Merry Christmas 2011

Charlie dog, Squealy String Bean and Fuzzy Wuzzy.

Sending everyone a very Merry Christmas and best wishes for a safe, happy and fun filled 2012.

Christmas Photos

Here is our family Christmas photo for the year.

The kids enjoyed telling Santa what they'd like delivered. Squealy just started singing!

Santa was really sweet to the kids... although by 3pm he must have been past it!

New Art

Husband Deluxe's sister in the UK sent him one of her original art works. Oil painting on canvas.

Just gorgeous and just in time for Christmas too. Thank you Chrissy, we L.O.V.E. it!

'Braided Scraps' Quilt #3

My braided scraps quilt top is finally completed. What a better way to spend a wet and miserable Sunday than by quilting?

All this quilt top needed was the patchwork sashing, which took *alot* of number crunching to get the blocks spaced exactly right.


















I ended using every spare bit of fabric I had to get the sashing just right.

This quilt top has ended up being a full QS.










I am also now moving onto making some pillow cases out of all the little scraps left over. There are little triangles, squares and rectangles. I'm stitching them up crazy patchwork style. What a liberating quilting style. I'm really enjoying it :)

Courgette

Panacotta and berries.

Husband Deluxe had his Christmas party again at Courgette this year. Beautiful setting and the food is really something else!

The restaurant blurb:

Awarded one hat status by the Sydney Morning Herald three years running, Courgette is one of Canberra’s most gorgeous restaurants. Owned by celebrated chef, James Mussillon, Courgette is the ideal choice for an occasion that requires everything to be perfect.

We had lots of laughs, one practical joke and a few boring speeches. I've included a photo of the dessert as it was my favourite part of the meal!

Squealy's Telly Quilt

Is finally finished. I sent it off to the lovely Fran at Willow Patch Quilting. She has quilted this using a variegated thread which matched the colours of the quilt perfectly.


Quilt top prior to machine quilting.







The quilt pattern includes: mice, lions, giraffes, frogs and elephants. It has really turned out quite well, although it is *very* bright :) Perfect for a little dude!

Birthday cuddles with his Mumma.

Close up of the machine quilting.

Finished quilt. Fran returned it machine quilted and with the binding strip attached. What a star! I hate binding up the quilts A job I am more than happy to pay to have done.

'Braided Scraps' Quilt #2

An update on my most gorgeous quilt which is using Moda fabric Blush range. This braided quilt is just stunning. I am just so pleased with how it is coming along.

I have put all four braids together and trimmed them to the same size.





I've also added the sashing along all the sides and top and bottom.

The next step is to order in some more fabric for the binding and to finish off a extra patch worked sashing. This will make the quilt a full queen size.

It was quite tricky to trim the braids as they kept getting all wonky. I suspect it is something to do with the bias of the fabric. So you can see where I used a chalk pencil, to pencil in the centre line of each braid. Was worried I'd cut them all wrong!




I've also added a photo of my beautiful girl. She has been busy crafting too. She received heaps of crafty things for her birthday recently and she has been slowly working through them all.

Butter Pecan Sweet Potatoes

Photo & recipe courtesy of the very clever Becky Higgins.

BUTTER-PECAN SWEET POTATOES

8 medium sweet potatoes (5 lbs.)
2 Tbsp. olive oil
coarse salt
2 Tbsp. butter, cut into small pieces
2 Tbsp. light brown sugar
1/3 c. pecan pieces
1/8 tsp. cayenne pepper

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Peel potatoes and halve lengthwise; slice crosswise 1/2 inch thick. On a baking sheet, toss potatoes with olive oil; season with coarse salt.

2. Transfer half the potatoes to a second baking sheet; cook both sheets until potatoes are tender, tossing occasionally, 25-30 minutes.

(Note: To make ahead (up to 5 hours) prepare recipe through step 2. Cool; cover and refrigerate. About 15 minutes before ready to serve, proceed with recipe.

3. Sprinkle with butter, brown sugar, pecan pieces, and cayenne pepper, dividing evenly. Bake until sugar is caramelized and hard, about 10 minutes. Gently toss; serve immediately.

Cricket Gala Day

Meeting the team players!

The boys cricket club was invited to gala day down at Manuka ovals.

They got to meet part of the Sheffield Shield Tasmanian team. Xavier Doherty, Ben Hilfenhaus, Matt Johnstone and Ashton May. Squealy scored a signed poster :)

The boys were also chuffed to received their Milo cricket kits. Fuzzy loves the fact that he is now a second year player and he now has a real wooden bat and a ball with real stitching. Very important things for a little dude.

Christmas Tree

L: before and R: after

The kids have been desperate to set up out tree this year and have been asking for around 3 weeks already. So we ended up letting them set up the tree a few days early.

Squealy jumped in afterwards and vacuumed up all the tinsel and bits of tree that was all over floor.

A good team effort all round!

Repitle Centre

We visited the Canberra Reptile Sanctuary today. String Bean had a real hands on experience as they have a new area where you can pet the lizards enclosed. Being a real critter kid she really enjoyed the experience.

String Bean's 9th Birthday

String Bean celebrated her 9th birthday yesterday at the CSIRO Discovery Centre. She just loves this place and really wanted her birthday celebrated here again.








Lots of fun had by all. Especially with the stick insects and turtles.

I also made her a tree full of spiders as a birthday cake!

Canvas Art

Here is my latest completed project. A mixed media collage canvas. Am super happy with how it has worked out. 8x8 using some photos from our holiday to Malua Bay in 09.

Little Athletics

String Bean has been attending Little Athletics and she just loves it. We know quite a few families with children at athletics, so it's like a big get together for us both.

So far String Bean has given everything a go and her times and distances are increasing.

She has been placed in the under 9 girls and it is a pretty big group of kids. The coach, Jeremy, is just lovely and he really goes out of his way to get the kids going, especially the shy ones.

Today Jeremy ran the 400m with String Bean so that she'd get her pace right. What a champ!

The Great Wynyard Bird Hunter

Squealy decided on our latest Sydney trip that he wanted to catch a bird. Any old pigeon or ibis would do. He wasn't being particularly picky.









He tried all kinds of tactics. Sneaking, running, stalking, chucking his ball at them and even offering choc chip cookies.

NOTHING worked. He got pretty upset and frustrated.






When asked why he wanted to catch a bird, I was completely surprised by his answer. "I want to eat one for dinner!"

5 year old logic ;)

Fuzzy Wuzzy's Birthday

Fuzzy celebrated his 7th birthday party today with his friends and family.


He chose John Knight Memorial Park and the kids had fun following a trail of clues ending with a treasure chest.

Fuzzy loved his Ben 10 Omnitrix birthday cake.


The kids enjoyed opening all the presents once we were back home.

We were lucky to have fabulous weather and the kids had a ball.

Fete Time

Spent most of the weekend helping out at the kids school fete. Mum and I worked the craft stall which was heaps of fun.

The kids had a ball running around with their friends. The craft stall made over $1200, so we were really pleased. Not sure how much the cake stall made but they were crazy busy all day long.

'Braided Scraps' Quilt

Mum bought me the most gorgeous jelly roll last year for my birthday. Not that I could do anything with it at the time. So it stayed tucked away in my stash in the cupboard.

Anyway I totally fell in love with Janet's 'Braided Scraps' quilt on display at my local quilt store.

So I convinced a friend (thanks Jo-Anne) to join me in this class. Janet showed us all the tricks and I was able to very quickly knock up 3 out of the 4 braids needed for the quilt top.

Really pleased with the resulting braids, now just need to put on some sashing and borders and it will be all finished.

Nara Candle Festival

Seemed like a good idea: Nara Candle Festival. Beautiful setting. Japanese gardens. Candles. Japanese food and crafts.

Pity most of Canberra felt the same way. The lines to get any food were unbelievably long and not going anywhere fast. And the crowds! Couldn't move for people. Lennox Gardens was completely over run with Canberrans :(




Got seriously worried we'd lose one or possibly all three of our children in the huge crowds.

We gave up after about half an hour. What a pity, as it should have been a fabulous night.

Skink Fun

We found a skink today sunning itself in our garden. String Bean, being a critter kid, couldn't wait to have a hold of the little guy. Had to convince her to let him go again!

Ben 10

L: Big Chill & R: Ultimate Swamp Fire.

I bought tickets for the boys to go see the Ben 10 Live show but poor Squealy spent the evening vomiting. So I ended up taking String Bean and Fuzzy instead.

Grandpa Max, little Ben 10 and Ben 10 Alien Force!

Was a great show. Excellent costumes and lots of action. The kids were spellbound and didn't move an inch the entire show. I had to ask Fuzzy which characters were in each photo. He also told me I needed to change the photo font colour to green :)

Jibber and Jabber

Fuzzy discovered one of my all time favourite games in the cupboard yesterday: The Game of Life. He has now played the game about 8 times and just loves it! He's worked out it's best to go to Uni and that buying stocks makes you stacks of money.

Since all the kids enjoy games so much, we are going to try to make Saturday night: game night.

Jibber and Jabber!

Fuzzy ended up having twin boys in one of the games we played. He pipes up "I'll call them Jibber and Jabber!" Hopefully by the time he actually has kids for real, he'll be able to come up with some legit names. Pretty funny though!