Hugo's Road Trip.

When Archie turned 6, Jonno took him on a road trip down the South Island to visit Uncle Todd. Now Hugo is 6 it is his turn. This is Hugo packing, we did actually say that he couldn't take his c.d. player in his back pack but I like how he took the cord off, carefully wrapped it and placed it in the front pocket. Note that Ted ted has a phone number written on a piece of fabric and sewn to his arm. If only I could do the same to Hugo....

In his traveling gear.

They are so excited!!!

Saying goodbye to Mum... By the way, can you guess which car is mine by the colour?

To make up for a quiet house, Archie and I have his cousins staying tonight. I made this Liberty bow for Rose and will make a little tutorial for it this week. She is great because she doesn't mind if I play with her hair.

Have a lovely weekend.

Lots of love,

Kate xxooxx.

Yellow and White

Is is wrong that I am looking forward to a drop in temperature just so I can wear this skinny, stripy cowl that I knitted last year....

Lots of love,

Kate xxooxx.

Head Bands.

Today is my cousin's birthday and it is one of my favourite birthdays as she always, always wants something handmade. This year she put in a special request for a knitted headband....

And I found this pattern on Ravelry. It was an absolute pleasure to knit although I made a couple of changes by knitting it with 4mm needles, 8 ply wool and making the button flap much longer.

She seemed to like it.

She was a little under the weather and so we thought just a headband shot would be kind. She does have a face which is actually very pretty.

By the way, my big boy is now a soccer player. He is wearing his shin pads under his socks. It doesn't seem very comfortable but that is how he has been dressed for the past few days. Pretty ace.

Lots of love,

Kate xxooxxooxx.

Skirts...

Today my neighbour came over to visit wearing this skirt. She bought it yesterday and all I can say is that I am sooo glad that I didn't go with her as there may have been fisticuffs. Isn't it the most wonderful thing you have ever seen.

I would even be happy to have it as wall paper.

She (Dominique) works in a second hand shop and saved these books from being thrown out. I have a phobia about cutting books up for collage but Dominique has a theory that if they are published in a condensed version by Reader's Digest they deserve to be cut up as books should never, ever be condensed. I buy that theory. Particularly if they are about to be thrown out even from the op shop.

This book will not be cut up - Archie is still very keen on learning the flute so it is probably time to think about investing in one.

I have almost finished the shrug - I can't wait to show you the final version.

I am so mad on these colours at the moment. I think they may be my favourite combination.

And here is a portrait Hugo drew of me this morning. I wear a lot of stripes. He has caught my new shoes perfectly - I had better take a photo of them tomorrow.

Anyhoo, time to knit...

Lots of love,

Kate xxooxx.

A Rainy Day.

Archie woke with a heavy cold this morning and was too snuffly to go to school. We are in the middle of a rainy patch at the moment and so, it seemed much more sensible for Archie to stay in bed for the day reading Harry Potter. I love how even during breakfast he still kept his eye on the book.

I have been a little under the weather too with an annoying ear thingy that pops up every now and again. A good day to snuggle up with Archie and crochet a shawl I am working on.

How lucky are we to be able to comfort ourselves with the making of such things.

This is the next colour I will be working with.

Archie made this over the weekend. I love it, such a peaceful place to live I'd imagine.... although tiny hidden swords may indicate otherwise.

Lots of love,

Kate xxooxxooxx.

Rabbits and Flutes and Other Sorts of Things.

I have had another order of Floss Bunnies from my friend Shar and as it is now Autumn, I thought some scarves would be appropriate. I have a rough pattern for them in my head but I like making each one slightly different, it keeps me sane.

Archie has had a wonderful week. He had his first flute lesson yesterday and has come home filled up with light. Here he is learning some chords from the Internet. What an age we live in.

I am blown away by how beautiful the flute is to look at, let alone to listen too. I have to say the hearing someone learning the flute is a radically different experience to hearing someone play the violin for the first time. Every sound that comes out of the instrument is lovely.... thank goodness.

Archie has his birthday party tomorrow - a small handful of friends down at the swamp for a spare rib barbecue. Apparently that's the way you roll when you turn nine. Aside from that, Archie has a big weekend of homework ahead of him. He has a major project due in the following week and he has begun to prepare by soaking paper in tea. The edges will be burnt in the morning for extra authenticity. I like stuff like that and fortunately, so does Archie.

Thank you so much for all of your comments on the new pink kitchen - they made me very happy! Many of you have asked for the paint details but I will do that post in a couple of weeks - it is a colour that I developed with the most amazing colour consultant at Resenes in Tauranga - it is available on their data base but it had a bit of tweaking and we need to change the makeup for it on their program.

Anyway, an early night for me before tomorrow!!

Lots of love,

Kate xxooxx.

Pink!!!!

The kitchen is now officially pink.

I ended up loving the colour so much it was very hard not to drink it straight from the can. I didn't and realised that was a wise decision when I accidentally wiped some on my tongue. I had to run the tap on my tongue for a long time.

Stanley's mother and her boyfriend seem to like the new kitchen.

It seems to work well with sweet pea flowers which is very important.

Wahoo!!!!

Around and About.

This weekend Jonno and I ducked away for a couple of nights (thanks to Jonno's parents) to the beach house (once again, thanks to Jonno's parents - they are such good sharers). This meant I could ride my bike!!!! Riding out to dinner, out for hot chocolate milks, out for bread - out for anything.

Aside from that, last week was a quiet recovery from the previous weekend. Hugo had a day off to ground himself after major birthday partying. He decided that we needed to set up a home school(!!!!!) and do some work on his sight words. I printed out two sets of words and spread one set around the floor, placing a marshmallow on each of them. Hugo had to match the other set but could only eat a marshmallow if he could read the word. Great incentive - especially because he hadn't eaten in three days (that's actually a fib).

I have been crocheting on the couch quite a bit over the past week - I've had another order for Floss Bunnies and have been very happy to sit down and 'work'.

Thank goodness Hugo's leftover party decorations will come in handy this weekend for Archie's party. That's the good thing about having their celebrations so close together. Archie's actual birthday isn't until the end of April which is buried in school holidays. It always seems better to catch one of the last weekends of term.

I've also had a little burst of enthusiasm around the house inspired by my pet tutu.

I painted our kitchen red almost nine years ago. I loved it for years but found over the past little while that it really sucked in light and was becoming overbearing. So now it is pink. Since the photo was taken I've painted two coats and have one left to do in the morning. It is so fresh and clean now, the light seems to ping about. It's so strange to wake in the morning to a red kitchen and go to bed with a pink one. That's just how some days seem to work out.

Lots of love,

Kate xxooxx.

Hugo's Polar Party!!!

Here we go - I have finally down loaded about one million photos to show you from Hugo's birthday party... This year it was all about the food with many requests (dare I say orders) from the almost six year old. Hugo wanted to be involved with lots of the making this year so for his cake, the boys and I made little fondant penguins. I have to say that it turned out to be a very good, child friendly project and we were all thrilled with the results. Between the penguins' feet, we popped in some little candy covered chocolate eggs so they would look slightly "Happy Feetish". It also made them taste better.

Hugo decided he HAD to make chocolates for his friends at school so we sprinkled hundreds and thousands into silicon moulds, poured white chocolate over the top and then popped in lolly pop sticks. Voila!

Because Hugo's birthday was the day before the party and the birthday cake was being saved for the next day, we had a fancy afternoon tea with lollies in cupcakes cases and specially iced melting moments with sprinkles. I love the circus motifs found on these cases.

To continue on with the polar theme, I made lots and lots of white chocolate lego men - they were all supposed to have scarves on made from royal icing but by this stage I was beginning to flag.

Funny to think that for Archie's first birthday party everything was homemade, nutritious and virtually sugar free. How things have changed... and for the better.

Hugo requested a boat cake with penguins and jelly - the boat was a chocolate cake with white chocolate icing. It was supposed to be cleverly iced with different colours however, it was a new, untested recipe and wouldn't stop running. In the end I abandoned my first plan and decided to make it a snow-bound wreck colonised with penguins. With the icebergs I cut my losses and covered them with royal icing (so much easier but nowhere near as tasty). I bought a snowflake cutter which made the snowflakes supremely easy and scattered them around the jelly at the last moment.

That's right, the cakes were immersed in jelly (ugghhh - the kids liked it though). Not having had much to do with the professional world of cake decorating, I was thrilled to find little pearly white balls that formed the most delicious snow. I like easy snow.

Hugo was a polar bear (although it was hard to tell as he didn't wear his cape for very long...) and I was an arctic hare. Anything to wear bunny ears.

Archie was an explorer of the antarctic. He is wearing his great grandfather's cap.

Dominique for next door made Hugo this pinata. It seemed such a waste to let little children beat it to death but fortunately Hugo found a use for it after - see photo below.

It was a good birthday.

And now would you believe that I am utterly exhausted and it is very hard to imagine how I am going to do it all over again in two weekends for Archie. Thank goodness Archie wants to spend his party in the swamp getting muddy with his mates... apparently our job will be to provide energy food and pelt them with water balloons. I can do that.

Lots of love,

Kate xxooxx.