Reclaimed vintage linen...

Just a SUPER quick post... Checking out the whole mobile phone blogger app.

Today sewing efforts:

A stylish simple but different high neck dress. The fabric is a gorgeous vintage print I'd re-claimed from some vinty linen I'd had stashed just waiting for the perfect sewing project...

And my stunning little model is none other than the ever elusive Big Little Miss M...

xo

Coffee, Sewing and Magical Fog...

My days are full... my blog is a little neglected... I'm still super addicted to Instagram, Drawsomething and... coffee...

The girls and I are having wonderful times (along with the expected meltdown and tantrum in the mix from both the girls and I ☺)

I was driving Big Little Miss M to her ballet lessons this morning and it was really foggy. I normally absolutely despise driving in the fog but this morning for some reason it just felt magical and looked stunning... 

Straight out of my go to camera of the moment... my phone!

I was all caught up in my imaginings of magical lands like Narnia and the sorts and wanted to share them with BL Miss M so I told her my thoughts on the fog... "It's like we're driving in the clouds." She loved this and told me it reminded her of our recent trip to the snow. "What if it is like the clouds are simply kissing the ground this morning?" I asked her thinking it was a nice, romantic kind of thought... Miss M however, broke my whimsical reverie right then and there with a massive, "EWWWW!!! GROSS MAN! Who want's to kiss wet grass?" I had to laugh - the minds of children always amaze me, whether its realism, fantasy or their wonderful innocent view on life, earth and the everyday!

I finally feel like I've got a bit of my sewing spark back... I rummaged through my fabric stash yesterday (my sewing cave looks like a fabric volcano erupted in there at the moment) and whipped up some new SpaNGle* for Spring Dresses... we're now on the outgoing journey of winter and heading to Spring, more sunshine, gardens and flowers - YAY!

I'm going to be extra ambitious and see if I can fit some more sewing in tomorrow... I've a couple of new patterns I've been meaning to try out for a while now.

Oh and check out this Triple Choc Salted Caramel cheesecake... If you know me in real life you'll know I LOVE food (actually you'd probably think I was OBSESSED with food)... and I love cheesecake

RECIPE LINK HERE

I'm tempted to give this one a whirl... but I can hear my fat cells screaming and feel them swelling at the very thought... I've told a friend that if I make this and we taste test it that she has to do a spin class with me afterwards but I'm thinking it would take one hell of a spin class to burn this baby off! 

Hmmm... you know I'm going to make it - YOLO!

Been itching to 'get-my-Grandma-on'... (that sounded so much better in my head) ...with some knitting and these huge needles - chunky scarf here I come!

Anyhow, I'd best be getting some Z's - tomorrow is our weekly pancake morning and if I'm going to sew and also do the weekly mumsy coffee, kids and fauna park stroll - not to mention the ever growing list of housewifey duties (urgh) I'm going to need my sanity and sleep!

Be back soon I promise... I've still got to do that unicorn cake tute for you, I really want to do another refashioning tutorial and I've some exciting blog sponsorship news to share too!!!

I'll leave you with this poem that I found via Pinterest (yes another time vacuum of an addiction) that just resonates... I typed it up and overlayed it onto a gorgeous rainbow photo I took a couple of weeks ago.

xoxoxoxo

Nighty Nite!

My little sk8er, baker, biker, rainbow jello loving girl...

Today was fun...

The sun was shining and the girls and I loved it.

Big Little Miss M received a new cookbook for her 5th birthday and was so keen to pick out a recipe to make.

She chose and made a Pecan Biscuit Crumb cake... kind of like a grooms cake (but girl-ified with pink dusting sugar) - it's yummo!

The girls were keen to do some bike riding...

We only have a small concrete area in the back yard so I bundled their bikes, scooter and a new skateboard in the car and we headed to the local courts which were deserted and perfect for biking and skating fun...

Big Little Miss M had not used a skateboard before and to say she was super-excited about it is a massive understatement... here's my little skater girl in action - she LOVED it...

In that middle photo above on the right she's doing a super cute, double fisted hand pump - she was busting with happiness at her new toy! Normally my big 5 year old gets pretty frustrated at things when she's learning (she wants to be perfect at things first go) but oddly enough she was too caught up in the thrill of trying out the skateboard that she must of forgotten to get frustrated! She's going to be awesome - and of course I'm not parentally biased :P

The girls spent nearly 3hours this afternoon at the courts biking, scooting and skating... it was bliss - I'd packed a huge thermos of coffee, so I got to laze in the sun, sipping coffee and watching my girls be girls... I miss being a kid on days like this - I gave the skateboard a tentative go but it didn't come with any weight rating and I was nervous that I would snap it and forever burn a devastating memory onto my girls first skating experience!

Speaking of being a big kid... I bought a new cap and on the inside as a pre-sale shaper it had a cardboard insert with instructions on how to do 'The Worm' ...ahhh... now I just need a party to be a fooligan at so I can bust a move across the floor... lol - yeah right, I think I'd more than likely end up with a back spasm looking a tool on the floor - forever to be labelled as the infamous geriatric worm!

Jokes aside though - how tempting is it... the 'how to' makes it all look and read so easy ☺

Well, the girls are sleeping extra soundly tonight after all their pedalling fun... plus they've bellies full of our new favourite dessert...

Rainbow Jello... a time consumer to make but the looks on the girls faces when this gets plopped all wibbly, wobbly on the table makes it more than worth it. I think we spent at least 15 minutes just watching it wobble and laughing at what wacky things we could do to get it to wobble some more. Plus... it actually tastes pretty awesome too!

Till next time

xoxoxo

Snow... Snow... Snow...

SNOW... 

You make me love winter - if only for the fleeting time that I am with you! I love the snow... 

I love the ascent up the mountain, spotting the first few scatterings of the wonderful white stuff... 

I get excited when I see cars heading down mountain with snow on their roof and under their wipers... 

I love winding the window down (hahah... just re-reading... how funny still calling it 'winding the window down' when it's been pushing an electronic button for so long now!) and feeling the crisp, cold air against my cheeks and breathing in the smell of the clean, clean mountain air full of powdery snow promises!

I've missed the snow soooo much... 

It's been just shy of 6 years since my last visit (yep... just a couple of months before I found out I was preggers with my beautiful Big Little Miss M I spent a WONDERFUL 5 days on the snow, skiing, boarding and having too many après drinks). 

It's been so long for many reasons... children, life, living at that time thousands of kms from the slopes, the fact that sadly the hubs does not share my adoration of the snow :(  One thing I know is - I'm going to do everything I can to ensure my girls love it so that snow trips will be incorporated into our regular girly adventure days!

We set off early for the three hour trip there and took a beautiful, back roads trip through greenery, hills, and small country towns with gorgeous cottages and café's that I fantasised about living in as we drove through (the towns not café's that is - although my coffee loving self could most likely quite easily and happily live in a café).

I would have taken more photo's but I was driving and seriously would having been stopping every few km's to take photo's and I just wanted to get to the snow (as did my girls). I'm thinking a summer trip for sightseeing, moseying, photo taking and more quaint country life fantasies might be in order!

My girls oohed and ahhed at the hills that disappeared into the clouds along the way. When I told them that we would be driving up almost to the clouds to get to the snow Big Little Miss M declared that she wanted to climb onto a cloud and snuggle into it and then asked if she could take a cloud back home with her... Not being one to spoil the childhood magic I love, I told her of course we could but we'd have to make extra room in the boot because it was such a good idea that I wanted one to take home too (I figured I'd deal with the whole logistics/reality of the situation if and when needed)! 

Today there was no skiing and boarding - it was all for the kids really, to give them a chance to play, marvel, make snow men and angels, throw snowballs and toboggan. The snow was average but still awesome from the kiddies point of view... which meant it was awesome from my point of view too. Happy kids = happy mum!

It was a little overcast most the day but gentle, wafting snowflakes greeted us as we arrived and the sun graced us every so often.

We made a snowman: 

The girls tobogganed:

(I love that Big Little Miss M chose to drop the 'to' from toboggan and simply calls it 'bogganing... eg. Mum, I can go bogganing all by myself! I love bogganing! She makes me laugh)

We travelled in convoy with some friends... from 3 families, 2 cars, 4 adults, 6 children, 4 toboggans.

(minus 1 kiddo... they move too fast!)

All the kids had a wonderful day despite each one of them at some point during the day losing it a little and cracking a wobbly - as they do.

Driving back the kids were still all pepped up with excitement and I loved them even more for it... 

And bonus... gorgeous sunset - just a shame my phone camera doesn't do it justice... the colours were so much more spectacular in reality!

I really must sort my camera situation!

Well, that's our day in the snow - it was AWESOME!

The kiddies have another almost 2 weeks left of school holidays, which even though my two aren't yet in school that means they don't have schedules including Monday morning - swimming lessons; Monday afternoon- ballet lessons; Tuesdays - kindergarten; Wednesday morning - music playgroup; Thursday - kindergarten; Friday morning - craft playgroup; Saturday - more ballet lessons.... (and crazy me wants to fit in singing and tennis lessons somewhere in there!).

Stay tuned for more girly adventure days and surprise daytripping!!!!

Winter... it's not all bad!

Well, yesterday I was all wingey, moany over the cold, winter weather. I'm over it now, and apologies for being so ho hum... 

I like to think I'm pretty upbeat, positive and big on not letting the things I can't change stress or bring me down, but I guess we all have our moments and yesterday was mine.. all just because it was cold! Duh! Pathetic I know but I needed to get it out of my system and now it's done and over with... woohoo!

Moving on....

Check this out:

Tomorrow my girls and I are setting off on another girlie adventure... a day trip to the snow!

Big Little Miss M's instructions at bedtime when I told her and Little Little Miss M that they had to sleep so I could finish organising things for the snow trip was to make sure I'd packed a snowman kit, with extra emphasis on there MUST be a carrot for the nose! (Found some googly eyes to pop on him too... I had forgotten I'd bought a container of about... ooh... maybe 200 googly eyes in all different sizes, until I was cleaning out the depths of my car boot earlier today only to discover the container had rolled right to the back, burst open and scattered googly eyes EVERYWHERE back there!)

So, I'm super excited - not a fan of winter but ironically LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the snow... I so hope that my little ones do too - I'd love to go for a few days next time and have them take ski lessons (and to get in some skiing and boarding myself). 

I'm like a big kid right now... I'm hyper alert and not able to sleep because I'm excited but at the same time I know I need to because I've about a 2.5 - 3hr drive tomorrow to get there!

Really. Must. Sleep.....

xoxoxo

"Thick draws the dark..."

Winter... I'll be honest and tell you I'm not a fan.

The cold, the grey, the drizzle, the icy wind, the ever runny nose... unless I could spend all winter on the ski slopes I do not think I will ever be a winter convert.

Yes, there's the argument that you can always put on more clothes, rug up against the cold but I hate being padded up like the Michelin man, there are only so many layers one can wear without looking ridiculous and then there's my gas bill... oh my - winter is only just setting in, the carbon tax hasn't even hit the bill yet and this last quarter is already nudging the way too expensive!  

Maybe it's not that I dislike winter but that I love summer too much? Hmm, maybe I'm just lying to myself with that one?!? I miss my Queensland sun and beach side life just a teensy bit today :(

Winter is just ever so depressive... I want to love it more, I do. I am just not sure I know how! 

I'm demotivated and I need to just snap out of it lest I begin to eat myself to oblivion... 

Be back soon - hopefully cheerier and sparkier than today!

Oh, a bright note in an otherwise dull post... my little girl (Big Little Miss M) had her enrolment accepted for next year to the school we really wanted her to get into - a relief since I'd heard they had for the first time ever more enrolments than positions. 

Oooh... and just because it's really not all that bad, my girls and I are going to set off for a day trip to the snow this coming week provided it's not too wet and slushy up on the hill! YAY - it will be their first time to see, touch, feel (and maybe taste) snow!!!

Till next time 

xoxoxo