Why, hello there

I've been thinking about this space a lot. For a while, I didn't miss it. At all. Now, though, I find I am. When I look back through my archives I am reminded why I started this space in the first place; as a way to track my progress and keep in touch with friends.

My little space has grown so much since the start seven years ago and I can see my craft skills - in knitting, sewing, crochet etc - have too. Heck even my HTML skills have. They have all grown because of this space and the community it exists in. I like that.

I like that I can see old favourite projects, evidence of my extreme attention deficient crafting ways, favourite things baked. I especially like that alongside all of that I can see how my Smurf is  growing.

I also like that this space (and the ever expanding associated spaces) has introduced me to so many friends, many that I now choose to spend time with in "real" life. Well, in my offline life. I now live in the same city as one of my earliest blogging friends and we hang out sometimes. That's pretty cool in my book. She even still has a toy I made her many years ago.

So, with all that in mind and that there are adventures of another wee Smurf, a Smurfette in fact, to keep track of, I'm making my way back here. I'll be treating it as I always have, as my own personal reference. I won't be trying hard to impress anyone.

I'll just be having fun, hanging out and reminding myself of stuff I'm doing with craft (mostly) my reference point. Who knows, maybe I'll find some more friends along the way?

PS My comment system is completely borked. I need to fiddle and get rid of it. Apologies if you feel inclined to comment and it doesn't work.

The Little Merchandise Obsessed Cowboy

The Smurf is three! Yep, I can hardly believe it myself. This year he was quite opinionated on how his party should go. Pink cake (which at times morphed into a rocket cake - which I now know can be not necessarily what it should be), everyone dressed as cowboys and all cousins invited.

So I kept to my brief and attempted a bit of cowboy related stuff....sort of.

But what the Smurf really meant was he just wanted to be Woody. But what that really meant at a 3 year old birthday party is, well, come as you are. Or as you want. Or as you decide after you've eaten lunch and you don't want to wear what you're wearing anymore. Whatever.



Apparently one of our friends used to do facepainting. I never knew. Yes of course I'd love you to bring your facepaints. The kids chose their own thing to be painted and here's my confused Cowboy/Puppy Smurf. Bless.



Who cares about themes anyway? Although, my nephew was spot on and my favourite - chose the moustache himself.



Canberra turned on the most amazing day, sunshine, blue skies and warm weather. The garden even popped up a bunch of new flowers for us to admire and the fruit trees started to blossom.

We sprawled all over the backyard on picnic blankets and lazed the day away eating homemade dolmades, sushi, mini pies, mini sausage rolls, soft tacos with pulled pork or greek chicken and corn salsa. The kids ran around making their own fun - apart from a ridiculous effort at Pass the Parcel.

Then it was time for the pink cake.



And meringues, neenish tarts, meringue rings, pink cupcakes, choc chip biscuits and DIY lolly bags!







Before we all headed back out to the backyard for more lazing about, ready for the big "Cowboy Shoot Out" organised by the 5 year old moustached nephew - in collaboration with Gang Gang (Grandad). The rules were even taped to our back door and all cowboys were required to sign that they had read the rules. These kids are the best!


"Rules of Cowboy Shoot Out. Held at Murphy's Party at 2.30pm. You will NOT punch, kick, bite. Signed ...."

So Happy Birthday my beautiful, crazy, always amazing 3 year old Smurf. Daddy and I love you more than words can say.

PS I'm devastated that I decided to get your haircut, although I'm happy I thought to ask you how you wanted it cut - even if you did decide on short!

Weekend Twirling

It's all about the twirling, and farmers markets and hanging in the park with some of my favourite people.

Weekends are fun

Yep, weekends are fun and kinda hilarious.

Hots and Not

Look. Up there. It's Rudolph! That's what I was greeted with when I picked the Smurf up from childcare. Had to sweep that pudding bowl fringe away to get to the antlers. Love it. That's Hot.


More Christmas baking, more royal icing. SO hot. I'm all about royal icing now - after fearing it for ever.




Outings to see Christmas things. Hot.


Christmas windows! Hooray. That's hot.

More Hots (and nots) over at Loobylu's.

Merry Christmas! Hope Santa finds you, and for the record he likes Murphy's Stout and salt and vinegar chips. You heard it here first.

Hots and Not

I'm playing Loobylu's game again.

What's Hot?

Christmas is hot! This year is the first year The Smurf really gets Christmas and we've been having great fun around here teaching him all about Christmas.


Christmas Tree Ice cream Sandwiches for dessert and my first go at royal icing! Success.



Wonky homemade Christmas Advent




The Smurf getting up every morning to check the advent calendar. Every morning he squeals with delight "Christmas time Christmas time!" "I have a lolly?". Then he gets his advent card out for the day and when asked what it says, he tells us "Christmas Card".


First ever homemade mince tarts. First time ever baking, first time ever eating. I leaned on some locals for their input. Approved, apparently!


Christmas Parties in the backyard (and see first photo, which was some time after the photo above!). Good friends, good food, fun times. The most amazing Christmas Ham, 3 kinds of salad, mango salsa (which I forgot to put on the table!), prawns wrapped with pesto and proscuitto. Double chocolate tart and icecream for dessert with fruit mince tart chasers! And a jar of homemade chilli tomato jam for everyone to take home.


Decorating the Christmas Tree.


Enjoying the aroma of the fresh Christmas Tree and lights and decorations.

Backyard cricket in your undies (The Smurf) with the main blokes in your life.


That's all, no nots this week.

Hots and Nots

I'm playing Loobylu's What's Hot and Not meme....

Hot:

• Using up fabric scraps sent by a blog friend to make a new medication pouch (photo above).

• Friends for impromptu beers on a Sunday arvo.

• Real Leb Lamb Kebabs. Yum! I thought I'd found the secret to recreating kebabs at home, but this seems to be a step closer again, and with added authenticity. I'm loving this blog and hoping to snag a ticket to one of his secret dinners...if he keeps doing them?

• Swimming! The Smurf is LOVING swimming at the moment, especially lessons. He would, if allowed, swim around under water the entire time. And what's even hotter? He can swim (with a back bubble) without anyone holding on to him. Yep. Bursting with pride you ask? Why yes, I am!

• Re-usable swimming nappies. Those little disposable buggers are bloody expensive. The re-usable one lasts until the Smurf grows out of it and costs about the same price as 2 packs of disposable swimming nappies. Although I have heard that you can hang the disposable ones on the line to dry and get 1 re-use out of them.

NOT:

• Little shits Naughty kids (apparently someone thinks I'm "anti family" for using the term little shits) at the shopping centre. One in particular - I'm generally OK with the vast majority of little shits naughty kids. This particular one, 3-ish years old, stood in front of me while I waited for my coffee, looked up at me, then looked down at my shoe and promptly stomped on it. WTF? I just kinda gasped in horror and looked around but no one else saw it happen. Weird!
  

What's Hot and What's Not

This is supposed to be a Wednesday thing, but I was doing a whole lot of hot stuff yesterday so here I am now, Thursday night.

Hot:
Driving up the Blue Mountains (to pick Sadie* up) with the windows down listening to the Bell Birds singing


Sadie coming to stay and hang out with the Smurf for a couple of days. The Smurf has a Great Grandma who can (for at least a short time) sit on the floor and play trains with him. Now, THAT is hot.

Sadie bringing a new, simple knitting pattern for me (and her) to try. Approved! On the to-knit list. See photo above.


Making Sadie's Christmas pudding - with Sadie - and using her original pudding cloth. And this year the Smurf is old enough to have a turn stirring the pud. That's hot too.


Shopping for special treats with Sadie.


The best cold icecream on a warm day.


The first strawberry getting ripe. You can follow the progress on my Flickr!

Craft get togethers.


What's Not
Idiots on the road
That's all I've got for the nots right now.

I started this post this afternoon when we first started creaming the butter and sugar for the pudding. The puddings are hung now. Hope they worked.

* Sadie is my Grandma and, obviously, namesake of this blog

Weekend

1. Swimming, paddling independently (with back bubble)
2. 2 year old's salad dressing,
3. Cheese cloth for cheese,
4. Milk for Ricotta, see here because you really must do this.
5. Ricotta, almost ready
6. Ricotta straining,
7. Friends for dinner,
8. Redwork Friendship Quilt launched. Congratulations Kirsty.
9. Pyrex - $1.50 for two dishes (I'll share my secret if you ask nicely - it delivers cheap vintage tupperware too)

Happy Smurfday!

September is party season round here, remember this time last year? Having done the invite all and sundry approach we did things on a smaller, more personal scale this year. It was fun and the Smurf was delighted to have so much cake in his life.



The intention was to loosely theme the party around colouring in. The invites* were sent with 2 coloured pencils.



It was great to receive rsvp text messages with pictures of the invite covered in scribbles.

The banner went up again, it's served well, and was perfect hanging in the frangipani tree in the backyard.




It was very windy, so we couldn't bring all the colouring activities outside but we dragged a whole bunch of the Smurf's toys into the backyard along with the cricket set, playdough, watering cans and assorted toys. Over time this turned out to be just about every toy we own as each toddler decided the lure of a different toy inside was too much.

We did set up the Smurf's play tent, only if you look here at this photo we suspect that it may now live somewhere off past the horizon after a wind gust stole it from our backyard. Lucky no skinny toddlers were sitting inside at the time.



The kids loved drawing on the paving with chalk.


I loved making the AWW Train cake. Toot Toot!


That AWW cake book was a well read book in our household when I was growing up. The Smurf has started reading it now too and he loved the train cake. The kids each chose what colour they wanted to eat. Generally I'm not really into all that food colouring, but this was fun!



I kept the food simple, but enough that people could feel like they'd eaten lunch if they weren't staying on for the BBQ/beer component covering Mr Sadieandlance's bday celebrations.

There were some Nigella cupcakes, this recipe is the best.


My favs were, as always, the lolly bags! I decided to go with reusable bags this year and hope they would later be used to carry food to kindy, keep precious car collections, colouring in supplies etc.



The bag was filled with the Smurf's favourite things


Homemade stickers


Homemade colouring books (inspired by LovelyDesign and Hey Bubbles)






Biccie boys (you already know they're the Smurf's favourite) and a small lolly bag.


It was a great day and I hear the kids loved the lolly bags. I had a blast putting it all together, and while it looks like it was a lot of work, each piece was very simple and I really enjoyed it. I'll post the templates for the stickers later this week.

*Images for invites from here