Off on holiday

Today I loaded up the car(really miss those carefree days of travel without kids!!) and left the chaos of Auckland for a much simplier life.  My parents have a house at Waihi Beach, which is a lovely relaxing place to chill.

Our house from the Beach

So with bikes, toys, plenty of clothes, towels and buckets and spades we left. Bella and Maddie slept for most of the trip.  We listened to Christmas Carols and while she was awake, every new song would be greeted with..."what is this one, Mummy?"It was the girls and I and Jani was to follow after work tomorrow.

My sister joined us over there with her two kids Alex(4) and Claudia(18months) and the kids were pretty pleased to see one another.

They were so hypo!!

Bella

Claudia

Alex

Grandad singing to Madeline

tis the season to be busy!

It has been chaos here the last few days.  Sick kids, sick grown ups, and too much to do, and not enough Mummy to go around.  Both my girls have been really clingy.  This makes doing things hard.

Luckily most of my Christmas shopping was completed over a month ago, but I have still had some sewing to do...and it has ended up being last minute.  Over the last few days I have had three projects to complete.  A lego mat for my nephew, a tutu for Maddie and Santa Sacks for the girls.

The Lego mat was made from an idea in my head...pretty pleased with the final product.  Bella was well and truly impressed so I will have to make her one after Christmas...

handle details with leather reinforcing

Being used as a block mat as we have no lego...yet!

Bella has plenty of skirts, tutus and pettiskirts but Maddie has none, so I found this tutorial and decided to make her one...

http://samstermommy.blogspot.com/2010/07/tutu-tutorial-happy-togethers-dress-up.html

It was incredibly easy to make-mine has four layers-tulle with spots, satin, plain tulle and chiffon.  Now Bella would like one.  Am tempted by the lovely silk that spotlight had, but can only imagine what a toddler or baby would do to that.

The finished product...

The skirt

Being worn by M

and last of all, Santa sacks.  The minky has sat here all year!  It took a whole yard but I was really happy with the results.  My friend Debbie kindly gave me a piece of white, and I went down to the lovely man who lives near me and got him to embroider the girls' names on the pieces. Oh how I would love a machine like that!  I decided to line them, and managed to find pink gingham to match for $2 a metre at spotlight...bargain!  Bella helped me by handing me pins and sitting beside me as I sewed.  She was very excited that it had her name on it.  I can see she is going to want a sewing machine soon. I frequently find her sitting at the machine trying to play with the nobs. She had her jacket under the foot the other day and was just caught in time.  The machine thankfully was off.

Anyway these were very painless to make...except for the heat. Think it was the hottest day today so far.  Minky is definitely not a summer fabric!!

Bella thinks hers is a sleeping bag!

Christmas round one

Christmas with Jani's parents-the girls Nana and Poppa was spent at our house.

They came with Lunch for the day, and lots of lovely gifts for the girls-clothes, books, toys and a new table and chairs.  Bella did a wee dance for them.

Bella loved the Christmas crackers and insisted on pulling everyones as she liked the bang and the toy inside.

For dessert we had mini pavs that everyone decorated themselves which Bella thought was pretty cool.


Maddie ate a paper hat(and was most upset when it was taken off her), a rusk and for dessert she had a strawberry which was a hit.

Good times, Great friends

I feel I have been truly blessed with amazing friends.  Childhood friends, my sisters who are my best friends, and friends I have today.  When I first became pregnant I wondered what would happen when it came to friends and children.  None of my close friends had kids, and I thought that I may well be quite lonely.  Till I discovered a forum on a website.  A group of us all were due to have babies in April 2008.  For some of us, it was our first. Others it was a second baby. And some had more than one child already.  We lived NZ wide...a group of us in Auckland, then others further a field-Christchurch, even Invercargill.  We followed the highs and lows of our pregnancies, or birth stories and photos of our beautiful babies.  I think we knew each other pretty well.  We even all got together in 2009, in Auckland so we could all meet in real life.  I found out I was pregnant that weekend with Maddie so for me it was an amazing weekend!

Anyway...due to being in close proximity to each other, the Auckland girls have many get togethers.  A group of us attend a playgroup on a Wednesday.  Some of us have gone onto have another child...three of us have second babies that were born within 6 weeks of each other.

Not only have the Mums become firm friends, so have the children.  Bella adores her friends and asks each night if she will be seeing them the next day.  It is lovely to see her finally playing with others, rather than alongside them, as the do when they are young.  They all have the odd tiff, but never anything serious!


Today we went to the Grey Lynn pools, which is a fab location for swimming with little ones.  There is a single shallow wadding pool, a life guard on duty, and a park with playground right outside.  It is free entry too-pretty much unheard of in this day and age.
It was stinking hot.  Bella had not been swimming for almost a year as it is difficult with two kids at our local pool.  She was a bit hesitant in talking, but I hoped she would come around. We took a picnic to share with Claire, Ang and the kiddies.

Bella and Lukey

Testing the waters

Water babe

Loving it!

Bella giving Zach a dunking

Maia and Maddie

Anyway...the pool was a hit. Bella loved it.  Maddie was not too sure at first.  It was rather cold and this her first swim, but she was happy to sit in the shallows and "paddle"
The picnic went down well...and both girls were fast asleep before we even got home!

Bella's first Tutorial....Christmas Canvas

My two year old has a tutorial before I do...haha!

Bella wanted to make something Christmassy that involved glue and collage so out Canvas Art was born.

Canvas Art by a two year old

You will need:


Canvas
Collage materials-we used googly eyes, pipe cleaners, pompoms, glitter glue, glitter and felt.


We made a Reindeer 


1. Cut the felt to size-you might need a grown up to do it!  Make sure it is smaller than your canvas.  Choose which other materials you would like to add...we chose a pom pom for his nose and two googly eyes, plus a pipe cleaner for antlers.

2.Put glue on the back of the felt and glue to the canvas. Use a glue that is suitable for fabric.

3.  Add glue to where you would like to put the eyes and nose. (Glue could also be added to the back of the nose and eyes which is how Mummy would do it, but this is not my tutorial!)

4. Carefully press the nose and eyes onto the glue.

5. Add Antlers to the top of the head.  These are made by folder a pipe cleaner in half, then twisting it into a random shape.  Put more glue under the top of the felt and push it under there.  Bend the antlers till you are happy with the shape.

6.  Put blobs of glitter glue all over the background and use your hands to spread it out, all over the background. I like this part best!  Rub it in till it is all glittery.

7. And there you have it...a lovely present for family and friends, or a decoration for your home, to be treasured in years to come....

 and variations of this same idea..

Crafting together-I have competition!!

Bella loves to craft.  Not sure where she got that from : P but she does!
Her favourite things are glitter, glue and sticking things down.

Earlier that morning for a bit of fun we had jazzed up two nappies for a competition.  I did one, Bella wanted to do the other and she did a pretty good job. Mine was Rudolph, using some of our Christmas dress ups, and she wanted to do an angel...her is the result...

the nappies were hung by the tree with care, in the hope that St.Nicholas soon would be there.

our wee model and her side kick-who is very camera shy!

so decorating this things got Bella thinking...what else could she decorate.  So I promised that after her afternoon nap we would do some 'making'.  She had a record 3 hour sleep, and got up.

We got out some mini canvases that I had in my stash and a bag of collage goodies that I had from swaps and various things.  We got my basket of felt and sat together and talked about what we could make.  

She decided she would like to make a reindeer....so I cut a head from felt...I must get some left-handed scissors for her!  She glued it on, then added a nose, eyes and with a little help from me, antlers.  Then she decided she wanted glitter around the reindeer so she put glitter glue in the background.  Then she made another the same.  Finally she wanted a tree, so I cut out the tree shape, she added a star, glitter and did this one very well independently.

the artist at work

the finished product!

What fun!!