King for a day

A friend asked about Spunky Monkey's birthday crown that he was wearing in my last post. I made the crown last year, one day before he turned seven.

 

All of the felt was excess in the cupboard just awaiting a project. The ric rac was too. I stiffened it with stiffening stuff (?) and put strips of wide velcro onto the back, so it can grow with him. Remember this was made the day before his birthday, I was out of elastic, and the velcro seems to be working fine.

After some deliberation with the buttons, I settled on these vintage acorn buttons. They were the perfect choice. They had been discovered in Grandma's button box a few years earlier by Spunky Monkey. He is always digging around in the cupboards at Grandma and Grandpa's house. They had been favourite buttons of Mr Moo's when he was a child, and they are perfectly suited to my nature loving boy.

And what belated birthday present arrived in the mail yesterday? a crochet bag filled with real acorns!! 

Thank-you Mrs Gooseberry. The perfect gift for so many reasons. xo

Our birthday weekend

There were celebrations for days for Spunky Monkey's 8th birthday.





You know someone is maturing, when they no longer wake you up at 5:30 to open presents. For the first time, Spunky Monkey, got up and waited until we got out of bed before even mentioning his birthday.

After a frenzy of present opening and a road test of his new bike, Nanny arrived and joined us for a birthday breakfast: pancakes dotted with chocolate chips, the birthday boy's request.

Yes, I did give Spunky Monkey two antique print trays for his birthday. Maybe not everyone's idea of the perfect present for an eight year old. But he was wrapped!

A cake was taken to school to share with his class.




And what did he want to do the afternoon of his birthday? Re-arrange his room of course. He had been wanting to do this for a while and the new print trays were a great excuse. He has even colour coordinated his lego. I like this.






Dinner was the usual birthday dinner: tacos, followed by chocolate cake.




On the only sunny day before or since, we had Spunky Monkey's party: a simple barbecue in the park. School friends and cousins ran, climbed, imagined, played and battled over the contents of the pinata.

• the cake that I cooked for Spunky Monkey's birthday was this chocolate cake. It was decorated with raspberries and whipped cream. Inspired completely by Alicia's cakes.

• the lego cake was just a plain vanilla cake made like this one.

• the pinata was a computer paper box made the night before by Mr Moo, very similar to this one.

• The afternoon of the party, as the lollies gathered from the pinata were being gobbled up, I offered my kids a deal. I paid them 50 cents for each lolly they gave to me. As I tallied up the value on a piece of paper they quickly realised that this was a good idea and ended up giving me all of their lollies. I was thrilled that they would be eating no more sugar and have put the lollies aside to be given out at Halloween this year.It was a win win, I'd say.

Eight

Eight ....really!?

Spunky Monkey : A time capsule of sorts for my little/big boy.

• the only game that you want at this years party, is a pinata.

• sometimes at night, 10 minutes after you are in bed and I think you are asleep, you yell out : "I love you Mum, night, night." This makes my heart melt every time.

• you are mad for Lego right now, but you definitely don't want any Star Wars Lego. I'm not sure why.

• you hate wearing jeans.

• during winter you live in tracksuit pants and hoodies. All jumpers must have a hood and a zip front.

• you have only recently discovered computer games. You would stay on Kizi all day if I let you.

• you are a collector, you can't help it, it's in your genes. You collect: money (foreign and old) cloth badges (scouts and tourist) rocks, shells, stamps (old, foreign and new) and tourist teaspoons. Sometimes old dice, and sometimes bottle caps. You were collecting trash packs for a while, but not anymore. And you are half-heartedly collecting hot wheels.

• On most days I can't see your bedroom floor. On most days it is covered with Lego, coins, rocks, marbles and little things made from boxes and sticky tape. Oh, and usually your pajama's.

• you love to op shop

• you love eating meat patties for dinner right now: chicken, beef, pork or fish, but you still turn your nose up at casserole every single time.

• you eat your biscuits with a fork, some people think this is strange, but it is just you.

• you love to go off riding your bike with your Dad, pushing the boundaries: going off road and riding on roads that I think are too dangerous.

Some days you move to fast for me, it can be hard to keep up, but I wouldn't have it any other way. I have known you now for eight years and there is something wonderful and exciting to learn about you with each new day.

Life must have been pretty boring before you came along. I love you baby boy, Happy Birthday!

Driving Miss Daisy

(this image is from here) 

Last weekend we had a rare day out. Nine months ago I booked tickets to see Angela Lansbury and James Earl Jones in the play Driving Miss Daisy.

IT WAS BRILLANT!!!

"Every single person in the audience was on their feet, some with tears in their eyes" -The Australian 

"The best theatre can be. Simply superb!" - Boomerang News

I have always been an Angela Lansbury fan, really, who didn't love 'Murder She Wrote? If you get a chance to see it, DO. I believe Driving Miss Daisy is touring the country, you can find out more about the theatre dates here.

We had 10 minutes to spare before the show and stopped in at an antique shop. I have fallen head over heals in love with a piece of furniture that I don't need, can't afford and have no where to put. But honestly I can not stop thinking about it. Oh dear... we should have gone straight to the theatre.

Have you seen any fabulous shows recently?

Maybe you have spotted something you don't need too/ Did you buy it?

When is too much, too much?

I can't wait for Downton Abbey tonight. Did you watch it last week? Wow! How beautiful did Mary look? I think I am a little bit too excited that this show has started again.

At the beginning of the year I wrote out a small list of things I wanted to change this year. Watching less TV was the third point on the list, right after: go to bed earlier and wake up earlier. You see, when I watch too much TV, I do not go to bed early and because I do not go to bed early, I either sleep in, resulting in a mad panic in the morning or I still wake up early up but I am a grumpy mummy. Some mornings I have snapped at my children for just mentioning my name. I get angry at myself, when they did nothing wrong and I get even angrier when I know the only reason I am tired is because I stayed up watching something like "Rizzoli and Isles" or some bad ninties movie featuring Demi Moore.

But already 2013 is proofing problematic in regards to my list. The thing is, period drama's seem to be all the go right now, and I find it impossible to pass up a good period drama. 

I have loved watching "the Hour" 

and "Upstairs Downstairs". Both shows finished last week.

 I am already completely taken in by "The Paradise." Love it.

I thrilled to bits about the return of "Downton"

and then there is "Parades End" still to come.

and "A Place to Call Home" as well. I love Marta Dusseldorp.

Oh and did I mention that I have been completely sucked into watching "My Kitchen Rules"- every night!

What about you? What are you watching? 

Do you have the willpower to turn off the TV and go to bed with a good book?

Thrifted goodness

I find it almost impossible to leave a jug on the shelf, this one was $1.00, of course it was coming home with me.

New/old sheets - hooray! I haven't found any sheets since we went on this fun holiday.

I love this tea strainer, $2.00 - perfect for girly tea parties

Some new/old fabric for Miss Moo Moo, I can see some very pretty flannelette nighties this winter.

And some fabric for me. I hope that there will be enough of the black and white to make a summer dress and that small supper cloth on top, is also headed for a nice new top for me.

A new crocheted blanket for Miss Moo Moo's room. Single bed size. $4.00.

Did I say that I was going have a stay at home week? Hmmm. Well that just didn't happen.

With grand plans of baking and sorting out my wardrobe pushed to the side, I instead found myself out and about most days. It was strange to have a week like this, I am such a homebody, but it was fun. I met friends for coffee and shopping days, we had some very fun playdates with very fun new friends, we went out for dinner and we met a very sweet, very new, little baby girl.

Oh...and I even did some exercise!

With all of this driving about, I found myself passing some different op shops. Alone, with my monkey op shoppers back to school, I found that I, perhaps, went a little crazy. These are my finds from Wednesday's shopping spree. Yesterday's shopping is still sitting in bags in the car - some new winter sheets for Miss Moo Moo, amongst my many new finds.

And these: $3.00 each, I thought I would put them in a quilt. But now that they are home, the frames don't look so bad. Now, if I could just find a bare section of wall to hang them? Not sure what to do? but love them!

Have you been op shopping this week? What did you find?

And that was the holidays!

Keeping cool in our backyard. On many other days, we kept cool in Grandma's or Nanny's swimming pools. Cold baths anytime of the day were also good.


Midnight - New years Eve

Our New Years Day picnic by the river - everyone was there.

Dinners have been kept very simple - chunky chips with homemade tomato sauce and help yourself salad. There have been a lot of barbecues and I have been very creative with leftovers.

We went to a couple of 'nature workshops' at our botanical gardens: we searched for butterflies and then made own and on another day; we searched for life in the creek, actually when we were there, the creek was all but a dried up puddle less than a metre wide. Today I guess it is a different story.

To hot to sleep in their own rooms, the little monkeys took over mine, there were mattresses on the floor - a proper camp out. It was pretty crowded, even monkeys (tiny stuffed ones) were hanging from the bedside lamps.

We have held off for as long as we could, but this holidays, the kids have discovered computer games. I think this could be the the beginning of the end.


Our lovely relatives came to visit from England.

And have I mentioned the heat!

On some days I felt that the holidays were too long and on other days, I felt that they were too short. In any case they were busy and hot and exhausting all at once.

I know that the kids officially went back to school last week, but I feel as if the year is just beginning. I am wondering, how is it February, already?  This week our new routines will be set in place and hopefully things will run a little more smoothly than the last couple of days. The weather is forecast to be slightly cooler (27/28 degrees!) which should make a difference. The last few days have been very unproductive due to the heat. Plenty of housework and cooking awaits, I will be staying close to home this week, just as I like it.

How about you? How are you settling in to 2013?