Suzanne got her groove back?

How about this cute pinafore dress? Modelled without a top under it, as we were both a bit excited to get it on her.

Recently Elizabeth and I took a trip to Spotlight - it certainly had been a while. I think I needed that to give me a little inspiration. This beautiful cherry tree fabric is certainly more expensive than the fabrics I normally use - I'll admit I'm quite the cheapskate and generally try to buy clearance fabrics or those on sale. But I paid full price for this one as I loved it so much and thought it could definitely make a dress worthy of the gorgeous Lizzie.

Lizzie's favourite feature: the pockets!

Please excuse my fiddling with the photo. I opened up a program to get rid of some of the reflection on the glass fence - but ended up playing around with the funky edge feature instead. A bit much probably, but certainly different, unusual...

Let's go fly a kite!

Peter decided to buy the girls a kite - well, that's what he said. But given that he purchased a stunt kite for ages 10 and up (and consequently the girls can only really watch) I think the toy was more for him! Still lots of fun 'helping', although Lizzie did get knocked over by a string at one point when it did an unexpected nose dive.

Quite the family bonding experience, just ask Mary Poppins.

Update!

Such a long time between posts. What have I been doing? Lots actually. We had a trip to Vic to visit family. The early Easter meant that my Dad's birthday was over the Easter break so it gave the girls and I a chance to fly down, meet my sister (who flew in from Canberra) at the airport, hire a car and drive down to West Gippsland. A lovely 77th birthday lunch for Grandpa Max at a local winery. We also took a drive to the Yarra Valley to catch up with his twin sister, my Aunty Florence, and family, and dropped in on the other grandparents, Nanna and Poppa, in Melbourne where the girls caught up with their favourite cousin Joseph.

Hmm what else? I've been working on house and garden. Let's just say Bougainvillea is not my friend. I've been pulling some out of the front of our house and - Ouch! I'm also now the Ikea queen - I'm really impressed with my 'putting stuff together' skills at the moment. Also, I've been contemplating my return to work, so I'm in the middle of filling in a course application to make working life post kids a little more enjoyable for me. I've also rejoined the gym to shift a few kilos caused by too much baking and not enough walking.

Apart from that, the usual family stuff. Trips to Moreton Island on the boat, outings to the waterfront, coffees, etc. Some photos to follow when blogger feels like behaving!

Life's a balancing act!

Yes, I know it's a sewing blog - so how do I explain my lack of sewing related news. I guess one child in school uniform most of the time, and one in her older sisters hand-me-downs, not to mention my eye for a bargain recently at our local DFO - all of this means that I really have no need to sew. In the past my desire to sew has over come this one, but lately I've been doing a little reassessing, and have put sewing on the back burner for a little bit. My house and my fitness are taking over. But I'm starting to get the itch to sew for myself- so stay tuned!

Some sewing at last.

I've finally done a little sewing. Excuse the poor photos but my dear husband has my camera so I'm stuck with the old one.
I made a very simple two tiered skirt for Lizzie, made with this orange star fabric which she just loves. She's a bit of a star gazer like her dad, and orange seems to be a colour she connects with for some reason.
I appliques this cute spare of fabric onto a Target T. I found the sqaure already cut out amongst the high school magazines and old assignments Mum brought up when she visited at Christmas. I can't remember where I got it from or what I was planning to do with it, but this is one time I'm glad my mum is a bit of a hoarder.

Other people's work

Not much creativity from me lately, so how about a look at some other people's. Namely, my two daughters. I wonder if you can pick which pictures were done by the two year old, and which were done by the four year old? Louisa's only lately shown an interest in drawing, I guess because you have to stop talking and concentrate for a bit! Her little sister, Elizabeth on the other hand loves to draw more than anything, and is pretty good for her age, I'd say.
Can you tell we've had a lot of rain?

Another creative person is Greg Dries, from Moods Photography. Here's just a couple of the beautiful photographs he took at the end of last year.

Louisa's first day at school!

I'm not quite sure where the last 4 and a half years have gone, but here is my baby starting school yesterday. I apologise for the blurriness of the photos (mummy's hand was shaking a little), but I think the expression shows exactly how we were both feeling about her first day. Apprehensive, but mainly excited.

Her day seemed to have gone really well. The teacher has already established that Louisa likes to chat and isn't shy (no surprises there). And when talking about activites she did that day, I commented that it sounded like fun. Her response: "Everything was fun, Mum!'.

I must confess I'm happy that the Prep year here in Qeueensland is play based, and will be similar to the C & K kindy she attended last year. I had been quite casual and unconcerned about her starting because of this, but must admit to some quiet tears on the way back to the car. I'm only just realising that so many of the outings and adventures we've done together and that I've taken for granted will be consigned to school holidays and weekends. 'End of and era' is how one mums' group friend put it, and it sure is!