I did manage to fit in quite a bit of crafting during my uni break. Lots of the kiddies had birthdays so I had lots of birthday gifts to make. I'll be showing off what I made over the next few posts.

First up, a birthday present for Isaac who just turned three. I made a personalised towel cape for Isaac. I've got heaps of mileage out of this craft idea. This is a very easy gift to sew. (thanks LJC!) This time the towel cape also doubled up as wrapping paper (thanks for the suggestion Sarah).

My standard kid's present seems to include a t-shirt, a book and a toy. The t-shirt is from Threadless. My favourite t-shirt supplier also has a kids' range. (I have way too many Threadless t-shirts. I should really count them.) The book is City Dog, Country Frog by Mo Willems. A recommendation from book scout, a great blog about books for kids and teens. The toy is from Playmobil. I love Playmobil. All of this was wrapped in the towel cape and then put in a kid's envirosax bag.


Do you like our personalised Happy Birthday gift tags? They are from Moo.com. I used to make my birthday cards. I'm now so lazy I don't even write on a birthday card! But really, what three year old reads a birthday card? That's my excuse I'm sticking with it.


Happy 3^rd Birthday Isaac!

We've definitely found the right trivia venue for our abilities. We thought we'd done terribly last Thursday and had resigned ourselves to going home empty-handed. We were surprised when we came in at third place ($20 voucher - kaching!). Obviously everyone else had done terribly too.

Are you good enough to be a badger?

1. How many officials are there on an NFL field?
   
   
2. Coming in white and green varieties, what is the birth stone for October?
   
   
3. Conceived in 1951, it was the first drug used to prevent rather than cure. What is it?
   
   
4. Which animal swims faster? A killer whale or a Gentoo penguin?
   
   
5. Wall St crash, MS Herald of Free Enterprise ferry disaster, Locomotion by Kylie Minogue. What year am I?
   
   
6. What animal is in a hurry in the nursery rhyme Higgledy Piggeldy Pop?
   
   

You know the drill. Guesses in the comments. No cheating with Google. Blah blah blah.

Copacobana is great for bird spotting. On our walk to get the morning coffee Andrew and I spotted rainbow lorikeets, kookaburras, cockatoos (sulphur-crested) and galahs.

Andrew took these great photos on Saturday afternoon. If we have any leftovers from meals they go out on the balcony for the birds. The lorikeets love left over toast from brekkie and the kookaburras are fans of left-over sausages from dinner. Both options were on the menu so both lorikeets and kookaburras turned up for a feed.


More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

On Sunday, we headed into Terrigal to walk up the big hill and look out at the lookout. We had also planned to walk / scooter the along the Promenade (unfortunately it started to rain so we went home and played cards instead).

At the lookout, the boys discovered what fun it is to run full pelt down a hill. They did this several times dragging poor Richie up with them each time. The rest of the adults sat at the bottom of the hill and watched the fun (Annie did join them for one run).

Oscar ran like he was escaping from an angry mob carrying flaming torches. He ran down the hill, screaming with limbs flailing. Look at the photos - mouth open, look of terror on his face. It wasn't that he was scared doing it, he just found it more fun to pretend that he was. I think Oscar would make a great extra in a zombie film. He's certainly got "fleeing in terror" down pat.



More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

We spent last weekend up at Copacabana. The Bells are up there for winter school holidays. When I was younger, we spent the school holidays at my uncle and auntie's house at Budgewoi. It's nice to see the tradition of spending your holidays at a place with a ridiculous name continued.

On Saturday, we went for a mini bush walk to Maitland Bay. It was hilarious watching Leo run around and play on the beach. Leo is a real boy's boy.

Here is a commentary of Leo in action:

Let's run over here. Now I'm going to run over here.
Look! water! I'm going to jump in it.
wow! a crab! I'm going to poke it with a stick.
Now I'm going to climb this hill and throw some sand around.
Yeaaaaaaaaah!

Definitely a boy's idea of fun.



More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.