A green day..

Yesterday was a green sort of a day. The weather might have been closer to grey, and my week as a whole might be closer to a horrendously busy 80's neon pattern, but yesterday was definitely green.
My lovely sis-in-law Holly and her man are getting married this weekend  and it's all go around here ( I hate to think how things are at her place!) to get things ready for the wedding and to get jobs done in order to be able to head away for the weekend.

My 'job' was to make the bunting. It seems to be becoming my 'thing', after I made it for Aesop's second birthday it has featured in most family events since.
I was asked to make at least 20 metres of green and white ( the wedding colours) bunting to decorate the marquee. I think at last count there were about 130+ little double sided flags and I, thankfully, only have about two metres of binding left to sew and I'll be done.  Remind me next time not to leave it til the last week, okay? Oh, and also pretty please remind me that I should plan my outfit ahead of time too. That floral snippet up there is the dress I started on Tuesday when I decided I didn't like anything in my closet. Oh dear.

Something else that has not helped our busy week are Otto's ears.  I mentioned briefly that he had ear infections in both ears over the birthday party week.. well now those infections have turned into glue ear. The poor wee guy is just not having much luck at the moment. And in turn, we're not having the greatest time sleeping.

So I'm keeping my fingers crossed, and  I hope you will too, that the little ears calm down for the wedding weekend and also that I manage to finish my must-be-mad-to-be-making dress in time! I can just picture it now, all the family photos of me in some other raggedy old dress, holding a screaming, snotty baby. Oh dear!

Free shipping!

For the next week, in my Etsy shop, I am offering FREE SHIPPING (shouting cause that's exciting..) to all addresses in New Zealand and Australia. I'm feeling generous, so now is the perfect time to snaffle up something you might have our eye on.
Simply put the sale through as normal and if you are paying by Paypal I will refund the shipping cost and if you are paying by internet deposit (in NZ) I will email you my bank details and simply skip the postage.

Easy peasy lemon squeasy.

(Okay... advertising over. We will continue with our regular scheduled broadcast shortly...)

Stitch and erm, chat. #1!

Yesterday was the very first of our, hopefully, monthly crafty afternoons.
Ever since I moved to Whakatane I've wanted to start some sort of crafty group, perhaps in an attempt to replace the lovely one I had in Nelson, but mostly because you just can't beat a few hours with some seriously talented and crafty ladies for inspiration.
I had a lovely time eating chelsea buns (apricot and choc, from the Edmonds cook book..) and white choc and rasp friands ( that clever Lucy), drinking asti and orange juice, gooing over wee baby Archer and, of course, a bit of stitching.
Lucy was working on a very, very tricky looking pinecone bag, Rozi on an amazing vintage dress, Philly on a pretty floral top (her very first handmade item of clothing!), Kristin on a knitted hoodie for the gorgeous one (who was, unfortunately, not so stoked that Kristin decided to make the trip over to meet us. We were though!) and I was knitting away at a cowl which I'll show you in a few days. All in all very productive!

Can't wait for next month, and if you are in the area (or want to make the trip) let me know.. the more the merrier!

Adjustment

(Totally unrelated photo.. just cause..)

Our new routine, with a school boy in the house , has thrown me a bit.
I'm so used to waking when Abraham leaves, dawdling around getting the boys ready, bit of internetting, and then heading to preschool at ten ( and even then I was often late!).
These days my alarm goes at half six and if I get up any later we struggle to get out the door at half eight! Lunch needs to be a lot more organised ( noone to heat up leftovers, or cook 2-min noodles for him!) and I have book bags and all sorts of other things to think about. Guess it will just take another week or so.

Speaking of adjustments, we have another big one coming up.
No, not more babies..
The boys will be moving into the same room in just over a week.
Last year we had the most ridiculously huge power bills and while they would be slightly less this year, now that Otto is now longer teensy tiny, I'm still not liking the thought of paying to heat more than one bedroom.  Abraham and I can go without but the boys need a heater, and we don't have another nearly $1100 for power!!

I googled hints and tips on having young 'uns sharing a room, and mostly came up with just suggestions on how to decorate a shared room. Hmm... don't think we'll have that problem!
So if any of you have any ideas that might help our transition into a shared room, they would be greatly appreciated. Otto will be 9 months, and Aesop is, of course, a mighty 5-yr-old. Aesop sleeps through the night, not even waking to his brother screaming in the next room etc (paper thin walls in our old whare). And Otto, on a normal night, will go down well and sleep through until about 3am, going back to sleep until about 6:30. Sounds to me like it will work, but any help would be great!

List #16 (part one!) - Duathlon

The photos speak for themselves, really. Sweat, lycra and me.. running!
One down, one to go!

Darth Aesop's party on the death star . MEGA post.

Aesop decided, a year ago, that for his fifth birthday he would have a Star wars party.

From the moment his first episode of Star wars began, he was hooked. The weapons! The battles! And the baddies! Oh! The baddies were sooo cool. (Aesop, a little worryingly, always likes the villains more than the heroes.)

He loved every single one of the movies (except one of them was a bit boring because there was too much 'pashing it up', apparently.) and for a few months EVERYTHING revolved around Star wars. He got Star wars Lego and light sabers and every make-believe game involved battle scenes and droids and all that other good stuff.

So, when his birthday finally seemed to be nearing we confirmed the theme and began the mission for the ultimate 5-yr-old Star wars/ dark side party! This meant a fair amount of time on the net, looking up craft tutorials, costume ideas, pictures, and things to buy on Trademe.

In the end we decided to keep main bits fairly simple: three games, provide only the cake/s and a small amount of food and have everyone bring a plate, decorate only with balloons, flags and streamers and keep the (good quality) take home gifts to a minimum (who needs another bag full of junk in their house?).

The games were a death star pinata, pin the light saber on the storm trooper (which I have no photos of due to me being the one guiding the kids. Bummer! It was awesome though, Abraham made both games and did an amazing job.) and a huge balloon light saber battle. The balloon sabers were a great idea because, as I thought, some of the kids who had brought light sabers as part of their costumes were already whacking everything and everyone in site. These made for much less damage to people and things! None of the games had 'prizes' as such and the kids did not seem to mind at all.

I made a chocolate mud cake, covered in grey butter icing (well, technically margarine.. I bake dairy free.) and drew details on it with black glitter icing, to resemble the death star. And made vanilla cupcakes with the same grey icing and bought cupcakes rings online. The rings were brilliant, they acted as a decoration and then became a take home toy for the kids. Other than the one kid, who insisted only girls wear rings, they were very well received!

I also made Darth Vader dolls for the kids to take home, using this tutorial by the ever-talented Mypapercrane. They were a bit fiddly but so, so worth it. I loved sending the kids off with something handmade and all, except the same little boy who insisted the dolls were also only for girls, the kids loved them.

Our costumes were the most fun part.

Abraham made his own, and it was incredible. He went as his own made up character, part human, part robot. He donned a robe, half a mask and an awesome glove wrapped in cords and lights.

Otto was, of course, an ewok. Unfortunately I don't have the proper pictures of his full costume yet, they are on Mum's camera. But he slept for half of the party and he did not leave his costume on for long, he has an ear infection in either ear and was not in the mood to be wrapped up in half a teddy bear!

Aesop's costume was based around the amazing mask we were given. All I had to do was find him some black jeans, a black t-shirt and make him a cape, and he was set.

My costumes was also fairly simple. I was given a piece of satin that someone had sewn into a rectangle with a neck hole, and I purchased a wig online. Then I made a belt, using an obi style belt I had as the base, and glued some tin foil covered card on the front. Oh, and a gun from the $2 shop completed it!

Abraham's Dad needs a mention here too. He definitely wins for most amazing costume. The boys were both terrified and amazed when he arrived. It took Aesop a few minutes to even figure out who it was! Such an incredible effort.

Also, Lucy turned up with not only the soundtrack for the day, but these gob-smackingly awesome Chewbacca cookies. They win in the food stakes, for sure. Her and adorable little Isla made such a great addition to the party, so happy they came. Yay for real life bloggy friends!

I can't believe how much effort everyone put it, thank you to everyone who came! And everyone who gave advice via the net, too. 'Twas a great time had by all!

List #9- Go to the movies

I don't go to the movies very often. To be precise, I've been three times in the last five years.
I just can't justify spending that much money to be cramped into a small dark room, eating million dollar popcorn when I could wait a month or two and watch the same movie in the comfort of my own home, eating whatever I darn well feel like eating.
The three I have been to are:  'Little Miss Sunshine' (which I LOVED) with my Mum, 'Monsters Vs. Aliens' with some of the family and then, yesterday, as a birthday treat for Aesop we went to see 'Astro Boy'.
The movie was fairly average, it had a few funny moments and it was all-in-all pretty feel good. Nothing spectacular. I definitely don't need to see it again.
But, I left feeling like it  was well worth the small fortune we forked out, to spend an hour and a half with two of my favourite boys, in the dark, eating junkfood. A true treat.