1st Family Holidays

Rob had to go to Singapore for a work convention and so we decided that Luke and I should join him. His parents are living in Singapore at the moment and are staying till November for work. We all left Perth excited to start our first family holidays. Luke was very good in the plane and he was so excited by everything that he just manged to sleep when we were landing in Singapore.

So while Rob was at the convention for the first week, Luke and I enjoyed Tiiu's (Rob's mom) company and the pool facilities of the Caribbean condominium where his parents are staying. The weather was very warm and humid and sometimes it was a bit too much for Luke and I, but we managed well. Tiiu is truly a great tourist guide, she took us too all the places that one should go while in Singapore. Rob and I are just horrible tourists, if it was up to us poor Luke wouldn't have seen nothing but the pool of the condo! But Luke, Tiiu and I had a great first week together while Rob did his networking in the convention for work. Rob and I had also a chance to go out together a couple of evenings which was great while grandma and granddad took care of Luke for us.

 We took Luke to the Night Safari but forgot to take the camera!!! Luke loved it and was pointing at the animals, he didn't know where to look by the end of it. He managed to stay up till we got in the bus back to the city! Tiiu and I managed to get a few hours to explore Arab Street and buy some fabric, they also had some beautiful Persian Rugs that I would love to own. Also we all went during our first weekend to the Singapore Botanic Gardens which was the most beautiful park I have ever seen and been to in all my travels, specially their Orchid Garden. The weather didn't help us at the Botanic Gardens it was too hot and we didn't manage to stay longer and explore the gardens a little further.

 Orchard Road was a place which I was amazed by all the beautiful malls and I had never seen so many designer shops in one street but what I enjoyed most in Orchard Road was the Japanese department store (Takashimaya). I just love Japanese fashion, food and life style so that store and the 2 dollar Japanese shop in Vivo Mall in Harbor Front were both, my favorite places to go shopping. While we are in the subject of shopping I bought two very cute pair of shoes for Luke for a bargain price, both pairs are real leather. One is a pair of boots and the other a pair of trainers for $20 dollars Singapore each, if I would have bought these shoes here I would have paid around 60 dollars each. I think the shopping experience in Singapore is just amazing!!!   

One would not go all the way to Singapore and forget to have a refreshment in Raffles Hotel. So that is what Rob, Tiiu , Luke and I did, but I was shocked that three coffees cost us $35 dollars!!! But you are not paying for the coffee but for the experience, still that was a very expensive 15 minutes of my life which left me with a bit of a bitter sweet after taste. One cant ignore though what a beautiful Hotel it is, colonial in style and very well maintained so it is a must see if in Singapore even if the coffee is expensive. 

We also spend an afternoon in Sintoza Island which was very hot but very nice for Luke to swim in the sea even though it was as warm as a hot bath, still we had a wonderful time and I had the best dumpling noddle soup of my life in the food hall. Luke through out the trip was like a celebrity baby, all Asian family's wanting to take picture with him. Every where we went people would stop us and want pictures with Luke by the end of the trip Rob and I were almost charging for pictures with Luke hahaha...

On our way back to Perth Luke slept for two full hours. Everyone was amazed of how good he was but I also did bring loads of toys for him so he was busy with something for most of the time. Once we got home all three of us were popped beyond belief. We were all in bed by 8:30pm. The next day Luke didnt want to leave the cot in morning and is still doing this oday, he just stays there playing with the light on (he found out how to switch the lights  on in his bedroom). So I have had a great week waking up at 10:00 am! So life is good even though we miss Singapore maybe we need more holidays so Luke can miss his cot and I can have a sleep in every morning. 

Perth 2010 Quilting Show!

My poor blog is so neglected that its not funny anymore. But its been a very busy beginning of the year and I am really trying to update it as much as I can; its just that during the day Luke wont let me near the computer. If I am at the computer just to check my email very quickly I get a little demanding boy crying by my side wanting to play with my keyboard. Not only that, Rob got me the new Samsung mobile with the touch screen, which I was happy but when we installed the software in my laptop it just crashed my windows explorer! Thank god I have a smart husband because he managed to save all my documents, photos and songs but we will need to re-install windows again! I was so peeved that every time I look at the phone I get upset, not only that; the bloody thing doesn't work properly so I cant send any email just receive, apparently I am not the only one with all these problems!!! We are at the moment seeing if we can return the bloody thing and get an iphone for me instead.

Any way this weekend was really great! We had our annual WA quilt show. I spend the whole Sunday from 9-5 buzzzy like a bee around wonderful creative quilts and also beautiful fabrics, gadgets and quilt notions. Bought some really neat tools, like the adjustable quilting rulers. It is an Ozzy invention check out the video...its pretty neat. It was pricey but will make my live easier when quilting. Got two nice books with Jelly Roles patterns which of course I got one Jelly Role fabric pack also so I can make a quilt for my bed. I found some cheap $1 wooden buttons which was a bargain. Got some cute Christmas embroidery to make cute tree hangings. Got a wonderful Bias making tool from clover.  I could go on and on but the rest was just small things nothing too flashy. Rob took care of Luke and called me around 13:00 pm to see how everything was going and asking how much longer I would stay...hahaha I told till it closed. Luke is teething at the moment, his molars are all coming out at once so he is very cranky. Poor Rob was completely exhausted when I got home at 17:00pm. So I made a nice dinner for my two special guys and cuddle up with them in front of the telly.

Well I hope you all enjoy the pictures of the quilt show and have fun with Lukes walking video...its pretty funny. Big hugs to all.

DIY- How to re-upholster dinning chairs!

As promised here is my first DIY post. I have 4 dinning chairs that were in urgent need of an update. We have had these chairs for more than 9 years. The base had still the linen cover which we kept saying,"we will upholster them soon" but just never did get to it. So this weekend I had enough of the dirty, dingy look and got Rob to get me to Bunnings (its like a home-depot store) so I could buy a staple gun. Yesterday while Luke had his afternoon nap, I got busy. I went to my fabric stash and choose a nice printed fabric that I bought while in the US. It is a cotton fabric for quilting but I think that doesn't really matter. So choose a fabric that you love and get busy. I used this video as a guide. Sure enough, it took me one hour to do all 4 chairs, its so easy that I felt really stupid for letting 8 years pass by before changing the base fabric of the chairs. So here are the pictures of before and after:

BEFORE

AFTER

It looks great!!! I am very happy with the results. So get busy people and don't worry its so easy that you will wonder why you didn't do this sooner. Take care!

Busy as a Bee!!!

Hi Everyone sorry yet again for the long silence but it really seems that there are not enough hours in a day to get all things done, specially updating my blog!! We FINALLY moved in to the "new" house. Of course like any renovation we had more costs involved then we thought at the purchase of the house. As mentioned in my previous post we were going to renovate the kitchen but unfortunately that did not happen seeing we found leaks in both bathrooms in the house. The leaks were so bad that we had mold all over, underneath the carpets on the walls, so we naturally had to replace the whole floors with new timber floating boards, which the costs of this and the repairs to the bathroom showers had us scraping at our budget. So kitchen is not done and looks like a war zone. At the moment I have no cook top or oven, been cooking with our microwave oven (which is on its last legs:meaning we will need to replace the bloody thing soon enough) and the barbecue. I was very fortunate to have my mother in lay give me a electric frying pan, it really saved the day!!! I have no pantry so cant really take anything out of the boxes just the essential stuff that I use everyday. My dishwasher is a storage area for all the plates, cups and cutlery.

Now enough ranting....Luke is doing very well. He is almost crawling properly all his little teeth are coming out and he is just an adorable little man. My mom left back to Holland on the 5th of Feb and we do miss her so. Luke specially, was very cranking for a week! I have been pretty busy getting our garden looking descent after many years of neglect of the previous owner. But we can see the light on the end of the tunnel. I have planted a little herb garden which is looking pretty good for some one who never had a chance to do any gardening in her life! Unfortunately I have no pictures for all of you because I have no clue where my cables are to be able to upload pictures on to the computer, this is another item on my to do list for this weekend. We also managed to start of our compost bin last weekend so all the veggie scarps and bread scraps are being put for a good use. We also have a recycle bin now which is a great relief because in the previous house there was none and every time I had to throw out glass, paper and plastic my heart filled with guilt! We also had insulation put in, in the nick of time before the government rebates were scrapped because of government scandal regarding it. So we only paid $120 to insulate the whole roof. We can really feel the difference now, its not as hot as it was when we moved in, seeing we had no insulation and no air-con, it was blood hot in here!! But all in all the house does look much better, we had everything painted and new showers. Once I find the cables I will put pictures up of before and after. Its far from done but its getting there slowly.

In the crafty front I have started a little sweater for Luke. Its a free pattern from Lion Brand. Also two weekends ago had a great Saturday with my mother in law. We took grandma to these really nice fabric shops for patchwork and also had a coffee with some cake at Wolly Latte's (its a yarn shop that has a really nice little cafe inside with some great coffee and wonderful cakes). Also when we went to get Tiiu's things as patchwork workshop that she organised, there was this lady who gave the workshop who takes care of little orphan Joey's (Baby Kangaroo). She had one with her and it really was the sweetest thing ever, Luke was so impressed and he even stroked it a couple of times. So so sweet, I have the pictures but yet again no cable grrrrr... Well that is all the update I have time for today. Hope all of you are well. Take care!