the colours of home...

some pics from our weekend at home with my family. it was the first time i'd been home in 3 months, which is the longest i've been away since my family moved there in 1986. the weather was as wet and windy as it used to always be when i was growing up, and despite the long drive, i feel refreshed for having been there. this blog has made the distance less powerful, if that makes sense - though we'd been away for so long, my family hasn't missed as much of missy's growth as they otherwise might have.





take care,
em

my creative space...

this is my first time taking part in 'my creative space,' and i'm kicking things off with my greatest sewing achievement of all time, so hopefully i've still got somewhere to go from here!



above is the dress i made for missy during this past week - it's newlook pattern 6576, made from turquoise cord and embellished with ruffles that utilise some of the lovely fabric my mum recently gave me from her stash. i've added a zipper down the side to make the dress easier to get on and off, as missy dislikes getting dressed at the best of times. my zipper-installing ability is improving, though any advice in this area would be welcomed! i'm especially happy with the ruffles - after a bit of experimentation, i was able to recreate what i had imagined in my mind, which is always very satisfying.



check out the other creative goodness on show over at kirsty's blog.

take care,
em

soup, my mum and our crazy cat...

i've been making pumpkin soup today, to fill up our freezer and to provide a yummy lunch for our babysitter tomorrow (while i go in to school to meet my new class.) this soup always reminds me of my mum, whose pumpkin soup sets the benchmark for deliciousness, and of our old cat, who always went crazy whenever pumpkin soup was being made. i blame the nutmeg...



tomorrow i will reveal to you my latest sewing triumph - i'm planning to join in for the first time with a weekly show-and-tell called "my creative space," based out of the blog of a lass named kirsty (found here).

take care,
em

the paper eater...

this blog isn't really supposed to be a shrine to missy, but i guess it's not a complete surprise that she dominates my life like she does - in fact, i think it's a healthy sign that i enjoy her so much! last night, while giving a saxophone lesson, my student and his mum got to enjoy missy and her manic behaviour whilst eating paper, which seems to be one of her favourite things to do. here she is in her element:



take care,
em

resting...

recently at church we've been doing a sermon series on the ten commandments. after hearing the sermon about the sabbath, i was determined to engineer my life so that i could consider my week's work to be finished by saturday night, and thus have a good go at observing the sabbath on sunday - by treating it differently to the other days of the week, particularly by resting instead of working. this picture shows you the excellent progress i had made by friday night:


(those baskets are usually full of clean washing, either folded or not.)

my "resting" kind of ended up being spread across both saturday and sunday, and included sharing meals with several special people we hadn't seen for a while. we also went on a family outing to ikea, where husband (oops, i mean missy) was lucky enough to acquire a new toy. and here is king kong baby destroying it:



(it's a train set, by the way. missy's destructive side is now much more developed than it was here.)

i hope your weekend was restful too.

take care,
em

when babies sleep on their tummies...

this is what happens when babies sleep on their tummies:



take care,
em

persimmons - so yummy...

this week's box of victorian vegie goodness contained persimmons - so yummy. even missy thinks so:



hope you're having a lovely day.

take care,
em

getting her hands dirty...

today has been another gloriously sunny day, so we took another chance to soak up some rays this morning. here's a pic of missy doing something she loves almost as much as eating paper:



i'm not sure how ripping grass translates into a vocation for later in her life, but since she never cries or gets frenetic the way she does when she's eating paper, i am always very happy for missy to get her hands (and shirt) dirty.

take care,
em

a chance to get crafty...

having finished all the assessment for my current uni subject, i've been free to do a little sewing over the past weekend. here is my latest creation, a birthday gift for a close friend:



these napkins are completely thrifted - made from a pillow case and a mini-table cloth i found last week in a nearby op-shop. they are also the first thing i've sewn in a long while. in fact, the last thing i'd sewn before this weekend was this dress, for the newborn daughter of the very same friend:



and since presents are usually accompanied by cards, i also made these:



these cards are sporting a funky piece of thick paper i found several years ago while cleaning out a cupboard during a teaching round. it had been wrapped around a mini-score of mendelssohn's 'midsummer night's dream,' but i felt it was unappreciated in that filthy cupboard (and so was i!)

it's been great to have a chance to get crafty again.

take care,
em

pretty bubbles in the air...

i love bubbles. but the look on missy's face shows you how excited she is about bubbles at the moment. not very. she was much more interested in watching her mummy pull strange faces. oh well, it was a nice way to pass the time while soaking up some vitamin d.



take care,
em

colourful warmth...

this blanket has served me well in the last week, as i try my darndest to avoid turning on the heater in the chilly mornings. my mum passed this blanket on to me recently - my nanna gave it to her to give to me, but i'm pretty sure it was my nanna's mother or mother-in-law who made it - which would make missy the fifth generation of our family to snuggle into it's colourful warmth.



take care,
em

edit: so it turns out the blanket was not made by one of my great-grandmothers after all. but that doesn't make it any less vibrant and snuggly!

happy mothers' day!

this is what i woke up to this morning (made by husband, and minus the coffee):



what a delicious way to start my first mothers' day!

take care,
em

in the space of one coffee...

yesterday i caught up with a friend whom i hadn't seen for over 6 years. we only knew each other briefly - just 3 weeks spent together in the philippines and a few emails exchanged in the year or so following - but we now live in the same city. it was surreal to catch up on such a large and formative episode of someone's life over the space of a single coffee, and to attempt to recount my own. i've noticed that i live very much in the present, largely forgetting the past, though this is unintentional. it makes me feel like i've always been the way i am now, which isn't so. though according to my friend, i haven't changed all that much since we were last together. albeit fairly shallow, you can cover a lot of ground in the space of one coffee.



take care,
em

pesto goodness...

this time last wednesday, missy was outside playing on a blanket with three other little girlies while the mums stripped basil plants in preparation for making a giant batch of pesto. the basil plants (and garden where the babies were playing) belong to one of the mums from my mums group, who generously shared the fruits of her garden with us for helping her make the most of her basil harvest. it was delightful to sit and chat while stripping the basil plants, soaking up the last real sunshine we'll see for a while (even though we were rugged up against the chilly breeze!)

and below is the loot - which husband is enjoying on his lunch today:



take care,
em

trusty raincoat...

after a big morning out, and with the grey skies looming, this afternoon was a stay-inside-kind-of afternoon. but with husband needing lunch for tomorrow and missy's nap finishing around the same time as the heavens opened, we were forced to venture out in the rain. good thing she was prepared with her trusty raincoat:



take care,
em

where we are right now...

this is where we are right now:



i hope you're having a delightful day too.

take care,
em

a ceremonial dunking...

today missy was baptised, and though she cried both before and after her dunking, it was wonderful to commit her to God through this ceremony.



take care,
em

mini-muffin tin love...

tomorrow, missy will be baptised, so today has been filled with preparations for celebrating this fantastic event. and my new mini-muffin tin has loved me as much as i have loved it - here's a preview of some of tomorrow's munchables...



take care,
em