Progress of the Cubby House

Here are the progress photos of the cubby house that was given to the kids as a family present at Christmas time. The instructions said that it would take 2 people 6 hours to put it all together. At the end of it, Craig decided that they would have to be master builders and pretty speedy workers!


This first photo is of all the parts laid out on the table and the first walls going up. Some of it was pre-made, such as the cladding for the walls and the shingles for the roof, other parts we had to put together ourselves, such as the frame work for the roof. Needless to say that some of it doesn't quite line up! It was a fun process though and the delight the kids showed was great.



The walls are up, the roof frame work up and the kids are already enjoying it!



Almost finished. Window frames and a few finishing touches to go at this stage.



A close up of the finished item! Caitlin and I went to Bunnings shopping and decided on some petunias and impatiens for the window boxes. This pic was just before Cal discovered them and decided to pick every single flower and bud from the flowers in one of the window boxes just for Mum! Caitlin was rightfully very upset. She has been watering them regularly and keeping them free from Callum's eagle eyes.



This is a pic of the wasps nest that Craig found in the eaves outside the laundry. We were a little worried about how to get rid of them. In the end, we stayed inside and Craig would run out with the fly spray and give them a squirt and then run back inside as fast as possible. It is comical to think back on but is was pretty serious at the time!

I have been getting creative and trying to make up a few hand-made gifts to have as a stash for during the year. I have already started playing around with Christmas cards for the end of the year! I would love to give only hand made gifts and cards, so if I can get even half way there I would be pleased.

Summer rain

Right at the moment in Kalgoorlie, it is raining iceblocks (as Caitlin would say). The weather has me completely baffled! The picture above is of the wet grey sky, and below is a little video of the hail hitting the ground. The hail stones are between the size of a 5c piece and a flat stone of about 50c size!

Caitlinisms

I thought I would have a catch up of photos of Caitlin. She is changing at the moment. She is losing all that baby look and becoming so much more like a little girl. She is getting pretty cheeky too, so school is having an impact already!



This picture is from easter morning. We had an easter egg hunt and Caitlin, as usual, didn't stop talking! I love capturing photos of her in action!



Caitlin was posing for this shot, and she thought she looked just so gorgeous, like a model, so she asked me to take a photo! Love it!

My gorgeous girl has been so funny lately. She just loves singing and she is great at making up her own songs. Today she was singing a song about me to the tune of Bob the Builder! It went something like this:

I love my mummy
She's so much fun
We scrapbook together
And get our jobs done!

It just cracked me up! When I made comment to her, she had the biggest grin on her face - she was pretty proud of what she had made up!

Today Caitlin and I planted out some of the vegie patch. We bought some seeds and also a few punnets of seedlings yesterday, so today we had to do some digging. We planted Dutch carrot seeds, pea seeds, mixed lettuce seedlings, a couple of perennial silverbeet seeds, some onion seedlings and some snow pea seedlings. Now I have to get a punnet of red cabbage seedlings in and I will have finished that lot.

I want to plant red beet, broad beens and spinach next. Craig and I noticed that some potatoes from last year have self seeded, so I am going to leave it at that soon as I am not eating them at the moment. Then I will have to get some herbs in. My rocket and corriander were great last year, so I am hoping to have a great crop again. Yummy!

Callum's finger is looking much better. Alot of the swelling has gone and the grazes are healing. The nail and the end of his finger is really bruised, so I am waiting to see if he loses his nail. His pain is much better too, so he is healing really fast. I was going to get a photo of his little hand, but it looks no different through the camera lens, so it would be pointless.

Home Made Cordial

I have been trying so hard to finish off the oranges from our tree because the new leaves are just starting to grow and I thought it was time for the tree to put energy into growth rather than sustaining old oranges. I was reading a blog and got the idea of making some fresh cordial using citrus juice - perfect for my oranges.

Don't these bottles of cordial look great! We are not huge cordial drinkers and Caitlin actually won't dring commercial cordial, but she loves this one! I made 5 bottles altogether but have already given a lemon cordial away and one of the orange ones is earmarked for L and her family.



Here is the recipe if you are interested:

Citrus cordial (recipe from a sustainable living blog)

First, make a sugar syrup: * Combine 1 part sugar with 1 part water in a saucepan. * Heat mixture, boiling gently, stirring to dissolve sugar. Then, your basic cordial recipe is: * Combine 1 part fruit juice with 1 part sugar syrup. Chill. * To drink, dilute cordial about 1:10 with water, mineral water or soda water. * Keep refrigerated and drink within about a week. Citrus cordials: If you are making a citrus-based cordial, you can add 1 teaspoon of citric acid or tartaric acid (both are derivatives of fruit, found in the baking aisle of supermarkets) per litre (quart) of cordial as a preservative, which will mean it lasts about a month. I also suggest adding the finely grated zest of one of the fruit too, for added flavour.

I am off to bed - early nights for me for a while because Caitlin and I have school sores. We went to the doctor today, thinking Caitlin had chicken pox and came out with a highly contageous infection that requires us to be house bound for a while, so no scrapbooking classes either!

Kung Fu Panda

I took Caitlin to see her first movie today!

My friend C and her son T wanted to go to see Kung Fu Panda, so we tagged along. The kids had so much fun. Towards the end of the movie they both got quite fidgety, but that was to be expected really. On the whole they were both great. Caitlin was frightened at one stage and sat on my knee, but was generally OK with the big screen and the dark. I thought the movie was great too!

Poor Cal and Craig stayed home! Callum slept pretty much the whole time that we were away and Craig pruned some more of that hideous vine (now dead) from a tree at the side (near the dove cote) that has suffered from it being so invasive. He got just about all if it trimmed out I think.

It is raining here. The bureau of meteorology says that we have only had about 5 mm, but I believe we have had quite a bit more. For about 3 days now we have had heavy rain at night and drizzle on and off during the day and the garden is looking great for it. Now the weeds will be even more out of control than they were before! My patch of spinach that I had to re-sow is up and looking good. The new patch of corn is still not up, but I think that takes a while.

CSI is about to be on TV, so I had better go and get my weekly fix of TV!

Long time no post!

Wow, I hadn't realised it had been so long since I had posted!

Most of my vegies are up! I was out in the garden yesterday and the spuds are just coming up, which is great, but means I need to be diligent in covering the vegies at night now because we have had heaps of really harsh frosts over the last couple of weeks. Mum and Andrew will be here at a great time because I will have spinach, carrots, zuchinis and probably redbeet ready in the garden at the time - yum!

We had a quick trip to Esperance last weekend - 3 nights. It wasn't as enjoyable as usual. It seemed like a mountain of packing to get 4 of us there and back, the weather was rainy and windy, and while we were there I had my wallet stolen from the toilets at the Boulevard, so it has discouraged us from going away again in a hurry.

I had my last scrapbooking class at home on thursday night which was sad but also exciting. I am moving classes to the scrap shop because it is hard on Craig and the kids having their home invaded 3 times a fortnight and I was also feeling the pressure of not being able to get into a mess or have an off day or two, like so sften happens when you have 2 kids. Classes start on the 22nd and I am really looking forward to it. Renaye from Keepsake Kraft has made a great scrap space that I am looking forward to teaching in.

All the cards for the June card swap are in and they are all so fantastic. I love getting them all and seeing just how differently we all interpret the challenge. This month was an embossing challenge and the August swap is a fold challenge, where we have to use a non-standard card fold. I would like to try a pop-up card fold, but I think I need to do some research on the net first.

We had a busy weekend again (what's new?). Craig has shifted a heap more lawn from the spots where we are going to have garden beds to the spot where the kids swing set is going to go. It is really hard work, but it will save us money in the end and will establish pretty fast once spring is here. I have set myself the task of completing one job a day over the school holidays to get the inside of the house sorted out. Boring I know! Saturday I cleaned out Caitlin's wardrobes. Sunday I sorted out the kids old clothes that I had boxed up. I set aside piles to go to Good Sammi's and piles that I am going to try and sell on eBay. Today I have started listing things on eBay, so I hope that they will sell. I still have quite a few items to go on, but I am going to work at it of an evening over the next couple of days and hopefully get rid of them. Tomorrow I am going to clear off Callum's bed and make it up, ready for Mum and Andrew's visit in August. Then if I finish that I will make a start on the toy jungle! I have warned Caitlin that we are going to have a big clean up of her toys. Also, Callum has grown out of many of the baby toys like rattles etc, so we can cull them now (maybe to sell on eBay too).

Callum has been really sick over the past week or a bit more. Yesterday evening his temp shot up to 39, so I was a bit suspicious. He has progressively been getting more and more miserable too, so we headed off to the doctor today. Didn't take long to discover that our poor little man has tonsilitis. I really hope he doesn't suffer with it like I did as a child. He has a course of antibiotics and hopefully that clears it up, but we have a repeat if he still isn't 100% by the end of the 5 day course.

I am off to watch the tennis - we taped it last night because it was still not on at 10pm, so we went to bed. We have heard the result (boo hoo) but want to watch it anyway. I will post photos in the next couple of days.

Busy!

Both Craig and I feel as though we have been unusually busy over the last couple of weeks. Craig was away with Mitchi and Big Yammi over the weekend, so he has worked the last 2 weeks without a break, which means I haven't had a break either. Today we took it easy and had some time with the kids and also pottering in the garden.



Planting two more rows of red beet hopefully to preserve or make chutney out of. My rows are pretty crooked! Wouldn't make a very good farmer!



In this photo, you can see the vegie patch starting to take shape. I have carrots, spinach, parsnips, red beet, broadbeans tomatoes and zucchinis already up and today I planted Bernie pumpkins, purple runner beans, spuds, corn, more red beet and spinach and red onions. Tomorrow I would like to get a half row of cos lettuce and rocket in, some shallots and capsicum (may be too cold yet) and some green and butter beans. I feel a real sense of satisfaction tonight that the vegie patch is coming together so well this year after it being a dismal failure last year!



I know this photo is blurry, but Caitlin looked like such a cool cat in my sun glasses. She was very impressed that I wanted to take a photo and posed like a model!



I tried Callum on some toast crusts on Thursday. I was really surprised that he loved them! He only gagged a couple of times and actually swallowed a heap - perhaps the toasted crust off half a small slice of bread. This is really funny, considering that he can't stand a single lump in his vegies and is super fussy about the texture, temperature, thickness and vegie combinations (he likes everything mixed with apple or pear!). Caitlin thought that it was great that he was eating her crusts that she leaves all the time!



Caitlin can be so laid back some times! Here she is having a pick-wick (picnic) on her special owl plate, feet up, resting in Dad's cane chair from when he was a little boy.



I caught a photo of Callum in action blowing a raspberry today. He loves doing this and uses it as emphasis all the time - cheeky little man! Luckily he hasn't started doing it when he eats... yet.

We have the first Winner of one of the RAK packs! She finished the layouts in a super quick time and says she was on a huge roll!

And, the winner is...

Dee Wells.

A little pack of goodness is coming your way!

There are 2 more up for grabs if anyone can complete the challenge by next weekend.

The garden and some photos of the kids

We are borrowing a little trampoline from L and G at the moment. Caitlin thinks it is just the greatest! She would spend almost every waking moment on it if she could! She has learnt how to bounce down onto her knees from standing and yesterday she got brave enough to bounce down onto her bottom. She thinks she is pretty clever. I got some cute action shots and here is one of many.




She still will not push herself on her trike. It isn't that she can't do it because she can - I just think she likes doing it the way she always has and she is pretty stubborn, so there is no convincing her that there is any other way! She has her smock on in this photo because we had been doing some painting.




My garden is coming along so nicely at the moment. I love growing my own fruit and veg and being able to go out and pick an apple or orange when I want, or choose the vegies for tea and go and get them from the garden. I also love being able to give some away. Craig thinks this is a bit of a waste, but I like how much people genuinely appreciate getting something out of someone elses garden. Here is a shot of my oranges - aren't they yummy looking? Mum, wouldn't you love to go out and pick your morning orange fresh off the tree every day? They still have a couple of weeks to go because they are still a bit tart.




Here is a picture for Dad - my broadies are looking yummy already! I hope the soil condition is OK because they are planted where the slabs were laid in the old chook shed. I fertilised well, so I hope that makes up for it.




And finally, we have a mellon on our watermellon vine that has been there for about four months and done nothing. I think it has not been getting polinated, so now there is one on it, maybe we will get some more (then we will get a rippa frost and it will be gone!). It is about 15 or 20 cm long at the moment and growing fast.




Look at this cheeky little man! Callum is teething at the moment and he is getting about four teeth at once, so he is in quite a bit of pain, poor little boy. Unfortunately for him he takes ages for the teeth to actually come through, so he may be like this for about 3 weeks. He loves putting this ring in his mouth because it sits just nicely on his gums where the teeth are coming down.



When I saw this photo I realised just how much he is changing at the moment. In this photo he is looking much more like a little boy than like a baby. Wow - he is eight months old tomorrow!


And guess who is finally sitting up most of the time! He just loves to throw himself backwards though, so he can often be found staring at the ceiling again!



This is a photo that I took myself of Cal and me, because I forget to ask Craig to take some. I think he was watching Caitlin at the time!

Our weekend

A funny face from our little girl!




Today we continued our never-ending project of sorting out the backyard. Caitlin decided that it was easier to ride in the wheelbarrow than dig the dirt.



She had fun because she was "helping Dadda" which lasted all of about 5 minutes, then she decided that the trampoline was more fun.

The Eagles finally won "Yay", the poor Dockers again snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. I thought that it was a frustrating year for Eagles supporters, but I really feel for all the frustrated Dockers supporters.

Craig.