face, tossing pinches of fish food into the bowl.  Clearly it hasn't raised any existential questions for him!

In which there is lots of ice-cream and a last minute gift...

I've been taking a bit of a blog break to try and make the most of the summer weather with the kids.  We've had family and friends visiting and we've been swimming at the beach almost every day (sometimes twice a day).  

This weekend we've had a couple of birthday parties.  The first was a party for a little friend who turned one.  I have to admit to being completely disorganised coming up with a gift.  I ended up whipping up this little bird toy an hour before the party!  The pattern is from Fiona Dalton's book 'Hop Skip Jump'.  I used linen and some pretty Amy Butler fabric I had in my stash.  I popped a bell inside to make it into a rattle and I think the tail feathers will be perfect for a teething one-year-old to gnaw on!

Today we went to a fantastic family barbecue.  The kids spent the day jumping on the trampoline and hopping in and out of the inflatable paddling pool (repurposed birthing pool!!), while we enjoyed ourselves sipping fruit cocktails on the deck.  As my contribution to the festivities I made six different ice-creams and sorbets and set up a little ice-cream buffet.  The flavours were plum ice-cream (made with home grown blood plums), fleur de lait (a Parisian glace meaning 'flower of milk'), chocolate-coconut sorbet, chocolate-raspberry ice-cream, watermelon sorbetto (with chocolate chips instead of pips) and banana sorbet.  The 'fleur de lait' seemed to be the most popular flavour of the day.  I had so much fun putting it all together, I wish I had the capital to open my own little gelateria on the coast somewhere!  But in the mean time I might just have an ice-cream party for Minty's fourth birthday in a few weeks time!!