Small boy's new pants...

Ta daaah!

They look way cuter as pants on him than it could ever have looked as a skirt on me...

OK, I know you can't see the pants, but he just wouldn't sit still!!! You'll have to take my word for it ;) Plus, aren't his eyes so much nicer to look at?! Our new family portraits will be ready soon, then I'll have proof that they turned out OK!!!

Not so much procrastinating today...

Not strictly procrastinating because I did something both useful and timely today!

Tomorrow is our tenth wedding anniversary and to celebrate we're having a family photo (since our family is actually finished now). N and I have new dresses in the colours our bridal party wore, hubby will of course be wearing black, even Mr Z has a snazzy waistcoat to wear with his black pants and a tie. Which just leaves poor bubba...

Nana and Papa brought this piece of deliciousness home from their last holiday:

 ...but unfortunately he didn't grow enough to be able to wear it yet...

So I did some digging in my old workwear and came up with something I was willing to remodel for my smallest boy.

It actually is black, just the light playing tricks with us today... and yes, it is a small - a Supre small at that - so there was really no hope of my ever having worn it again. But that's OK, I am over thirty after all and my body has done all it was designed for in growing and nurturing three babies, so I can cut it some slack. I'm told I'm way nicer to cuddle these days anyway ;)

Little Miss saw me cutting newspaper (pattern) and fabric and naturally had to join in. That's the beginnings of a kite which now has a long black tail...

Anyway, I'm at the stage of tucking all the loose ends in and generally finishing off, so I'm procrastinating again... but I'll be back tomorrow to show you the finished result!

A competition for you...

Ooooh! Lucky me :) I've been contacted by the people at Finish to trial their new Quantum dishwashing tablets and to thank me, they want to give my readers the chance to win a prize.

More details will be coming soon, but first - if you could win a $150 voucher to anywhere, where would it be? I'll be giving away $150 and $100 online gift vouchers to two lucky readers. I'll take suggestions as to where these vouchers should be from, just comment below :)

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To stay up-to-date with details for this and other competitions, just add my blog to your reading list :)

Queensland Floods

It hasn't been such a happy new year for some of our neighbours. We've managed to stay dry, but plenty of people have lost everything in this corner of the world. With friends and neighbours rallying around, hopefully those people affected can soon return to some semblence of normality in our town, and we hope and pray every day that the floodwaters to the north recede quickly without too much more damage and loss.

This is our town from the air. The river is in the top right hand corner... very little of the rest of the water should be there...

Our local shopping centre on the bottom left. The first floor carpark was completely submerged, as were several houses in the near vicinity

Our house is at the end of this street. At the bottom of the hill road signs ended up being completely submerged

The playground we visit on the weekends is under there somewhere. The yellow pegs to the left (centre) are actually street signs!

Cricket grounds to the left, netball courts to the right of this road. This was a few days before the peak

Another car just trying to get home *before* the big wet really began...

The river got wider than three times its usual size in most places. Some places it was even worse.

I am thankful that people still care enough to help one another out in times like these, that the hospital was able to stay open and that my family were high and dry. I hope the clean up in other towns goes as smoothly as it has here...


** These shots are photos taken with my own camera. I appreciate your asking my permission before using them elsewhere **

Christmas traditions...

Growing up, our families celebrated Christmas in very different ways. Hubby's family had a Christmas Eve celebration with presents and food into the wee hours of Christmas morning while my childhood Christmases were very different. It has become very important to me to build some traditions into the family we've created. Here are some of my favourite things to do at Christmas:

1. Christmas lights drive - Our very first date, we went around town to look at all the lights. We make sure we do it each year. Sometimes it's on the anniversary of our first date, sometimes it's Boxing Day (although we do usually try to get there before Christmas day)

2. Decorating the tree - one person picks the colour scheme, we all decorate while listening to Christmas music, being silly and having fun. This year Mr Z picked the colours and we were able to use the very first decorations we ever bought, 13 Christmases ago (blue)

3. Gingerbread - Whether it's trees or men, N and I have come to enjoy doing this job together. This year we made some for Z's classmates, next year we'll need a whole lot more!

4. Church - this year we went to Christmas Eve Mass with Hubby's family.

5. Food! The kids each get to choose something to eat on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Miss Piggy chose kiwi fruit and chocolate cake, Mr Z wanted pancakes and blueberries.

6. Recording our memories - the kids line up so we can mark their height on the pantry door, and everyone gets a picture taken under the tree.

7. Our new tradition - now we're a complete family of five, I want to choose one special decoration to hang each year. This year we went out and bought a silver snowflake - after much umming and ahhing (and bickering). Not quite the relaxing experience I was looking for, but you have to start these things and let them settle in to tradition... or not! We'll see!

Sometimes it's easier just to give in

I cloth nappied both my bigger kids. Terry nappies, snappis and covers (more or less) all the way. I've always been a big fan of reducing waste so it made me feel good to be doing something good for the environment, and saving money to boot! I always wanted to get around to making my own fitted cloth nappies but despite having fabric and patterns, I just never got around to it.

This time round, it's been a bit harder to do the whole folded terry towelling thing. For one thing, I'm not (yet) organised enough to be getting all of that ready and still get out the door to drop Number One at school. Secondly, it's just been harder and harder to find pilchers/covers  (and clothing) to go over the bulky folded squares and lastly I've just been kind of lazy!

Lucky I found these - I loooove them! Totally waterproof and very, very cost-effective. I ended up importing them myself and saved a fortune :)

If I had time...

I would try this:

and this:

and this:

and this:

You can click through to a DIY tutorial ;)