I had a great afternoon dyeing today - I love these colours!

My little helper that actually helps!

Woo Hoo... look at my new homemade revoltingly ugly skeiner! Got the instructions (not that you really need instructions!) here and bought the chair today at the op shop. The trick is to get a chair with removable wheels because your prongy bits have to go in the wheel holes. It also needs to spin really easily.

I'm pretty happy with the result. It's really easy to wind the wool into skeins, but not so great to wind the wool off. It doesn't spin freely enough for the ball winder to pull the wool off, which makes the whole process a bit more time consuming. It's still much faster than doing the whole lot by hand though! The wool in the pic is for a custom newborn jacket - a bit of a departure from my usual bright colour schemes, but I think it will be very cute when it's all crocheted up!

Update 21/6... I've used it again today and found that the problem with winding from the swift was that I was trying to wind the wool while it was still damp (to reskein it). Today I waited until it was dry and it worked beautifully!

My little helper...

X has become obsessed with the vaccum cleaner. He cries if I'm using it (because he wants a turn) and CONSTANTLY turns it off. I have to do the vaccumming in approx 8 second bursts, because that's how long it takes him to turn it off after I've switched it back on! Frustrating!

Wow! I haven't posted for ages! We're having a pretty good day today. JoJo is in Sydney (eeeek!!) with mum and dad so it's a bit of a different kind of day for X and me. We've been op shopping and I've got some things I've been really wanting to get so it was a good morning for me (X wasn't so keen!).

I managed to get exactly the kind of booster chair I've been wanting for JJ, a crocheted tea cosy, a new-looking pair of jeans for her, 200g of Aussie undyed merino wool, an amazing embroidered woollen jumper that will make some beautiful nappy covers and a horrible old computer chair (more on that later!).

I can hear X waking up, so better go and sort him out :)

When the day began with JJ being as white as a sheet and complaining of a sore tummy I didn't have very high expectations of how the day would work out, but we actually had a very bearable time. JoJo started to feel much better and mum came over and took the kids to the park which gave me a chance to catch some zzzzs (I've got an unenjoyable virus - fun). In the afternoon the kids played with some bubbly water on the front deck, and JoJo spent nearly all afternoon (and evening as proven by the pic above!) attached to her new umbrella from Nanna. She even wanted to take it to bed with her!

Jeremy's car isn't going at the moment, so we've driven down to get him the last 2 nights. The kids think it's quite an adventure! When Jeremy arrived at the car tonight JoJo was calling out "Daddy, Daddy!" and Xander was yelling "Train, train"! Nice to see he's got his priorities right! When we get home and it's dark Xander is very impatient to get out and see the streetlight outside our house - he insists it's a star!

18 months!!

I can't believe X is 18 months already (yesterday)! He gave me his first 'proper' kiss yesterday- it was very cute, but a bit slobbery!

He's such a delightful little boy... he's always ready for a laugh and a game and he's such a blessing to have in our family.

Things I've been working on....

Here's a couple of things I've been making lately. There's a pair of pants for an online friend's little bloke, a hat for my cousin's boy's birthday, and a cute little custom hat. I'm working on a stack more hats for my Ozebaby shop ... just finishing them off over the next few days.

I sewed JoJo a couple more pairs of pants the other night. When she woke up the next morning I told her I'd made her some new pants and her response was "Oh thankyou mummy, I love the things you make for me"! She's such a sweetie!

Playschool concert

We were so grateful to be able to go to the playschool concert. We'd booked ahead and then Jeremy was hit hard by a very nasty tummy bug that has been doing the rounds at church. We were praying heaps that JJ wouldn't catch it because I knew she'd be absolutely devastated to miss the concert, and I was sooo grateful she was well this morning and we could go :)

She did cry and cry for ages before it started because it was so overwhelming, but warmed up and really enjoyed it. Her favourite part was when Potato (Tao!) said "can you get me some water because I want to wash my hair". Not sure why that was the best bit, but there you go. The worst bit was apparently when the man said "Ladies and gentlemen" (the announcement to turn off mobiles etc before the show started).

Rain glorious rain!

Wow - we're getting so much rain today! It sounded so beautiful on the roof last night. I was up many times to various children, so I had ample opportunity to enjoy it. It did make an otherwise frustrating night more bearable :) I just wish we had a watertank... all that water going to waste is very annoying!

I let the kids run around in it this morning - they had a ball. Part of our pergola roof collects the water and lets it through like a shower. It was a big attraction!

Trip to the museum

After a very frustrating and not fun Friday we decided we'd go to the museum for a sanity outing on Sat. It was great fun... the kids really loved the turtle room which had some amazing displays. One not-so-great display was the "wet floor" sign and the tell tale sprinkles where someone had obviously vomited on the carpet, so we beat a hasty retreat!

Had a great lunch at the library cafe and JoJo had the time of her life running around the ramps there. X enjoyed climbing the stairs. Sometimes I don't know why I bother with "proper" activities!

X hasn't been 100% - had to cancel a playdate on Friday because of his tummy bug. He has been really happy though, which is great.