Wednesday 21 September 2011

Could really do with some comfort food...

Residency paperwork.  Urgh.
I don't want to talk about it.
Need some chocolate...

Friday 16 September 2011

Homemade Table Tent

I saw the idea for this recently on the internet and really wanted to give it a try.  Then last week at a church activity we had a swap table where there was a pink double flat bed sheet up for grabs, and grab it I did!  With this in mind for it...

I started by cutting two strips that were wide enough to match the height of the table, plus about 30cm, just to be sure of seam allowances and also the little bit extra that where it sits on top of the table.  I really wanted to make sure it definitely touched the floor, without any gaps.  The length of the strips didn't matter too much - if two strips didn't fit round, I'd just add more panels.  As it was, cutting it out of the double sheet gave me 2 lengths of approx 2m.  My table is about 3m in diameter, so this was pretty much a perfect fit to allow some gathering, making it a bit more adjustable and versatile.

Double sheet folded in half ready to cut the panels
The great thing about making it from a bed sheet was that most of the edges didn't need hemming :D  So I just made a little turn over at the top to push the ties through.  I had plenty of fabric, so made ties from thin strips sewn together and turned inside out.
The kids try it out at the end of this first stage
Now came the more fun bits.  Windows were a must for me and I really wanted to put plastic in them - I had some from old bedding packaging.  I made the frame much like you would if it were a wooden frame - 4 strips, sewn together at the corners at a 45 degree angle.  Then a bit extra left on each side to be able to fold over in the middle and sew on the other side to edge the window nicely.  I would strongly recommend you sew the window frame on before cutting out the window.  I cut out the window first on the first one and it was quite hard to hold the frame in the right place while sewing and stop it from skewing.  Then sew on the plastic bit on the back.  I got the fabric for the window frame from a skirt I cut up (again from a swap table).
Window 1 - The packaging had a little pocket in it, which I left for them to put their own decorations in.

Window 2

Zach and Tilly give it a go while I'm checking it over.
Next came the door.  Fabric taken from another skirt from the swap table.  Simply cut strips out and sewed them on.


Enjoying their semi-finished tent :)
Although it's pretty much done for now, I do have in mind to add some more decorations using applique - something like flowers or maybe a mail box, depending on how creative I get!  But that will come later, when I have another urge to get the sewing machine out.  For now, it's finished.

Sunday 11 September 2011

10 Year Anniversary

On 1st Sep 2011 we celebrated our 10 year anniversary.  To mark the occasion Adam took me to Wellington with him overnight - he had to go for a meeting on Wednesday morning, so we went down on the Tuesday afternoon.  Jared and Teesh very kindly stayed overnight with our kids and did the school run so we even got to go by ourselves :)

Dockside at night after dinner
We went to the airport a little bit early so we could go and get some lunch in the Kuru lounge - yummy!  Then it was a short plane ride down to Wellington and on to check in to the hotel.  We got settled in to our 26th floor room, had a quick check of the facilities and then went to the Dockside restaurant for dinner.  It was lovely.  There were glass sections of the floor to look down to the sea and we got a really tasty steak, and on buy one get one free too :D  After dinner we went and did 3 geocaches that were near the restaurant - all of which Adam found, even though I'd got pretty close to every one... It was great because it got us to walk to some interesting places nearby.  I wasn't particularly expecting anything from Wellington, so was nicely surprise by how arty it felt.  There were a lot of sculptures.  Felt like you would just walk around each corner to find another one.

Public toilets made into an eye sculpture (had optical nerves at the back too)
This one reminded us of braille :)
Finding a cache


Phew, it's not a dream...
On Wednesday morning Adam had his work meeting so I took a wonder around that part of the city, did a few more geocaches and saw some more sculptures.


And then it was back to the airport, lunch in the Kuru lounge and back home to reality.

We had a great time and it was so good to have time totally to ourselves to have fun and be silly, just like our pre-children times :D

The Can Opener

So now I come back to the tale of the can opener.  Bear in mind this 2 days after we got locked out and I tried to squeeze my children through the cat flap.


Tilly and Zach have just come out of a difficult phase (thank goodness and touch wood all at once!).  During this naughty monkey phase they would pull everything off of Tilly's bed when I was busy doing anything else, like cleaning up or making dinner.  And I mean EVERYTHING.  Duvet, pillow, sheets, mattress protector and mattress.  Yep, they even pushed the mattress off the base and onto the floor.  And this would happen a minimum of once a day and at the worst point was happening 5 times a day before I gave up and left it that way after the first time without remaking it again until bed time.  Now add to that Tilly's obsession with taking things out of the kitchen and you get quite a jumbled mess.  She would take the egg beater, the silicon cup cake cases, the cup measures, pretty much anything baking related that she could get her hands on.

So on a particularly bad day, when I wasn't in the best mood with the kids anyway and had spent most of the day nagging them and them not listening, I started to make dinner.  Lasagne in fact.  I got it all started and went to open a can and couldn't find the can opener.  Looked ALL OVER the kitchen and figured Tilly must have taken it.  So I enlisted the kids (although Lani was the only useful one) in looking for it.  We searched all over the place.  We checked her usual hiding spots, like the little corner behind one of the arm chairs and the bottom of Zach's cupboard but just could not find it.  Luckily, I had made most of the sauce before and was just trying to add sweetcorn, so could still carry on with the dinner, it was just incredibly annoying!!

So I didn't find it at all that day or the next morning when I spent a long time completely tidying both the kids' rooms trying to find it.  It wasn't until the following afternoon when I'd given up and was putting away some clean laundry and I found it in one of Leilani's drawers.  We hadn't even thought to check in Lani's stuff.  The sneaky little monkey *knew* we'd check all of her's and Zach's stuff so stashed it away thinking "They'll never suspect Lani, mwah ha ha ha!"

As a side note, a few days ago I found a new hiding place of Tilly's in the bottom cupboard of a bookshelf and in it was stashed my lens cap which she took about 3 weeks ago while I was taking a picture of Zach for his passport photos.  I'd also spent a good long while hunting through her usual spots and in amongst sofa cushions for that one too and had given up.

Thursday 1 September 2011

A momentous week

On Sunday I turned 30.  It's the first birthday where I felt like it actually made a difference.  I don't feel depressed about it or anything, but it does seem like a big deal to have hit 30.  I would also like to state for the record that I made it to 30 without having any grey hairs yet :D

I was woken up (after a bit of a lie in!) by the kids coming upstairs to bring me my cards and a big bucket of m&ms.
And then I was brought a lovely breakfast in bed of boiled egg and toast.

I had a nice slow morning just getting myself ready while Adam got the kids up, fed and ready for church.  I was actually pretty impressed that he managed it all without making us late :D

I got lots of birthday wishes at church and messages on facebook - it was lovely.  In the afternoon we went down to Castor Bay for a little bit and had a little walk down the beach and climb over the rocks and managed to get a couple of geocaches done down there too.

It was a really good birthday - not for any one thing in particular, but just for being made to feel special and having a day "off-duty".  Adam had also taken me out for my birthday the weekend before, because we had Leilani's birthday celebrations going on on Saturday.  We went to the cinema to see Rise of the Planet of the Apes and then for dessert nearby.  That's probably our favourite kind of date.


Leilani turns 7

On Wednesday Leilani had her 7th birthday.  We made it a special day for her with presents from us all on our bed in the morning, as well as cards and presents that had been sent to her in the post from family.  She had her favourite breakfast of boiled egg and toast soldiers, which she usually only gets on special days because it's so much more fuss than a bowl of cereal :)  She also got to choose a lunch order from school for her lunch.  She also chose what to have for dinner, although right now I can't remember what it was!

On Saturday she had her birthday party which sort of took on a butterfly theme all by itself.  She had a butterfly birthday cake and party bags, we decorated the pinata with stars and butterflies and we played pin the butterfly on the flower instead of pin the tail on the donkey.  It was a mental couple of hours with a few boys who were rather "spirited"! Suffice it to say they won't be receiving any invites from us again...

She loved the whole thing and was overwhelmed by getting lots of lovely presents from her friends.
Musical Bumps

Pinata!