the pleasure and curse of toys

I'm sure we're just like most other homes with young children, and we certainly don't spoil our kids, but I tell you, kids toys can be a curse sometimes!

Our kids are 6, 3 (almost 4) and 9 months old and in order are girl, boy, girl. This makes for interesting times in the house whereby the rules at the moment are;

Ella's toys....stored in her bedroom.

Leo's toys....split between bedroom and main living area where the cars with wooden garage/road/rail are kept. This is because both he and Ella play with them and nothing is too small or dangerous for little Cora.

Cora's toys...mostly in our second living area that we call the toy room, where you could say that hubby's toys are kept too; paino/trumpet/flugelhorn. Sheesh! 

This was this afternoon when I tried to start sorting Cora's things into one box. You know, to be honest she really doesn't play with that many things as she's so busy watching her brother and sister play.

I feel like we're at so many varied stages with toys that we never get to the point of putting one lot into storage permenantly.  I love that the kids have access to playthings that can be tidied up quite quickly and put in a corner of a room, but it seems like every room in the house is used for play and is constantly in need of tidying.

Please tell me i'm not the only one!

A Spring in my step

Tomorrow is officially the first day of Spring, but the weather this week has been so good you wouldn't believe it was the last week of Winter.  The sunny weather just inspires me and gets me so motivated. Somehow Winter hasn't been that long, but the longer brighter days just bring a different kind of energy to me.

These jonquils are one of my favourite Spring flowers. They are so fragrant and I just love the green/cream combination.

I've just realised that the bright green colour of the flower stems is one of my favourites at the moment. So much so, I've got little snippets of it in different corners of the house. I just love it!

 

 

For those in the Northern hemisphere, the first day of Spring for us tomorrow will mark the first day of Autumn for you. Hopefully there will be a few more weeks of reasonable weather before the leaves start to turn.

 

Have a great day!

 

My day in pictures

 

 

 

1. A queue of folded washing waiting to be put away.

2. Homemade bread rising - lunch at home with friends

3. Nose wiping

4. The constant job of dishes

4. The finished baby quilt for sis, folded and ready to post

5. Playing cars

6. His favourite.

 

The boy in my life.

This wee one loves to play the Wii and in particular the flying game on Sports Resort.  When we bought it for the kids last Christmas we thought it was the compromise between no gaming consoles in the house at all and the kind that they blob in front of staring in to space and only engaging the thumbs.

This just goes to show, that no matter what the intention, kids will always test the theory and find a way to redefine it.

He's so cute, this video below is a conversation between us and I was caught completely unawares whilst trying to get some cute footage of Cora to share with family back home.  I think I avoided the subject quite well...?

 

How do you answer these questions, I'd be interested to hear!

My busy wee life

I've been gone a while, but it's quite busy keeping house and looking after a family of five.

 

We're all good here, and this wee munchkin keeps me pretty busy, but all in all she's such a happy wee soul. She's getting up to all kinds of mischief that 9 month olds do. I've got her in a couple of mornings of Nursery, just for a little "me" time and she's loving it.

 

The "me" time consists of quiet coffee with my book, or at a Pilates class which I really enjoy. The rest of my time is taken with wiping, cleaning, sorting, picking up, putting away. You know? The usual stuff that riddles the life of a mother.

I'm sure scenes like this are in homes everywhere on a regular basis.

I've been slack on the crafting too, but hoping now that the better weather is coming in I'll get more inspired.  I went to a craft fair last night with friends and bought this fabric. Having two girls, i'm sure I'll get to use it soon. Just have to finish three or four other projects that have been languishing around my sewing machine first.

I've been working on this baby quilt for my Sister who is having a baby girl in the next couple of months. Almost done, but not quite.

Hope to get on here a bit more and share some more joy with you all. There's been lots, just not a lot of time to share it.

Back soon!
Stef

Nearly there

I've been working on a patchwork quilt for our bed, my second quilting attempt around the time that Cora was born 5 months ago. Last week I finished the quilt top and I'm pretty happy. I've almost finished the backing, but had a moment just on the home stretch where I stitched the last piece on the wrong way around. Yep, I swore. Yep, the 'F' one. Will be spending tomorrow unpicking and hopefully will get to the shop to buy some batting.

Our little quilting group are getting together later in the week and I'm determined to have it ready to start quilting together.  Let's hope I don't make the same mistake twice with the backing.

Being a "starter" and not much of a "finisher" of course I've started my next project already. I'm doing the hourglass block that my friend Karen is working on too. I bought a Moda Jelly Roll for this one so the hard work of choosing colours is done for me. I'm really enjoying piecing this together and the perfectionist/ control freak in me gets a huge joy hit every time I get perfect points with my sewing.

This is for Mum's 60th in August. Not quite sure how it's going to get half way around the world from NZ to Scotland, but I'll figure that one out later.

Slow down!

It always astounds me how quickly my little ones are growing up. It just seems like yesterday Ella was learning to ride her bike and Leo learning to walk. Now we are here with Leo...

And our littlest Miss Cora is desperate to get crawling. I want to yell "STOP! Slow down, don't grow up too fast, you're scaring me!" Because as sure as the sun rises every morning, I'll be celebrating 21st's, engagements, weddings and grandbabies before I know it.