light fingered children

Greetings all,
We've been to Sydney twice in two weeks, we stayed with my parents.  Upon arriving home the first time, i discovered zillions of small Disney toys stuffed into my girls' bags??  They said Grandma told them to take him.  I explained my sister had collected them & they were not for us (+ i was turning out bedrooms, last thing i needed was more toys).  I bundled them up & returned them, done, gone, dusted, over. 
So imagine my shock after bunk construction this afternoon to tuck my 3rd daughter into bed & finding this staring back at me from under her twin sister's mattress above . . .

 there were more in a bag!!  Hmmmm, they knew they couldn't have them, will have to nip this in the bud as they've never taken things like this before!!

Bunk building, look at that girl go with the Allen key (i had the Makita) 

 this girl started off keen & interested, passing drill bits . . .

 then she got distracted . . .

 making outfits for her new doll.

Back to school tomorrow, the children can't wait, they love school, friends, sport, languages . . . i love 4th term & the build up to the Summer holidays & Christmas . . . swimming after school + it's the ACT Athletics finals at the AIS this week.  Watching the Commonwealth Games, i wonder if my guys will ever compete??  Proud mama.  While they're out of the house, i'll collect up all the toys who don't live here & post them back to Sydney.This term is very special as my husband starts 3 months leave.  He's all set to garden & take school runs, yippee + get me in shape as 9 months on my own this year, i haven't had time for Yoga or running.  We have to turn out the garage too, such fun.  I'm back at Shop Handmade tomorrow (fun fun fun) gosh i should be sewing, that Shop is such a success.Have a fantastic week, i'm off to a head start of happiness, love Posie

Canberra . Goulburn . Sydney . IKEA . Husband

Greetings all,

So i'm back in St Ives, again, these school holidays.  Have i ever mentioned my home town before??  I love it here, leafy, quiet, family, shopping, space, restaurants . . . i do love visiting Sydney.   
On the way up the Hume Highway last night, we climbed inside the world's largest Merino in Goulburn & left with obligitory snow dome.  Check out that late afternoon Spring sky!!

 you can only climb half way now, this was met with much disappointment

 lots of giggles at Rambo's giant concrete testicles

 Today i took the boy to IKEA for new bookcases, side tables, desk lamps, bins & round rugs for those bedroom makeovers.  He was brilliant, adding up prices, making suggestions, testing out chairs, pretending to use the toilets in the display bathrooms (that will turn you grey i assure you) & by the end, he had a lie-down-silent-protest (the best kind of demonstration of anti consumerism a boy can do).  He came alive again at the self serve check out - shooting that beeper gun at all the barcodes, brilliant stuff, speedy, simple, love EFTPOS efficiency!!

So tomorrow my husband will meet us in Sydney (yahoo) for dinner, ahhhh, on his way back from Brisbane with his Jeep & i'm kind of hoping he'll take a child or 3, a side table or 3, a desk lamp or 3 . . . those bookcases require 3 rows, ooppss.  We could drive home with our heads to one side??  Non??  I love travelling with the children, they are my company & i don't know how to work the iPod in those 'radio dead zones' without them, so i might keep a few for conversation value. 

 I've never driven in convoy before, i expect to be assessed.  Handsome soldier is a professional driver of all things from scooters to tanks!!  It's only 3 hours & with the promise of finishing off the childrens' bedrooms (their furniture has arrived while i'm not there) we have things to do before school resumes Monday morning so we're heading off early.  
Have lovely weekends, love Posie

my creative space 'handstitched lampshade cover'

Greetings all,
Remember these free lampshades i got from Revolve a few MCS posts ago, tossed in with that cabinette??  I finally got around to covering them & put them in the girls' bedrooms.
I have THOSE kind of children who can't resist fooling around, like pretending to be a lampshade??!!  Trust me, she was very quiet & still, our 3rd daughter makes a good floor lamp.

 it was 10C yesterday so my children were in bikinis with no where to swim

 imagine this sweet print in a pink, red & white bedroom

 making crude measurements, circle sewing is always deceptively greedy with fabric

Ok, so this is NOT the Babushka print, instead it's the one my eldest daughter chose, she just loved the greens in this fabric.  I hand stitched them completely from the comfort of my lounge - tacked the hem then turned it over & anchored the top & bottom in place to the wire, easy peasy speedy project. 
Happy Creative Spacing, thanks Kirsty for hosting.  Love Posie

& posie has fallen off her trusty workaholic steed at the last hurdle . . .

Greetings all,
This will be the last post on the children's school holiday tidy up, redecorate & relocate for now.  The furniture hasn't arrived & i'm at a stalemate with how i felt at 3a.m. when i left my son's room like this, with a migraine - this was as good as it was going to get for the boy for now.

Two of my favourite things in the world - a trusty Dyson vacuum & super stylish Little Nest mini-e Chair & Ottoman.  FYI Sam from Little Nest hasn't asked me to plug her products, i just thoroughly believe in promoting what & who you love!!  'tis how we mums in business roll.  The detail, quality & design are amazing, keepsakes for sure!!

 So while this workaholic mummy isn't quite finished - curtains need to be made, furniture chosen/ delivered/ assembled . . . & i desperately need to rest my hands.  I have carpal tunnel syndrome in both hands, i sleep in metal hand splints (yeah baby, sexy as, no wonder my husband has spent less than 20 days at home this year) & scrubbing walls & sorting a billion Lego pieces has left me in agony.  Basically when i was 28 & pregnant with my 4th child, my carpal tunnel would leave me numb, unable to hang out nappies in the morning or pick up my twin toddlers, it was painful.  Surgery is an option, but i'd rather play princess & stop when they hurt for now.  Something to watch you crafty handmade types - i have the hands of an 80y.o. leather factory worker, i blame 6 years of scribbling notes at University & hand quilting & changing half a million cloth nappies - all repetative strain acts, hmmm, how do you get compensation or sue yourself??

So good time for a break & trip to Sydney to meet up with my husband (on his way home from Brisbane) spend more time with my elderly parents, visit friends & IKEA.  I'm not kidding, sometimes it hurts to hold the steering wheel when my carpal tunnel is messing with me.

  Does anything beat white leather & walnut 1960's style??

While blogger is messing with my images, i'll leave it here.  Seeing the boy is the last child, he has been lumped with all the toys from his siblings collective childhood.  I could cull more but he genuinely still plays with everything in turn, why ditch them now??  Anyway, this is all inside his wardrobe, who else is going to see them when the doors are shut?? 

Any one else have a wardrobe full of those giant black school art folios folders, they are so heavy with sharp corners & no child can lift them!!??  Owww, i have scrapes down my shins to prove it from 6 of the bloody folders.
So as i tidy up the boxes in the garage, pack for Sydney & lug 4 garbage bags of goods to charity, i bid you a lovely weekend.  I will be having dinner with my husband on Saturday night, in a real restaurant with make up & heels on, ahhhhhh, love Posie

& it's Giddy Up by Little Nest winning the race . . .

Greetings all,

So it's day 2 of the psycho clean & the giant puzzle of moving 4 children around 3 bedrooms.  By midnight i was in the garage smashing open the crate (i said psycho) to reveal a pink Giddy Up chair by Little Nest, to surprise the girls in the morning.  So happy i woke up before them so i could hear them squeal with delight when they opened their eyes!!

 I met the gorgeous Samantha Firestone from Little Nest at the Sydney Magnolia Square launch & bought the Arne Jacobsen replica children's size chair in red for my eldest daughter.  I've been repressing the dream of also owning a Giddy Up since, until last month when i thought, bugger it, she's discontinuing the pink, i want one!!  Thanks Sam, we love her & guess what the girls have named her . . . Samantha, ahhhh. 
I had to take these shots quickly as the children have been playing on the Giddy Up all day, they're running around in knickers & it's not that kind of creepy blog!!  One child has warned she WILL be sleeping on it tonight, hmmm . . .

The Little Bert wire chairs are also from Little Nest & fit perfectly under this IKEA coffee table which is perfect for a doll's house.  I even transferred the Djeco wall stickers from room to room (my husband will cringe, he doesn't understand why all the walls can't be bare??!!)  My twins will be in this room, which is slowly coming together.  They have a pink, red & white colour scheme.  I'm not obsessed with white furniture but it's such no brainer & easy to compliment with colour.  I'll source a desk this weekend which the girls can share as the move into senior primary school next year, i know there is a lot more homework. 
Next stop tomorrow, the boy's room, it's going to be my favourite.  When all their new beds arrive in the next couple of weeks, i'll reveal the finished products & you can start paying me millions for my decorating advice, he he.  Love Posie

& the bedroom makeovers are off & racing . . .

Greetings all,

For those of you who might not have school age children yet, we school mummies tend to go a bit postal on the children's bedrooms in the school holidays.  More than just a good clean, it's a "don't talk to me OR look at what is in the garbage bags" frantic situation.  These school holidays i'm quite literally turning out the bedrooms as if we were moving (we will be moving in the next 3-12 months) & to add a new degree of difficulty - just for fun i'm roatating all 4 children into different rooms.  What else would you do when your husband is away for a week??

 My secret weapon to keep the children away from their rooms while i psycho clean & to avoid the irrating "i'm hungry" moan, is to put out a picnic spread.

 Really annoyed these images are not grouping & are all spread out BLOGGER (??!!) anyway, you can see where i'm going - the first room is evolving & attracting silly children (FYI neither of these two are in this particular room, this is our eldest daughter's room with a red & blue theme, i said evolving!!)  There are still electronics to plug in, pictures to hang & a book shelving unit to collect, which will be perfect for the French wooden doll's house, as she said "it's a nice memory from my childhood".  

I love love love the chess board, shall take a close up image later, the pieces are Alice in Wonderland, it makes playing chess even more of a pleasure. 

Oh, now what's on that pallet in the garage??  I have new chairs from Little Nest for the children's 'play area' of their bedrooms, i can not wait to unload these, one by one as i complete the rooms.  So hope the new bunks for the twins arrive soon, we've also decided to get the big & little ones new beds too, so their rooms won't be 'perfect' for a little while longer.  Back to it, there are two children dispersed right now, who will sleep on the lounge tonight, good incentive to finish their rooms for a head start on those twins & all their bits & pieces tomorrow.  Love Posie

funeral, presents, movie, party, earrings & flash back in Sydney

Greetings all,
We left Canberra very early for Nanna's morning funeral in Sydney.  It was a beautiful service & i think Nanna will love how my in-laws sent her off with gorgeous memories, smiles & heart felt tears.  Lots of talk of her famous apple pies, scones & rosey cheeks.  It was especially moving for us as there were so many photos of my husband's late mother, we miss them both.  The children were so well behaved at the service & burial, then wake afterwards, but some napped on the way to grandpa's, they were exhausted. 

 morning fog over Lake George

 i dressed the children in the car

My brother invited us around to his place for dinner, as always, incredible spread of dinner & dessert, conversation & laughter.  We brought the drinks & a red tea candle from Shop Handmade for his wife.  Our children disappeared most of the night with their 3 teenagers - cousins are awesome.

 my eldest brother is a rocket scientist turned chef

 hmmmm . . .  think the elbows need some adjustment

 it was 10C outside but she still wanted to wear this dress

 I love that my parents & father-in-law still live in the family homes we grew up in.  Watching my children this morning was a big trip down memory lane.  Jumping for lemons, mandarins & oranges, running down this passage, climbing on the massive rocks - big flash back!!  They are checking out the holes bandicoots are digging, much to my father's dismay & they are protected 'pests'.

 this bloke was zonked

 gifts from my parents recent Queen Mary 2 cruise to Europe, West Indies & South America

We had big plans in Sydney to visit Corrie from Retro Mummy, have ice creams in Manly & take a ferry on Sydney Harbour, but the weather turned gloomy so we headed for the cinema to see Despicable Me (giggles) but at $79 for the 6 of us to see a children's movie, well, pricey day out, on top of sushi lunch, shoe shopping & our big girl getting her ears pierced - we made her wait until the last term before high school.  She was very brave, i loved that she asked if daddy could hold her hand, i could see it really hurt. 
Tonight we celebrate my husband arriving 'home' a whole week ago.  So far he's spent 2 days in Brisbane & 3 days in Sydney . . . he's off tomorrow for a week in Brisbane . . . we're very patient for him to actually be on leave with us in Canberra properly!!  Off to cuddle him now & hope this uploads as we're on 1990 internet speed for the next week, thanks so some huge software download??  Oh well, i'm redecorating the children's rooms this week so best not to be distracted by blogs & the outside world while i'm swapping all 4 children into different rooms with a complete overhaul & clean!!Have a great week everyone, love Posie