a hawaiian-themed chair

I'm back with another sneak peek at my boys' new room. I'd had these timber director's chairs for years and years and they were in a pretty bad way. They were originally a dark timber but I painted this one white (very very bodgy job) about a year ago and then did nothing with it. Until now.

I got this fabric while we were in Hawaii last month. Mum and I walked 45 minutes in the scorching heat to find this place. But gee it was worth the effort.

I used the existing chair and back panels as templates.

And out came my 1930's sewing machine. A hand-me-down from my nan's sister-in-law (!) and it's a little beauty.

Here's the finished product.

Since the fabric I used was quite thin I just placed it over the top of the original seat panel - I don't want anybody falling through it.

Pics of the finished room will be coming soon.

Merry Christmas!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

It's christmas eve eve. Such a great time of year.

The kids are so excited about Santa and neither of them has swayed from the presents they asked him to bring them over a month ago.

For Liam it's a rocket, a Honda and a Mack truck. For Brayden, a doggy and a copter (helicopter). I'm pretty sure Santa will have these covered, with a few thousand more surprises thrown in.

They both helped me decorate the christmas tree (which means most of the decorations are on the bottom half of the tree) and we've been making decorations that I plan to keep and add to our box of special ornaments for many years to come. 

Liam is continually singing christmas carols. My favourite is...

Rudolph the red nose reindeer

had a very shiny nose

and if you ever saw it

you would maybe say hello.

The santa questions are coming thick and fast. Where does Santa park his reindeer?

How does he get in to the houses that don't have chimneys? Do all the Santa's know I want a rocket? It's unreal.

The best thing of all!.... that naughty and nice list. It's the best! I've never seen these two behaving so extra well. I love you Santa Claus. Ho Ho Ho.

Cowabunga dude, it's a surfboard shelf

 This is one of two very neglected surfboards I bought on ebay. The two of them only set me back $26 so I knew that if this idea didn't turn out it was only Greg's complaining about cluttering the garage that I would have a hard time dealing with.

I saw the idea on the internet somewhere - I can't for the life of me remember where, I just did a google search - and knew no ordinary shelf would do for my boys' room. 



So, I of course roped Greg in to helping me. He just doesn't have enough to do around the house already!

He hacked in to the best of the two boards with the power saw and did such a fantastically straight cut I was well impressed. I was also very excited because I immediately knew this was going to work. We expected to have to find a way to seal the foam and fibreglass along the cuts, but he sliced it right along the timber in the centre. PERFECT I tell ya!

Then we ripped one of the fins off the end of the second board and filed it down, cleaned it up and spray painted it black before attaching it to the bottom of the newly sliced board.

It's held up with a couple of $1.48 brackets from Big W and looks very

groooooooovy.

I love the way it turned out.

My baby boy is 2!

Today my beautiful Brayden turned 2! I can't tell you how happy I am that he's reached this milestone. I know everybody says it, but I honestly can't believe how fast the past two years have passed. It seems like such a short time ago that I was holding him in the hospital bed, thinking about what a good boy he was because all of the other babies were crying and he was sleeping soundly (that didn't last long, mind you). I have such great memories of those first few months - Greg was on leave and the four of us just hung out at home together. I used to feed him in the front lounge room and we would all sit in there, talking, laughing and eating ridiculous amounts of watermelon. Now all of a sudden we're saying happy 2nd birthday!!!

We had such a great day celebrating the day.

Liam woke him but he refused to get up which drove Liam crazy because HE wanted to see the presents opened. Finally Brayden walked out to the lounge room and when I told him they were for him, he said, "ME?" as though it was just unbelievable. All day I was calling him 'birthday boy' and every time he would say "ME?"

After brekky we headed to the library for story time and crafts. The theme today was dragons which Liam actually guessed before we left home. I couldn't believe it when we arrived and I saw that he was right.

After stocking up on lunch and some birthday treats we headed to one of our favourite spots on the coast - The croc park (Australian Reptile Park).

It was a great time to be there because there was hardly anybody around.

Of course we headed straight to Elvis the crocodile (creepy) and then to the park area.

After seeing the dingoes, koalas, alligators, snakes, lizards and spiders we headed off and Brayden fell asleep in the car. After about an hour he woke up and played with his big brother for a while.

Soon after that Daddy came home and we headed out for dinner (too lazy to cook) and then to the beach for a play. 

Finally it was home to sing HAPPY BIRTHDAY and have some Freddo ice cream cake - a big hit with the boys.

My Brayden, I love you moooore than you can imagine. You're such a joy to be around because you're so loving, caring, daring, clever, wild, funny and entertaining. You just fill our hearts with love and laughter each and every day. The past two years have been fantastically indescribable and fabulously unforgettable, all because of you.

Lots of love always,

Mummy

xox

Our Hawaiian Getaway (Oct/Nov 2010)

We've just returned from our latest trip to Hawaii and whilst I was looking forward to getting home, I have to admit that I'm already dreaming of going back!
We left Sydney at 6pm on Thursday 28th October and arrived in Honolulu at 8am on (their) Thursday 28th October. How good is that!
Heeeelllllooooo Waikiki...

First up was one of our faves - a trip to Honolulu Zoo.

3D Glow Golf was also a priority since it was closed when we went back for a second game on the last day of last year's trip.

Cowabunga little dudes!!!!

Dinner at Shorebird, a tradition of ours

Then fireworks at the Hilton. Love that place.

The next night Greg, Mum and I went on a sunset catamaran cruise with an open bar - I can't drink that many Mai Tai's in an hour and a half!

Greg driving on the wrong side of the car!!! We hired a Chrysler for 2 days and drove around the entire island, which is actually quite small.

Kailua Beach Park. This place has been on my to-do list for the past few trips and we finally made it there. Well worth the wait.

Kamehameha Highway. The road that takes you around the entire island of Oahu - pretty much.

I took this photo for the Magnum reference. We love T.M., P.I.

The swell on the North Shore was huge. The HIC Pro was underway at the time but was apparently cancelled on this day because of the danger.

We stopped off at the Dole Plantation and fed the crazy fish.

This is still my future workplace...one day

Waikiki Aquarium - only $7 with a coupon. (But really only worth that much).

At the end of the Boardwalk at Waikiki;

Lunch at Chili's - yummmmmm

Greg's birthday at Duke's. The BEST food ever!

Liam met a friend one night...

HANG LOOSE

(or as Liam says - hang loosey)

Mum had been promising to make them in to mermaids for weeks before we left.



On our last day we went back to the zoo since it's so nice, cheap and is something we don't do often at home

Then we hung out at Kuhio Beach Park to watch the Sunset hula show.

No view from our room, but this was looking down at the pool from the elevator corridor.

See you in about 3-5 years Waikiki. We loooooove you x

Back in Sydney. All the worrying about our luggage being overweight (well, Kelly's and Mum's) and they didn't even care!!!!

a new rug

Well, it's not really new, it's just new to this room. It used to live underneath the dining table but it was a bit small and started to bug me so I moved it to this room and I like it here.

It's just a el-cheap-o one from ikea but I like how it looks and feels and I do love my ikea (I must considering how often I drive the 90 minutes it takes to get there and battle the THOUSANDS of people that seem to be there

every. single. time. I go)

wedding anniversary

It's our 11 year wedding anniversary today!!!!!

I worked til 7am this morning then Greg started work at midday so we didn't get a chance to do anything special, but he just got home from work with these...

Their gorgeous perfume is filling the house and i'm loving it.

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY HONEY. LIFE GETS BETTER EVERY DAY.

craft time - cress heads

During the last school holidays we had my neice staying with us for a week and so we had craft time every day. The kids were all so excited about making these cress heads.

They all loved digging through the craft boxes and sticking on their favourite things.

Here are the finished products.

It took less than 24 hours for the seeds to start sprouting. The kids were soooo patient.

We've been watering them every couple of days and I have caught the two of them - at different times - just sitting there staring at them as if willing the 'hair' to grow longer.

This is after about 2 weeks. 

We don't eat cress so i'm just going to let them give their 'heads' a hair cut.

Liam can't wait.