Happy 5th Birthday Louisa!

I can't believe it's been 5 years since this little baby entered the world! A rare shot of her sleeping - it was quite the novelty, being a catnapper from day one. Too much going on to waste time sleeping apparently!

And look at the little lady she's turned into! Such a happy, friendly, clever and kind little girl. I am immensely proud of her. I won't show too many party shots, but here's her sister enjoying the day, even if it was a little damp.
This face just about says it all!

And where better to go on your birthday for dinner than our local Sizzlers! Fine dining it isn't, but to a five year old, heaven on a stick, especially when Mum lets you wear the nail polish and jewellery some friends gave you and have icecream for dessert!

Pay It Forward

Look at the generous parcel I received from Karen. I absolutely love it all! The girls adore their pencil rolls (they're both the little artists, and love to draw each night before bed) and are thrilled with their letter Ts, and have already worn them several times. The appliqued singlet matches Louisa's twirly skirt and hadan outing to a boy's party last week. The coasters are on my coffee table and getting quite a workout, and the tissue pouch has been added to my handbag. Such lovely and useful things! Thankyou Karen!

So now it's my turn. I'm thinking I'll need at least a month for there to be enough responses for me to pick out some lucky winners.

Here are the rules:

I will send a handmade gift to 3 random people who leave a comment on my blog
requesting to join this Pay It Forward exchange. I don’t know what that gift
will be yet and you may not receive it tomorrow or next week… LOL… but you will
receive it within 365 days, that is my promise! The only thing you have to do in
return is pay it forward by making the same promise on your blog.

Now I really have to start blogging regularly!!

I must share some of Louisa's birthday fun soon. Next post, I promise. I can't believe my little girl is 5!

I'm such a bad blogger at the moment. I sometimes feel bad, but then I figure not that many people are still reading, so it doesn't really matter! I do still want to keep it going though as record of this stage in my life. So here comes a photo rich post.

Mothers Day is a while ago, I guess, but these photos are from that weekend. We had a lovely time in the mountains, Peter convincing the girls we'd found 'Fairy Mountain', so a fairy spotting expedition was underway. The girls keep catching imaginary fairies, having a little chat and then letting them go. So cute.

We won't even discuss the restaurant we ate at that day, except to say I used to think restaurants featured on Kitchen Nightmares were exceptions. Not so sure now.

Long overdue...

Here is Elizabeth with one of her favourite toys. I have been very remiss in not posting photos of Tiger Filly's fabulous handiwork which we received as part of our Valentine's swap. Mainly as it quickly became a favourite with my mermaid obsessed daughters and it's been tricky to wrench it out of their hands. So here it is, still in Lizzie's possession, maybe a little worse for wear. I also received some beautiful cord, which you will be seeing very soon in the form of another pinafore dress, and yummy chocolates which quickly made their way into my mouth and onto my hips!

Thanks again for such thoughtful gifts, and apologies for not posting images sooner.

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!