*e*

packing up the house thoughts

so happy to be doing it NOTpregnant this time. phew and phew!

we have too much stuff. purge, purge, purge.

finding my childrens baby clothes makes me cry.

finding my art supplies makes me so happy! looking forward to setting up a new studio, one with natural light and no mould, yessss!

i'm easily distracted. and really good at procrastinating.

i haven't been calm, or happy about a move since before ivy was born! but this one feels good...staying in the same town, but a different house. no cross country trucks or 32 hour flights sounds heavenly right now!

so glad my friend is here...to make me tea, bring me chocolate, love my children, crack me up laughing and pack my kitchen.

see you in a few days once internet kicks in over at the new place!

xo

he's two!

we celebrated with a trip to the apple orchard, joining ivy's class field trip where he was treated like a little king! then home to make apple pie and have a little party with his favourite treats - pizza, pirates booty, grapes and ice-cream. all things that are GOOD!

banjo at two ~

he talks with a wee lisp, we all love playing the "guess what...? i love you!" game with him and waiting for his "gesh wot? lub loo!" reply. my heart!

the boy is a BOY. he bursts with excitement when we see a truck/tractor/anything big with wheels. pretty sure his first word was car, and when we drive somewhere there is the endless "car! car! car! big car! car! car! car!" yelled out over and over again. grandpa's "ruck" is as thrilling as life can be! grandpa is not thrilled however to return to his truck and find every button/knob/dial has been fiddled with and altered!

he is clunky and rough and walks with a sway just like all 3 of my brothers.

he will literally throw himself at me but then cup my face towards his and squeeze our cheeks together. or give me a kiss. i love how he takes a moment out of his business to give me some special mama-love. it's so different from the way the girls were with me.

buttons are made to be pressed. toilets are made to be flushed. things are made to be thrown into the toilet (ie the toothbrushes or his bottle). and he just figured out how to turn the doorhandle. agg!

sharing is not an option.

when he has a nap, whatever toy truck/motorbike/car he was playing with must be set just so on his changetable, covered up with a blanket and kissed nigh-nighs. he will also take his toy cars on a 'walk' in the girls dolly pram.

he'll bang at the shed door screaming "bike! bike!" until i take him for a ride. we have a little seat thats in the front of me, and as we ride around the neighbourhood he waves his chubby arm at anyone or any dog and casually says "ii, ii!".

ivy is 'affi' and yindi is 'diddy'. and he adores them with all his heart. unless they have what he wants.

at the end of a sentence he will cock his head to one side and say "yaaa?"

he hides in the cupboard under the sink while i make dinner. and pops out every now and then cracking himself up laughing.

he loves 'strawbry-berries', appy-juice, vegemite and pickles.

he's way smarter than he lets on.

his new favourite word is "nuffing!". eg "banjo...where are you?" (silence) "nuffing!"

he is always into mischief. always. i am still in boy culture shock over this. he has vandalised and terrorised more things in this house than i can write here. but he has that face! and so, we keep him. but i cannot take him anywhere. he is so cheeky!

we love this boy so much...to think he was a 'surprise' baby...a surprise i wasn't too excited about in the beginning! a surprise that led us to change the path that we were on...which ended up bringing us over here, and goodness knows where else. two years has gone in the blink of an eye...but it feels like he's been part of us all along.

i can't believe its been two years since his lovely birth, or that he was ever this teeny!

(cluck, cluck!)

boston?

sabrina and i (and possibly a child or two!) will head to boston next week to have a little look around before heading to the airport to drop bina off, and pick up my mum! yes, it's all happening here people - and did i mention we move house this weekend. ay. sleep? what is that?

the last few times i've been to boston and blogged about it, i've had some great suggestions from locals as to where to go and what to do (aussie pie shop is #1 on the list, don't worry!)...and then i think to myself, oh! i wish i could have met that person while i was there. so calling out...are you in boston and wanna meet up? show a french and aussie gal your favourite part of boston? email me! it could be fun! i mean look at us...

felting is coming to big picture!

my sweet friend nicole and i ran our first ever online felting workshop last year, and it is now being offered again over at big picture classes. if you've always been intrigued as to how fluffy wool + water + soap can make gorgeous felt, this is a great way to learn! nicole is full of felting wisdom, and i am full of felting excitement - such a fun way to craft with your children and make yummy colourful gifts, accessories and adornments for your home.

registration is now open (and beautiful wool available in nicole's shop), and the class begins october 27 - just in time to make things for the holidays! if you missed out last year, please join us over at BPS!
(ps are you in or near salt lake city? i'll be sharing and teaching some felty goodness at spark october 21 & 22)

with my sista

i've been all wrapped up in my 'sis' this week - hanging out knitting, sewing, playing with the kids. we love having her here. i overheard yindi telling someone "bina is my mumma's sista", and well, i kind of introduce her as that too. my french sister :)

we had a grand little adventure last weekend - off we set up to squam - (no carseats in the back woohoo!), it was really fun to be amidst the arty vibe there, see lovely things and meet lovely people!

(hi francesca!)

my skirts almost sold out! i was so happy after all those weeks of sewing...worrying about wether they'd sell or not! we were busy all night long and i LOVED seeing the skirts on their new owners...so much funner than mailing them off in an envelope ;)

i had the best nights sleep EVER that night in our motel room - my first child free night in over 2 years which felt like such a luxury. in the morning we hung out down by the lake before venturing slowly home...

on the way home we stopped at yard sales, flea markets, interesting towns, shops-with-tiny-things-i-can-never-normally-go-into, went out for thai food AND saw a movie. oh blissful freedom!

love having my sista here. more adventures to come.

ps i've just listed my 'leftover' squam skirts into my etsy. ready to ship! custom skirts will be available again in a few weeks time...cheers!

 

full circle.

it occurred to me today as i was driving and noticing the many red leaves on the lovely trees that one year ago today we moved here. GULP. i almost felt the need to rush home and print myself out a certificate of achievement for surviving to tell the tale. what an emotional year it has been!

first, there was me being dragged away from australia, when i really wanted to stay and never leave again. and many tears. hysterical ones.

then, there was the reality that all of my american friends lived on the west coast which is very, very far away. and everything on the east coast seemed foreign and lonely.

then, the job mick came over here for became part-time, resulting in us having to get very creative financially (= stress + hissy fits on my part), and eat a lot of rice and lentils!

then, winter came. and stayed. and stayed. and pretty much tipped me over the edge.

but then spring sort of came (seeing the ground again was cause for celebration), and family from 'home' came, and the sun came (sometimes), and i started to feel like i 'knew' people instead of being strangers, and banjo started sleeping through the night, and i started going to "weird hippy" dance classes, and i started sewing stuff...

and then summer came and my soul said "hello sunshine!" and i dosed myself up with as much vitamin D as i could, and spent as much time shoe-less and lounging in the grass admiring my children as i could, and mick's job got sorted out, and my children frolicked, and we went on camping adventures, and could call people 'friends'... and well, it's really beginning to feel GOOD. the knots and twists are working themselves away, and i finally feel like i have landed here with both feet.
 

all i really know is that i love these four people of mine with all my heart and soul, and that every adventure, every day or moment with them needs to be lived and loved fully. wherever we are :)

(remind me of this when winter comes again will you please?!)

oopsy.

it was recently brought to my attention (in a most dramatic manner) that *i* had forgotten my grand-dollies birthdays!

the only way to amend such a tragedy was to suggest a joint birthday party in the backyard. this is when the little mothers stepped in to decorate, dress up, sing and dance for the birthday girls - "little ivy" turned 2 over the summer, while sunny celebrated her first birthday! marshmallow cupcakes and birthday capes for everyone.

when i peeped out the window and saw this little scene it took me right back to my childhood and cabbage patch doll play. my brothers all had boy cabbage patchs (they try to deny but there is photographic proof!) and mum would make cupcakes for us to have birthday parties for them.

(wanna hire her to dance at your party?!!)

these dolls are so loved! though i silently curse each night during the long-and-drawn-out bedtime ritual, which ends with my hunting for and fetching little ivy & sunny (will i ever learn?!!), i love them, and the moments these girls have together all rolled up in their delicious imaginations.

sometimes when nobody else is around, i do the dolls hair just for fun ;)

maybe i'm not such a bad grand-dolly-mother after all!

sewing for squam

for the past month, i've been sewing like a crazy-woman (with or without a child on my lap) getting ready to have a booth at the squam art market! i've never had a proper table at something like this before so i'm nervous and excited. so far 30 skirts are packed up, and i'm hoping for another 10 before the big day this weekend. i'm horrible at repetitive "making" but these have actually been a lot of fun to sew, as each one is like a little collage - pulling from the uluru of tshirt scraps on the floor and coming up with fun combinations. chocolate and netflix help too.

my french-bestie sabrina flies in the night before (good timing bina!), so i'm really looking forward to some fun with her and meeting inspiring artsy souls there. we might even take journals and camp in the woods afterwards to make the most of the weekend.

ok, back to my sewing machine!

beach baskets

on our camping trip a few weeks ago, ivy and i made a little beach basket each with grasses and dried seaweed from our campground. i'd packed needles and thread/wool incase we felt inspired! it was such a treat to sit around the campfire and on the rocky beach crafting my girl. lots of chatting and reminiscing about our friends clare and lilith back in perth who taught us how to make these on a camping trip together.

so what we did was bundle lengths of different grasses/seaweed/flowers and twisted them together...then started to make a coil with that bundle and sewed it together, making the coil bigger and bigger. as soon as a 'bundle' of grasses began to run out, we made another one and joined it on.

once the coil was big enough, the grassy bundle comes up to make a little wall for the basket. i've never made a really tall one but someday i'll try.
 

they're messy and beautiful and a perfect memento of our trip. after a few days of airing outside (seaweed stink!) they sit on the table holding shells collected from the very same beach.

(you can see the first basket i made with australian bush grasses here.)

thankyou beautiful lovely people!

your kind words and rallying mean the world to me and i so appreciate every single comment.

in the last year i have found myself wondering what the heck i am doing keeping this blog - it's rare that i make or do anything very interesting, and i limit my computer time to after the kids are in bed at night - and (as i'm sure those of you with busy little people find)...7pm can suddenly feel like 11pm and i must assume a vertical position on the couch.

but - i do enjoy this online community. so thanks for reading and coming back here even when my mojo is missing.

i love you all xo