Secret Santa at Work.

To NeeNee, please pretend to be surprised when ( or should I say if) you get this prezzie for Xmas....

EV has been watching me embroider some panels for a quilt and she often helps me by adding a few stitches. Then she announced that she wanted to make her own embroidery for NeeNee. So we found a hoop and EV set to work.

It's a Xmas tree and Santa. EV chose to stitch in white (a copy of some of the monochromatic work I have been doing) but she has since swapped to using red for Santa. Which is far more interesting.

The progress is slow but very methodical. I'm actually impressed with how well she can stitch to her lines and how focused she is when working on it. With any luck it might be finished by Xmas. Unless it gets stitched to the couch again.

Back to the previous topic of "lovehearts", it was "Loveheart" Your Mountain Day for Mt Eden on Sunday, so we decided to go for a wander up the mountain. (I think I was vainly hoping that the walk might encourage the baby to arrive, but here I am still waiting for the baby to arrive). EV and dada were a bit faster than me. It was a stunning day.
  

Its so close to Xmas, and the photo below is from this afternoon at preschool. EV is about to have a candy cane to celebrate the end of year dance performance. EV loves dancing and was fantastic even when her dance partner had stage fright, the show went on.

Love Heart Baby

While we are patiently waiting for our baby to arrive EV made a card for me and the baby. It includes this cute picture of a "Loveheart Baby", with a heart for a head. Kawaii!

 And life goes on as usual, including swimming lessons...

 and a visit with Neenee and Poppop at "the farm".

 
tick tock.......

Santa's Grotto.

Dear Santa, 

This year EV would like a crown for Christmas please. 

Thanks. 

PS, she has been a good girl.

After putting up our Xmas tree (kind of early as I don't want to be decorating for Xmas while in labour) on Saturday EV wrote a brief letter to Santa with a drawing of the crown she would like.

Yesterday Neenee and I took her to see Santa but she was too shy to give the letter to him. EV loved visiting the grotto again and was very serious while we waited at the door to see Santa.

Santa was so kind and jolly and thought he might have a crown for a princess, so EV is pretty happy, not that you can tell from the photo. Visiting Santa is still a bit overwhelming.

This mama is happy at least a crown is easier to wrap than a hula hoop. Long may the simple Santa gift requests reign!

Catching Dreams.

Quite a while ago I had the urge to make a dream catcher for EV. I had it in my mind I would love to put one in her new bedroom. EV often talks about her dreams and that's where the idea of catching the bad ones came from. I had collected the materials we needed but hadn't got around to actually making one. Coincidentally EV's class at preschool had started talking about dreams and EV said "I'm going to make a dream catcher with my mama to catch the bad ones." then she drew a picture of her dream catcher and explained how it worked.

"I think my mum has wire. That's the round circle." According to EV the dream gets caught in the web and goes around the wire and down to the ground. In her drawing the red is the house, the blue is the moon and the yellow is the sun. She was so pleased with her drawing she took me to see it in her book.

Of course we had to immediately start on creating this dream catcher!

EV had a go but it was quite hard because I used a single thread of embroidery floss. After having a try EV decided to let me finish it and she became chief colour chooser and photographer.

It's a bit lopsided, but not bad for a first effort I think. After we finished the web I made little crochet nets to hold the crystals EV had chosen to dangle under the circle. I did forget to put a bead in the web, so I will have to fix that.
 

  But according to EV it's working quite well. Sweet Dreams EV!

Creative Minds.

The other day EV came home from school and was bursting to write a card to her friend Lucy, so she immediately started on it. It was to do with something about being invited to Lucy's birthday party. I wasn't allowed to know much more as it was very important and EV didn't want to be interrupted by Mama's questions.

Ages ago I mentioned that EV's preschool group were investigating "Babies Brains". They finally decided that they had come to the end of this investigation and have moved onto investigating "Dreams". Their collaborative model of a baby brain is now on show in the classroom. Here's a photo of the model. I love how their ideas developed and they incorporated switches and spirals and blood pipes in their model, all with strong ideas about why and how they work.

It will be interesting to see how their ideas about "Dreams" develop.

Princess Tiara.

EV went to a birthday party the other week. They had a great face painter and EV asked to be a Princess.

Its taking me ages to get photos off my phone it seems the software doesn't think my phone has an SD card, I need my technician to sort that out. However I have managed to get these ones off the phone. Including the ones of the haircut EV had prior to our holiday. Seems she wants long hair again because it's more princess like, of course.

 

Happy Spooky Halloween.

It's Halloween today, and EV went to school this morning as a ballerina. I'm not quite sure what EV thinks Halloween actually is, other than an excuse to wear a costume to school. But then again when you are 4 you really can wear a costume everyday if you like. EV likes to say "Happy Spooky Halloween" but when we took these photos she actually said "Merry Christmas"... well it's not long til Christmas!

When I woke up I realised I was Four!

EV celebrated her fourth birthday today! She got a pink scooter, she has been asking for one for about a year. Nothing like waiting for something you really want! Needless to say she was very happy.

EV also got to open a few parcels from friends and family, she loved her new Storio thingy from Granny and Papa, and her Hello Kitty necklace from Uncle D, Aunty J and the cousins. 

Dada and EV read a letter from our dear friends in Finland and EV was excited to receive some Moomin books!

Then we had a small birthday lunch. EV has been home all week with Chicken Pox, or Chicken Spots as she calls them. Because she was home we decided to make a big birthday cake. EV wanted a butterfly cake, so we made a Butterfly Garden. I think EV likes making things more than eating them, we have quite a bit of cake here for any visitors.

My favourite EV quote of today was when she was talking to her Papa in Scotland and she told him that this morning she woke up and then she realised she was Four! 

Such a big number to a little girl... only one more year till she starts school!

Lastly, a couple of photos from last week, when EV was hosting a party for her 'friends' on the deck.

Sunshine Holiday

So we've been back from our holiday for over a month and I'm only just getting around to posting a holiday blog. The real bummer of this is how much it makes me wish I was still on holiday! 

We love Sunshine Beach, apart from it being a sweet beach, one of our favourite friends lives close by and it's not in the middle of the madness that is Noosa Beach (although we ended up swimming at Noosa Beach a fair bit because it doesn't have the crazy surf that Sunshine Beach has). We rented a place to stay for a couple of weeks and chilled out, watched the whales swim by, ate our body weight in strawberries and best of all went swimming twice a day, every day.

This was our view of sunrise at Sunshine Beach on our first morning. I was up pretty early because of the time difference, but it was a nice way to wake up. EV joined me on the deck to greet the sun too.

 

We did a few morning walks along the beach. This set of shots gets a bit gratuitous but I do so love that early morning back lighting, and EV is a bit of a poser.

 

 

 

EV was distressed that this fish ended up on the beach, she wouldn't get any closer to it than this though.

 

EV wanted to have a pose on this log.

 

 

 

 

 

EV made herself at home, including sticking a sign to her bedroom door saying nobody was allowed in her room.

We got to spend some quality time with Uncle Jimmy (the disappearing man) and we got to meet gorgeous Little Honey.

I only wish we lived closer so we could cuddle this little honey every day! We miss you guys! XXX

We ended the holiday with a short stay at a resort and EV got to go kyacking with Dada. On our last day we woke up to find some mama Kangaroos having breakfast outside our hotel room. It was a pretty cool end to our holiday.