Back to School and Crochet Updates

Well today saw my little cherubs head back to school for Years 12, 10, 8, 6 (x2) and 4.  All are a little nervous, some more than others.  I had tears last night from the youngest as he was so nervous about his new teacher, year, class etc etc.  He is like this every single year, I have no idea why.  Thankfully he went off fine this morning,,,,,,after I lost my temper at him last night :-(.  I just got so darn frustrated.  He has the teacher he wanted, most of the friends that he wanted, what more can a kid ask for?????  I am waiting for them to come home to see how everyone else went.  I am a little nervous for my Mr11.  He has a teacher that is known to be a grouch and with numerous problems over the last few years, getting him to school, I am a little nervous that there will be a clash of personalities ahead of us.....I just hope he can keep his cool!

For my first day of "freedom" I have taken it easy.  I finally got an alone moment to try out the new Xbox Kinect with my Your Shape game.....I learnt how truly unfit I am :( and I am going to try my best to fit in a session of exercise each day.  We will also be walking to school in the mornings when the weather isn't too hot which is just over 4kms return, so that will help too.  I really need to lose weight and I hope this year I can make it happen!!

I also have been listing stuff on Ebay.  I have promised Hubby that this year our house is going to get properly decluttered and this time I am sticking to that promise.  Today I listed kid's old bikes, our old kitchen sink, a fish tank and a tv stand.  I want it gone!!  I am so sick of seeing stuff sitting around unused, it is such a waste!  If I can make a few bucks in the process I will, if not ultimately it will go on Freecycle or get given to the Op Shops, but I will try to raise a few dollars first.

Recently in the Crochet department, I have finished two items.  Just before Christmas I finished my ripple scarf.  This scarf got restarted several times as I found I kept losing the ripple pattern.  In the end I decided near enough is good enough and just finished it off lol.  I definitely need more practice in the Ripple department but I got well and truly frustrated with myself and couldn't work out where I was going wrong, so it is now a "not quite right Ripple Scarf", but I will wear it with pride anyway.  I love the colours and can't wait for some cooler weather to show it off.

Here is a little peek.....

sorry for the lousy pic (I was in a hurry lol).  You can just see on the right hand side on the top piece where it kinda turns into a straight line rather than following the ripple pattern.  Oh well it was fun to do and I am feeling good that I am making useful things at least.....times like this I wish I had some more girls in the house lol, none of the boys want anything to do with my scarves,,,or for that matter anything crocheted!!!

I have another crochet reveal tomorrow....stay tuned lol.

Our Garden Produce

Well here we are nearing the end of January already!  I can't believe the school holidays have gone so fast.  In that time I feel that I really haven't done alot with the kids and that always makes me a little sad.  Out of the 6 weeks of school holidays we have 3 kids with birthdays, Christmas, New Year and two full weeks where we have Mr11 with autism which sadly for us means being confined to the house while Hubby is at work because I am unable to take him out by myself due to his behaviour when he is with me.  This time with him also means that I have to stay within viewing distance of him at all times, also due to his behaviour.  The kids decided they didn't want to play board games or do any crafty things with me in the kitchen/dine where I can keep an eye on Mr11 this time so that has meant that they have been spending alot of time on their Xbox or watching TV as it has also been too hot to spend alot of time outdoors.  Having had my whinge though, none of the kids seem to mind, they have all seemed to enjoy the indoor relaxed time and I am the only one that seems to be bothered by it (Must be a "Mum" thing lol)

Looking ahead to the weather forecast for next week, the final week of school holidays, the forecast is for high 30's all week :(, way too hot to do too much yet again.  I think a trip to the movies may be in order and maybe a night time trip to the beach, out of the heat of the day.  Maybe we can get some baking done ready for school lunchboxes....oh yes and we have to do the dreaded school supplies shopping expedition!  YUCK!!

When we went away for New Year, the weather here was around 40 degrees and our poor veggie garden suffered majorly!  We were only away for 2 days but sadly my beloved tomatoes are yet to recover.  I am picking the tomatoes off them that were growing at that time but no new ones are coming forth at all.

Also we had a bad wind gust not long before Christmas which broke a huge branch (The main branch) off of our nectarine tree.  My Hubby hasn't yet had the time to chop it up and I am so glad that he hasn't.  We have been able to get a few kilos of nectarines off the tree.  I couldn't believe it when the nectarines which at the time of the tree getting destroyed, were lucky to be ping pong ball size, actually grew into normal sized nectarines.  They taste beautiful too!!  Sadly for the tree, it looks like the whole thing will now have to be removed as what is left just isn't worth having.

Here is a sample of our produce......

The nectarines you see are probably just 1/4 of what I ended up picking, with probably about another dozen or so still left on the tree.  Our strawberry supply has been pretty constant this year, even if it generally is only 3-4 a day.   The tomatoes aren't too bad, although not as nice as they should have been.  The two large melon like things on either side are our mystery items.  Believe it or not they grew from a Queensland Blue pumpkin plant.  I have others growing which look like they are supposed to but these two grew like this and the flesh inside was very pale yellow and the only way I even knew it was pumpkin was because of a vague pumpkin smell lol.  I cooked it up for the dogs and even they didn't like it.  I don't have a clue what happened but somehow we grew a couple of freaky Queensland Blues lol.

Miss 12 turns 13 - Bring on the Teenage Years for our only girl!!

Well it has happened,,,,our only girl in this house of boys has turned into a teenager, a scary thought lol.

She has changed so much this last year as she has progressed through to the end of primary school, ready to start high school in two weeks time.  The language has changed (not for the better I might add!), the likes and dislikes have changed (also not necessarily for the better lol) and she has become struck by this mysterious disease called "Bieber Fever".  This is a girl that hated Justin Bieber with all her might earlier in the year last year.  I, in my mean mum phase, made all the kids watch the Justin Bieber "Never Say Never" movie because I wanted to see it out of curiousity so it became one of our Friday night movie night movies lol.  She grumbled and had a intense sour look on her face for the entire movie.  The boys put up with it and I think actually quite enjoyed it to an extent.  Anyway about 6-8 weeks after we saw it, she all of a sudden was obsessed with him.  She declared that all she wanted for both Christmas and Birthday was Justin Bieber stuff.  Well we kind of had other plans for Christmas, I don't really go into fads too much, because in the past she has been known to change her mind at the drop of a hat and the said fad items are then left to become giant dust bunnies under her bed.  So Christmas saw her getting a Calendar, book and towel in amongst her presents, oh and a JB CD too.  That to me was plenty of things to keep her happy and yet still allowed for a few other gifts that would stand the test of time.

For her birthday though, I decided to go against my usual thoughts and give her a truly Bieber birthday.  She needed a new bike so that was her main present but over the last couple of months I had searched Ebay and the like and got some real bargains for her, spending quite little as they were at bargain basement prices.  I got her a stash of Bieber presents.  She ended up with a cover for her DSI which lives at her mum's house and is now smothered with Bieber.  She got a phone sock for her mobile phone which her mum bought her.  She got a tshirt, 2 pillow cases, a mug, 2 books, I made up a frame and filled it with photos of the Biebenator, she got a Bieber birthday card and a personalised plaque for the wall and of course her much asked for Bieber cake.

I struggled with this one.  I can do cartoon characters but Bieber, well this is one I really had a problem with.  My solution in the end was to print a few pictures and laminate them and stick them to the cake.  I did the cake purple and pink, her favourite colours and then in icing I made the words Justin Bieber with a love heart and the number 13 on it.  She was suitably happy I think with my efforts, probably more so than I was.

The table was a sea of wrapping paper as I wrapped each thing individually.  Thankfully about 80% of the wrapping was left intact enough to be reused (I hate seeing wrapping paper get tossed lol,,,,I tend to use it to post items I sell on Ebay, especially DVDs!!)

I just realised that in my blog absence I hadn't posted anything for my 2 boys birthdays, or much in the way of Christmas,,,I have been so slack!  Here are a few photos from these other momentous events that have taken place in the last few weeks......

There was Christmas baking with the kids.....

There was a 17th Birthday on Christmas Eve....

Then there was Christmas,,,,waiting for the everyone to gather for present opening can be so hard on Christmas morning lol......

 There was playing in the pool with their big cousin on Christmas day (this was my brother's pool, we don't have one lol)

There was a 15th birthday party with some good mates.....

and just an overall good time has been had for the most part.  Christmas holidays are a time where I always have great plans but in the end very little of those plans get done.  With the 3 birthdays and Christmas the first 4 weeks of holidays pass by in a blur and then we are organising the back to school stuff,,,,,why can't the summer break be longer?????? lol I can't believe I actually am saying that!

School Holidays,,,,busy doing nothing

First of all I hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

Our Christmas Day began with the usual chaotic morning of present unwrapping and ooohing and aaahing over the gifts, followed by lunch at my brother's house and christmas night was just Hubby and I as the kids all went to their other parent's houses for dinner.  (This meant we got to check out the Kinect on the new family (or should I say Hubby's Xbox lol,,,,,,,our house really didn't need another Xbox but Hubby's puppy dog eyes won out on that one, but that is a whole other post!)

For New Years we headed down to Victor Harbor a beautiful seaside town about 2 hours drive from here.  We set up our tent in a caravan park down there and enjoyed a relaxing afternoon just milling around the park, followed by a beautiful barbecue dinner and on New Years Eve we spent the day exploring the local area and the kids spent a couple of ours on the beach while Hubby and I relaxed watching them enjoying themselves.  The weather for this weekend was very hot in Adelaide, high 30's/low 40's forecast and it was quite warm, even down on the coast, although thankfully not as hot as Adelaide!  After heading back to our tent for a chicken and chip dinner, we got ready to head to the beach for the New Years Eve Festivities.  They had rides set up there for the kids (at a price!) and of course the kids got their rides on the dodgem cars, Ferris wheel and one other fast spinning thing that Miss12 jumped up and down with excitement about and dragged Mr17 along for lol.

Miss12 and Mr11 chilling in the tent

Our little campsite

On the way to the beach

Dodgem fun

Waiting for the fireworks, complete with glow bracelets to keep them occupied

Glow fun on the beach

This photo doesn't look full of fun lol but they had all been laughing just before I took the photo!!

I hope you all have a wonderful start to the new year.  This week I have a houseful of kids, Monday was Mr14's 15th birthday so he had 3 friends over to stay, they went home Tuesday night.  Mr17 and Mr11 were away for Tuesday night, Wednesday night saw Mr11's friend over for a sleepover until tonight and today Mr9 has his friend over for the day, then the same friend will be back again tomorrow with his older brother who is Mr11's friend as well.  Tomorrow night the step kids arrive for a week and as Miss12 is celebrating her 13th birthday today, we will be having her friend over for a sleepover tomorrow night and of course our traditional birthday dinner of pizza, party pies, sausage rolls and the usual party food......tomorrow I also have to create a Justin Bieber cake of some sort lol, could be interesting!!