Winter List 2012

Welcome, June!

It's weird writing "winter" when my brain tells me it's supposed to be summer. But here in Australia, winter spans from June to August so it's time for me to switch gears and accept it.

We've been in a bit of a slump lately. With the weather being so cold and wet, it's not hard to find excuses to stay home all the time. But I want us to get back out there to try new things so I've written down some goals for this winter and hopefully it'll give us the little nudge we need to go exploring again.

1. Visit Tamborine Mountain
2. Pick strawberries
3. Make 3 new soups
4. Visit a winery
5. Check out Brisbane's Winter Festival
6. Bake pumpkin desserts
7. Have hot chocolate with marshmallows
8. Go to QPAC's Out of the Box Festival
9. Invite friends over
10. Teach Nathan how to ride his bike
11. Draw up plans for herb garden
12. Travel to another state

It's a pretty ambitious list seeing as how Andrew will have exams in a couple weeks and his school holidays don't coincide with Nathan's school holidays. But we'll get as many things crossed off the list as possible. I'd be happy even if we only got one thing done.

I'm looking forward to making the most of these cool winter months and getting lots of stuff done before it gets hot again.

B+W Chevron Pillow

Ever since moving into this house, I have been obsessed with pillows and cushions.

Everywhere I go, I find myself looking at cushions even though we don't really need them seeing as how we don't sit on our couch that often due to our lack of a tv. But I love them anyway.

A while ago, I found a red chevron-patterned cushion at Target. I loved the pattern, but not the colour. Nor did I like the green one. Or the blue one.

I left empty handed but my head was full of ideas.

Inspired by Elise's headboard, I used this tutorial and this tutorial, to make my own black and white chevron pattern using some more fabric I picked up from Ikea.

Here's the finished pillow cover. It's a little bigger than I wanted it to be, but the chevrons were perfectly centred and I really didn't want to re-cut and sew. So I left it.

I'm okay with the final product. Caleb doesn't mind it too much, either.

(Almost) Wordless Wednesday

I brought out the camera while the boys were playing in the backyard yesterday. It's been a while since I've done this.

Here's a collection of my favourites.

I was originally going to add captions, but I think this series of photos does a good job of telling its own story.

Under The Table

Some days I just want to join him down there.

Soccer Saturdays

This is our typical Saturday morning during soccer season:

I remember from training with the UW girls' varsity soccer team, they played in all weathers. I had to sit through hot days, rainy days, and absolutely freezing days when it was practically snowing.

Luckily, the kids don't have to play in the rain, but they do have to play when it's cold.

It was absolutely freezing this morning. I was so glad we all had our Canadian sweaters and jackets to keep us warm.

Winter doesn't last for very long here in Brisbane, but when it's here it's pretty brutal. The inside of our house is basically the same as the outside, and during the day, our house stays cool inside which is great in the summer but not so good in the winter.

Every night, I long for our king-sized down duvet. Every morning, I wish I brought my La Senza slippers to keep my feet warm from the ice cold tiles. Every day, I look for the warm sunny areas to sit in.