Making your bed the right way

I bet you didn't know you've been making your bed all wrong all these years. I know I was surprised when I received an email from Terrys Fabrics telling me this. I also wondered briefly how they knew how bad I was at making the bed. But after a quick scan of my general area showed up no hidden cameras in my bedroom, I figured they have just been reading my blog long enough to know that domestic goddess is one title you will never find on my resume.

Now I can get a cover on my doona (or duvet for my American friends) thanks to the burrito method. (for anyone who doesn't know what the burrito method is, please google it.) Before the burrito method came around and changed my life I used what I call the ghost method which involved me climbing into my doona cover and stumbling around my room moaning like a disturbed ghost while I tried to get my doona to fit nicely into the corners of the cover. I know one woman who was relieved I never married her son after she watched me get a doona into its cover this way.

I know all about hospital corners and how to do them, although thanks to the genius Bertha Berman who invented the fitted sheet in 1959 I've not had to do a hospital corner except when I make the bed after staying in a hotel. (I know they are just going to strip the bed as soon as I check out, but I still hate leaving the bed unmade when I leave.) But I will admit to you right now that my bed is currently an unmade mess because my alarm clock thinks it is hillarious to rip my blanket right off me to wake me up in the morning, and I got tired of having to wrestle with my big queen size blanket every single morning, so it just lays where she throws it until bed time. If I was any kind of house proud, this would bother me I'm sure, but considering the teaspoon of sugar I dumped on the counter this morning while trying to make my first coffee of the day is still sitting there waiting to be cleaned up, we all know that ain't gonna happen any time soon.

But for any one of you out there who actually does like having a pretty bed, and always wonders how the designers of the world always manage to get the beds they make to look so perfect, below is a handy dandy info-graphic that Terrys Fabrics very kindly shared with me, which gives you everything you could possibly ever need to know about making the perfect bed. As for me, I will always be the sweaty person standing on her bed grunting while trying to wrestle a fitted sheet onto a double mattress. If someone can please invent a fitted sheet that goes onto the bed easily without me having to summon Satan, please contact me, I may want to marry you.


Bed Making Hacks by Terrys Fabrics.

Dear Diary the eventful week edition

Well it's that time of the week again, and what a week it has been. There have been some major changes this week for both me and Miss K and I am bursting at the seams to share them all with you.

So today I'm going to start with Miss K for a change, and it has definitely been a big week for her. We are currently trying to encourage her to start walking by herself. At the moment she is happy enough to walk as long as someone is holding her hand. My sister and I sit on the floor with her and we can manage to get her to walk several steps between us, as long as there is chocolate involved. But once the chocolate is all gone her motivation to walk disappears and she resumes crawling everywhere. She shows signs that she is ready to walk, but she just hasn't gained the confidence yet. But tonight was a big night for her, she managed to stand all by herself for a full 20 seconds before she realised that she was standing unsupported and freaked out. Then she dropped onto her bottom like a tonne of bricks. So that was a pretty exciting moment for me. It was also the first time I managed to contain my excitement when she stands up alone, as I usually start making noises which just brings her attention to it and makes her fall down. So a huge step forward for both of us. Another big development for Miss K is that she has finally discovered the word no. Now at bed time or when we share a shower she starts shaking her head madly and yelling no. It's very cute and fun to watch, but with all the jiggling, it is getting just that little bit harder to hold her. She has also started saying grandpa this weekend, but coming from her mouth it sounds like ba pa. Again very cute and I get her to say it as much as possible.

As for me, this week has also been a big week. As mentioned earlier in the week I'm starting a 30 day challenge to see if I can't get better organised and on top of my housework. I won't go into everything on this post because it is big enough to deserve a post of its own, but needless to say this week has been a huge learning curve for me, but I haven't given up yet and I feel that I may be on my way to being a better organised and tidier person. That's not to say I haven't hit any stumbling blocks along the way, for one Miss K is spending more time in her bedroom at the moment, just because most of her toys have been moved in there, but the extra time in her room has come with extra cleaning for me as every time she goes in there she absolutely trashes the joint. And just in case you think I'm being over dramatic when I say she trashes the joint, I actually took pictures of it the other day as evidence.

See? Trashed.

So from being a room that I had to give a small tidy and dust to once a week it has now become a daily job. Occasionally I get Miss K to come and help put her toys away for me, and once I even managed to tidy it up while she was fast asleep in the cot. But I am beginning to feel this is a losing battle, and I'm at my wits end as to how to stop her upturning every single box in the room. It's all good for her as she can't fold yet so I can't get her to help tidy up the bibs and body suits. But I'm now beginning to regret buying so many of them as I have to re-fold each and every one of them every night. 

On the family front my little sister is settling into her new home nicely, I think she's loving living so close to work as she can now be on call for whenever they need her, instead of needing at least an hours notice to start work so she could figure out how to get there. She has actually moved into a flat very close to where I was living before I moved back to mums house, and apparently my old neighbours in the block of flats next to mine were having a party last night that was so loud she could hear them even though they are several blocks of land away from her. Glad to see some things never change. I've told her if she hears a really loud television set being played it would be my old next door neighbour who is as deaf as a post and used to have her telly blaring all day. I never had to watch telly when I lived there because I could hear hers perfectly, even with all my doors and windows closed.

Well that's me done for another week, my little brother is coming down tonight for a quick visit, and I'm waiting to hear from him as he'll probably be wanting a lift from the train station. It just means I can't get into my pyjamas until they get here. The things I do for my family.

Just a quick reminder as well, you can now find me on Facebook here so come on over and like my page, you'll get updates as soon as I've posted another wonderful blog for you to read, I also get to update on what is happening with both me and Miss K more regularly there so you get to see more of us. Don't miss out.

Behind closed doors

So I considered asking Miss K to do my blog post for today, but given that she is currently mesmerised by the old show McMillan and Wife I can't get much out of her. That means it is up to me to entertain you guys by myself. And even though I have a huge job that I am avoiding building up the energy to get to, I will put it off for now just to give you guys something new to read.

So what is the big job I'm meant to be doing right now? Well instead of telling you guys I'm going to show you instead.

Nope it's not the site of a recent bomb attack, what you are looking at is my bedroom. Cosy isn't it? I'm meant to be in there right now giving it a good spring clean as I'm pretty sure it now classifies as a fire hazard. The only problem is once a room gets to this state I get too overwhelmed to be able to cope with cleaning it. A lot of the stuff is just really big and in large piles, so it shouldn't really take too long to do, but just the thought of starting is enough to make me want to take a lie down.

But sitting here writing for you guys is getting nothing accomplished, so I'm going to sign off for now and actually do something useful. Chat later.

Miss K's new room (finally)

As promised for several weeks now, here are photos of Miss K's new bedroom. For anyone who can't remember what it looked like before, check here for photos taken before the redecorating started. Now before I even upload these photos I must tell you to disregard all of the toys and crap on the floor I missed while I was cleaning up her room today. Just pretend that you don't see them, that's what I do. And also apologies for the amateur photography too, I know you're meant to take photos during the day allowing as much natural sunlight in as possible, but given that the weather here today was cloudy and miserable I just used the flash.

This is the nappy stacker that I made the other weekend. It is so much bigger than her old one, I can actually fit in an entire box of nappies now which means no more boxes cluttering up my floors. I've actually had a friend request one of these for her nursery as she wants a Winnie the Poo themed room and can't find a nappy stacker she likes.

The sign you have already seen, but the picture border above it was the result of many hours tearing apart old books, laminating the pages and squinting at walls to see if the lines were straight. Nine times out of ten they weren't (damn my lazy eye) but in the end I managed to get it to work. As an added bonus the wall border fits the walls exactly, thanks to some creative layering in some places, and spacing in others, the book starts right behind the door on one side, and stretches perfectly around the room.

This is some more of the picture border, as well as some paintings I did from the book One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish. I was stoked with how the canvases came out, and they were a lot brighter than the ones you can buy from speciality stores in America. The orange isn't really fluro as it looks here, that is just the result of my flash.

A close up of the canvases. I know they are crooked, Miss K keeps kicking the wall and given they are right behind the cot I have the hardest time keeping them straight. I've already surrendered and let them lie wherever they want. 

Miss K's new reading corner. There will eventually be a reading light on the bookshelf, but we are having a hard time modifying a normal table lamp so that it has a goose neck attached, but once it's finished the effect will be amazing. I'll post pictures as soon as it is finished.

As you can probably tell from the inside of these stacking baskets they used to be two different shades of pink. I realised that they didn't really fit in with the new colours in the room pretty quickly, but luckily for me I had plenty of the material used on Miss K's new quilt cover left over so an evening spent cutting and glueing and I had a new matching piece of furniture to put Miss K's body suits and bibs in.

I found lots of wonderful Dr Seuss quotes all over the internet, and I wanted to incorporate them into the bedroom. A lot of people get them turned into wall decals, but given I didn't have the budget for this I turned them into small pictures. There are three of them in total, this one says "Why fit in when you were born to stand out" and it fills the blank space left by removing the lattice on her wall. They will be framed eventually to make them stand out against the wall.

Another Dr Seuss quote

The last Dr Seuss quote. 

I made the paper by tearing red and white paper into strips and then pasting the strips together. The quotes are written with letter stickers which I luckily have in abundance with thanks to my obsession with collecting scrap booking materials.

The placement of the last two Dr Seuss quotes.

Miss K's play area with a lovely new foam jigsaw puzzle mat. I love that it brings a huge splash of colour to an otherwise boring grey carpet, and on the plus side I have something soft to sit on when I'm playing tea parties.

Miss K's cot, complete with the new quilt. The sheet is only temporary until I can find one in a colour that better compliments the quilt cover. Why is it so hard to find white sheet covers these days??

The cot from a different angle. Ignore the storage underneath. It turned out the material for the cot quilt and the nappy stacker were the most expensive purchases made for the entire room, coming to around $50 in the end. The rest of the stuff was part of my stash of crafty things, 

So there you have it. For under $100 Miss K has a completely new room that she absolutely loves. We have to go around the room and look at everything before she goes to bed every night, and I've found it also works in distracting her when she's throwing a particularly bad temper tantrum. Now that I've been bitten by the decorating bug I'm determined to turn my room into something equally as pretty.

Dear Diary The I can see clearly edition

Everybody sing now "I CAN SEE CLEARLY NOW THE RAIN HAS GOOOOONE" Well it has stopped raining, but that's not why I can see, I finally picked up my new glasses today, and the difference in my vision is amazing. I had to clean the television this afternoon, because I could finally see the fingerprint marks Miss K left there that mum has been complaining about for weeks.

Pictured: Me in my new glasses

It is so weird not having to squint to see the pattern on my toilet floor. I'm sure these glasses have other purposes, but that in itself was enough to keep me amused this afternoon. Once I get used to them and stop going dizzy every time I move my head I'm looking forward to being able to see everything I couldn't before. And the glasses weren't my only purchase today, I also decided to splash out and buy myself a quilting kit to give me something to do at night while Miss K is in bed. I could live to regret this decision eventually, as I have never attempted to quilt anything before, but I'm willing to give it a go anyway.

We had a frustrating day today as the electricity maintenance people decided that it was the perfect time to do maintenance on the wires in the area. That meant that we were without power from 9 this morning till just before 3 this afternoon. It meant that we had to boil water for our coffees on the stove, we couldn't use our heater which was just perfect given the temperature outside was bloody cold, and the temperature inside decided to match it. I also couldn't use the computer, my portable DVD player or even the microwave. It served to remind me exactly how much we rely on technology for even the simplest things like cooking lunch, and I know if there was some kind of natural disaster which disabled the power grids, I would be well and truly screwed.

We have had a family of sick people this week, my big sister and my nephew are both unwell, and my little sister has been staying over since Saturday as she has a nasty virus, and she has been filling the house with the charming sounds of violent vomiting and throaty coughs ever since. It is tempting to break out the Hazmat suits but in the spirit of looking sympathetic I have restrained myself and merely sneak into my bedroom whenever it sounds like she's about to hack up a lung.

Miss K is as loud and boisterous as usual, she has learned how to say hi and hello recently so her conversations are peppered with greetings these days, and she loves it when someone new walks into the room because it gives her an excuse to yell hi at them. It has now been almost a week since I decided to try weaning Miss K from her night time feeds and I am proud to announce that she is officially sleeping through the night. I am absolutely gobsmacked at how quickly she took to sleeping through, and I have heard reports from mum and my little sisters that she still wakes up several times a night, but she is quite happy to entertain herself quietly until she is tired enough to go back to sleep. She did decide one night that it would be a fun game to kick the wall really loudly at 1am, and I was worried that if I went in and repositioned her I would be giving her an excuse to cry and beg to be let up, but she was happy to have me pop in, move her to the top of her bed and walk out alone. She even went back to sleep shortly afterwards. 

I mentioned earlier this week that Miss K's new bedroom is completed, and I am going to take photos of it this afternoon so they will be posted shortly. I can't wait to share the changes with you guys, and I'm sure you're all just as excited as I am.

Well that's me done for another week, I'll be back again soon with photos.

Too many projects, not enough babysitters

I'm being very naughty right now, I'm meant to be doing the dishes and tidying up the house, but I have come down with a case of the Cant Be Bothereds so housework can wait. I have a lovely quiet house all to myself at the moment, as Miss K is down having her nap and mum is babysitting my nephew today, so I am enjoying the peace, and the ability to hear my own thoughts.

I have actually been a bit lost the last few days, now that Miss K's bedroom is all but finished I haven't had anything to do with my hands at night once she's in bed, and that always makes me sad. I have really enjoyed doing up her bedroom, and even the boring bits like trying to figure out where each piece of furniture and decoration would go has been a heap of fun. I wouldn't say I'm ready to go out and become an interior decorator, but I'm super pleased with the results.

So now I am on the hunt for a new project to undertake, which sounds like fun but really isn't. There are so many little areas around the house that could do with a once over, and thinking of them all together in a giant group just serves to make me tired. I want to get into my bedroom soon and give that some colour and give me something pretty to look at when I'm in there, and I've already got some ideas of what I can do. I follow another lovely blog here called A Small Bite of Mondocherry and they do some beautiful things with paper and fabrics, and they have given me some wonderful inspiration for things I can put on my walls. I also want to start putting pictures of Miss K up, as I have a lot of them in scrapbooks, but very little of them actually out on display. I also need to get into our family room and empty it out so that it can become my second lounge room and also a play room for Miss K. I have removed almost all of her toys out of our real lounge room as they have become a real tripping hazard for anyone who tries to walk in to the room, and it was getting too frustrating having to clean all of them up.

I also want to start a vegetable patch with mum this year, and we need to get our garden bed weeded and cleaned up in the next few weeks if we hope to have anything planted in time for summer. I love home grown tomatoes, and I really want to try to grow my own strawberry plant as well. I love strawberries straight off the vine, there is nothing better. We have also talked about turning one part of our back yard into an entertainment area where we can go and have drinks during summer, and possibly Christmas lunch if it's at our house this year.

The only problem with all of these projects is that they are very difficult to accomplish when your shadow is two feet tall and likes putting foreign objects into her mouth. I have already discovered while trying to stick a picture border up in Miss K's room that she is unimpressed with how little attention she gets when I am busy with a big project, so I don't know how successful I am going to be with the next one I take on.

But given that I have all the free time in the world on my hands right now given that Miss K is currently in bed asleep, I really should try to get something accomplished instead of just sitting here talking about it to you guys. So I'm off to get some work done.

Dear diary the busy beaver edition

So as I predicted I haven't had much time for blogging these past few days. Miss K has been recovering from her virus nicely these past few days, and she is almost back to her normal sunny self finally. But that doesn't mean that the whole family is healthy right now. Two of my sisters have various infections and viruses, and one of my nieces has come out in a rash similar to Miss K's. Gotta love winter for the colds and bugs it spreads.

I have actually managed in between giving Miss K paracetamol and chasing after her to get some of her room redecorated this week, and it is starting to really come together. I've rearranged some of her furniture, taken down all of the decorations from her jungle themed room, and I've almost finished putting up her new wall border. If I can get a spare five minutes tomorrow I can finish that job and find another one that needs doing. I'm very pleased with the results so far, and I cannot wait to share them with you guys once I've taken more photos.

Well I have been a very busy little beaver this weekend, so much so that I now need another weekend just to get over this weekend. Yesterday I went shopping at Spotlight to take advantage of their fabric sales to buy some material for a new nappy stacker for Miss K's bedroom. I realised as I was starting to put the room together that her current pale blue nappy stacker didn't fit in with the rest of the room, so I decided to splurge on some Dr Seuss quilting fabric so I could whip up a new one for her. And whip up I did, with thanks to a free pattern I found online. It took me about 4 hours in total, part of which came from difficult to understand sewing instructions for a beginner like me, but I managed to pull it together in the end and I am ecstatic with the results. I'll have photos up once it's installed in Miss K's bedroom.

Today was also jam packed with activity, I took Miss K to get her photos taken by a professional today, which was an absolute disaster! To start with she was tired because I stupidly agreed to a sitting time that went over nap time, so she wasn't interested in sitting still and behaving herself for five minutes so we could get a nice picture. Then the photographer sat her on a chair that was too tall for her, and when she decided she had had enough of sitting down, she tried to get off the chair by belly flopping to the floor. I'm not certain how Miss K would have reacted if the photographer hadn't screamed when she did this, all of my family have long ago learned to not react to Miss K's tumbles until she does, and we have averted many tears in this way, however when someone new comes in, they don't always know this rule, and they react the way the photographer does, which is always guaranteed to make Miss K cry. That was the end of the photos for us, and just quietly I think the photographer was happy to see us leave. I'll pick the photos up next month, so I'll be interested to see if she was able to get any decent shots from us.

We also went out for tea tonight for my nephew's birthday, and then back to my sister's house for cake afterwards. It was a very enjoyable evening, and when we finally went home at 9 o'clock, I was actually disappointed that the evening had to end. But given that both Miss K and I were ready for bed it was a relief to get home and get into my jammies. My nephew's birthday isn't actually until Tuesday, so we'll actually get to celebrate it twice, and I've held off giving him his new Dr Dreadful set until Tuesday too, and I can't wait to see the look on his face when he realises he is now able to make zombie brains and eat them.

Well that's another week re-capped for now, I'm off to bed finally and glad to be going there too. I'll be back again soon as Miss K is almost completely better so I'll have a little more time on my hands this week. Although I think I will miss the extra cuddles I get from her when she isn't feeling a hundred percent. When she is healthy she is too full of beans to sit still long enough to hug her mother, so I take advantage of any extra affection any chance I can get.

This is why I shouldn't blog late at night

I can't believe it, I was in such a hurry to post my diary entry last night I forgot two of the biggest events of last week. Well it's not too late to let you guys know what's been going on I guess.

The first big thing that happened last week was that Miss K sprouted another two teeth. It explains why she has been so touchy the last week or so, and yet she has still been such a trooper about it. I would have expected a lot worse from someone going through cutting two teeth at the same time. The teeth she's cutting at the moment are her molars, but she hasn't even finished cutting all of her front teeth yet.

The other big thing that happened was another noticeable earth quake. It wasn't as big as the first one we felt, and it didn't go as long, but it definitely gave us all a shock. Apparently there have been over 200 tremors since June, but most of them are so small they pass by without us even noticing, but this is the third one I've felt. It's funny how quickly we've become accustomed to the earth shaking underneath our feet, mum looked up from her ice cream for a few seconds, then resumed eating, and I just walked slowly to Miss K's room once the quake was over to make sure she was OK. I guess we've all just accepted that this is going to be a part of life for the next couple of months, and as long as the house doesn't fall down around our ears, it's all good.

So I was a very busy beaver today, I finally got around to getting my tyre fixed this morning. It turns out I drove over a nail some months ago, and it finally had its evil way with my tyre and blew a hole in it. Luckily it was a quick fix and I'll organise to get it put back on the car tomorrow. I have to say that the tyre shop I went to were wonderful, the repair was surprisingly cheap, and they even rebalanced the tyre for me. I'll definitely be going back to them if I drive over another nail. I also organised to get my glasses picked up in two weeks, so I'm pretty excited that I'll be able to see better very soon. I managed to get to K Mart while I was up the street this morning and bought a cute foam jigsaw puzzle mat for Miss K's room, and we both had a lot of fun setting it up tonight before dinner. While I was there I also bought a new laminator and I'll be firing it up this evening to get the rest of my laminating completed which is pretty exciting.

Well that's me done for another day, this really was just another dear diary, but to mix it up a bit, I'll share a picture that was sent to me this morning on Facebook. I think that this was made just for Miss K, and it speaks volumes about her.

This happens to me several times a day, and it's never pretty.

Dear Diary The I hate technology edition

Were you guys worried that I wasn't going to do a diary today since I already posted this afternoon? Well fear not my intrepid readers I would never disappoint you. Besides who else will listen to me rant about my week?

It's actually a bit hard to do a diary entry tonight as I've spent a lot of this week telling you what was happening as it was happening, but I'm sure I'll be able to find one or two things I left out. It was my big sister's birthday on Tuesday this week, so I had the opportunity to go and visit her and give her chocolates, which I feel are an absolute must as a birthday present. (Hint hint). Miss K was given the opportunity to learn about moderation and self restraint, as she was given a whole bottle of chocolate milk to herself. But given that she is only 1 and doesn't understand either of these concepts she drank the entire bottle in about five minutes and gave herself a nasty stomach-ache. It took a couple of decent sized burps and a quiet sit down with mum before she was back to her normal self and able to play play-dough with her cousin.

As you have all no doubt read this week I have been madly creating things for Miss K's new bedroom, but things came to a grinding halt this evening when my laminator decided to chew one of my pages. It took mum and me an hour with a screw driver and a knife to pull apart the wretched machine to try and rescue my precious paper. Below is the end result of our work, and neither of us can figure out how to put it back together.

CURSE YOU TECHNOLOGY!!!!

So tomorrow will be spent buying a new laminator among other things. 

Miss K is her usual self, but with extra cheekiness thrown in for good measure. I mentioned in my earlier post that she spends a lot of time pushing my buttons at the moment, but she has learned a few new tricks that aren't as frustrating. For example, she can finally climb onto our couch which is frustrating, but only because she gets up there and jumps and I'm terrified she's going to nose dive into the coffee table one of these days. She has also discovered that when grandma stands in the kitchen and yells my name I get out of bed, so most mornings I am woken up by her yelling my name over and over again. She is still not walking by herself, but we go for walks together every single day, usually when I'm putting her high chair away, so I'm hoping she'll start taking steps by herself soon. 

Well that's it for another day, I have to get up early tomorrow morning to buy birthday presents for one niece and one nephew (why couldn't you have your kids more than a month apart big sister??) plus my little sister has a dentists appointment tomorrow (ha ha) and I have to drive her there so I'm going to be a busy beaver tomorrow. Till next time, stay awesome my wonderful readers. 

Let the redecorating begin!

I'm so excited, my new Dr Seuss books finally arrived in the mail this morning (at 7:30 in the morning thank you very much Mr Postman) so I can finally get started on redecorating Miss K's bedroom. I spent the past three days making a cartoon sign post for her wall out of coloured paper, and I've taken photos just so I could show it off here.

Ta Daaaa!

I'm pretty proud of this one, and I think that it will really help set the theme. I figured that before I did a big reveal on here, It would be a good idea to show you what her bedroom is now (or what it was when she was three months old, as that is when these photos were taken). 

So when I found out I was pregnant with Miss K, one of the first things I started thinking about was her nursery. Because she was such a little lady in utero and kept her legs crossed at all times, I was never able to get a 100% confirmation that she was indeed a girl, so I needed her room to be gender neutral, but pretty at the same time. I decided on a jungle theme because it could be both masculine and feminine, and it seemed like it would be fairly easy to pull off. Now I can't take any credit for any of the decorations in this room, because it was all done while I was in the hospital giving birth. My little sister very kindly painted the room green for me on the day Miss K was born (as I originally was meant to spend that day painting if I hadn't gone into labour a week early) and my big sister came in a couple of days before I came home and added in the rest of the decor. 

My sister hand cut that entire grass border, and it was long enough to cover two walls with some spare. She also hand made the flowers, butterflies and the sun and clouds. 

The flowers going up the wall were something that mum had lying around which she graciously donated to the cause, and the monkey was originally a gift I bought for my niece a few years ago, and she also kindly gave it back to me so that Miss K could enjoy it. I don't know how the flowers are attached to the wall, but they are attached good and proper and won't budge an inch, trust me I've tested it.

 The stuffed toys suspended to the left of this shot are actually hung from a giant lattice that was already in the room from when it was my little sister's. Sadly I never got a photo of that wall on its own, but all the animals hanging there can be found in the jungle, which is why I picked them. You can't really see it, but in the left corner there is a dark red rocking chair, which I still use to this day for Miss K's midnight feeds. This was originally something my big sister bought when she was pregnant with her first child. She painted and recovered it herself, and even painted and covered a gorgeous toy chest in the same material. I couldn't believe it when she allowed me to borrow it for my baby, and it is by far my favourite piece of furniture in Miss K's bedroom.

This was Miss K's play area back when all of her toys would fit into one plastic crate. These days they spread into three crates, a corner in our lounge room and also a small basket. And yet she would still rather play with grandma's newspaper any day of the week.

So there you have it, Miss K's old bedroom, soon to be replaced with something new and hopefully as gorgeous as this one was. 

Dear diary the Kerplunk edition

So my soundtrack to today's diary entry is the chorus of groans and clacks of a game of Kerplunk currently being played on the coffee table by mum and the kids. One of the babies has gone home, but the last two are still here waiting for mum and dad to come back from Melbourne (hopefully with junk food).

This week certainly was more eventful than the last few weeks combined, we have had a zoo of children keeping us entertained, I got heaps of decorations completed for Miss K's new bedroom and I even got a hair cut during the week. This was actually a big deal for me because it's been over 12 months since I've had anything done to my hair so there was a lot of hair sitting on top of my head before this week. I had decided that it was getting too long and heavy, and I was getting tired of having to deal with it so I got my little sister to chop off 6 inches of hair. I now have shoulder length hair and I feel about 5 kilos lighter too. I also get out of the shower about five minutes faster these days as I don't have to shampoo and condition so much hair.

Miss K has been gorgeous as always, this week she has started copying words that she hears everyone else say, and as a result she can now say get up, ding dong and no. She also takes great delight in shouting my name at the top of her lungs first thing in the morning to try and get me to come pick her up out of her cot and feed her. Given that I hate mornings, I usually stall her by yelling back at her for as long as I can before she throws a tantrum and I'm forced to get out of bed. She has also discovered that everyone laughs if she blows raspberries whenever we say someone's name, so we spend lots of time just repeating everyone's name so she will razz at whoever we've mentioned. I'm not sure if it's a good thing that we're just as easily amused as the baby is.

I also managed to get my hands on two copies of Dr Seuss' ABC book thanks to eBay, so once I've received them in the mail I can finally get Miss K's bedroom decorated. I know I keep promising that I'll have photos posted, and I have managed so far to take photos of the new quilt, which really doesn't look like much on its own, but here is the fruits of three hours labour.

Miss K's new quilt

My lovely niece was kind enough to be my model for this photo, and you can see her feet peeking out from the bottom of the doona. Unfortunately given that the blanket is almost as tall as her and quite heavy she couldn't hold it for very long so this is the best shot I could get.

Well that's another week summed up for you, Miss K is starting to cry for her dinner so for now I'm outta here, I'll see you next time.

Adventures in baby sitting, baking and sewing

I almost don't want to keep putting posts up here at the moment. You see last night's post was post number 69 for me, and given that that is my favourite number (for obvious reasons) I would love to leave it right there, just so that I can come back and giggle every time I see it. I never said that I was mature, in fact most people who know me would say that I'm the exact opposite.

So it has been an absolute circus at our house today, we had children in every corner of the house since mum and I seem to be the only people in the world who don't like doing things on weekends, we were the only ones who could be pinned down long enough to watch every child in our family. My big sister is very lucky enough to have a wonderful husband who has taken her to Melbourne for the weekend to celebrate her birthday, and my little brother and his wife were spending this weekend moving house, so to make sure their little girl was out of the way she came here and had a play date with all of her cousins. So a child in every corner may have been an over exaggeration, especially given there were only three extra kids in the house, but there were times when it sounded like we had a whole soccer team squashed into our lounge room.

Given that we had such a packed house today, I thought it would be a perfect time to prove that I could be domestic if I wanted to, by sewing a quilt cover for Miss K's new Dr Seuss bedroom, baking banana muffins for dessert, and making sure that Miss K's current bedroom was spotless when she went to bed. (This was no small task since she and her little cousin had spent a good half hour earlier in the day pulling every toy, book and piece of clothing out of it's home and throwing them on the ground.)

Out of all of these tasks, the one that proved the hardest was sewing a quilt cover. You wouldn't think that sewing a piece of fabric into a rectangle shape and attaching some snap buttons on would be so hard, but it actually ended up taking me about 3 hours to do all up. Of course I had lots of little helpers who were very curious as to what I was doing, and took great pleasure in walking and sitting all over the fabric while I was trying to measure and pin it. But the real problem was the fact that I have so very little sewing experience in my life, and I struggle to sew in a straight line. Add in tricky things like snap buttons and hems and I come completely undone. But I managed to get it finished in the end, and it is even big enough to put the quilt in, which is no small accomplishment for me given that I never have enough attention span to follow the old measure twice cut once rule.

So with all the really big jobs completed for Miss K's new bedroom, it won't be long before I will be able to put the whole thing together and watch her enjoy her new space. Of course I'll have photos up here very soon of the progress I've made so far. And given that I've managed to get everything done so far for about $50 I'm even considering going on eBay to buy some Dr Seuss books for the picture border, as I still can't find a second hand store around here that sells his books.

Well I'm off to bed now, as tomorrow is looking to be another busy day and I'll need my beauty hibernation if I'm going to be able to chase around a group of kids for another day. Stay awesome my wonderful readers and I'll be back again soon.

Dear diary the distracted edition

So I can't promise that this will be a cohesive blog tonight, as I currently have a hyperactive 23 year old sitting in my lounge room hyping up my incredibly active 1 year old, despite the fact that it is 11:30 at night and we should all be in bed.

So another week is over, and it seems that everything exciting is still happening which makes it hard to write about it, as I don't know how it ends. I'm pretty sure it will end in Miss K getting tired and crying until I put her into bed with Elmo. But right now she is sitting on the couch with my little brother and his partner, watching a singing cucumber. I can't even begin to explain this in any way that will make sense, so all I can tell anyone who wants to know more is go to YouTube and type in Silly Songs with Larry. There will be much silliness to be found once you have done this, including a song about teeth, as well as pirates who don't do anything.

Miss K and I went to my big sister's house for dinner last night with mum and one of my little sisters, we had a pleasant evening eating take out food, and all was very enjoyable except for the part when one of my fillings fell out of my tooth making eating slightly difficult. Of course these things always happen on the weekend which means I have to wait until tomorrow to make an appointment with a dentist. Miss K is also getting a cold at the moment, so there are times when she is whingy and clingy, but for the most part she is her usual exuberant self. I pulled out her guitar this week, so any time we go to her bedroom she insists on stopping to play a song for me. I love watching her strum away at the guitar, even though it's too tall for her to even carry around, but she enjoys it anyway.

I mentioned ages ago that I was going to change Miss K's bedroom around and turn it into a Dr Seuss room. Well for anyone who has been dying to hear an update on this (don't hide it, I know you guys too well) I have finally started making her decorations. I have found pictures from the book One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish and am turning them into paintings to hang on her wall. I'm also going to attempt to sew her a new quilt cover in red and white striped material so her bed looks like the Cat in the Hat's hat, and I'm also trying to find old books to tear apart and turn into a picture border for her walls, but for some reason no one ever gives their old Dr Seuss books to second hand stores these days, so this task is proving harder than I thought. I'll have pictures posted up here soon of the works in progress if I ever get around to taking them, and then once the project is finished, I'll be sure that you guys get to see it too. (Just because I know you're all on the edge of your seats wanting to know how it will look.)

Well that's another week's round up completed, it's not much I know, but if I told you absolutely everything I did this week it really would only take up another couple of sentences and would go along the lines of I chased Miss K around the house stopping her from putting everything in her mouth. Then I went to bed. So until next time, I'm going to stop Miss K from putting things in her mouth by putting her to bed. Then I'm going to bed. Stay awesome my wonderful readers and I'll be back again soon.