Birthday Busyness

The past couple of months have seen a lot of birthdays, so the sewing room has been a hive of activity...

measuring

cutting

pinning

taping

ironing

sewing

unpicking

re-pinning

re-sewing

stitching

and gluing.

There's been the making of personalised pencil wraps and some library bags to match...

fairies

spiders

and musical birds
(I've forgotten to take pictures of some and lost photo's of others - accidentally deleted perhaps?)

There's been aprons as well...

boy ones

and girl ones with frills and love hearts.

From me there's been cursing and cussing.

I scratch my head and wonder 'what was I thinking'...

it would be so much easier to just go and buy a book.

Quicker too!

And why can't I use new fabric?

All this extra unpicking,

and that's before I've made the mistakes!

But then when they're finished and old becomes new and they're made specially for one little person, I'm glad for the time and the effort.

I hope the kids are too.

Fun for free

Although RJ is still trying to get his head around this idea, mothers day around here is all about the mum having some time off to do as she pleases by herself... without the children. Fathers day on the other hand, is all about the dad spending some quality time with the children, hanging out, playing, going on an outing... all day with dad.

This year, however, Chookie overheard me mentioning that an outing to the Illawarra Light Railway Museum might be in the cards. As she's now old enough to really take in what adults around her are saying and to remember details for later (must remember this when speaking!), she decided that she really, really wanted to go. Of course the other two jumped on the bandwagon and decided that they really, really wanted to go too, so go indeed we did.

We met up with some friends and while I definitely missed out on curling up in the sun with a good book... or taking time out to go and have a coffee... or going for a nice long, relaxing walk... we had lot's of fun.

Around here, for the past few years, mothers day has coincided with the beginning of the week long festivities that is Kidsfest Shellharbour. Well actually, I think it's a very deliberate combining of dates and not at all left to chance. 'Kidsfest Shellharbour is all about celebrating the area's children and promoting Shellharbour as a child-friendly City' as written on their website. We love Kidsfest. We wish it happened every week!

Here's what we joined in on at the train museum. Apart from the train rides (which help to fund the museum), all the activities were free.

We got our faces painted (and made cards while we were waiting).

Butterflies and Spiders and Pink Cats.

Rode on the steam train.

Iced, decorated and most importantly ate, delicious arrowroot biscuits.

Examined and sniff tested the ingredients of gingerbread dough, before shaping biscuits and waiting for them to bake in the camp oven. Then we sat in the shade of the many native trees and ate them all up.

We helped to paint the kidsfest banner... and paper... and ourselves... and our dads.

We tried out some Hoola Hooping.

Took a ride on the miniature train and stopped for some poses on the big one.

We had a wonderful day outdoors, beneath the trees, with lots of space to run, music to listen to, swings to be swung on and so, so much more stuff to see and do.

Much more fun than reading a book in the sun!