9

I can't believe my big girl turned 9 this week, I've got no idea where those nine years have gone.


You are a wonderful, caring, fun loving girl who is also a bit cheeky. I'm dreading the teenage years as I see so much of myself in you.


You love your little sister, most of the time.


You did pretty well on your birthday - this bike, tickets to the Harry Potter exhibition and the box set of Harry Potter DVDs.


Letter C pancakes for breakfast, Sound of Music at an outdoor cinema and birthday cake with some friends


Happy Birthday gorgeous girl I can't wait to see what 9 brings

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Op shop gods

The op shop gods were finally smiling on us yesterday. We detoured to a shopping centre we rarely go to that has a big salvos store and were treated with this


Charlotte fell in love and we were going to get her a new bike for her birthday as she has outgrown her old one so she was extremely happy to get an early birthday present. We tried it out today


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Goodbye 2011

Goodbye 2011 we are not sorry to see you go, it's been a pretty crappy year over here in the snailblazer shell.

Here's hoping 2012 will be a much better year. No resolutions for me, I'm just going to try and live in the moment, relax, take a chill pill as my girls say.

I hope your year is a great one.



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Tooth fairy

Looks like the tooth fairy will be visiting tonight.


This is what happens to loose teeth when you jump on the trampoline with your mum!


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Merry Christmas

I hope everyone had a merry christmas, we certainly did.


Charlotte last night in the church play

















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What's been happening

Blogpress is still playing up but I've managed to get in to do a December wrap up.

Firstly Lucy had her ballet concert. She had great fun she is a little performer.


Charlotte won an award at the school presentation day and had a fantastic report this year so we are very pleased and proud of her


Lucy finished up at preschool, on to big school next year so there was lots of tears, mainly from me! She made us a lovely plate for Christmas


I made her teacher a cushion. I got the 5 kids in her group to draw a picture then sewed them up. They did such gear drawings they had to go on both sides of the cushion. She absolutely loved it.





I made this bags for the teachers both at school and preschool and filled them with homemade goodies - fruit cake, biscuits, truffles etc


The gingerbread house has been constructed and decorated


Now we are just waiting for the big man to arrive.

Wishing everyone a merry Christmas and a happy new year


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Blogpress isn't working on my iPad at the moment so I can't blog! Well I can but I can't do photos, hopefully normal programming will resume soon. I've got so much to tell you!

5

I had a great blog post written about Lucy turning 5 and then the blogpress app kept playing up so now I've lost it. So a big happy birthday to my funny, excitable, dancing, gorgeous girl. She can't wait to start school next year, she swam her first swimming race just after she turned 5 (25m backstroke in 48 secs), had her first ballet concert and kissed a boy.

Lil' Vintage Story Books

I just read Ingrid's post and thought I would follow in her footsteps and show a Marcel Marlier book,


Debbie Loves To Cook is one of my favorites.


Especially this page, who doesn't love seeing a boy doing the dishes


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The winner is.....

Sorry I forgot to draw the winner last night took myself off to bed early.
Here are all the names, I went old school and wrote them out.



And here they are in my trusty Halloween bucket


And the winner is


And a very fitting winner too, if you haven't read her recent blog post pop over and have a read and I'll be making sure she gives this to her Miss M and doesn't keep them for herself.

Bianca can you email me your colour choice and size and I will place the order.

Thanks to everyone for entering and still reading along. I promise to try and post more in the lead up to Christmas.


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It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas

I'm trying to be more organized this year after feeling very disorganized when Jeff broke his heel. Today I started baking my Christmas cakes. I've been soaking my fruit for about 6 weeks and I used this recipe for the cake.





For this batch I am making small ones using small loaf tins or these paper baking tray in various sizes that I got from Lark. I used 3 very mini cases to try them out first and when they had cooled I thought I would have a taste and cut a little piece off one, it was lovely and I ended up eating the whole thing.

I didn't follow the recipe totally as I didn't wrap the tins in newspaper prior to baking as they were too awkward to do so. I ended up baking these various sized tins anywhere from 20-40 minutes and they are lovely and golden. Also I am not do the alcohol wash as the fruit is pretty boozy as it is and I'm not sure who they are going to yet.

I've also got some homemade vanilla maturing in a dark place. This was as soon as I made it, it is much darker now.


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Giveaway time

Well I missed blogtoberfest but that doesn't mean there can't be a giveaway. A while ago I got couple of vouchers for some CMUK shoes, which as you know I love.



I was hoping some new colors might come out before the voucher ran out but it looks like that isn't going to happen. Now I've already got 2 pairs and I'm not sure I will be too popular if I bring home another pair which means someone is going to get lucky.

All you have to do is pop over to the CMUK website pick the colour you like (make sure they are available in your size) and come back and tell me the colour and size you want. I'll pick a winner on Sunday night at 8pm.



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Lil' Vintage Story Books

I saw thisover at Ingrid's blog and thought I might join in.

My book is A Letter To Amy by Ezra Jack Keats. I won this book in 1970 for a story book competition, I have no idea what I did though to win it.










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Sorry it's been so long

Hi there poor neglected blog, not sure if anyone is still here but I'm sorry i've been gone, life just seems to be getting in the way. There is no crafting going on but I'm going away in a couple of weeks with some lovely crafty ladies so hopefully I will produce something.

I did come baking today - one success and one failure

I made these confetti cookies thanks to a pin from Ingrid on pinterest. They taste great - success.


A few weeks ago I bought some Christmas m&m's from Costco thinking I would make some of these as gifts. Yesterday I found out Jeff has been eating said m&m's. So I thought I would try the recipe out to make sure of worked before I bought some more.



Not sure what I did wrong but they definitely didn't look like any of the pictures, they were way too dry and didn't flatten at all - failure.


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Pinterest

I've pinned lots of things on pinterest, including lots of recipes and I thought it was about time I started using some of them. I'm a bit of a breakfast skipper so I thought I might trythese breakfast bars from Nigella



Well they turned out pretty yummy. I replaced the nuts with some choc chips to make them a bit more kid friendly in our house, not too many but I didn't want nuts so the kids could take them to school.


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Holidays

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Lucy

Out in the sun making a mud pie concoction



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Book week

More poor neglected blog, I'm sorry I've haven't been here for a while, I've been busy with life stuff and there hasn't really been much crafting.

It was book week today and I tried to talk Charlotte in to going as Emily Eyefinger as she has been reading that and they also had Duncan Ball come out to their school but she said too many people would go as that.



She decided to go as Charlotte from Charlotte's Web. It ended up being pretty easy she already had the block tights and top, we got some stockings and stuff them and stitched them on the top. We picked up a spiders web at the party shop and tied it around some bent coat hangers. She was pretty pleased and then she got called out for her grade, with 2 other lovely girls, to tell everyone who she was.



Unfortunately I only got these parade photos because she goes to band on Friday mornings and Jeff takes her and who wants to get up at 7 if they can stay on bed!




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It's all about discovering

Charlotte and I had a fantastic day today at the Powerhouse Discovery Centre.


We had fun on the giant knitting nancy


Weaving amongst the trees (Charlotte could have stayed here all day)


Rag weaving, lace making and paper lace making.



I had fun catching up with some great bloggers. It was lovely to see so many out there.

Sign up for the newsletter they have lots of school holiday activities coming up and the next open day is on the 10th September, its well worth the trip.

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