It's the last day of NaBloPoMo. Let me hear you say "Woop! Woop!" Well, I'm excited. I completed the challenge successfully and managed to post every day of November. I am glad it is over though. It's exhausting having to post everyday.

I'll leave you with a few fun selfies from our Byron holiday. Most afternoons, Andrew and I were lucky enough to be able to leave Evie playing with Grandma and Grandpa so that we could sneak a swim in. I love the beach. Looking forward to Summer!

I owe you a proper Evie post. I was so good at documenting Evie's first year. I really like to look back over the photos and posts. It's amazing to see how much my little girl has grown.

Since then I've been really slack. I want to do an 18-month post and update you with all of Evie's latest tricks. Unfortunately, I can't muster the energy to think this evening. I've had a few more days of teaching work this week and I'm exhausted. It's nice to actually be using what I've learned from my studies but it's tiring! I also haven't figured out how to manage the whole working / looking after a toddler / running a household thing. When I work our house falls apart. I really admire all the families who have both parents working. I don't know how you do it all.

So instead of a proper Evie post I'll leave you with this photo of Audrey and Evie. Annie has been looking after Evie sometimes while I work so I owed her big on babysitting hours. On Tuesday, I had both the girls for half a day. I took them to the park for a bit and then for morning tea at Bitton. In this photo they are showing me how well they jump which is why Evie looks huge compared to Audrey (Evie is standing on her toes).

On Tuesday, I totally paid back at least a full day's worth of babysitting to Annie. There was an incident but it's not something you write about on websites unless you want to get submitted to STFUParents. Suffice to say Audrey required a bath in the middle of the day and I had to wipe myself down with several wet wipes.

Evie's 18-month post is coming soon. I promise!

More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

We've had a bit of a baby boom recently so I've been doing a lot of sewing for babies. Traditionally I gift each newborn with a lambykins. Lamby used to be a shower present but recently I've been giving them after the baby arrives. For two reasons: (1) It's really hard to find gender neutral fabric these days so it helps to know whether the baby is a boy or a girl before making the lamby. (Not that I make all pink or all blue lambys but fabric can usually be considered boy's or girl's.) And not everyone finds out the sex of their baby (some people do but don't tell anyone. You know who you are!) (2) I've started to embroider the baby's initial underneath the lamby's ear so I have to wait until I find out the baby's name.

As Lambykins is now a new baby present I've had to find new shower presents to give. I've seen a lot of cute taggy toys on Pinterest so I thought I'd give them a go. Taggy toys are soft toys made from different textured fabrics which have loops of satin ribbon attached. Babies apparently love to play with the loops and to feel the different types of fabric.

So I whipped up a few taggy toys to put in my present box for the future arrivals. It turns out they are very easy to make. I can fit sewing a taggy toy in during one of Evie's naps. Sometimes I get project fatigue when sewing things which take a few days or weeks (like quilts!) so it's nice to do something which can be completed in one day.

Here are my taggy toys.

I sewed a rainbow smiley plushie using this tutorial from chezbeeperbebe.

I sewed a happy cloud plushie using this tutorial from hello-refabulous.

And my favourite is the Giraffe plushie from this tutorial from Craftin' It.

Some more family photos from Byron. Can you tell that I quite liked the back deck steps as a place for photographs?

I captured this photo of the Wilson boys on Ben's 40th birthday. While I snapped away, Isaac sat proudly holding the 40th birthday card with a big smile on his face. (I think using the card as a prop was his idea too.) He looked like he belonged in some kind of childrenswear catalogue.

So I called out, "Now pretend you're in a KMart catalogue!" This was the result....

Isaac really could be in a KMart catalogue!

Yay! Christmas is on its way. Do you know how I know? (And I'm ignoring all the decorations which are already up in the stores. The rule is December 1st people!) Last friday I decorated a Gingerbread house. It's one of my many Christmas traditions.


This year, I attended a Gingerbread event run by St Matt's at Ashbury, the church where Evie goes to playgroup. Coincidentally it's the same church where I decorated my first ever Gingerbread house. The tradition has come full circle! I think my roof fell off the first time I did it (oops!).

At the beginning of the evening they asked who was decorating a Gingerbread house for the first time. Then they asked who had done it before e.g. Who's decorated one house before? Who's decorated two houses before? etc... I think they got up to five houses. Well, I just did a count back and this has been a yearly tradition for me since 2003 (except I think I missed out in 2008). So that's eight gingerbread houses in my Christmas past.

You'd think I might be some kind of expert by now. I'm not. Some of the women who attended had much better piping skills than me. Some houses had delicate icicles hanging from the eaves and beautiful little bows piped onto Christmas wreaths. (The trick is to cut a very small hole in your piping bag. The hole I cut is always too big.)

But after eight houses I am an expert at suppressing my clusmy side to be able to produce a reasonable looking house. My motto when decorating a gingerbread house is "More is More! (I think I may have repeated it once or twice on the night.... sorry girls!) Every surface should be covered with lollies so as to distract from the dodgy piping job. I definitely stuck to my motto this year. I'm actually pretty pleased with how my house turned out. And with all those lollies I'm sure it will taste good too!