Look who came to visit..

Kaylee came to visit us and stay for Easter. She has grown so much and is a real character. She is so full on that she wore me out but we had fun.

We only lost her twice while she was here.... lol we found her upstairs happily playing with all the toys. This pic shows her with her easter bunny. She loved it that much all she wanted to do was cuddle it.. we had an egg hunt which all the kids had fun with, we just had to be really quick as Kaylee had a tendency to chomp into the eggs paper and all...

One of the funniest sights for the stay was when her mum and dad left and drove out the driveway, this little character, who refused to say goodbye to them, trotted off down the driveway after them. No tears, she wasn't upset, she was just following them.. all we could do was sit and laugh before we realised she was not going to stop... pity I didn't have the video camera at the time, as it looked so funny her chasing the car. Mind you we have a rather long driveway so she was in no harm....... I did ring her mum and reassure her that all was okay with Kaylee and that she wasn't upset and that she was having a ball playing with all her aunties and uncles.. and gran and her pa......

see we wore her out...lol

I have also been making things...

After falling in a hole the week after the kids deb, I finally got my butt in gear and have made a couple of beanies for the boys.. they asked me for new ones so what's a mum to do..lol


I have finished off 3 so far and have another on the needles that I was hoping to have finished by tomorrow but that is not going to happen as I have 2 pairs of dress pants I have to hem tonight for DS2 who is leaving for Melbourne tomorrow...
This is Josh modelling his beanie.. he looks a bit rough as he had just got home from work... it is made from wool and alpaca using the 2 x 2 ribbed beanie pattern, it is nice and soft and warm. He likes it... bonus..
I have also finished Brady's but haven't got a photo yet, he grabbed it as soon as I finished it and I haven't seen it since apart from on the top of his head...lol the 3rd one I made ended up being a tad small for the boys so it has been put away until a suitable recipient is found..

My mother's day pressie..

This is what got delivered to my house last night..by Ds himself.. DS has made me this table and has also got 2 more smaller tables coming.. He has been making it at trade school during the year.. I have been really spoilt by DS when it comes to furniture. this is about the 8th piece of furniture he has made for me.. and the second coffee table. The other one he made is a squat table with storage underneath, it measures approx. 1m x 1m.. I think I am running out of room for his creations but don't tell him that... lol He is in the process of making me a wall unit/display shelf... for in our hallway.. then I think our house will be full.

While on the subject of Ds making me stuff, this is the arch way that he made for me back in March/April of this year. Isn't he a clever cookie.. I have passionfruits growing on either side of it, so hopefully they will bear us some yummy fruits..

Also he has renovated his bedroom. He removed all the 20 year old wallpaper we installed and plastered all the walls. Together we painted his room and now he has a nice new bedroom.. no pictures as yet.. I will have to make a mental note to take some...lol

I am good at being slack...

I cannot believe how long it has been since I last wrote here.. it is just mind boggling how quickly time is passing.. but I do have a reasonable excuse apart from all the work with the kids and the farm.. I have been busily getting 2 kids organised for their 'Debuts'... DD and DS both made their debuts together this year.. and boy am I glad that is over and done with now.. talk about hectic.. hair trials, dresses, suits, dance lessons.. well you get the idea... Peer pressure tried it's best to lure us into doing things dd wanted but I stood my ground.. lol no $300 hair extensions, no expensive dress or jewellery... I was a meanie...hehe DD did get hair extensions, they cost all of $5. It pays to know your hairdresser. They blended in beautifully with her real hair, you couldn't tell which was her hair and what wasn't.

She wanted a particular style of dress and we spent months looking for just the right dress with no luck..... so we bought a plain sweet heart neckline dress off the rack and I stupidly said I would adjust it to make it like she wanted..... never again. I finished the dress at 3pm on the afternoon of the presentation..... after many late, late nights spent sewing on beading.. but she got what she wanted and was pleased which was the main thing.

I can honestly say boys are much easier when it comes to debs.. DS only needed to be measured up for his suit, he wouldn't even let me get his hair cut.... but I must say they both looked stunning for the deb. This is DS and his partner. I am constantly amazed to see how much the kids have matured and grown up. It only seems like yesterday we were spending hours in doctors waiting rooms and surgeries with this little man as sick as, bucket under his chin and stripped down to only his nappy... I am so glad those days are behind us..

And this is Miss DD. See all those ruches...... they took a looooong time, there are tiny beads all flowing outwards from each ruche all the way around the skirt. The skirt consists of 10 layers although you can't tell in this pic..

This picture shows better the fullness of the skirt, although the lighting in the stadium was not good for taking photos. See all those black drapes in the background... there were meant to 32 drapes all up but time got the better... we did manage to finish and hang 24... not bad...... another never again I am making note of...lol

This pic shows the detail in the back of the skirt. For some unknown reason I didn't get a photo of Lauren and her partner together apart from when they were dancing... but we are still to get the professional photos so they should be good.

so I have been busy just not neglecting everyone....

New job for DS..yaye

We have been holding our breaths and hoping that something good would turn up for our son after he was laid off from his apprenticeship well over a month ago.... but as it seems to be a sign of things to come around here we were not hopeful.
He has been working very hard here at home and on the farm since he returned home and has even said he enjoyed the farm work.... He has built me an archway I had been asking for since before christmas, DH really isn't the handy type around the home.....lol but now I have a nice new archway for my passionfruits to grow on.. and they have already been planted and are hopefully going to bear us lots of fruit in the coming years...I will take a photo tomorrow in daylight if I remember... plus now he is painting the house.. we finished our renovations 7 years ago and DH still hadn't finished painting the new parts...lol they just needed the top coats... but Josh is starting at the older part of the house and working his way around and redoing the whole house..lol it looks so much better already......
Anyway a friend of ours heard Josh had returned home after being laid off from work and put the wheels in motion for him to pick up some casual work labouring with a local builder.. fantastic.. well the best was to come... Josh started working on the Wednesday and by the following Monday the builder had signed up Josh to finish off his apprenticeship. This builder is also a qualified joiner so Josh can finish his apprenticeship with him. I wasn't game to believe or even dream this was true until all the paperwork was done and signed.... but it is now and fingers and every other limb I can cross is crossed that this will be long term and get him thru his apprenticeship.. at long last someone up above is looking out for us...... yaye..

As promised

Couldn't help myself taking this pic today.... this is one of our 'wild' cats.. he is full grown and this is how I found him... sleeping in one of my pots... How he squished his whole body in is beyond me but he seems content except when I snuck closer to get a better pic when he looked at me and seemed to say 'do you mind? I am sleeping here' lol...

I did promise last post that this one would be positive and here it is...

School holidays are upon us and the kids are enjoying some time at home.... so I popped out today in the gorgeous autumn day we are having here and took some photos.. although the grass and ground is still dry you can just see the tinge of green creeping back into the land from the last few days of drizzle that we have had.... yes I said drizzle as that is all we have had but it is better than nothing.. lol... not much in the tanks still but we are hoping...

I have done the 'good mum' thing and had friends over to stay for a couple of nights and now we are looking forward to a nice quiet easter break......... or so we thought.......lol we are babysitting GD and DDs new puppy... for 5 days...... might just see if the other grandmother wants to look after her for a couple of days also... hehehe they live just around the corner from us..... don't get me wrong we love having Kaylee here but she is flat out and doesn't stop unless she is sleeping.. which is getting less and less now she is growing up... and this way I also get to have a bit of a break... and we have a male dog now and Brooke's pup is a female and I am sure they would just 'love' each other to death..... if you get what I mean.. will have to work out a way of keeping them away from each other for 5 days......

This little fellow you can see in the distance in this pic is Snickers... a little miniature pony my eldest daughter brought home a few months back..... she did have another horse here, a race horse, but last weekend she came out and picked him up and took him closer to where she lives now... Snickers was a little lost for a couple of days but now seems to have settle well without his mate... and he has also made new friends and has become a nice little pet for our other children and also our dog...

And last photo for the day is one of our dds resting.. lol she does a lot of that now she is a teenager.... vbg

Happy Easter to everyone and I hope it is a good one and relaxing for all involved. Take care on the roads those travelling..

Another month gone and no rain in sight

Would you believe with all the weather the rest of Victoria is getting today that we have not got any and have not had any since I last posted here........ we are really getting desperate here for water, the ground is so dry, our tanks are almost dry, the grasses and surrounds are all so dry... somebody send us some good solid rain..........Please.............. there has been another deliberately lit fire in our region this last week, this time it has burnt out over 6000 hectares and was brought under control earlier today...... we are in April and usually our fire restrictions are coming off around now but it is so dry.... they are saying at least another month or until we get some good solid rains......

Haven't really been doing much sewing of late, even though I have a stack of orders to fill and heaps of digitizing also... I just can't seem to get myself motivated when I am home long enough to do anything....... hopefully the school holidays will give me some inspiration to get my bum into gear again......
Has been a bit of an up and down year for me so far...... I just seem to get my head around things and get myself organised with all the kids and their different activities when someone goes and throws a spanner in the works........lol I think that is why I have thrown myself into knitting a bit more than usual and have withdrawn from people.. it's my respite from what is actually happening in the real world...
Don't get me wrong, I am still as active as ever with the kids and their sporting and school commitments. I just choose to sit in the car and wait and knit... if I can..

I have always believed that before you can criticise anyone for what they have or haven't done you have to walk a mile in their shoes to understand more of what their lives actually entail........... I know that I shouldn't let people get to me like this but when it comes from family it cuts deeper..... some people are so quick to judge....... you know you haven't done this or you haven't done that type of thing... well excuse me but we have tried.... I can't perform the impossible... and I think we have the right to put my kids and their needs first....sorry if this is not suitable to anyone but stiff....
Today is dds birthday and not one acknowledgement from extended family until late tonight, this is something my kids and I have become accustomed to over the years yet we are constantly told off if we forget others' days... but still we get no thanks for pressies given... sometimes I don't even know if the gifts arrive safely at their destinations...this is something I have learnt to just accept, but the thing that got to me so much tonight was a simple text message.... I had just completed organising a little surprise for someone who has never judged me or not that I am aware of... it gave me a nice feeling of stepping forward... then out of the blue a text from ? who last time I saw (early Feb) never even acknowledged my presence and made me feel very unwelcome by speaking straight thru me.......to say I was hurt would be an understatement.. but then I get a message tonight to let us know they are now living elsewhere..... just in case noone told us...well dd actually got the message not me!! it was like now we are here you can come visit us......
yeah well no one has told us........ no one has spoken to me since early Feb... oh they tell my kids to tell me things I supposedly have to do or things I haven't done but they think I should have but not one of them has actually spoken to me....... it is as if we don't exist anymore......... the forgotten family..... they aren't interested in talking to us but they think it is okay to be involved in our lives when they please yet still treat us as though we don't exist....

I am not even sure if any of them even read my blog but this is my way of getting this off my chest so to speak... I know it will still eat away at me and every new comment or remark will cut a bit deeper but after all these years of feeling like the black sheep of the family and never being good enough for them, you would think I would be used to it........ nope it still hurts....... I am sick of trying to be nice to everyone and trying not to offend anyone with anything I say or do.... it is time for others to stop judging me/us for not doing as they think we should be doing....... it is time for them to realise that if we were made to feel welcome we might actually join in with family occasions, it is time for them to realise we have a life, a busy one at that and we have every right to lead this life any way we choose..... the same as they all have the right to lead their own lives their ways without fear of anyone judging them........ don't be snide and bitch away behind our backs, just say what is eating at you... I guess what I am trying to say is enough is enough, if we aren't good enough to be a part of your lives so be it...... you can't keep just jumping in whenever you please and then ignoring us whenever... we are humans with feelings...and kids aren't dumb they know a lot more than what you give them credit for and they also have feelings.......

Okay I am off now.. next post I promise will be on a much more positive note....