My Family, My Puppy Dog, Books and Quilty Goodness....

..these are a a few of my favourite things....

This is the most recent family photo that was taken a couple of weeks ago. We went to Kirribilli with fish n chips for Earth Hour, though this silly mummy got the hour wrong as I thought it started at 7.30pm but it was actually 8.30pm. The view was fabulous, the fish n chips were great, wonderful company with our dear friend Sally joining us... however the kids were feral by 7.45pm so we packed up and went home and had Earth Hour with a lovely bottle of red, candles and great conversation at home chilling out on the lounge!




Dave and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary through the week. Dave is the most wonderful husband and friend that a girl could wish for. He is so grounding and supportive, loving and giving. Not to mention that he is an amazing Daddy to our 2 princesses. I just love him to bits! He suprised me with a stunning amethyst ring and a night out to my favourite restaurant - Guillaume at Bennelong. It is the restaurant in the Opera House, and it is always a fabulous experience to dine there. Gues what I did, made him a quilt - the Love Nest!!! Unfortunately I had to give it to him half completed as I am having it professionally quilted and the quilter has gone away until after Easter. I was so disappointed but Dave was cool with it! Will blog that one when it is all done, I just love it, and thought it might be a little naff to give Dave as our anniversary gift but he seemed to really appreciate it. Here we are ready to head into town for our yummy degustation ...



Our boy Zeus, is off having some training at the moment, I am missing him like mad! He is home in 3 more sleeps. I took these photos a few days before he went on his little holiday. Such a handsome fellow.



This morning I finished reading book # 11 for the challenge. "The Hour I First Believed" by Wally Lamb. It is a 700+ page book and I have not been able to put it down for the past week. A novel that captured me from the first word and well worth the read. Here is the book descprion from the Harper Collins website.
"Wally Lamb explores the consequences of war and violence on human lives blown irrevocably off course.

When 47−year−old teacher Caelum Quirk and his younger wife Maureen‚ a nurse‚ move to Littleton‚ Colorado‚ they both get jobs at Columbine High School. In April 1999‚ Maureen finds herself in the school library‚ cowering in a cabinet and expecting to be killed‚ as two vengeful students go on a carefully premeditated‚ murderous rampage. Miraculously‚ she survives‚ but at a cost: she is unable to recover from the trauma.

While Maureen fights to regain her sanity‚ Caelum discovers a cache of old diaries‚ letters and newspaper clippings in an upstairs bedroom of his family′s house. The intriguing story they recount spans five generations of Quirk ancestors‚ from the time of the Civil War to Caelum′s own troubled childhood. Piece by piece‚ Caelum reconstructs the lives of the women and men whose legacy he bears. Unimaginable secrets emerge; long buried fear‚ anger‚ guilt and grief rise to the surface. As Caelum grapples with unexpected and confounding revelations from the past‚ he also struggles to fashion a future out of the ashes of tragedy.

The Hour I First Believed is a profound and compelling work of fiction. And Wally Lamb proves himself a virtuoso storyteller‚ assembling a variety of voices and an ensemble of characters rich enough to evoke all of humanity."

I am decorating Ciára's room with the lovely Butterfly Fling fabric - this throw is as far as I have gotten with the decorating but my plans are good!!! At the moment we are using this throw as her cot quilt. (Sorry 'bout bad photo!)



Zoe's room is alot further along in the decorating department, though we have yet to put it all together for her. All I need to do now is get my act together and make the bunting for her window... Zoe's room is bright and colourful beacause of the lovely Moda Strawberry Lemonade fabric we decided on. This is the throw...



And drum roll please......

Ta da - Strawberry Lemonade is finally finished after 9 long months. The 40 appliqued circles is really what took me so long. I thought the hand quilting would be alot more time consuming than it was. This quilt is a double bed size and as my first larger quilt I am very happy with the result. I had trouble when I was hand quilting in keeping the stitch length consistent but it got better as I went along. More importantly Miss Zoe just loves it!

Last but not least, Dave is Irish and it seems to have become a bit of a tradition for us to hold the big do to celebrate St Patricks Day. This year there was about 40 of us - family, friends, and neighbours but we were really lucky that both of Dave's brothers were in Sydney. Here is that side of the family... including Zoe's best mate who may as well be a family member....