narrating kayoz

It's all over (or, Gingerbread house - the Before and the After)

A busy, busy day with seven kids in the house

Shopping done. Check.

Kids fed (several times). Check.

Gingerbread house put together. Check.

Friend's four kids arrived for the afternoon. Check.

Healthy slice baked for afternoon tea. Check.

And eaten (along with watermelon). Check.

Dinner prepared with something to like for all 7 kids (hopefully). Check.

Craft done, friend's kids with something to take home for Christmas (some of them anyway). Check.

So are the kid's Christmas presents for their grandparents made? Nope. One day left...

{This Moment} Putting up the Christmas Tree

Inspired by SouleMama: {this moment} - A Friday ritual. A single photo - no words - capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Pop over to SouleMama for more moments.

'Tis the season to be Jolly (and we are!)

I am really enjoying this Christmas season, and Christmas school holidays (so far), more than I remember doing in a while. I mean, I'm always a bit of a Christmas tragic: my birthday comes right beforehand, and there are the summer holidays as well - when you're a kid, I'm talking - so how could this time of year help but have good associations? Not to mention the simple pleasure of longer days and growing gardens.

But in many of the past ten years I've either been pregnant, or had a baby, or recently had a miscarriage or - something! Well not this year. This year my youngest child is old enough that she is currently playing outside in a bit of sand with minimal supervision (not that that will last long, but still...), I'm well and not pregnant, and also not working!

Of course, it helps that I've had my fabulous sister-in-law Grace here for the past week (she left this morning, boohoo), who is just a pleasure to have as a house guest. She's both lovely and interesting in herself, and she loves and is loved by the children, making the transition from school to boring old home very easy for them (and for me). But honestly, even without Grace, I am so glad Liam & Mikaela finished school last week. Most of the schools in Canberra only finished yesterday, and while I get that that's great for working parents, it doesn't leave a lot of time to get into the Christmas spirit.

Not that we've done half the creative, fun, Christmassy projects I had planned for this week. Homemade presents for the rellies anyone? The kids were too busy having fun with Auntie Grace, and who could blame them? But we did make jam (okay, I did, but Mikaela helped a little), last week, and the kids made some christmas decorations out of playdough, which we baked and painted. We'll probably use them to decorate their presents for the grandparents, but they are a bit too lame to be the presents. But there's still tomorrow right?

Oh, and we have half-way made a gingerbread house, which I promised Liam we would do this year.  So far it looks like this:

We made the dough yesterday (based loosely on this recipe, but with lots of changes which I may document sometime), refrigerated it over night, then rolled out and baked today. Now it has to sit overnight again to harden up, so the plan is to put it together and decorate tomorrow. But I think I'm looking after four extra kids tomorrow (all between 3 and 9), so it may have to wait until Saturday. Well at least it will be fresh to eat on Christmas Day!

There would have been a whole lot more extra dough to make stars and so on, but the girls were 'helping', so there wasn't that much left! Actually, Eliane wasn't even trying to help, I just gave her dough to play with at the table to keep her out of our hair, and replaced it every time she ate it! But don't worry, Mikaela got her share too :)

I must say, the decision in my family to skip presents for grown-ups has really made Christmas a lot less stress. I was probably one of the hold-outs for presents - I am one of those weird people who's always loved Christmas shopping - but with three kids, time is at a bit more of a premium! So we buy presents for the kids (my three, my sister's one, and my brother's one - though he's only new this year!), and my kids make presents for the grown-ups (with a little help, admittedly), because I don't want them receiving without giving, but that's just fun really. I'm not going to say what they're giving this year though because my Mum read's my blog, and besides, they still have some work ahead of them!

Christmas is coming... (or, Making Felt Christmas Angels)

Now that we're home I am looking around and realising how close Christmas is getting! By this time last year I was already nearly finished making my Advent Calendar/String which opened up into this felt nativity set I made.

I was thinking of adding to that set this year, but while we were away we had a flood in our converted garage/spare room which had all my felting supplies in it. Although they didn't get wet, the flood happened a while before we came back and so everything - I mean, everything - was mouldy.

It was a gross thing to come back to and made me sooo grateful for our contents insurance. Quite apart from replacing what we lost, having someone else to come in and assess what was salvagable and pack it up, and take away what wasn't, was worth every cent of the premiums!

I did make these little angels while I was in the States, to make a mobile for my brother's baby (I forgot to photograph the finished product), and I've got enough of the wool roving I bought over there to make another angel, but that's not going to fill another advent calendar.

I will get money to replace the felting supplies I lost, of course, but not in time to make more for this Christmas. I guess we'll just have to set up the nativity scene this year without the Advent String, but if I make another angel I'll make a bigger one for the tree and maybe photograph the process for another step by step tutorial.

I made this larger one in the school craft group earlier in the year for their Spring Fair sales, but that was slightly more complicated than these two and used a pipe cleaner for the arms.

 

The Girls Pose at Golden Gate Park

We're back in Australia now, after seven+ weeks overseas, but I will be posting a few photo-moments from the trip over the coming days. This is near the end, when we went up to the City (SF) to visit Golden Gate Park, which we have never done before.

The trip consisted of roughly a week in Barcelona, a week in a village called Pyles, on Greek Island, Karpathos, a week in New York City and the Pocono Mountains in Pennsylvania combined, then three weeks in California with a side trip up to Portland Oregon. Except somehow all that added up to seven weeks, not six, plus travel time (32+ hours from here to Barcelona and 24+ hours from Berkeley to here).

I made notes and wrote whole posts on my iPhone as we went, which I will be gradually posting at narrating kayoz goes travelling over the next few weeks (I think I managed to get all of two up during the trip).

Happy New Year!

I was not planning to stay up to see the new year in, but it's only 19 minutes to go now, so if I keep faffing about on this computer for much longer I will... Anyway, Happy New Years to all, and may 2011 be blessed for you.

And here's a gratuitous Eliane pic, just because it's a good way to begin the new year.

Gratuitous Eliane: putting up the Christmas tree

Watching:

Playing with Dad:

Contemplating:

Posing:

Making felt nativity sets (with step by step instructions for the Shepherds)

Even though I have the advent string up now, and we've been unwrapping an item each night and adding it to the nativity scene, I still have a few parcels left to add to the string. I decided to keep the Mary and Joseph figures out from the beginning, and build the rest of the set around them, so I need two more people to open in the last week, so I figured I'd forget about the angel (or just make it an extra one) and make the three kings.

Of course, I didn't have the materials for them, so I've just ordered a bunch of prefelt and whatnot from Fibre Fusion. But now, because I wanted a different colour for each of the kings, I think I've got enough for about a dozen nativity sets!!

Here are the instructions for how to make a Shepherd (much the same for Mary & Joseph, though with an extra prefelt cloak layer, and I'm assuming for the kings, though I've ordered some gold "silk tops" (I'm not exactly sure what that means, should I say a gold silk top?) which I'm expecting to be able to use either as the clock or around the head as a sort of crown, to distinguish them from the shepherds).*

Materials (per shepherd): 1 piece of wool batting, around 12cmx8cm, a smaller rectangle of coloured prefelt (ideally a different colour for each shepherd), some fleece for the hair and cloak, and a piece of string, about 10cm long.

1. Roll over the long edges of the wool batt, about 1cm towards the middle. If you have three pieces of batting the same size and you want three different sized shepherds, just vary how far in you roll the sides.

2. Roll up from the end like a sushi roll:

3. Tie the string approximately 2 cms from the top to make the head. Choose the best area for the face and gentle pull the wool up a little and over towards the back of the head:

4. Fold the rectangle of prefelt over to fit the body. Wrap around the body with the fold facing out:

5. Attach garment together using needle and thread of a felting needle** (shown). Be sure to join the top and bottom of the garment well. Trim the bottom if necessary or tuck it under.

6. Select the hair/beard and cloak (ideally you will have a different colour for each shepherd), and attach with your felting needle:

7. To finish, round out the bottom to ensure your shepherd can stand by spreading out the inner roll or adding a little fleece. Use your handy felting needle to adjust until you are happy.

8. Find a "crook" in your garden (mine are old curly bits from a grapevine) and tuck through the cloak.

(Sheep are made as per instructions in The Nature Corner: Celebrating the Year's Cycle with Seasonal Tableaux.)

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*These instructions are adapted from the ones we were given in playgroup, but I can't credit them because they were hand written by someone at the school and I'm not sure who that someone was.

**This link tells you what size felting needle is ideal for different purposes but for this I just used a 36 or 38 gauge needle - whichever I happened to pull out - for all of it, and that seemed to work.

This post has also been linked in Just Something I Whipped Up Christmas edition at Project Inspire.

An Australian Advent wreath - celebrating Summer Solstice and Christmas together

 

Made with grape vines, which are traditionally used in summer solstice wreaths, and of course beautiful Australian bottle brush.

In Christian terms the advent period is about preparing for the coming of Christ, which can also be said as the coming of the light. In Northern Hemisphere Pagan terms, advent is also about preparing for the coming of the light, since this period is the lead up Winter Solstice, after which the days start getting longer again, as the sun begins its journey back.

However here in the Southern Hemisphere, we are perparing for Summer Solstice, which is about fertility and vitality and warmth and healing. But it's also the beginning of the darkness to come, as the days get shorter after midsummer, so our advent candles represent not only hope, joy, peace and love (as they are often said to in the church), but also the lengthening of the light leading up to the longest day, the Solstice (except, we'll have all the candles alight on the 25th not the 21st, but that's close enough, for our purposes).

Whirlwind week in Melbourne

I've just been in Melbourne for a week, and would love to blog it all properly, but when is there time?

We hadn't been down there as a family for four years, and sometimes it seems like we have more friends in Melbourne than we do here, so it was a bit of a hectic week. I would have liked to stay for longer, but when you are imposing on friends with your two children - well, it's a whole different thing to when you could just crash on the couch without much impact. So a week seemed about the limit. Not to mention that we had someone house- dog-, cat- and chicken-sitting for us, and they had to leave yesterday.

Anyway, during the week we managed to get to Scienceworks, with the family with whom we stayed, swim in the Yarra with some other friends who live out at Kangaroo Ground, tour the Children's Garden at the botanic gardens with a friend we stayed with for a month back when Liam was a baby and who now has a two year old of her own (and I highly recommend the gardens to anyone with youngish kids, but take a change of clothes and a towel!), have a picnic with a friend, a play & a coffee in Fitzroy Gardens with Chris's brother and partner, and brunch at a lovely cafe out at Belgrave with my sister and family. We also got to spend quite a bit of time with my sister and her new baby, and of course with the people with whom we stayed. They have a Liam too (although theirs is ten), and while there was a little friction towards the end (our Liam got upset and felt forgotten when their Liam had a sleepover with another friend), they got along really well, and ten-year-old Liam was very sweet to six-year-old Liam, especially when he realised about the forgotten feeling.

It was very hot though. Maybe next time we do Melbourne we should pick a different time of year, we always seem to be there in Summer.

Firecracker night

Kaely and I are sitting in the study hiding, while the rest of the family (including Pa and Nanna) is outside setting off fireworks and sparklers. Mikaela does not like fireworks.

Three best moments of December 25

My three favourite moments of today:

1. When Mikaela woke up this morning and came out to the living room (that is, I carried her out): Liam was desperately trying to interest her in her Santa presents, but all she had eyes for was the Christmas tree, put up by us last night and decorated by Liam while we slept in (till 7:30). She was too busy oohing and aahing over it and the pretty wrapped presents under it to be interested in new toys.
2. When Liam disappeared after lunch, while the rest of us were still at the table: I wondered what was keeping him occupied, and when I went to find him he was quietly drawing and painting (with glitter paint pens) with the new super pack of drawing stuff his Pa gave him. Seeing Liam quietly occupied is not all that common!
3. Driving home late enough (after 9pm) to see the Christmas lights and listening to Liam point them out to Mikaela, and Kaely fairly sing with the pleasure of seeing them.

Okay, opening all those lovely pressies was fun, and the food! Yum. Oh, and the lavish praise for the gingerbread house Liam and I made was rather nice too. But those were my favourite moments.

Holidays with children

We went to the coast last weekend, after driving up to Sydney during the week for a funeral (and to visit a friend of mine and her baby). We were away for a eight days total. I won't say it was a total nightmare, although the fact that it was 38 degrees on at least one of the coast days (and unbearably hot and humid the whole time) and that Liam, Mikaela and I all got mildly sick during the course of the week and Mikaela was teething (she finally got her first tooth last Sunday) didn't help. Actually the first half of the week - a lot of which was spent in the car - went surprisingly well.

However, it wasn't a holiday I'll be wanting to repeat in the near future. I composed this little sort-of haiku one day when I was trying to get Kaely to sleep in a hot airless room:

Family holiday

Unbearable heat, mosquitos

No flyscreens, no cooling, no TV

No play dates

Summer hell

My relaxing beach house fantasy

I left out the best part of our coast trip, which was the day trips down to Mossy Point (20 minutes South of my MIL) to hang out with my cousin and his family. They were staying in the house I grew up visiting for holidays every year.

I love that house. It is full of wonderful memories of childhood holidays with my family, teenage holidays with friends and Before Kids holidays just with Chris. We spent most of our honeymoon there in fact. And it was lovely to hang out with my cousin and his family too. He has an eleven-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son* who gets along famously with Liam. we could have stayed there but it was a little crowded (cousin's brother-in-law was staying as well, and another cousin was there with her partner and  baby for some of the time) and besides, it's nice to spend some time with Liam's Grandma too.

I am a bit jealous of my cousin though. He's there for two weeks (still there now as I type), and a couple of years ago he was there for a whole month in summer, something I've only ever fantasised about.** When was the last time we went on a holiday that didn't involve visiting family?

Our next big holiday plan is to go up to Forster (mid-North NSW coast) to visit my grandfather, and maybe go up to Byron Bay (about a day further north - two days with a baby) to visit some friends. We haven't been up to visit Grandpop in more than three years, and haven't seen the friends since they moved up there two years ago. And it will be nice to see them. Still, if I had my druthers, I'd spend the whole two-week holiday down at Mossy Point relaxing, and just let other people come to us.

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*Technically the daughter's a step, but she's only ever known him as her dad, and that since she was about two. He also has another son who's about ten, but he lives with his mum and left to go on holidays with her the day we arrived.

**My lotto-win fantasy includes spending whole summers down there - with laptop - getting lots of inspired writing done while children play quietly in the background.

Holidays with in-laws

We've just spent a lovely few days down at the coast staying with my mother-in-law.

Last time we visited my MIL we arrived Friday night and left Sunday morning - and I felt that was about my limit. I have something of a reputation in my family for talking a lot. One of the charming nicknames my step-dad had for me as a child was motor-mouth. But I have nothing on Chris's Mum. Nothing. She is a full on extrovert who spends most of her time alone. Enough said? (Actually, probably not. I should probably add examples of how she started up talking to me while I was in the middle of reading to Liam, how she kept talking as we walked out the door, barely pausing for breath as we strapped the kids into the car and got in ourselves, but you still wouldn't really get it. You have to see to believe, I tell you.)

This time was different though. This time, instead of being tired, cranky and pregnant, I was tired, happy and - importantly - in charge of a baby. When you have responsibility for a baby you can say "No, no. You go to the beach now, don't wait. I'll just stay here and get Mikaela to take a nap." Then you take yourself off to the spare room (where Liam sleeps - we sleep on a sofa bed in the living room) and Close The Door. A few minutes later there is blessed relief as Chris, Liam and MIL troop out to walk to the beach. And then silence. Pop Mikaela in the bassinette. Make Tea. Listen to - nothing. For an introvert (that would be me) this is the definition of holiday bliss.

Oddly, Chris seems to cope far better with these too-busy holidays than I do, even though he comes out far more introverted than I do on every scale. Then again, she is his mother.

Now I will just have to get myself a laptop and all will be absolutely perfect. Of coruse, by the time I do that Mikaela will probably be school-aged and my excuse for staying home will be long gone. Maybe I can invent working holidays, where I send them to the beach while I stay home to "work".