I just wanted to say a big thank you to everyone for their help with my Cross Stitch dilemma.

Barbara has emailed me some fantastic designs and I’m going to be doing a little Ladybug under an umbrella (very appropriate for our weather this week).

Heidi’s pre-school teacher has resigned and I want to make a little cross stitch to go on a card for her.

Not too big about 2-3 inches square would be ideal. I’ve got some 14 count Aida floating around that I can use.

But I need help finding a design that is simple, expressive of how highly we have valued having her as Heidis teacher and quick to stitch.

I’ve got 10 days to get it finished and remember I will be sewing whilst lying on my tummy propped up on pillows / my elbows so easy to stitch is really important.

I can’t spend much time on the computer looking for patterns because it is painful to sit / stand for very long.

Whilst my back is killing me, I really do value this teacher and the extra effort she has gone to with Heidi and want to give her a little handmade card (so I can put her book voucher inside it).

So bummed the teacher is leaving mid year, it is breaking my heart because Heidi is really attached to her. But the teacher has been offered an awesome job elsewhere and I can’t fault her for taking the golden opportunity when it is presented.

So help please!

So when you put your underpants on in the morning and your foot goes through a hole that is not either of the leg holes does that mean it is time to purchase new underwear?

Hot Hunk Thursday is the brainchild of WiddleShamrock so head on over to see more hot hunks

And my hunk for this rainy Thursday is…. drumroll please…..

Not a sexy enough shepherd for you? I’ve been working on him all week and was so very proud of him. Ahh well lets see if we can find something a little hotter.

Introducing Colonel John Shepherd (played by Joe Flanigan) from Stargate Atlantis. He can’t compete with Rodney in my eyes but he does come in a distant (very distant) second.

For the first time in a while I had a serious visit from the Frog. I’d almost finished Advent Hanger #2 a cute little shepherd when I got to the bottom and realised I’d managed to skip a row of stitches up the top - the entire row!! @#$#(^

So I unpicked him all and here is my re-stitched WIP.

Bust out your party shoes, get the music pumping, I’ve got something to celebrate.

My first finish of 2008! PARTY!

I started this on 18th October 2007 and have finished the calendar itself today the 8th of June 2008 - 8 months, that is the same amount of time I was pregnant with Annie.

Still have the little plastic canvas hangers to go and the beads on the calendar that the hangers hook onto (link to amazon.com picture of finished calendar with hangers). But I’m calling this a finish

Griding the fabric first was a great idea and I will do it again for sure.  Really helped me to keep track of where I was and I don’t actually remember doing any frogging!  So that is good - especially as the calendar did have long periods of time where I had to put it away and usually that is when I make mistakes, coming back after a break and messing up where I had left off.

Wooo! So excited.

Now I can get started on that plastic canvas work :yuk:

Annie has 3 kinder sessions a week, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Two weeks ago after Thursdays Kinder session Annie regaled me with tales of kisses.  She and a young lad named “C” had taken a liking to each other and decided this new friendship must be sealed with a kiss, and several more kisses followed from there.

Tuesday last week Annie and young C were overjoyed to be reunited after a long weekend apart and they went about holding hands.

Wednesday our young couple exchanged posies of flowers, made cards and paintings for each other.  It could be even be said that they behaved in a sickeningly romantic fashion.

Thursday came around and young C decided he wanted to play with the boys.  Annie sat on the climbing frame and sang songs about her great sadness, her wish to play with C and be friends once more.  Young C the foolish lad did not heed his fair maidens song and continued to roughhouse with the lads.

Tuesday came around again and Annie was despondent.  C had abandoned her.  What is worse, he pushed her in the stomach and called her a ‘poo poo head’.

Wednesday saw both Annie and young C take a day off kinder.

Then Thursday, once more our young couple are reunited, overjoyed to see each other.  hands are held, cards exchanged but it would seem our fair maiden has learnt.  No longer does she sit on the climbing frame and sing for young C when he proves fickle and wanders away with his mates. Our fair maiden turns her back and finds another boy to amuse her.  Young C did not like this, no indeed he did not and promptly returned to his Annie.

Oh and look and WIP report.  All I have to do is a tiny bit of back stitch and the calendar will be finished!

Smiley Saturday time again. If you want to join in then click on the Smiley Saturday link above and head over to Lightenings to enter your Smiley Saturday link.

With Ralph and both the girls sick with some virus and my Crohns flaring up again I thought I’d struggle to find things to smile about but seems that is not the case.

1. I got some stitching done this week.

2. Because the girls are sick I got to use my jelly / jello hack for the first time.

When my girls are sick they get really dehydrated very quickly, so I like to keep a track of their fluid intake. So being that jelly / jello is a sort of fluid I wanted to track how much they eat because it is one of their fav. foods when ill. I’ve been collecting my empty yogurt cups, washing them out and storing them.

Friday I got out 15 of those cups and filled each one with jelly. One standard packet of jelly fills 5 cups which = 100ml of jelly per cup. Now I can easily track their fluid, plus I can throw the cups out later which means no washing up, thus one less chore when I’m busy looking after sick kids.

I also served their ice-cream in the little yogurt cups, calculating roughly 100ml of ice cream per cup.

3. My Mum sent the girls a “Design Girls Fashion Studio” which arrived in the mail on Thursday.

I will admit my heart sank when I saw it - so many little pieces and for ages 7+, how much of a pain in the rear is this going to be to do with a 5yo and 3yo.

Friday morning the girls were getting pretty bored, they’d been up most of the night and I was rather tired and not feeling so great myself. Annie pulled out the design studio and asked if they could play with it. I distracted Heidi with the TV, figuring that this was going to be easier one child at a time.

Then Annie and I opened the box, she picked the blond paper doll, we chose what she was going to wear from the cardboard pattern sheets. Then Annie picked which fabric we would use and I traced out the pattern and cut the fabric. Annie decorated the skirt and top she had chosen whilst I cut out a pair of clogs and a handbag which she then also decorated. We used the magnets provided to attached the clothing to her paper doll.

My opinion of this Design Studio has changed radically, this is a great little kit, you could use fabrics and bits of crafty stuff you have at home to make the clothing - heck you could even make the doll yourself using a bit of sturdy cardboard and then the kiddies would have all the fun of making hair, eyes etc themselves.

Annie was entranced for almost a full hour which is impressive considering she was sick and very tired.

Here is a picture of our decorated clothing while it is waiting for the glue to dry.

Then while Annie had a rest in the lounge room I tried to make clothing for the other doll with Heidi. She was interested enough to pick out the patterns, jeans and a shirt. But then she discovered the pipe cleaners and buttons and proceeded to make a necklace. Which resulted in some fantastic language / communication from her. I even got a little video of it.

So I’m pleased as punch that Mum sent us this kit, which just goes to show that sometimes things are not as difficult as you think they are going to be.

4. The final reason I’m smiling is that after my humiliation on Tuesday I’ve managed to get on the treadmill for at least 30 minutes each day (except Thursday). I’m not doing much of a diet change due to my current Crohns flare up but after my first two coffees in the morning I’m alternating each cup of coffee with drinking a bottle of water. Thus reducing my caffeine intake and increasing my water intake.

I hope you’ve got your smile on this weekend also.

At long last I have that WIP shot.

Annie - Happy Birthday Party

Officially I have THE BEST CHILDREN IN THE WHOLE ENTIRE UNIVERSE! Seriously they are better than any other child that has gone before, is now or ever will be

Alright, alright, I might be exaggerating a little but they were awesome on Monday, really, really wonderful.

Just before bedtime last night Heidi was getting tired and starting to cry, so I picked her up and carried her to the bedroom, she took one look at her bed and said “Bed! I like bed.” Put the emphasis in because she said it just like that. She likes bed :: happy dancing ::, sure she might wake up in the middle of the night and want to party for several hours but right there and then she likes bed.

I once read the difference between children and adults is that children don’t want to go to bed ever, whilst adults are always wanting to sleep. You are apparently meant to know you have crossed the line into adulthood when you actually enjoy going to bed. How teenagers fit into this theory I’m not sure.

I pulled out my mothers day present from the top of our bedroom cupboard (yeah I know where it was hidden). It got forgotten on Mothers Day. Gave it to Annie and told her what had happened, so she solemnly handed it back to me and said “happy mothers day”. Then we went and opened it up, a heart shaped fondue set. The girls and I spent a lovely half hour melting chocolate and dipping in marshmallows. Before we started I was careful to tell the girls the candle and melted chocolate would be hot. Each time we dipped a marshmallow Heidi would say “careful hot”, our little Occupational Health and Safety Officer. And when I blew out the candle Heidi started singing “Happy Birthday to you”

Annie then spent the rest of the afternoon making me gifts, she decorated a box that was in the recycling, scrunched up some paper to make me a pillow, drew me a really lovely handbag - if it was a real bag I’d use it for sure. Lots and lots of love and attention, which I think is just the best mothers day gift. While we were getting ready for bed Annie very solemnly told me to be careful of my scrunchy paper pillow because the crinkles were prickly and I might hurt myself. Awww.

The girls played really well together for most of the day. And I have video proof - see!

They are playing with their Elefun toy which we put new batteries in for the party, just incase we needed more party games. It is amazing how you can breath new life into a toy by hiding it away for a few months.

Now some pictures from the party, I’m going with thumbnail size because there are so many.

I made Naomi’s German Streusel Cake but instead of using pureed apples I used my apple butter, (Hmmm that apple butter link has pictures but not the recipe which is here) it is really yummy. Try it out for yourselfs or just drool over the picture:

So I rocked the Streusel. Then I made the pink birthday cake and instead of using homebrand raspberry jelly I went for Airplane Pink Lemonade Jelly - which didn’t really work, the cake just had a slight pink tinge. And I couldn’t find the icing sugar to make the icing / frosting. So instead I melted pink marshmallows and poured that over the top of the birthday cake. Worked really well.

And here is the empty box from my fondue set - Annie turned it into a throne for S-Duck.

I watched two episodes of Stargate Atlantis today and one was Rodney In Spaaaaaace… well technically he’d come back to earth but still I love my Rodney-centric eps because it means lots and lots of the lovely FILFy David Hewlett :grin:. Took me 5 hours to watch those two episodes because I kept stopping to do stuff with / for the girls but in the time I was able to sit still for 10 minutes in a row I got a teeny tiny little bit of stitching done - no pictures though because I hope to get a little more stitching in during the evening.

I didn’t have to cook ALL DAY because we were able to feast on leftovers from the party. Feast is the right word too, I’m still so full I don’t think I’ll need to eat for the rest of the week, well unless chocolate appears in my vicinity, then all bets are off

One final photo - Heidi in “Cake, I like cake!”