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Family

Home & Family, Make It Perfect, Wonderland

.When she turns 7 its all about roses.

Lil turned 7 on Sunday. It was a weekend of celebrations, with little girls over for a birthday party, crafts, games and lots and lots of cake!
For months Lil has been asking me to make her a dress that touches the ground. I thought a birthday dress would be the perfect opportunity to grant her wish and I let her loose in my fabric stash to choose any fabric she wanted. I wasn’t expecting it to be so classic and floral. Apparently when you turn 7 flowers are very important – particularly roses. I bought this fabric (Tilda by Norwegian designer Tone Finnanger) half price when my local fabric store recently closed down. It is beautiful, but not my usual style so I was surprised when Lil choose it and tried to sway her towards something else but she wouldn’t budge! 
Then I spent an evening looking through my patterns and Ottobre magazines trying to find a maxi-length dress with no luck when it dawned on me that I could easily turn my Wonderland pattern into a maxi dress! I’m not sure why I haven’t made more of these dresses for Lil – the last one I made for her was when she was 4. I think I must have forgotten about it, but am planning on making a few more soon. It is such a sweet dress, a little bit fancy but not too over the top. Quite a quick sew too, the bodice is fully lined and the sleeve edges and hem of the dress are niftily hemmed using a ribbon or other trim. We choose this pink crocheted lace. Lace, too, is apparently important in the eyes of a 7 year old girl.
To turn the dress into maxi length: first, I made the bodice and tried it on Lil. Then I measured how long I wanted the skirt to be from the bottom of the bodice to the floor and added seam allowances. I decided to gather the top of the skirt instead of pleats and sewed the skirt onto the bottom of the bodice using the regular method of attaching a skirt with right sides together instead of attaching the skirt to the outside of the bodice as the pattern instructs.
After I had finished the dress, I thought it would look nice with a strip of lace around the bottom of the bodice too, so sewed that on. And to make things faster I opted for snaps down the back of the dress instead of buttons!
Lil is over the moon. And the dress actually looks a lot cuter than I thought it would to start with. A bit “Little House on the Prairie” but I’m happy that she looks like a little girl and prefers to wear clothes like this rather than styles that are meant for teenagers!
To kick things off there was a birthday party on the weekend with her school friends and a couple of cousins. We had 13 little girls here and they were so cute and lovely to have around. We decided on a “make your own jewellery” themed party and thought it would be fun for the girls to do some crafting together.
This free printable from Willowday was perfect to set the theme for the invitations. 
I set up lots of beads, buttons and jewellery supplies on the table and after a game of pass-the-parcel the girls sat and made necklaces and rings. I also had a bowl of fruit loops with some twine to make an edible necklace – which was more popular than the beads! The girls didn’t spend as much time crafting as I thought but didn’t want to play any more games and were happy just playing together and snacking on party food for the rest of the time.

Lil wanted a strawberry cake so I made her a very pink cake (mixed a packet of strawberry jelly crystals into a butter cake) and swirled icing “roses” with a piping bag then Lil sprinkled hearts, pearls and coloured sugar over the top.

We always have a cake for Sunday night family dinner at Mum and Dad’s house and she wanted more strawberries so I went crazy with a quadrupole layered sponge filled with strawberries and cream to feed the troops. Yummo!
 
And that wraps up another birthday in the Coward family!
 
BIRTHDAY DRESS SUPPLIES:
Make It Perfect, Wonderland pattern
Tilda Rosalie in deep blue
Pink crochet lace trim
August 5, 2014
Home & Family, Ottobre

.Harvey Charles: 12 months.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well here we are – 12 months! Bittersweet for Mama…I love little babies and would have many more if they stayed little forever – the real hard work starts when they are moving and talking and wanting. Harvey was such a lovely baby too, full of snuggles and smiles (the memories of constant spew and bad sleeping are quickly fading…) and now here he is, a big one year old.

A big one year old with two front teeth! I love it when babies get teeth later, it seems so much easier when they are eating and chewing foods to soothe their sore gums. I didn’t even notice Harvey was teething until they popped through one day! And then two weeks later we noticed four teeth at the top were making their way down too. Now we have a cute, toothy one year old.

A couple of weeks before Harvey’s birthday he mastered walking – he got it so quickly too, in the morning he started taking a few wobbly steps and by that evening he was toddling from one end of the house to the other. And he hasn’t stopped since. We call him The Destroyer.

In the last few weeks Harvey has destroyed more things than any of my other children have in their lifetime! A full bottle of Jaron’s aftershave smashed all over the bathroom floor, a remote control in the toilet, deodorant in the toilet, ceramic platter smashed, cake stand smashed, melamine bowls broken in half, massive container of rice tipped onto the kitchen floor multiple times…it goes on. And he always follows with a cute little “uh-oh” and I can’t help but smile.

We have a family chant where we sing “Harvey, Harvey, Harvey…” over and over again and Harvey will stop what he is doing, drop to his knees or all fours and rock back and forth like he is dancing. Now, he calls the shots and has started singing the chant to us until we join in then he starts clapping and dancing.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Harvey was born with big lips and I have always been expecting them to slim down as he get bigger, but they are still there and still as kissable as ever. And his chubby cheeks that get rounder and wider when he smiles. I love them.

 Little boy,  you are a pure delight. Thankyou for choosing our family and bringing us so much joy x

 
 
(Rocket top sewn from an Ottobre pattern. It comes from Ottobre 4/2011, Baby Basics T-shirt and the fabric is Rocket Boy knit by Lillestoff.)
June 26, 2014
Home & Family

.Week 8 at the Block.

Construction of our new house is well under way. It took so long for everything pre-construction to take place that it seems strange that the actual building is going so fast! We are already up to week 8 and hope to be moving in before Christmas – maybe even earlier if things keep running smoothly. The last time I posted about the house was back in March when we were just getting ready to break ground. I do share regular, weekly updates on Instagram though…here’s a look at the weekly progress over the last 8 weeks:
Thought it was time to do a more detailed post about the house and where we are up to now. First of all, here’s the floor plan (click on the image to see it bigger):

Besides running out of bedroom space for our growing family, our main motivation for the new house was so that Jaron can work solely from home. The house is quite a bit bigger than what we are in now and is designed to suit all of our needs…Jaron’s office is directly inside the front door so that when he has clients coming to see him they don’t have to come into the living areas at all. We have separated the rumpus and sewing area with a nib wall which has timber posts dividing the top half, giving privacy but still letting in light and enabling me to easily see out. I think everything else is self-explanatory. (Honestly, I’m the worst at visualising spaces…so glad that Jaron knows what he is doing here! He came up with pretty much everything and I just gave the nod of approval!! Every time I visit the block I discover something new – what? another cupboard here?! All good things though, but I seriously have no clue!)
 
We are using a mostly timber, limestone and polished concrete as the feature finishes of the house (see rendered images of the house in this older blog post). We are drawing on the inspiration of timber, concrete and white for all of our decorating and finishes – VERY different to our bright lime green-inspired house now but I’m looking forward to a change. Instead of a timber deck which requires a lot of maintenance and care, we have opted for polished concrete decks and some polished concrete on the porch, entrance, Jaron’s office, laundry and one toilet. I’m excited about this flooring…part of the concrete areas have had a first polish and it is looking great so far. The cleaning and maintenance is going to be so easy too. It’s dirty and patchy at the moment, but will polish up beautifully at the end!

The house has a big band of windows wrapping around the front, it is going to let in so much natural light and be really warm all year ’round too.
 

The back wall of the house is slanted and the iron on the roof will wrap down the wall. The windows in this wall (bedrooms and bathroom) are going to be set back like little portholes in the wall.

 

This is the shed at the back of the house which will also hold our solar panels.
The front of the house:
 

The rumpus room has a sliding door opening onto a covered deck – the kids are really excited about being able to use this as extended play area…I’m thinking a couple of hanging chairs out there would be great – or maybe a swing?!

The back of the house. The entrance to the house is at the back, through the porch:

The end of the house – that’s my big bedroom window there!

 

 

This photo is taken from the furthest corner of the house and kind of shows how much land we have (to landscape – let’s not think about that yet!). We are on 1 acre and it seems like the perfect size land to have great space for the kids to run around on as well as room for some chooks, a vegie garden and orchard.

And here’s a look at the inside frame work. I love the repetition of lines:

No doubt I’ll be back with more as things keep progressing. If you want more regular updates though, keep checking Instagram – I find it so much easier to post day-to-day events there than on the blog now!

June 23, 2014
Home & Family

.Finally FIVE!.

Our Tommy turned five yesterday. (It’s just cake after cake over here lately!) The countdown was on for weeks leading up to his big day and he woke with a Tommy-smile ready for some fun! (And his cool guy pose up above.)

Tommy’s birthday was wild and crazy. He has had way too many late nights and early mornings and it all caught up with him on Sunday. He was a mixture of complete happiness and excitement to major meltdowns and tantrums, and all the while we tried really hard to ignore the bad and enjoy the good to make his day special!
Amidst his moodiness of late, he still shines through with his always cheery smile and happy nature. A characteristic that is noticed by everybody and I hope stays with him for life. He is referred to as the “Smiley Boy” in many a household and definitley knows how to cheer someone up. (And I will always remember how very cute he was on his first birthday with his cheeky, toothy one year old smile.)

He had many ideas for his birthday cake, wanting an elaborate dinosaur scene, but I steered him towards a CIRCLE cake with yummy chocolate ganache. When we went to a special lolly shop together to buy a big bag of chocolate rocks he was sold, a kid in a lolly shop…you can sell them anything in that heaven! Dinosaurs from the toybox popped on top and we were done! And he was happy!
I am soaking up this last year of Tommy at home part-time before he starts school full-time next year and grows up even more. It really does go to fast…

June 9, 2014
Home & Family

.Back to it!.

We are nearing the end of first term but I couldn’t let a year pass without blogging the traditional first day of school photos.
 
This year Oscar is in grade 3, Lil is in grade 1 and Tommy has finally started his first year of school and is in Kindergarten. Tommy has been waiting and waiting and waiting for school for ages…he has been through all of the pre-kinder and kinder years with Oscar and Lil and we endured many, many tantrums when it was time to go home because he always wanted to stay at school with the kids.
 
 
We are so blessed this year – the kids all have the most amazing teachers and all three of them love to go each morning. Even Oscar, who wasn’t that keen on school last year is so enthusiastic this year, he gets on really well with his teacher and looks forward to all of the interesting things she has planned for them each day.
I love the height difference in the photo below – there is exactly the same age gap between Oscar and Lil as there is between Lil and Tommy (22 months) but Lil is such a shortie she looks like she should be closer to Tommy’s age! People are starting to ask us if her and Tommy are twins now!!

After the first week of school, I decided that we needed some kind of chart to help the kids get themselves ready in the morning before they were allowed to do other things so I made up some “Morning Routine” charts:

 

 

They are working a treat! I have laminated the charts and stuck them to the pantry door. We keep whiteboard markers on a nearby bench and as the kids complete each task they give themselves a tick in the corresponding circle. At the moment the deal is that they can’t play or watch any TV until they have all of their ticks for the morning. Most days Oscar and Lil are up and completely ready by 7:30am! It really makes the mornings a lot less stressful when I’m not having to nag them over and over again to get ready.
It’s working so well for now, if the novelty wears off then I’ll change the incentive around…maybe a weeks worth of ticks will gain a lunch order or special treat after school on Friday or a special activity on Saturday.

March 24, 2014