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Heart Flutters

i am ok...

Hi Guys, I know I have been absent from this space for a while. Life just took over. school holidays happened then three weeks ago on the last Friday of school holidays Luke had a Seizure.

It was scary. life has paused in a way since then. because it has been so busy with appointments and crazy commitments that this little blog just didn't seem as important. and I knew you would still be here when i came back.

some things I have just dropped and some things in the business of everything that has happened in the last three weeks has helped me to forget just how scared I was in those moments.

It did remind me once again that nothing REALLY matters.

only the ones you love.

Luke is fine now and he is doing well, in fact I would even go as far as saying that he had a positive outcome from his seizure and that is his repetitiveness has disappeared. I'm not saying that doesn't have issues still but this did in a strange instantaneous way mysteriously disappear.

All i can say is that the brain is one amazing muscle. such a weird thing to happen ( and some people have suggested that may be he just grew out of it but it was such a before and after thing that I can only hope that his brain was in someway making some connections that were not there before).

 

So I have completely dropped the toilet training thing because really why am I pushing him so hard, Id rather him just be happy and we have picked up OT and Speech therapy again.

words like pleasure and magic have completely taken over words like nourish because there have been so many moments when magic and pleasure have been the only things keeping me going and there has simply been no time to nourish myself.

 

So while we are on the topic of magical moments for myself there has been one really good thing happening here and that is that I have been making more soaps and I have been SELLING them  !!! I cannot tell you just how excited I am about selling something that is handmade creative yumminess!!! Very soon there will be some changes coming to this blog (yet another reason I have stayed away, hoping that things would be up and running by now) so that hopefully I can sell them online and you too will be able to enjoy how delicious and bubbly they are.

She Scraps more

There is always lots here about Luke but Blake is just as special in his own way.

He has to also deal with a sibling with a disability and for me there is no knowing what he will feel about that when he is grown up. I worry that Blake may end up resenting Luke for things that we couldn't do and think that we spent more time, energy and money on Luke. Blake tends to play the "I miss out" and 'Its not fair" cards fairly often, when in fact it is quite the opposite. If Luke was able to complain he would have much more reason than Blake to complain.

This page is mostly about Blake growing up so fast. There is hidden writing under the vellum and also in the little pink envelope.

She Scraps

I cant help still thinking about our trip to NYC, I loved it so much so I must scrap some more of the photos.

 There were so many amazing NY moments and memories.

Most of the products used were either Dear Lizzy- Neapolitan and some Amy Tangerine stuff.
I am Super Inspired by these two scrappers right now, loving what they are doing :)

for sunday

Hope you had a happy hopping easter!

My SIL made this sweet eater decoration for the table. Love it!

Easter Ideas

So I had seen this idea on pinterest and around on some blogs to paint the ends of wooden spoons and I just loved it. I had it in the back of my mind for quite some time and finally I got a chance to do it. I picked these ones up fairly cheap and bought them home and got painting.

But to make it a bit more Easter fun I decided to add a bunny cookie cutter. (I also got one of these for myself!)

 I think they look cute tied up with a bow. I know this idea might be a little late for you to do at Easter but wouldn't this make a sweet mothers day gift for a mum you know. Just add a different shaped cutter and for about $5 you could have a sweet gift to remind a special mum just what a great mum they are.

I was also thinking that this gift would be nice with one of those jars of cookie mixture that the recipient makes.

The pink spoon has my name written all over it! :)

Some more...

I am loving this Italian spiced chocolate scented hearts and Dark rich Chocolate! So much fun and my house does smell pretty yummy from them!!!

If only I could pass some through the computer for you to smell!

Love Bunny Soaps

Since it is Easter this coming week I decided that I am going to share some of the crafty Easter happiness that has been happening here because it just wont be as fun sharing it after Easter!

Recently I tried twice to make cold pressed soap and both times I had some kinda weird chemical reaction and the whole thing seized both times, the first due to me not stirring the lye enough and the second time I believe was a temperature issue. I will not give up but next time I try Paul will be here to help me.

 

 In the mean time I have wanted to make melt and pour soap for a very very long time and I finally took the plunge. After my CP disaster it was so satisfying to finally have something work!

MP soap definitely is fantabulous for creative people and I have had so much fun playing.

I bought quite a lot of soap but only one colourant- chocolate gold mica, very soon I will get some more colours so that I can play even more.

These are chocolate scented love bunnies and as you can see in this is a three layer soap with and embedded heart.I have made other shapes and scents and I will share them in the next few days.

Do you think they make a cute Easter gift?

This week

This week has been one of those weeks that you think is gonna be quiet but turns out to be really very busy and I think I am about to crash. We have had sunshine and rain. We have had meetings with professionals and bumping into friendly faces. We have been making things to clean us and getting dirt under our fingernails. I have lot of making fun to share but it is all secret squirrel due to lots of it being for Easter gifts.

Progress

 We are having a lot of progress with this little cutie pie. We have been in touch with Autism SA and now have funding for Luke to get some more therapy(and hopefully some resources) so I am looking forward to seeing even more growth.

He is loving school and bringing home lots of new words, although he is finding it hard to settle his body again and this will be something we focus on in therapy.

He is beginning to take himself off to the toilet now. Over the weekend we had a lot of success with him taking himself and hopefully I can begin to see the light at the end of the toileting tunnel. I have been working on toileting for probably a good nine months now ( yeah I deserve a gold medal for all the washing I have done!) and though for most of that time he has been able to go to the toilet I recently realised that his biggest problem was that he isn't getting the signal to actually go. He has low muscle tone and this could have been affecting it. We now have some little com pics that say "poo coming" and "wee coming" so I am hoping that this has triggered a bit of the thought process.

All this at the same time as trying to control his food intake because he is still pooing about 3 times a day, it was six so we have progress.

His drawing has become quite good quite rapidly, he loves drawing animals and they actually look like what he says he is drawing! This morning he drew a pig with hay and a few weeks back he did an awesome drawing of some mice.

I thought I was going to have to keep him home sometimes from school but his energy has been really great, though he is napping in the bus on the way home. He is doing amazingly well considering everything!

On My Table

I made some cupcakes for Paul's lunches this week, lunches have been getting a little boring here of late so early this week I am hoping to make some patties, may be some fallafle and some frittata or quiche type things to pop in the lunch boxes. Luke cant have fruit and is only just learning to like raw vegetables and he cant have lactose so his lunches are often limited to more wheat products than I would like, rice crackers or rice cakes and meat. Blake is super easy he loves fruit and raw veg so it is easy to fill his lunch box with lovely healthy things.

 This was supposed to be an 'on my table post' but it has kinda turned into something else.

 I am kinda struggling here with all of us eating so differently and it would be great to somehow come together a lot more on what we are all eating. I believe that Paul is also lactose intolerant but he refuses to try to eat lactose free products or switch to other alternatives- gosh don't men just get so stuck in there ways! It makes it hard when I have to buy two to three products for one thing. For example: Milk, Luke is drinking lactose free, Paul wants to drink organic full fat milk and I am seriously considering dropping dairy all together so I am sometimes having almond milk or oat milk and really just having dairy milk less.I have also been seriously considering dropping meat (I was vegetarian before I met Paul for quite a while) but I limit grains right now, especially wheat and I am not eating sugar (so the cupcakes wont be coming near me!) if I cut meat there wont be much left to eat apart from vegetables but I already eat those in abundance and beans but I am not so much a fan, oh so complicated!

Do you have this kind of problem in your home? Do you have ways around it? Do you cook twice at night because your family wont all eat the same thing? Or do you just make them all eat whatever you make?

Really all this over a cupcake, which I love love love to make but don't even want to eat!!  ;)

Rainbow Butterfly Hairband

How often do you see items in shops or markets and you love it but you think "I could make that" so you don't buy it?

I do this ALL the time! 

Last weekend I spent the morning at a lovely crafty market here in the hills with one of my lovely friends and I saw a rainbow butterfly hairband and I LOVED IT, but it was on a harsh hairband that would have hurt my head so I walked away thinking I could make it.

Well I did and here it is :)

In the garden

I really have been spending a lot of time in the school garden and thinking about our garden and dreaming up plans for my garden for this autumn. Once the rain has kicked in I will be madly planting until it gets too wet in winter. More citrus and fruit trees winter veg is exciting me (since we missed sprig panting because of our ny trip) and lots more plants for the flower gardens and the front yard begun. But I need to be patient and wait for some rain, the ground here is super hard.

Date night

Things have been a little boring here, lots of cleaning and sorting but not much fun stuff. So I thought I would show you what we did this past Saturday for date night. We have both taken turns in organising something on a Saturday night but not every Saturday night, things can get a little boring here since we don't really have a babysitter (my mums great but we cant ask her all the time) and we live so far from everything it has become our way of mixing things up a little so that we don't end up doing the same thing all the time. We have a separate lounge room that can be closed off so that during Saturday we can set up something in there without the other one seeing and without the boys getting into it. In the past few weeks we have had valentines day- Paul decorated and put up pink fairy lights and we watched a movie, bowling night- I organised this one complete with wii bowling (two games, shoe hire, hot dog fries and a coke. Just like the add). And this last Saturday I organised a slumber party, by moving the mattress into the lounge and making Paul some of his favourite food it turned out to be lots of fun!

Finished

Today I finished of my Luke page. I decided to really 'show off' the black painting fun that Luke had on the page. I had done splattered paint on the background, Luke added to it....twice!

I'm quite happy with the end product and like that we kinda did this one together. Don't you just love the picture of him too, it was taken at kindy and is by far a favourite.

 

It feels so good to be scrapping regularly again, I think I am going to have to get some Blakey photos done or he might start getting a bit jealous ;)

Sneak peak

While I've been sick I have been drawing. I'm hoping over the weekend I can use them for scrapbooking papers, we'll see :)

On My Table

Yesterday I woke with a cold, I'm feeling a little better today but still taking it really easy.

I missed breakfast today so this is brunch, and some things to make me happier: flowers books and tissues.

Hope you have something pretty to make you happy today!

In My Garden

I have been loving seeing the snow filled pictures out there in blog land at the moment. But here it is a very different story. It is very dry and we are still having mid 30 degree days, Autumn is nearly here and we are getting some cooler days in between but for now we are still waiting for rain and cooler weather.

 I have been watering the passion fruit vine but I think it may be flowering a little late.

Many people here have run out of water and have had to have it trucked in, we are no exception.

This is the view from my front door looking up towards the hill. The colours are still golden and blue and I am so looking forward to the green that Autumn will bring.

Lots of things going to seed.

I am so looking forward to the end of the brown days and the beginning of some greener ones!

A work in progress

This one would have been finished if Luke hadn't splattered paint all over it. Maybe I will just keep his artistic addition and add some finishing touches.

Sunday- On My Table

Sunday was supposed to be a bit of a clean up day but instead I really only cleaned up this little area on my craft table.

   

I spent the rest of the day scrapping only for Luke to put black paint all over the page and so now I am off to go salvage what I can!

LOL he had a destructive weekend, he loved cutting with scissors this week and who was I to stop him- last year he couldn't even use scissors!