Love for Jaynie

This is my friend Jaynie. My good friend Jaynie. The kind of friend that doesn't come along everyday. The kind of friend everyone needs at least once in a lifetime.

Jaynie and I see each other nearly everyday, or we at least talk on the phone once a day (sometimes I know it drives my husband mad, other times I know that he loves that if I talk it all out to someone else then he doesn't have to pretend to listen later :-p). We kid-wrangle together. We go shopping together. We work in the garden together. We cook meals and eat them together - with our children and sometimes our respective husbands (depending on their work shifts)

But times they are not easy for Jaynie and her boys. Jaynie also has breast cancer. A year ago she had a double mastectomy and chemotherapy and IV vit C. Things were looking good and Jaynie was feeling good. Then in early June this year - only 6 months after she had finished chemotherapy, we found out that Jaynie has lung metastases. She has secondary cancer. That means it has spread. Now this is a different game - now the fighting must start again and be much stronger.

You can read Jaynie's blog over here Breastfeeding with Cancer

Jaynie has already begun IV vit C treatment again and she is taking Mega-dose oral Vit c as well. She is also taking Cesium therapy. On Wednesday, 4th July, she will have a CT guided lung biopsy of the tumours - so that it can be typed and we will know if just maybe this is hormone driven this time (it makes it a cancer that is managed differently). Jaynie is is the process of sending away a blood sample for CTC testing - where the circulating tumour cells are tested for their sensitivities to all known natural and synthetic chemotherapies. The results of this will hopefully tell us which therapies will work and we can make sure he treatment is tailored to this.

But all of this comes at a cost - a considerable cost. And all within a year of doing it previously. There are supplement bills to pay, transport costs to hospital(just under 100km each way), days off work for her husband, the CTC testing ($5000 AUD),and the list goes on. So because of this we are looking to raise funds for Jaynie and her family. Because anything will be of help at this stage.

You can read about our this further and see what we have planned to help from here Love for Jaynie

If you would like to make a direct donation;

Bank Account details Name: Jaynies Funds National bank Details: 06-0942-0329539-00 All payments MUST have your name on them and MUST have a detail of where it is from i.e. weekly donation.

Or you can make a paypal donation through the button on this blog (but please be aware that we do lose approx 3.5% of every transaction to Paypal)

Thank-you. Pip xxx

Wet nappy days

No not a post about wee's, well not in so many words.

Winter is here and it is hard to get Meggie Moos naps turned around and dry. So whats a Mama to do...

I love seeing all the nappies drying together, it kinda makes me feel like I am doing this Mama thing right. Don't ask me why. Cuteness.

Nearly as cute as the owner;

Crispy skin duck

I love duck. Who doesn't really.

The cost of buying duck is well out of our price range, and really not a necessity so I wouldn't do it. But my wonderful and ultra-talented Mum keeps Pekin ducks, the result, beautiful young doomed drake to eat and at the moment a good amount of duck eggs. Last night I took the opportunity to roast up a wee quacker - crispy skinned as of course.

And I have realised far too late that there are no plated pictures, no duck left either, it was tooooo goooood.

May Milo KAL

 

The Milo vest is brilliant, so versatile, very quick to knit up and super practical for hard-playing kids. I love it! The Milo turned 2 on June 6th 2011. To celebrate, the designer; the uber-talented Tikki, organised a KAL (Knit-a-long for the uninitiated) for May over on Ravelry.

I had a few to get done on my project list so used this as an opportunity to knock them out. Five in fact.

A newborn one for Sophie – with the Owl cable, but I embellished around the outside a bit over-zealously and it now appears more like a Tiki – perfect for a Kiwi bub

                                          

The preschool one that Miss Kei-te-pai has been waiting ever so patiently for – with her choice of cable – hugs and kisses

        

A new one for Meggie Moo – this time in some buttery soft Mal worsted that the wonderful Cadi sent over for us. And we didn’t even use half of it Cadi! This one has a quilted lattice stitch body for some texture – something I’ve been wanting to try.

            

         

Its hard to keep that baby still anymore!!

I loved the lattice stitch so much that it made it an easy decision to do it again for this one:

                                

A birthday gift for one of Miss Kei-te-pai’s friends (luckily I had my own model!)

And the last one for the month was another newborn one, this time for wee Ngaio. This has a Koru on the front in cable that I designed. I’m not entirely happy with how it pulls a wee bit but I wanted to have something that acknowledged Ngaio’s Maori roots and the koru symbolises new life unfurling – like a fern uncurling as it grows.

                                                         

One more was cast on – but its a 6yr old size and at the moment its sitting in my WIP (work-in-progress) basket gazing at me, along with 5 other things…

Our big girl's birthday!

Miss Kei-te-pai has just turned four. She was very excited about her upcoming big day and would tell us everyday what cake she wanted, it changed everyday. Eventually she settled on cupcakes - wonderful and easy to whip up. The next day she wanted bugs. Bugs?! But this is not so surprising as Miss Kei-te-pai is certainly not a girly girl (takes after her Mama on that front!). So what could we come up with:
Bugs!

And Cupcakes!

A happy birthday girl who enjoyed having her friends over for a wee party.

Miss Meggie Moo is just plain happy.

What we've been up to

I looked today and realised that nearly two months has gone by without me updating this blog! So I thought I would give a pictorial overview...

There has been a beach holiday

A baptism for Miss Meggie Moo

Another gorgeous wedding

A class trip to our local Kauri forest

There was 2 weeks spent here

But at least we had a great city view at night!

and since Mr T couldn't remember his trip to Auckland in this helicopter we stopped in on the way home

A raffle for Christchurch

It would be very surprising if you hadn't heard about the devastating earthquake that rocked Christchurch on February 22nd. The magnitude of this disaster is like nothing that little ole' NZ has ever experienced and the cleanup will be lengthy and expensive. Up here in Northland it is hard not to feel helpless towards the plight of our fellow NZer's as for most of us life is going on as normal.

The Man about the House has just returned from Christchurch where he has spent a week helping out. The pictures and stories that he has returned home with tell of a city that is full of destruction.

Apart from getting out and rattling a bucket for a couple of hours (and donating my husband for a week ;-p) I feel that I have done very little to help the people of Christchurch. Sooo I have decided to run a couple of raffles. Up to be won are 2 knitted vests from designs by the lovely Tikki.

The first raffle is for a "Milo" vest, sz 4. This is knitted in pure NZ wool from Christchurch in a gorgeous chocolate that is ever so slightly gradient toned. This looks great dressed up or over those kindy clothes to keep warm while playing hard.

The second raffle is for a sweet wee girls knit, an "Acacia" vest. This is a sz 3 and is knitted in a super soft bamboo (80%) and wool (20%) blend. So soft it can be worn straight on the skin or over a tee-shirt as it gets cooler.

Ok so how to enter...

Donate online through the Red Cross to the Canterbury earthquake appeal . Every $5 that you donate will give you three entries. Please leave me comment and give me your receipt number, donation amount and which raffle(s) you want to enter.

I am going to let this run for 2 weeks and the draw will be made by my very own local constabulary member on 31 March 2011.

I will also have this running IRL at the kidlets preschool.

Please note that I am happy to post these garments to the winners internationally or nationally :-)