Christopher Bubba' s quilt (and my first attempt in joining the My Creative Space thing)

I tried to get this quilt done for the birth of Christopher, my special new nephew, but needed a few extra days to finish the embroidered label on the back. Here it is on the washing line - another rainbow baby quilt as I just love working with all the colours. One day, I'll move on to triangles but for now, I like squares and rectangles - minimal stress for a newbie quilter.

As my brother and his wife, Gina, have a special working relationship with boats and the sea, I tried to sneak as many boat/ocean motifs and colours in as I could. Gina came with me to choose some of the fabric which was great. There's also a blue Beatrix Potter square in there from fabric my big sister used in my surprise wedding quilt as a "baby wish" so it was lovely to hand a bit of that on to my brother's baby.

The corners and backing are a lovely print of masses of tiny boats sailing on the sea. My big brother was quite taken with the quilt and said it made him want to have a nap. I'd better make him one too!

I don't have a proper photo as yet of the Christopher Bubba on his new quilt as he was busy sleeping or drinking up his Mama's milk when we took it over, so here is a photo of my girl giving it a test drive.

But here is a photo of the beautiful boy himself just 5 days old here, I think.

I've put this post on the My Creative Space blog of Kirsty's (my first time) so if you want to see what people are creating, click here.

PS I've just realised it is supposed to be a sort of "work in progress" creative space but never mind - this one happens to be finished.

Big Day Out

Tree

It's a perfect autumn day here today so after a morning of Hi 5 on the computer (G), playing the Wii (E and G) and chores (me), I decided to take the girls to the park to get a nature fix while the Daddy did some work. We set off to our favourite inner city park. The trees were magnificent, as were the roses, but the fantastic playground was closed for upgrading so we wandered down to the river, patting dogs as we went and jumped on a City Cat for a ride. We ended up at South Bank Parkland for an icecream. We saw so many things and made so many new friends. I'll let the photos tell the rest of the story.

garden

perfume

daschund

park

bandstand

river

juggling

story bridge

sunshine

new friend

boysenberry icecream

rainforest walk

Nepalese Peace Pagoda

arbour

waiting

war memorial

Hello little Christopher!

Finally, the girls' little cousin, Christopher, has arrived. They had their first cuddles today and he is just gorgeous!

Sleep tight!

Slightly less dramatic news - Em lost both her top front teeth today! (Note gap in top photo)

This Crazy Life....

Life has overtaken blogging for me lately. I wish life would slow down a little so that I could smell the roses. The last few weeks have been a blur of school holidays, various doctor's appointments for tonsilitis and stuff, family outings, finishing baby quilts etc. This week I have caught the girls' post tonsilitis cold, been to the funeral of a dear friend's father, had deadlines to meet at work and now we are anxiously awaiting a phone call to say my brother's baby boy has been safely born. Come on little Christopher! We can't wait to meet you. Today was also my mother's birthday so I have been rushing around like a mad thing. No different to the lives of all my bloggy friends. When did things get so crazy?

I also managed to catch up with a great friend from my days as a single twenty-something....Le. She was visiting with her family from way up in remote North Queensland and we spent a lovely Saturday night sitting on a verandah looking over a park, eating a yummy homecooked dinner while the husbands looked after the children and chatting with another friend the way women do about life, men, children, work and the funny side of it all. It was so great to relax, laugh and enjoy the company of women without the sound of little voices (well those of my children anyway) constantly needing attention. If mothers could have a couple of hours like this every week, we'd all be so much more sane and enjoy the many hours we spend with our children even more. Thanks for a lovely night, Le.

I have been reading a wonderful book called "The Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv which has hit such a nerve with me. He argues that the majority of the current generation of children in the west are having very little contact with nature with increasing urbanisation, growing fears of traffic, strangers and even nature itself, the obsession with TV/computers/Nintendos etc and lots of other factors. He cites a great number of studies that reveal the many many benefits of contact with nature (especially in an unstructured way where children are free to dream, roam, build cubbies, chase lizards or whatever). The book has inspired me to encourage my girls to have more exposure to the natural world so we went paddling in a river after school last week as well as squeezing in an extra outing to the beach one afternoon over Easter. I'm really committed to making sure we all get a dose of the beauty of nature at least once a week and really want to take the girls into the rainforest again soon. (See post about Mount Tambourine from Dec last year). Well.....enough ranting on that topic.

No photos to liven this post this week as Scott took the camera to work and it hasn't come back yet.

Have a great week, my bloggy friends.

The Easter Parade Hat

Emmylou was laid low this week with a bout of tonsilitis (following hot on the heels of her little sister). She was almost ready to go back to school on Wednesday but not quite, so we had a quiet day making an Easter hat for the parade at school the next day. We did a paper version first to make sure it worked and then cut out the cupboard and cut tabs on the bottom of the crown to glue on the inside of the brim. We didn't make a top for the hat as that looked too hard.

Then we made flowers from tissue paper and pipe cleaners and she stuck them on. One flower was poked through a hole at the top for good measure. Emmylou decided to add a bunch of pipe cleaners for extra garnish. Here she is trying on the finished product, but looking a bit pale and peaky!

I couldn't go to the school parade as I had to work, but she had a lovely time.

Happy Easter everyone. Hope you have a lovely few days with the people you love.