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 :-)

Tomato goodness

It's full-on tomato season here. Apart from the usual fresh tomato dishes I like to make sure that we have lots extra to get us through the year. I dump all the extra tomatoes into the freezer until I have enough to make a big batch of yummy tomato soup. We loooove tomato soup and I find that its really easy to convert into passata or pasta sauce just by adding garlic and herbs.

This is my Poppa's recipe, so it is tried and true.
7lb tomatoes, fresh or frozen
8 onions, peeled and quartered
Salt (definitely non-iodised!)
Sugar (He would use white, but I prefer Rapadura for the extra nutrients plus the molasses taste)

Put into a large pot and bring to the boil, reduce to a simmer and cook until the onions and tomatoes are soft and juicy.

Puree all the soup through a mouli, making sure that you put the pulp through 2-3x to make sure you get all the juice out.
And yes, it is essential to make a mess while doing this and enjoy it!

Voila! Gorgeous red gold goodness. You can add a whacking great wedge of butter at this stage to give a smoother finish but as I use it for other dishes I leave the butter out until serving.

Goes down a treat...

A Family Wedding

This weekend we headed away to beautiful Matakana at the foot of the Tawharanui Peninsula. We were lucky enough to be going to the wedding of a cousin of the Man about the House. It was a lovely wedding in gorgeous gardens for a gorgeous couple!

Some of us preferred to run though...

And one of us preferred to sleep...

The First!

Ok, this is something that I have thought about doing for a while now. It seems like a good time to actually get going with it though as things are changing in our household.

My eldest, Mr T, has had his first day at school.  This is huge!! He is super excited and raring to go, whereas I am apprehensive and a wee bit sad. It seems like only yesterday that we were bringing home this small baby and suddenly its 5 years later and 2 more children. But he has had a great time so far and is settling in well.

It was also the first day back at preschool for my 3.5yr old, Miss Kei-te-pai. She was relieved to get back there to check that nothing had been moved over the holidays without her permission. I was a relieved to see her head back as well, but for a different reason altogether!

And on a different note, it was my first week to get a shoe on happily as well! After fracturing my (R) foot at the end of last year it is a big achievement to be able to do this and walk relatively normaly as well.

Buuuutttt, the whole point of this blog is to let me document the goings on in our house and life and see if I can keep some perspective on the general chaos and crazyness!  Wish me luck!