just stuff....hmmm just life

Sometimes when I'm sort of at a bit of a loss for a good story for this blog, I look at photos I've taken and that sparks something for me to turn into at least a little reminder of our day. Seeing as how I've been away from here for so long, again, here are a few photos from randomness of our past few weeks.

Cushion cover I embroidered for my Grandma, for her birthday. She's somewhere close to her late 80's, don't think quite at 90 yet. But, she won't tell anyone. If I am like her at 90, I hope that I'll be proud to shout my age from her veranda across and down to the ocean.

We went to visit her, down the coast, and had planned a lovely little picnic at this same place. Except that it rained, and was cold. Not the best thing for the elderly or the really young - a wet, cold beach. Lovely to walk along, if you know that a warm shower and dry clothes await you somewhere not so far away. Instead we had lunch at her house, and while she fussed a bit, I did manage to get her to sit down for a few moments. She even let Sam clean the kitchen, and me to make tea for her!

So, the cushion. Actually, I really really like it. I have some more planned in my head. And actually started a few more embroideries on the drive home from her house; but used them on a different project for Ashey's birthday (no photos yet, have to post about that another time). I used an image of a sea bird, as my Grandma lives near the ocean, and likes shells and ocean-y things. The baby bird was an afterthought, and it would have been just as good without it (maybe better?).
And sewing up the cushion cover was quite quick and easy, I'll be doing it again this way. I used this great tutorial. it makes a very professional looking cushion, and more evidence of my zippered phobia conquered!
My sister visited my Grandma's house, and told me that the cushion was lovely; so that makes me happy.

Making more faces, playing dress ups, flying and posing. This is just another day in the life of my little ones. Mishi with her dress (handmade Christmas dress from my big sister), her hat, her shoes and handbag. Ari with his hand-down "Memo" (Nemo) t-shirt. The bright green shirt that family members keep saying I should accidentally loose in the wash, or something like that. It gives him happiness to choose it from his cupboard, and is much more fun than the other camo hand-downs we have. So it'll stay!

Feeding, dressing, stories, bedtime for little Roni doll. We bought this plastic doll for Ari, before Mishi was born. Hoping that he could bath and feed and dress it like a baby. I had really wanted to get him something special (like these, which I just saw last night, and think they are so sweet and like real babies). Mishi is a girl, that's for sure. She wheels the babies in the pram, asks me to dress and undress and then sits down and feeds (not breastmilk unfortunately - she looked at me strangely when I suggested that??!) them yoghurt and all sorts of messy food. Recently she borrowed another doll from Ashey - Anabella Jemima (I wanted to put her name in, as it's quite cute; a combination of Sylvie and my Mum naming the doll) - and has been taking her everywhere this past week.

The spectacular birthday party of an especially amazing boy. Ash turned 6 last week, and Sylve celebrated with a backyard party, which turned into a fireside Solstice and housewarming party. Kids went to bed (eventually), and we adults stayed up until almost 3am having beautiful music sung and strummed for us. With our feet stuck under the $10 cast iron fire pit, to keep the cold cold night from stinging us.

I made the birthday cake; a chocolate beetroot cake. Sort of made the recipe up - as I have been doing lately with lots of my cakes, bread, etc. I will make it again, as I see real potential in the beetroot chocolate thing. And then we iced it with green coconut 'grass' and licorice 'road' and lots of crashed cards. Ash asked for a racing car cake, this was our compromise to not making some extravagant real car with lots of colours and icings and such. As you can see, the kids loved the idea of real Matchbox cars; which they took home as their party bag thing. (No take home lolly bags for this family, with silly plastic toys - most kids were fairly happy with that).

And finally, a few photos I took this afternoon, after reading this quote. And then feeling terrible that I hadn't had the energy to take the kids to the park as promised. (Started a new job this past month which is great but tiring, and Mishi is still drinking so much milk at night-time). And that we had had a bit of yelling today. So, when I came across this post - going through my long blog list, while the kids watched Play School - it really stopped me. Here I am, trying to make a promise to remember to live more harmoniously with myself and my children. I'm just rewriting the quote, to continue to remind myself about what it means to me.

Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.

Viktor E. Frankl

Edited: Sylve has told me that the doll's name isn't Anabella Jemima, that it's actually Jemima Anabella. I've put it in here, as a reference for my declining memory. I remember that I used to have an excellent memory - not so any more. Is it kids? Or just, something else?