Amanda’s Musings

I can’t believe it. My little baby girl is now three! Happy birthday Keziah!

We had the best birthday party today, it was so pink, girly and fun. Everything went smoothly and even the weather was perfect in the two hours I needed it to be. It actually rained in the afternoon but was sunny all morning. Our next door neighbours lent us a bouncy castle which was a big hit and the kids made little crowns and dancing ribbons. The cake came out pretty nice too, as did the other things I’d planned like the stripey jelly and mini cupcakes. It was all so much fun and I don’t even feel that tired. I’ll post photos from the party in the next post or this one will be too photo heavy.

I couldn’t resist a small timeline of the last three years to show you the progress. Also, take a look at the baby pic of Keziah at the top of the row and compare her to Lucinda - they are so alike!

This is Keziah on her second birthday

You can see my birth announcement if you go to this post on my old blogger blog.

It appears that the last time I did a Photo Friday Entry was last November! About time I did one again. Here’s my entry with this week’s theme of ‘relationship’. I think this is a great pic of a brand new relationship that’s forming and not to mention a bond:

Just wanted to share a couple of gorgeous pics of my girls.

My pea in a pod, Lucinda

My little artist, Keziah

This morning Keziah dragged me out of bed (literally pulled back the covers and put my feet on the ground and pulled) to take me to the whiteboard we have in our kitchen saying ‘Come On Mummy!’. When we got there this is the creation she spent the next few minutes drawing. I was so impressed and I videoed her as she did it. If you really want to see the video you will need to go to my facebook profile and view it there. Its quite a cute video but it goes for 7 minutes!

I think Kezi is going to be a creative kid, this is her version of bird that she did the other day:

At first she said ‘look Mummy, a boat’ and then she put two dots on the picture and said ‘a bird mummy’. I thought that was pretty good considering she’s not even three yet (not far off it, two weeks to go!). Here she is in action:

Most Saturdays my wonderful in-laws take Kezi for the day and we get a lot of things done that are easier without a toddler tagging along. She loves her days at Granny and Poppa’s place and always comes home happy. This morning Michael dropped her off and took Luci so I had the house to myself for a couple of hours. That’s a pretty rare thing so I took advantage and spread myself out on the floor with all my jewellery findings and handmade beads.

In November I’m taking part in two market events. The first is the Melville Baptist Church (our church) Fair at which I’ll be selling my polymer clay items. The money from all sales at the event go to local chaplaincy so keep November 1st aside if you are in Perth. The second event is November 15th, the next Made On The Left market at the Hyde Park Hotel in North Perth (this time my sales will go to the work of SIM around the world). This will be my first really big event. The only other event I’ve participated in where I’ve sold my wares live is at a Curves market night last year.

I have exactly 9 weeks before the first of these events so I’ve been trying to do as much time snatching as possible and create stock. If I don’t have to empty my Etsy, Wahmania and MadeIt online stores I won’t. 9 weeks seems like a good amount of time but not when I have to balance family life, SIM work, events, travel and a myriad of other things in between.

So, back to today. I think I spent about 4 hours or so in total making things and then taking photos (this time for my own records, not for listing in my stores) and then more time editing the pics and putting them on my flickr page.

I had a really great time today and in total put together 7 necklaces, 1 necklace and bracelet set, 1 bracelet, 7 pairs of earrings, 2 phone charms and 7 bookmarks. I also got to go through my current stock and separate what I think I can sell at the markets in November. Now, if I don’t get to do any more time snatching this week then I won’t be so stressed!

Here’s some shots of today’s results:

Bracelet

Dragonfly Earrings

Purple Pansy Dragonfly Earrings

Inspired by India Earrings

A hoard of Bookmarks

Oceanic Necklace and Bracelet Set

Seashore Necklace

Keyrings (made these the other day)

Anyway, I’m not planning on listing any of these in my stores BUT if you see anything here or on my flickr (where the rest of today’s work is displayed) then contact me and I’ll let you know my planned prices.

By the way, today was the last day for the money from my sales going towards the work of SIM with Pastors in Malawi, I’ll be putting up the project for September and October sometime this week and letting you know the results of the last two months. Thanks for reading my blog and for those who comment, I get a little buzz out of it every time so thank you! : )

A little while ago I bought a great matching t-shirt and romper set (from this shop) for the girls. The t-shirt says ‘I’m Lucinda’s big sister’ and the romper says (you guessed it!) ‘I’m Keziah’s little sister’. Today was the first chance I had to put them on them and take them out. We actually got to church today after missing a few weeks due to sickness or being away (second time I’ve taken Luci) and I wanted to keep the outfits for a ‘good’ occasion (as in one that doesn’t involve food or mess!).

I managed to find (by accident) a matching pair of courderoy jeans in both size ‘000′ and ‘2′ when I was at Big W the other week so they look so cute dressed the same at this age. I’m not sure that I’ll dress them the same too often but I was just glad to be able to do it this once (something to bring out at their 21st!). Anyway, here’s the end result:

My Mum reckons that little Lucinda looks like Kezi’s doll in that photo. Cute!

I was also able to put Luci’s new Bitty Booties on her and they only just fit!! I think she’s going to be tall like her sister.

Look what my lovely hubby bought me after all the sickness of the last few days!

I took some photo of the felt book so far and here it is. So far I’ve cut the pages out and pinned three;

Hopefully I’ll make steady progress!

Apricot blossom from our backyard

Since my last post both Michael and I have had varying versions of the virus that Keziah had all weekend. The last few days have been hard, I’ve had to dig very deep in order to handle the situation and I really do thank the Lord that Lucinda hasn’t caught either Kezi’s bronchitis or the virus. Amongst the trips to the bathroom, the piles and piles of washing and the sleepless nights Luci has been a very easy baby to have. She has slept peacefully most of the time and even went 6 hours between feeds on Sunday night (hasn’t done that since though).

I have even managed to get working on Lucinda’s felt book as I mentioned in a previous post, pinning down three pages already. Haven’t taken any photos of that yet but I will do later.

Its amazing how sickness sets you back so much. I had grand plans to spend the day at carousel shopping centre on Saturday as well as get working on the invitations to Kezi’s birthday party, our SIM display, my Polyclarific display and more over the weekend. I’ve done none of that, instead I’ve washed Keziah’s quilt and bedding at least twice (before wising up and putting her on a smaller mattress with just a mattress protector), our bedding twice and loads and loads of other washing. Oh the joys! Hopefully we can get back to normal in the coming days, whatever ‘normal’ actually is!

Well, what a weekend this has been. I have had very little sleep although last night was a lot better than the previous two nights. This was related more to Keziah than Lucinda. She has had bronchitis for the last week and then on Friday night around 1.30am she started throwing up! We think that she has a virus on top of the bronchitis and the health line people think that her system would be down a bit due to antibiotics hence making her more vulnerable to viruses. Poor little girl.

Usually I do all the night feeds and shifts and Michael will get up with Kezi (and now Luci) around 6-6.30am and let me sleep for a bit longer but on Friday night/Sat morn he had to take care of Lucinda and her feeds while I took care of a chucking up Kezi!! We were both wrecked by Saturday morning. It was all looking on the up until just after bedtime for Kezi last night when she was sick again so we did what we had done the night before and set her up in the lounge room so I could sleep next to her. Michael would have done that shift except that he was preaching this morning so really did need sleep! It all turned out ok because Keziah slept most of the night, wasn’t sick again and I actually got sleep between feeds.

I feel fully initiated into double parenthood now. Looks like I survived. : )

In between all of this I have managed a tiny bit of time snatching and creativity. I think it keeps me sane. Here’s the results from the last three or four days:

Some bitty booties for Lucinda, she only just fits them though!

Various pendants, beads etc… that I’ve made this week and varnished

Varnished a large group of pendants and beads (ready for an upcoming show - stay tuned!)

I have realised that I have a lot on my plate for the rest of the year. Between my SIM responsibilities (newsletter coming out soon, emails, admin and working on our display for upcoming events), Creativity and my shops (I have 2-3 actual physical market stalls before Christmas), Home life (the usual cleaning, kids stuff, feeding Luci etc etc…, buying presents, arranging Kezi’s birthday party for next month etc…) and church life (I’m yet to get as involved as I’d like, I was either away or pregnant for most of our first year at our new church!), I need to be organised. I’m happy though to be no longer pregnant and able to have a reasonably clear brain again, its good to be busy!

Walking around the shops today someone asked me what my baby’s name is. This happens often of course as people always smile and ‘awwwww’ about newborns when out and about. You know you are sleep deprived when you are asked this question and you draw a blank. It probably only took me about 3 seconds to answer her but I looked at little Luci and I just couldn’t remember her name. This has never happened to me before! Poor Lucinda.

Shopping today gave me a few interesting experiences. That was the first of them. The second was walking past a lady pushing a trolley with a 2 yr old in it and the toddler was munching away on….a full sized cucumber!! Both ends had been gnawed away at. I have never seen a child do that before! I wish my child would, I do hope it was a burpless cucumber. : )

The third thing I saw was something that I was say is one of my pet peeves. A very young and distracted Mum walked past me pushing her pram and it was clear that the bub was a newborn. She had the wrap all around the baby’s top half, feet were sticking out the bottom uncovered and she had his bottle propped up letting him ‘feed himself’. This really REALLY annoys me. I just don’t understand how anyone can just let a newborn guzzle away on a bottle without holding them. I see it as dangerous, can’t they stop for 10 minutes and feed their bub. So sorry if you do this and think its ok, just one of my pet peeves.

The last thing I experienced at the shops today was memorable. The shopping centre had set up TV sets around the place and had it set to the olympics. I noticed that a small crowd was forming around the TV so I parked the pram near the group to see what they were watching. It was the women’s swim medley (no idea which one) and Australia was winning. The crowed got quite a bit thicker by the end of the race but strangely enough it was a silent crowd, as if everyone was holding their breath. Then, we won!! It was quite odd as everyone broke out into applause and cheered and then someone at the back yelled out the ol’ ‘Aussie Aussie Aussie!’ slogan. Within about 10 seconds the crowd disbanded and everyone went back to their shopping. It was a nice feeling to share the win with everyone, but so strange at the same time.

Have you had any odd shopping experiences lately? Feel free to share in the comments.

When Keziah was born I made her a few special gifts. Some were hand sewn, some knitted and some were painted. I am determined to do the same thing for Lucinda. I really don’t want her to grow up thinking that I didn’t have time to make her special things. On the top of the list is a hand stitched felt book. In order to see what I mean you have to pay a visit to my old blog. Here are the links:

Keziah’s Felt Book
Malachi’s Felt Book

A page from Malachi’s book

A page from Keziah’s book

The second book I did was for my little nephew Malachi and his had an Aussie theme. I had a great time designing these as I went. Now my plan is to come up with one for Luci and one for Malachi’s little brother (my second nephew) Ty. This will be a work in progress for a little while and I will attempt to do the two at the same time! I did make a start today at last by pulling out my large pieces of felt and seeing what I’ve got. Turns out I’ve got a lot! So here’s the first shot in a long WIP!

I just love bright colours, especially when it comes to kids things so I couldn’t help but take some extra pics of the felt all lined up.

I have no actual plan as to the theme for these two books, usually I just work it out as I go so it will be interesting to see what they turn out like this time.