Printing your own fabric at spoonflower - oh I want to do this So SO SO bad!

Great article on Making Space for Art with Kids on The Artful Parent.

This would make a really nice ‘spring tree‘ for a centre piece or nature table - from How about Orange lots and lots of other good stuff there

I think Muski definitely needs one of these Monster Hoodies!

Decked out in ‘dancing clothes’ and their fluffy slippers they ran around on ‘demi points’ (tip toes for those not up with all the ballet lingo), made ’sensitive hands’ (learning to make soft arm and hand movements), practised pointing their toes, learnt to stand in first position, did pliés (knee bends while standing in first position), did fairy jumps (which were a tad more like elephant jumps), played the hiding snail game and did a lots of running around in circles and lines.

When the half hour was up they both rushed over to where Muski and I was sitting and Izzy, in true Izzy style exclaimed,
“That is the best thing I have ever done!!!!”

So I think it is safe to say that they loved their first ballet lesson and that they are counting the hours until they can go again. They are also mildly annoyed with me for not letting them do this months ago - though I have my doubts that they would have enjoyed it quite so much a few months back, whereas yesterday they ran off to join the group of girls they didn’t know and listened to their teacher (who they had never met) without a care in the world.

Thankfully we lucked out and the only ballet class we could find on a day we could attend is lovely and layed back. They don’t have to wear a special (and expensive) uniform, and there is no pressure (for me or them) of concerts and costumes, just lots of lovely dancing. Though I can see that a little spark may have been lit and that next year they will be ready to go with the ‘real deal’ and I’ll be up sewing sequins on costumes and wondering how to put mascara on a five year old before I know it.

I hassled The Great Aunts for a long time until they made one each for the Twinadoes. They totally came up wiht the good, the girl’s quilts are ‘to die for!’. I have to admit I did waver for a minute or two before putting these delicious quilts on their beds, wondering if I could steal them for myself.

I’ve had fleeting moments when I’ve contemplated having a go at a quilt myself - Muski needs something nice and warm for his cot/bed maybe I could have a go at something simple?? Who am I kidding? I can sew, but not all that well and being precise, measuring and cutting so it all fits together, well that is just not my thing… at all. So I guess I will have to start lobbying The Great Aunts now for a quilt for Muski. A nice boyish quilt for when he gets his own room… sometime towards the end of next year if I am lucky. Hope you are both reading this??

So there you have it.. I have confessed to my quilt lust… and now in the interest of procuring a quilt of my very own I am forced to confess that there is a blog competition going on where you can win the most divine quilt. Now I don’t really want to tell you about this competition, because of course the more people who enter the less chance I have of winning. Plus you all have an unfair advantage…you all can make a video of how much you want to win and upload it to you-tube which is totally not fair because not only do I not have a camera that will take video with sound, at the moment I don’t have a stable enough net connection to upload it either. Yet here I am telling you about this competition anyway, because I am a nice person and want to share the quilt love… ahem… well ok it’s because if I blog about it I get extra entries, and I really REALLY like this quilt.

So here you are… here is the link… go to Old Red Barn and check out this amazing quilt that this amazingly talented woman is just giving away… I’ve lurked on this blog for a while and it is full of wonderful stuff but I have to admit I think Dana is a little mad to be giving this away… but anyway.

Go check it out, but really you don’t have to enter.. really you don’t… just leave this competition to me and 2037 other people who entered - Yes that is 2037 comments, on this blog post at the moment, sure to be more before the comp ends in the next day or two!

Anyway…. I am not here to talk about Christmas in June or July, but the regular Christmas, in December. I just want to start thinking about Christmas in July on the off chance that I might be a tad more organised than usual come December!

Every year I promise myself I will not leave Christmas preparations to the last minute. Every year I make all these plans for making gifts for family and friends, for planning in advance, for not spending massive amounts of money on gifts no one really wants. I long to have the lead up to Christmas being a joyful, restful, exciting, stress-free time… but it never is. I am always scrambling around trying to come up with last minute gifts, trying to fit everything in before the big day actually arrives, but not this year. Oh no.. this year, 2008 the Year of Organisation at the Pickle Farm… this year will be different!

Inspired by the Planning Queen (I want to be her when I grow up) who has set herself a July goal of planning for Christmas and she is well on her way, having already blogged about present buying - I am totally going to copy her and at least start thinking about this now.

So what things do I need to think about, to plan in advance for, to make the end of year rush a little bit more manageable?

Traditions
What family traditions do we want to get involved with? How will we decorate? How will we celebrate?

Cards
Planning for and making our own Christmas cards in time to actually post them, as well as setting a time line for taking on custom design work for other people’s cards.

Presents
Presents for our kids. Presents for our family and other people we buy for.

Food
The best bit to plan.. what will we eat when!?!

For now I am just opening my mind to the possibility of being organised well before Christmas - that is a mean feat in and of itself I must tell you. I just have my ‘Christmas radar’ on in the back of my mind so if I am out and about and see something that would make the perfect present I know to grab it now and not wait. Or if I am browsing the net and see a really great craft activity that would be perfect for a gift or decoration I know to bookmark it now, start collecting the items we need now.

In the next few months I am going to bore you all silly by blogging more about this, because I determined that I will not leave everything (though I may leave some things) till the last minute this year. I wonder if I will be eating humble pie on this very blog come December!

(ps - I was looking for a nice Christmasy photo to break up the boring words in this post when the photo up the top caught my eye. This is Zoe on her very first Christmas Day. When I arrived at the nursery on Christmas morning I was greeted with this site - someone had knitted teeny tiny Christmas hats for all the babies. She’d only just come out of NICU and off c-pap and still needed O2 so it is not just the photo, she really does look a bit blueish. )

This really strikes a chord with me. Thanks to this school’s initiative this family now has a personal attachment to children in Zambia. From that personal experience they have been able to reach out and touch others with their compassion. It is real for them, they have been there, they have seen it… and because of that they make it so much more real for others too. I don’t hesitate to donate to this cause, because I feel like I have a persinol attachment too.

This year Kate (yes another Kate - we are all wonderful don’t you know) is aiming to raise more than $2000 which will go directly to help orphaned children in Chibobo. She has a number of great ‘work at home mum’ (WAHM) businesses who have donated items, a percent of their profits or are running auctions in support of her appeal and she has set up a blog to help get the word out.

Go on over and have a look - it is early days yet and there will be more to come soon but already there are some really great WAHM items up for Auction…

You have to check out the way cute sock monkeys at The Super Monkey Shop but keep your eyes off the gorgeous overalls up for auction at Bugz cause they are mine ok… well ok you can bid if you like they are for a good cause after all and I am sure I will be able to find something else on offer to buy for a certain young lady I know who is turning one soon.

Do feel free to spread the word, it would be great if we could break the $2000 mark this year!

Warning… this post is about vomit… read on at your own risk!

Poor Izzy is still sick, off and on. She had been off her food and just all ‘lay on the couch cause I’m gonna spew’ at the beginning of the week and missed her first day back at kinder on Tuesday (Zoe went ON HER OWN and did brilliantly!!). She picked up by Thursday and I thought she was 100% better yesterday, but she started hurling at 3am and didn’t stop till 5:30…

She is quite a good spewer for a four year old. I guess she has had her whole life to practice since she’s been a power chucker (both girls had severe reflux as babies and still suffer from it from time to time) since before she could breath on her own. She’s mastered the art of not throwing up all over her bed or her clothes and confining it to one easy to manage spot… her pillow. She’ll even cup her hands and catch it if you are not fast enough to pass the bucket, and hold it until you get there. Impressive, yes?

The downside to a lot of practice spewing is that she will hurl at the drop of a hat. She just has to think about wanting to spew and up it comes. And she doesn’t usually stop at one… she keeps spewing until you are sure she can’t possibly have anything more to spew. Impressive once again, I can tell you!

So she is back looking like death warmed up and spending a fair bit of time on the couch. She’s turning her nose up at jam sandwiches (you know she is sick when raspberry Jam doesn’t get a look in) and just about everything else I can think of to offer. Yet every now and them she leaps off the couch to go and play, looking for all the world like she’s just been faking it for the last few hours. It doesn’t last though… she’ll be back on the couch asleep in half an hour.

So I think I shall name this the ‘on again off again’ bug. I am hoping it is off tomorrow morning so we can attend a birthday party and stays off for kinder and their first dancing lesson (yes I know.. The Twinadoes are going to ballet!!! Be on the look out for a post about that soon) on Monday. Actually I hope it buggers off all together… please.

This woman torments me on an almost daily basis with her images and have you see this post about a glorious summer Saturday at the local farmers market??? Beautiful, stunning images that make me just want to …..ARRRGHHHHH!! For our last two farmers markets it has been pouring with rain with a very real possibility that icicles may form on the end of your nose if you are crazy enough to venture out in it. Ah how I miss summer… or even spring would do.

The thing is, I know it is crazy.

I know that our summers are never going to look as green and lush as these people’s summers do. Hello? We live in the land of the long long drought, our summers are definitely brown not green, but I still lust after them. I still get sucked into believing that if only the seasons would change a bit faster then we be able to go out and enjoy a lush green summer too.

I know that our winters are nothing compared to what many go through. I also know that we need the rain, the more winter and spring rain we get the better it will be all round, not to mention that it is the only chance we have to even have a half green summer.

I know I am just tormenting myself reading these blogs but I can’t help it (they actually blog about some really interesting stuff, even if they must insist on torturing me with their long lazy days of summer posts). I know that all of these bloggers had to endure a winter before they got their summer, they are entitled to enjoy it and blog about it (you can be sure that I am going to when it is my turn). I know I keep going on and on and on about this (yes this is the third blog post about me and my spiteful relationship with winter) and that complaining isn’t going to help. I know I should just embrace winter, go with it, not wish my days away.

I know all of that…. but I am still badgered by wistful dreams of summer….

Soooo… and yes that was a very long winded intro to this week’s Flickr Friday theme…. So this week’s theme is winter… surely there must be some beautiful and inspiring photos of winter out there to make me less envious of all the summer visions?

How does this work?
For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about - I started this Flickr Friday gig over at the blog at Lazy Cow Designs - but now that I have simplified my life and stopped blogging over there, Flickr Friday has migrated over here to join in the fun. The idea is, if you are like me and could waste hours and hours just checking out the cool images on Flickr, this will give you a handy excuse to do just that. Each week I will post a new theme (suggestions for themes greatly appreciated) and then you go look for images on Flickr (or your own images, or any images you like as long as it is ok to share them) and put them up on your blog for all of us to admire.

I use compfight to search for my flickr images - select the ‘commercial’ option and you will get only photos that are ok to be shared. Then I use bighugelabs.com to make my mosaic (gives me a handy pre-made list so that I can make sure to credit where the photos came from) and then I upload it to my flickr account and Bob’s your uncle (except my uncles name is Peter but never mind).

1. Frost on a pine needle, 2. Into You, 3. One Less Traveled, 4. Not a good day for Crocs, 5. Christmas 2006, 6. second-latest batch of snow, 7. Lime tree I, 8. Snow in Alabama, 9. Nice weather for ducks…:O(

Created with fd’s Flickr Toys.

If you’d like to join in feel free to sign up to the Mr Linky below so we can all go take a squizz at your winter photos. As usual I am not big on rules so if your post yours on Tuesday no one will mind! ;)

We’ve been Diggers members since we moved up here and decided that we wanted to try and grow our own veggies, and we’ve been very pleased with the quality of the Diggers seeds and especially with what we have been able to produce. I’ve been able to buy a few books a bit cheaper with our membership as well as plants and seeds and we’ve been to visit both of the Digger’s gardens (St Erth’s is not too far from us) so I feel like we have well and truly gotten our money’s worth from the membership.

I’ve only recently discovered Eden seeds and having a quick (ok slow, nothing is quick with our net access) look online their prices look very comparable to Diggers, they have a great variety of seeds on offer and even some that we weren’t able to get from Diggers last year so this year I am getting their catalogue too so I can have them side by side and compare and try out some Eden seeds too.

We actually don’t need to get a heap of seeds, we still have plenty left from the past few years, as well as some we have saved from plants we have grown. I need to sit down with the box of seed packets and figure out what we have, and what we want and then order. I also need to decide when I will start the first seeds off and where they will go in the veggie patch.

Yes it is still the middle of winter here so it may seem a bit early to be planning a spring/summer garden but if I don’t start now I won’t get it all done in time and we will be late… again.

Last year I had grand plans of getting in an early early crop. Seeing if we could manage two successive crops of some of our favourites, one early and one late in the season and to see if we could get some tomatoes to actually ripen any time before Easter. It didn’t happen. A lot of things were working against us last year, seeds that didn’t germinate, late frosts, earwigs, a brand new baby and a Twinado who spent rather too much time visiting the hospital. This year shall be different. This year I will put in the first round of seeds early early early, by September, and that is only 6 weeks away! eek!

Buoyed by a lovely sunny day spent in the veggie garden yesterday, with a wonderful helper who worked so hard (thank you!) we made a huge dent in the winter weeds and began the process of re-jigging the garden. The Baldy boy and his big boy’s toy (the tractor and rotary hoe) have plans to make the weeding and turning of our really dense clay soil much more successful, so we needed to rebuild some beds and change the way we had been doing things a little. Inspired by all the work yesterday (I even did a bit myself while the small boy ate dirt) I am keen to spend time pouring over catalogues, writing lists and making plans….

In other news… thanks to everyone who made fruit tree suggestions. Sadly oranges and most citrus are not going to grow for us. We even struggle to keep a lemon tree a live with our harsh frosts. We already have four kinds of apples, (pink ladies are also a favourite in this house too) a Nashi, pears, plums, cherries, peaches, nectarines, apricots, olives, mulberry, quince, and um… maybe some others that I forget… so it was kind of mean to ask you for suggestions when we already have so many. What we don’t have is a pomegranate tree… so we are looking to see if we can get one and if it will grow for us… fingers crossed and thanks Polkadotbride for your suggestions!