One lump or two?

  

I have a little boy who loves all things domestic. Sweeping, vaccume,mopping, cooking, and of course tea parties. Now I know a lot kids go through the stage of they love to cook but I'm not sure if it wasn't for living in a country that consumes as much tea as we do if he would be so inclined to play tea party as much as he does. I love that my little man enjoys a cup of tea before bed, knows that you need to serve tea with a spoon and sugar bowl and  bit of milk. This tea set is at his Nan's house and he knows right where it is. He brings out the tea set turns on the little kettle and then serves his tea. Gets everyone a cup them beings around the milk and sugar. And of course you have to do cheers before you can drink. And you must hold the cup by the handle. We get in lots of trouble if we do t use the handle. He's growing up quickly and won't always want to play tea party with his mum. So for as long as it last we will play tea party, and I will do as he says. Besides who could so no to a cup of tea made by this guy?

  

One of those days

Have you had those days where you wake up thinking today is going to be a good today. Today will bring change and will be a turning point in the way I do all things life related. Today was my day. I woke up made a healthy juice had plans to do the millions of loads of laundry I had to do and many many more productive things. Then  plans changed. I needed to take my husband to work, so I I decided to stay to use the Internet to update all my app. Then I got sidetracked talking to a friend from home and stayed way longer than I meant to but it was worth it. I quickly ran to the shops to get a few things then headed home whipped up a juice and got my little man to sleep.  Husband came home for lunch so still no work done for me. Which is ok my day wasn't to bad but then all of a sudden it got worse. Not horrible not life treating or anything just one of those times when nothing goes right. First I drop an entire bottle of vinegar we had only used a tiny bit of. glass and vinegar all over my floor. And of course my little man was in the kitchen but luckily up on the stool.  We have friends headed up and there's glass and vinegar all over my kitchen.i quickly get it cleaned up and open the windows. My son is still desperate for his popcorn snack which is what I was trying to do when I decided I no longer needed that bottle of  vinegar so I whipped up a batch of popcorn...well ok I tried I have no idea what happend but I burnt the popcorn and Burnt the pan and used up all the oil. Ugh! So I tried a new batch with butter it sorta worked but made it a bit chewy and oh I burnt some of that batch and the pan as well. Play time went well friends went home daddy left for his gig and I decided we were going to have a fun night so we at my sons request whipped up pancakes.which by the way after I was cooking them I realized I forgot the salt. Oops

Yummy buttermilk goodness. 

And who can have a bad evening when this cute guy is your kitchen help?

They must have been tasty  because he goppled up almost three of these things! 

Our evening continued to be great. Put on pjs and my son insisted to go outside.so having already decided  this would be a fun evening we headed to our park to play for a bit. I even pulled out my camera and took some fun shots of my little man doing some big kid things like climbing the rock wall all by himself! He's getting so big! Well off to bed an here's to hoping a few more things go my way tomorrow.

A little upcyle fun

I learned to sew at about age five. My grandmother insisted I hand sew a quilt. Well let's just say it's still in the box with maybe a third of the quilt sewn. I was five and left handed and she's right handed so it was hard to do. I made my first real quilt at about 7 or 8 maybe,it was a summer project. I took sewing In  high school made a few stuffed animals and a skirt that started out as ankle length but due to my extreme lack of cutting  skills ended up a bit shorter. Oops. I've enjoyed this ability I have from time to time but I like to go fast. I like quick easy to do projects.i have a two year old and I don't have a sewing machine of my own so when I get a chance to sew it's either with a few kids running around or I only get free time after bed time so not a lot of time. The other problem is money. It's expensive to start a project from scratch. Getting fabric and thread and whatever else you might need its tough. I miss my mums amazing sewing room that has basically everything you may never need in it. I'd say my skill level is average I'm confident with a pattern but I don't to much free hand experimenting. This is what I love about upcycling. You already have the fabric and a lot of the other pieces like buttons can come from just about any where. Well the other night I had some free time and the desire to do a project. So I headed over to my  best mates  and partner in crimes house. Armed with a few old sweaters and t-shirts hoping her creative juices would be flowing a bit and we could come up with something. I of course wanted to make something for my little boy and since we are headed to North America we decided to make some little leggings out of my husbands old sweaters. So we used the google and found some various tutorials and had a go. It was a slow start and we had to change the pattern a bit but it was easy and fast. Two pairs of pants in just under two hours isn't bad for two sleep deprived mummy's. They aren't perfect but I love them.

Here is pair number one. This used to be a dark green sweater I think we got from an op shop for a few dollars. The sleeves are his legs. The sleeves were quite baggy so we had to trim them down to make them more like tights than sweat pants.

 

 

Pair number two was one of my husbands favorite sweaters that ended up in the washer or dryer and shrunk. Not sure why we kept them around but sure glad we did. This was the first pair we cut, well I cut and remember me talking about my once long skirt that's now a mini skirt....well yeah I shouldn't ever be able to cut again. But they will last for the North American winter. Then they can be passed on to my little guys mini me. Such an easy and fun project. And great for boys and girls! These will be perfect for our Aussie winters with no heat in our house! Thanks best mate for all your help.shes currently working on romber suites made out of old t-shirts for my little man. Can't wait till they are finished.

Our latest project

This weekend we got a little creative in our house. We made our little guy a school shelf. We got given the shelf from our cousin friends and i was inspired. Now yes he's only 2 we aren't starting anything formal yet. We still aren't really sure what we are going to do for him for school quiet yet, and beside he's only 2 we have awhile. If we stay here In AUS paying for school is very expensive until we are residents and home schooling scares me a bit for my only child. I'm afraid he will get bored just me and him learning our ABC and shapes. And honestly I'm a little nervous about being his teacher. But I've been reading an awesome blog that has got me excited for him to start learning so we started a little school shelf. It's mostly contains Montessori style school activities right now but he loves it. We have the shelf in our room so it's  contents don't get completely trashed and there is some supervision, but he has access pretty much whenever he wants. It's amazing to see how fast he's " getting it." We have a little sheet of paper with 5 different colour squares and then a bunch of matching squares in a jar. When he first saw the jar he dumped out all the squares and Immediately started to match all the colours together.his favourite is the Popsicle sticks. We have a few cards with pictures of Popsicle sticks making different shapes and patterns. The idea is to use the Popsicle sticks in the jar to make the matching picture. It's a bit tough for him but today he did his first pattern all by himself. I was definitely  a proud mama. It's just nice for me to see him enjoying learning. I think we have a hands on learner like his mama! Still not sure how and when we are going to start any formal learning for now we are just having fun. Here's a few pictures of our little man enjoying his new shelf

The shelf all put together. I made the chalk board with chalk board paper and a small canvas so it can be taken anywhere. The baskets on the bottom were a gift from a friend who got them in china. They work perfect for his little hands.

The matching game. ( excuse the very miss shaped squares) 

Cleaning up after he's all done with the Popsicle game.

I do declare a day of rest

This week hasn't been overly busy or wild but it's been full and we've all felt it. We've had a great week playing with new friends. Walks to the library in the warm sunshine and crazy wind. Friends coming over to play and finally Christmas in October. Our little family is headed to North America over the holiday season so we decided to have an early Christmas with our Aussie family. It was everything Christmas should be, a baked dinner with pork cracklings and cauliflower with cheese sauce. A delicious dessert that may not have won awards for looks but  sure tasted amazing! A few fun gifts, a warm evening and most of all amazing friends. We are definitely blessed to have friends who lean more in to the family category  than just friends,when all those we share DNA with live on the other side of the world. The one thing Christmas did have that we could have done with out was an emotional little boy. It started with a scraped knee on the way in and ended with acting as if we were killing him every time we tried to give him some food. So last night I declared today would be a quiet day of rest. No friends over, no going anywhere just lots of snuggles and doing nothing. We did make some oat bars and jack did a great job putting in the ingredients and stirring. I think this recipe needs a bit more honey but they will still get eaten.  We also managed some outside time and 4 loads of laundry! This was a record laundry day!  But for the most part lots of napping, snuggles and rest. Jacks been unusually snugly and quiet today. I hope he's just enjoying our rest day and not getting sick.  Enjoy your Friday everyone we sure are!

The little boy who could sleep anywhere.

So my little guy has never be an amazing sleeper,but he wasn't a bad sleeper he just sleept. Any where and everywhere. As an infant he loved to sleep on us, or on his swing, or on his tummy. As he's gotten older not much has changed. Airplane seat, tuk tuk rides, on our laps, watching tv, eating,  while he was getting changed, and numerous other random places. Now he's never been a kid who would just lay down and go to sleep. These crazy sleeping places have all been after hours of not sleeping he's great at go go go. now where he got this crazy sleep ability I don't know, definitely not from his mumma. I have to go to bed 30 minutes before my husband just so I can get to sleep before he comes in and makes all kinds of strange noises. I have a very strict routine I have to do in order to go to sleep and if I wake up at anytime in the night I'm up, for hours! It's the worst thing ever, but not my little guy. He sleeps pretty solid as long as he's snuggled up close to us. Or sometimes with his face right on top of mine. He's not the worlds greatest sleeper but he's our little sleeper and he sure gives us some pretty good smiles. Today he fell asleep eating his lunch with a sandwich in his hand and after a good little cat nap he woke up and promptly started to finish eating the sandwich in his hand. So I leave you tonight with some of my favourite sleeping pictures. Sweet dreams everyone.

The broken boy and his mystery leg

So today marks a week and a half of jack having two hairline fractures in his tibia,so today we headed in to the fracture clinic for an x-ray and a check up. I was guessing they would have to put on a new cast since my silly broken boy has been running in his cast! Yep that's right running! and jumping and all around just not realising he was broken. So in we went from one long line to another. Headed to x-ray where he did amazing! Only a few tears And he even smiled for the camera! Then back to the clinic for a check up with the dr. We had the nicest dr. And she gave us some interesting news. It's not broken! Huh? I'm fact she doesn't think it was ever fractured! Oh my! So we take of his cast which he was only Slightly upset about and do a check up. The dr. Said it looked great, she felt around jack showed no signs of pain so now the test to walk on it. As soon as I put him down he was screaming and crying owie and refused to try. So we waited a few minutes and finally got him to take one step where he promptly  collapsed. After almost 2 weeks with a cast and possibly no actual fracture he's still not weight bearing. The dr. Being very confused when and checked with her boss. They agreed something's wrong but they don't know what. She has never seen a kid react like that to walking so back she headed to chat with her boss. They decided to put the cast back on and wait 2 more weeks. They are thinking he has possibly damaged his growth plate? But to test that they have to do a CT and they try not to with kids.  She threw around a few possible things with big words that I have no idea what she is talking about. But overall they are just going to wait. So jack now has a new purple cast ( his choice) and his only instructions are to walk and play as much as possible on it, should be no problem for him! We aren't sure what's going on but would appreciate all the prayers we can get for him. Hoping its just a fracture that no one can agree on.