We took the boys to the lake, and they rollerbladed around the paths. They decided they just had to go through these hoops. Their quest was to go through the hoops without stopping and without touching the sides...

Such a gorgeous autumn day - t shirt and shorts weather.

"Colors"

"Colors"
Originally uploaded by mamacjt

I'm planning a quilt along these lines next. I've cut out the reds and some oranges so far.

  http://www.redpepperquilts.com/2009/10/tutorial.html

This is the latest quilt I've been working on. The blocks haven't been sewn together yet. The instructions were in one of the blogs I've been following - Red Pepper Quilts.

Coffee and Deltora Quest

School holidays and coffee with my 10 year old. He's really enjoying Emily Rodda's Deltora Quest. Then we went off and visited a couple of quilt shops, and Ben sat himself in a corner and read. Such an angel!!

Trip to the coast Maruya Heads

We went to the coast on the weekend - to Maruya Heads. We saw an echidna making it slow, waddling way across this path the next day. So wonderful to see one in the wild. And we saw dolphins at sunrise.

We went to a garden centre to buy my husband a wedding anniversary present - some blueberry plants. Andrew, who is 12, went crazy with my camera's macro function, and took some great shots. Kept him busy while I decided between a kaffir lime and blueberry plants.

The Victoria and Albert Museum has a virtual quilt on its site - people are being asked to send in their photos. I had a look through some of the most popular. I really love this orange and turquoise one.

Quilt of Quilts

Autumn Frost

View this quilt on the V&A website

http://www.vam.ac.uk/microsites/quilts/quilt/detail/id/136

Ben paints the first stroke. We painted his room on the weekend, and he did much of it. He chose green and yellow - and his room doesn't look like a guest room anymore.We finished painting Ben's room, he chose a notice board and we put it up. Ben's first note to himself - Something to DO....

1. Get lots of stuff
2. Try make something out of it
3. Make sure it's perfect
4. Paint
5. Do the last agustments (sic)

I was particularly impressed with the apostrophe in "it's"!!!

My first crop of chillis - in the bowl my grandma gave me years ago. Not quite enough for a batch of chilli jam yet.

Andrew helped me make a caramel pear upside down cake today. He made the caramel and arranged the pears. He spent two hours doing housework with me - and the place is looking fantastic now. It's been a busy weekend painting a bedroom and rearranging things.

Easter eggs

Ben made dyed eggs at school - drew designs on with wax first, and made the most wonderful little easter basket with riddles like 'How do you attract a rabbit' - and drew in carrots leading to our door. Very cute. Happy Easter.