Our news!

We are very excited that we have another baby on the way! It is due in mid September. I haven't been too unwell morning sickness but I have a bad back already. It doesn't help that I have my little poppet to pick up and cuddle, put in the car, take out of the car and whisk out of mischief!

We have also been in a big rush to try and get our home the way we want it before the second baby arrives. That way we can focus on enjoying being a family... In the to-be-babies room there is a pull down wall bed, which we don't use, so I need to sell that on Gumtree (like Craigslist) and paint the room in some nice light and bright colours. At the moment it is submarine grey in there - which is not lovely. We have been doing lots of weed removal in the garden and painting inside among other things. I purchased some vegetable seeds yesterday and we have a new compost bin. The plan is to make a start on a vegetable garden...

Picnic at the beach

On the weekend we visited a friend who lives near the beach, we had a picnic in a little cove. I just love finding fun things in nature like these red and black

Waratah anemones!

There were also lots of little schools of fish, if you were fast enough you could catch them with your cupped hands.

In the garden



These native violets I planted in the front yard when we moved in, they are flowering like crazy now. I'm hoping that soon we will have carpets of these between the other plants. I think I will move the ones in the pot to the back garden and plant my strawberries in the pot. These plants love a bit of precipitation, they go a bit nuts after the rain, but they also do ok when it is dry. I love them.

Quiet week

With the change in weather now that Autumn has arrived, the little one and I have been sick this week. So this photo makes me remember this week with E, cosy indoors with the occasional venture outside.

Paris 2007


I want to live here!


The final photo I posted because it is a little joke. Hubby took the photo because he thinks "Baby on Board" signs are hilarious, particularly in French... but the funny thing for me, is that I am in the background and little did we know that I had a baby on board...

My Creative Space - Magazine files

I so enjoyed the most recent issue of Frankie mag that I decided it was high time I decorated my Ikea "Knuff" magazine files!

This is how to cover a magazine file...

1. First paint the front with off white acrylic paint. You could skip this step, but I like to see a little white around the edges when I sand back the paper.

2. Cut a piece of your chosen paper to the size of the front part of the file, make it slightly bigger than the file so you can sand the edges back.

3. When the paint is dry, put a coat of Mod Podge glue over the top. Quickly paint a coat of glue on the back of your paper and stick to the still wet front of your magazine file.

4. Using a craft knife cut an x (cross) in the circle of the hole, pushing the paper in to the inside (be careful not to damage the file or paper surrounding).

5. When the glue has dried, sand the edges around the rectangle of the file using a sanding block so that the excess paper is removed. Push backwards as you do this so it makes a clean line.

6. Rip a piece of sandpaper and do the same inside the hole.

7. Use sealer to varnish over the paper to protect it from getting grubby. When I varnished over some of the papers it changed the colours a little, so you may want to test the varnish on a scrap of the same paper first.

Next I might cover some storage drawers...

To see many more Creative Spaces visit kootoyoo

Visiting friends

On the way to and from Queensland we stopped in on our friends in Coffs Harbour. Going by what fun two days we had, I think we should have stayed there the whole time we were on holidays!!

Steve and her husband went fishing whilst we took the two boys to look for soldier crabs. We didn't find any crabs, but the kids and us mum's loved splashing in the water! Then we had a little picnic and played on the play equipment. When we got home we filled up their canoe for the boys to splosh around in. We threw in some beach toys and empty water bottles for them to play with. Then I decided we should do some painting so the kids did some painting, and then hopped back in the canoe pool to clean off. Fi's husband makes homebrew beer, very good ( a bit like bees knees). Fi made 100% fruit sorbet with mango, banana and peach. The kids loved it too.

Fi sent me home with some vegies and some orchids she grows in her garden. While we were there she was sundrying tomatoes on the washing line. I admire Fi's energy and resourcefulness in everything she does.

Artist - Maira Kalman

I recently discovered this excellent artist Maira Kalman and read her NY times blog in the pursuit of happiness and an interview with her. I instantly felt some affinity with her art. When I was in highschool I would sometimes paint picures quite similar to hers; bright colours, a bit naive, quickly painted, at the time my style was somewhat influenced by Chagall and Matisse. Also I have recently been toying with the idea of painting a lot of "brain dump" sort of pictures for my blog, rather than using so many photos and using hand written text like Penelope Dullaghan and Jenny Kostecki-Shaw.

Fun cooking

Recently we have been inspired to cook fun stuff. We made fish tacos with a spicy salsa. These were delicious. I think it would have been better if I had stopped at just the one!

and on another occasion, Vegetarian dumplings - the recipe was from Jeana Sohn's blog. These were a huge hit with the family as well.