Back in the saddle again

Storm bought me a sewing machine a few years back for christmas. I wasn't really inspired to do any sewing until now....

On one of my trawls of the blogs I came across a tutorial for a kids outfit made from a man's T-shirt. It looked interesting and easy enough so for my first foray into sewing since god know's when I launched into sewing an outfit for Sydney.

Now, it has been a while since I last created anything "stitched" so it took me 2 attempts to get it right with the lace. For some unknown reason I also decided that it was silly to refer to the actual tutorial and worked it out from my addled brain. I had to make some changes to adapt around some of my mistakes but as long as you don't look too closely it should work. The tutorial included a pair of pants with it but I decided to cheat and make a skirt instead.

It's cute and a good start to my sewing addiction.

I made this little flower thingey because it looked a little bare around the neckline. Overall, I'm happy and have learned a lot for the next project.

My Aussie kids...

So, I just wouldn't be an Aussie if I didn't introduce my kids to Vegemite. It is the choice of toast covering for my breakfast everyday. As a kid I had 2 slices of toast with Vegemite and a cup of tea. As an adult I have continued but the tea is now coffee.

Mind you I have been known to mix it up with this perennial favourite of mine. For example, I believe that 2 slices of toast, topped with butter and Vegemite, a fried egg for each slice and tomato sauce (ketchup for the yanks amongst us) scares the yukky feeling of a hangover away! (Add a choccy milk and I am in serious blissdom....)

For lunch a cheese and Vegemite sandwich rocks as does a Vegemite and honey sanga for an afternoon snack. Vegemite is a wonderful addition in a gravy and adds flavour beyond compare to a Sao (Aussie savoury biscuit!) or vitaweats to make worms (Aussie thing - too hard to explain!). It's no wonder that I didn't hesitate to introduce my kiddies to the wonderful world of Vegemite.

I am so proud to say that my kiddies love it as much as I do. They pounce on their lunchtime special everyday with gusto and such zest. It tugs my heartstrings!

 It's messy work eating Vegemite...

P.S. I cannot tell you how impressed I am with blogger that they actually have Vegemite in their spellcheck!

Another purchase

We also bought a bean bag today for the girls. Sydney is not so keen on it but Kendall was having a ball in it. Storm kept throwing her into it and she kept reaching out for him to get him to do it again. It was a gigglefest for her.
So cute.....

We have to let out some beans as it really is quite full and the effect that you usally get from landing on a beanbag, well, you just don't get it from this bag. I don't think that the 26+lbs that Kendall is will flatten them out anytime soon so we'll let some out tomorrow (very carefully of course...)

BTW: 13 days AND counting.......

Garage sale finds

Storm and I haven't been garage "saling" since god knows when (definitely since before I fell preggers with the girls) so it was quite a surprise to me when he agreed to go one this morning whilst we were running errands with the girls.

I had been on Craigslist last night (just looking for nothing in particular etc) and had seen a description of a garage sale that sounded interesting. It was close to home and I kinda knew where it was so we just headed up to it rather than heading straight home.

I'm happy with the $15.50 that we spent. Check it out...

This was $10. It's a wine cabinet thingey. Stands about 3 feet tall.

Storm spied these next things the minute we pulled up. A buck a-piece! I put the glass cleaner bottle next to them so that you can get an idea of size. Really happy that I can decorate them for Halloween with creepy crawly stuff (cue spooky muzak) or fall stuff or Christmas stuff. Or just put candles in them even....

(The ones at the back weren't cleaned at time of photo taking time)

I also spied this little beauty. I'm not sure exactly what it was but it's a galvanized chest with leather handles. It has 6 compartments in it and will be perfect for crafting projects. She had $2 on it! I will paint it and use my cricut for lettering. Oh the possibilities!

Now I was lucky that my friend Carole came around to the house today. We decided to head up to my (read oh! so!) favourite store RODWORKS so she could check it out. I had spoken about it often and knew that she would absolutely die for some of the stuff that they have up there. Well she did. The prices are so fantastic so I (of course!) bought stuff. Most of it Halloween items ranging in prices from $1.95 to $3.95. I've stored it in my new crafting box (you can see it in the compartments above! I'll reveal more once it comes to time).

The item that I was after the most had been discounted to $17.00 and I got the second last one ( a lady took the last one whilst I was putting the one that I got onto the counter). I'm so happy with my set of pumpkins that I put them on top of our new wine cabinet thingey.

This is one of the Halloween decorations that I got. I just couldn't resist hanging it up. It's the cutest black, glittery owl perching on a twig. So cute and only $3.95! Love it!

Can't wait for fall now and the decor changes that it will bring. Sigh.....

P.S. Just in case you were counting, the total came up to $15.00 and I told you that we spent $15.50. Well, I also got an Elmo DVD for the girls for 50 cents. Can't forget the girls!

What's bin happenin'?

So, it's been a while since I last posted so I thought that I would give an idea of what the Kulhan Family have been doing. (Cue crickets chirping...no not really). I'm on the laptop and the pics are on the PC so you'll just have to read.

Well, as always our business is a top priority. Kerri has been away enjoying family and friends in Kansas and Candice has been prepping for her first of two sales trips this month (Storm will be joining her on the second in Orlando - I know again? These conference organizers seem to stick to the same places all the time. We used to love going to new places. Come on people try Wyoming or Montana! Never been there.) We're on our way to deadline again and we're well ahead of schedule this time which is nice. We've got the business consultant looking over everything again and we're waiting for her recommendations and Storm continues to come up with brilliant ideas on how to improve processes etc.

We've both been exercising and eating right which is great. We made a conscious decision that we didn't want to be fat parents so we're doing all we can to be healthier, fitter and generally happier with ourselves. Remember "Happy wife, happy life..." I'm just not sure how to extend that to "Happy mummy and daddy, happy life" (just doesn't cut it!).

The weather has been slightly better in the afternoons so the fur-babies have been enjoying some time out of the house as well. The girls are also digging the walks and sitting up at the park on the rug, watching the dogs in the dog park, eating their fruit. They've been sleeping better which is a nice change. I still have to get up a couple of times in the night to attend to Syd (the dummy issue) but my attending is short and it's straight back to bed.

We've tried to get out a lot more lately as well. We've done a lot more errands with the girls in tow. We did go to The Secret Garden and dolphin habitat at the Mirage on the weekend. Talk about a disaster (will show pics and give more details in a later post). But the gist is that Kendall decided to scream her head off the minute we left the air-con of the hotel, all through the things to look at (yes the dolphins freaked her out massively) until we got back into the air-con. Now I'm not sure if it's the heat, the crowds or the animals (or the naptime adjustment that we're still fine tuning) but it just didn't work. I just hope this doesn't happen in Hawaii.

2 WEEKS TO GO!!!!!!!!!! Counting it down with only 15 more sleeps.......

Something new to do!

Well, I've finally joined a Mommy and Me group. I went to the open house today and met up with some of the volunteer moms and was happy with what I saw/heard. I think that the girls will really benefit from being exposed to other kiddies and me? Well, getting out of the house won't hurt me either.

The funny thing is that their membership year goes from Sept. 1st to Aug. 31st and costs $50 for the year - sorry that's not the funny thing! They wanted to charge me $20 for membership from now (Aug. 17th) to Aug. 31st. Apparently, it's in their bylaws that the pro-rated fee is that much. (I didn't say it was funny ha-ha!) 

Now don't get me wrong - I'm not that cheap but it was the principle of the thing. So I paid the $50 for the 2010/2011 membership year and went to visit Kerri since I was kinda, sorta in the neighbourhood.

So, I've also realized that I'm not ready for the girls to go to one nap during the day. At the moment they're moving towards dropping the afternoon nap (unconventional I know!). For some reason they still adore the morning one (me too!) and can sleep sometimes for 2 1/2 hours without a peep! I'll try to see if I can sway them from the 9.30am nap and hold them out until midday/1pm-ish. Perhaps they'll sleep longer and mummy can get some work done ('cause right now my desk looks like several bombs have hit it and things are starting to disappear under the piles, never to be seen again I fear!).

Now I want you to know that I have tried to explain to them that mummy needs her "naptime-time" but right now they're refusing to comprehend what I am saying. (How rude!)

Have I mentioned how anxious I am for autumn (fall for you yanks!)? I need this incessant need for air conditioning to go as my throat is dry and itchy as are my eyes. Today was muggy as we had clouds and almost, I mean almost, got some rain. Well, alright I am exaggerating as all it was that the sun got blocked by some clouds. It got our hopes up though. Oh well, maybe one day (sigh....)

So, I am still having the sleeping issues. However, last night wasn't as bad as the other (I fell asleep after 2am) but fingers crossed I fall asleep faster tonight (Storm has his fingers crossed as I'm turning into a real wenchy during the day!) More coffee please!!!!!!!!!

24 DAYS TO HAWAII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yay.

Update on bored and not tired...

FYI - I couldn't sleep until 4-ish this morning. Yes, the last time I looked at the clock was 3.54am. So you can imagine how much fun it was today with Syd waking up early and in a mood and not napping for her morning or afternoon nap. I'm not sure how I can impress to the girls that mummy needs their nap time. I mean really needs it!........