Two Birds with One Stone

As per special request by Tahlia :) A shot of the bump and Charlotte.

This is a month old - taken on my birthday just before we went out for the yummiest dinner at Koh-ya in the City.

32 yrs,
3 yrs 3 mths 1 day &
30 wks

1st Day of Dancing for 2012

Don't fall off your chairs!! I'm posting...a shock to the system after almost two months of silence, I know....

This week was Charlotte's first week back at dancing, so we had the (now) annual photo of her on her first day by the barré in the studio...

2012

2011

As soon as I stood her by the barré, she started doing pliés!!

Canvas update!

Just thought you might all like to see how the canvas turned out after I asked for everyone's opinions in this post.

Right after I posted that Snapfish had a 50% off special on their canvases, so I hopped on and ordered one quick! Now I am completely up to date...until Baby O arrives in March and we do the newborn shoot in April :)

And here is the subject posing with her latest canvas (no show without punch in this house...I'm surprised I managed to snap it without the dog sticking is nose in the shot, too).

I love it - just need to get some more 3M velcro strips to get it up on the wall...which will be this weekend's job.

Getting Arty...

As anyone that knows me in real life will know...I am not what you would call "Artistic". I can't draw to save myself, I have no talent in putting colours together and the closest to art I come is enjoying colouring in (as in colouring in the kids colouring in pages :P ).

So it surprised me when Charlotte started drawing faces on her blackboard/whiteboard and paper...completely out of the blue. And definitely not something I have taught her!

The little green bits on the pink circle are ears...and the pink line down the side is an arm/hand.

Not saying she's a child-genius artist, but its a start...and completely on par with my current ability to draw people/faces. Hahaha!

Unwelcome Guest

We're normally very excited to receive house guests...but only the kind with 2-4 legs. Anything over that is considerably less exciting.

Such as....

I'm not sure if the true size of him can be fathomed from this photo...but all I can say is that our cornice is not that narrow...therefore this guy was rather large.

It took The Husband a few minutes to work out a plan of attack (and a few practice swings) to make sure that he was 100% going to be able to smack it...while leaving enough room for it to fall to the floor and not on him or the chair he was standing on...and smack it well enough to kill it on the first shot.

And then when he did...the dirty little guy (spider, not husband) left yukky blue stuff on our wall. Blerk!!!

Dance Recital

Earlier this month Charlotte had her end of year Recital for dancing. Her class (the Tiny Tots) did three dances in each show and they performed a matinee show and an evening show...so a total of six dances all on one day! Quite the ask for a 3 year old!

We're still waiting to see the photos taken during the actual Recital but here is my little Flower Pot (that's what the Tinies were). Excuse the quality...it is a photo of a photo as the CD hasn't arrived, yet.

The "wings" on her back are actually the petals of a flower - very cute. We purchased the costume for her so she can be a flower pot any time she likes :D

She did remarkably well (for her age). No tears, tantrums or freak-outs. She participated fully in each and every dance and excelled at the "blowing kisses and running off stage at the end" part ;)

Sewing: Kindy Sheet Set

I've (finally) started to get my sewing mojo back!

A couple of weeks ago I went on a fabric-shopping trip with the lovely Leonie. We managed to knock off three fabric shops (and it wasn't just a pit stop in and out, trust me!!) in a morning.

I also managed to de-stash some furnishing fabric in Leonie's direction....which was great as I definitely filled that space in my fabric storage with my purchases from the day :)

The cheapest find for me was the lovely red gingham I picked up for $3.95 a metre. Perfect to jazz up the Kindy sheets that I had to put together for Charlotte's Kindy Sheet Set! And I've still got lots left over....so if Baby O is a girl there might be a cute pinafore in the making for next summer :)

The Sheet Set was super easy to put together. I had an old winter-weight sheet in my fabric stash which I made into a large bottom sheet and a shorter top sheet. Sewn together at the bottom with elastic across each corner of the bottom sheet so that Charlotte can easily hook it over her wee mattress at Kindy.

Then I popped a strip of the gingham across the top of the top sheet and (when I get back to Spotlight to get more vilosofix!!) I'll put a wee appliqué on that panel, too.

Next was a pillow. I have a lot of batting in my fabric stash so I whipped up a small case out of some left-over summer-weight sheet I had hanging around and stuffed it so it was nice and plump. Then put together a cute wee gingham pillow case with an appliquéd "C" on it. I had *just* enough vilosofix to squeeze the C on!

Last was a bag to put it all in - just a simple drawstring bag in the red gingham. Again - appliqué to follow...

Voilà! She's so pleased with it (which is all that you can ask for when you're hand-making stuff for your kids!) and it is completely different from anyone else's in her class so (theoretically) it should be hard to lose!