Life in Colour.

Once again joining in with Jude over at her Travel Words blog for the monthly feature, Life in Colour. This month’s colour is green. This week, Jude has written a post here  about trams/streetcars, with their stunning  green paintwork of course. Her photos of these lovely old beauties are just wonderful! 

My post this week features an eclectic/hotchpotch of ‘greens’. 💚🟢🟩

Once I had a very bright fresh looking tablecloth for our rather large outdoor table...

The grandchildren liked to count all the different greens in those stripes.

I still have that cloth, but time has taken a toll on that brightness...

Here we are one afternoon last month. Miss 5 has joined us after school for some afternoon tea. The cloth may be faded but look at that very new school uniform...yep! Greens! 

Next, is half way around the world from here. The lovely green painted metal ( and shopping baskets) at Borough Markets in London. 

Lovely memories of a holiday in 2019. We took cheeses, breads, deli meats and fruit from the market back to our holiday apartment in Chelsea. 

And here is another  green in my life...
With Covid-19 came library closures and suddenly I became a lot more enthusiastic about ebooks. I’d bought such books over the years but now I started to borrow them from the library. And BorrowBox is the app that most of the titles I was interested in were available. ( a few still used Overdrive as the reader) 


For me I still love the so called traditional Christmas colours which certainly include green. Last year I made some knitted wreaths as little gifts for friends...some were green...well maybe most were green! Lol

A few years back I was shopping at a Christmas Market at the Karuna Hospice here in Brisbane and spied this elf. The amount of work involved in its making was impressive and the price quite rightly reflected this. But I’d fallen in love and it was a good cause, so the green elf came home with me. 

And I once pinned this next photo on my Pinterest Christmas board...

Now this next photo may look like a big pine undecorated Christmas tree, but looks are deceiving. It’s actually a phone tower in Hawaii. I took the photo through the window of the bus that had taken us on a tour of the island of Kauai. 

What a great way to disguise a phone tower! 

And there will be some more ‘greens’ from me next week. 

Way back to last December...

Now that the grandies are getting older, I like to involve them with things like decorating for Christmas. 

When the tree first came out of its box early last December, Miss Anthea straight away put 2 decorations on the tree...just 2! 😜

Firstly a toy phone from our toy box...

And Mary from my knitted Nativity...Along with baby Jesus too of course 😄. 

The next day, Holly came for a sleepover so that was a perfect excuse for more decorating of the tree...but first there was some playtime in the red felt sleigh. 

Holly loved helping me with unwrapping the decorations from the tissue paper and then organising me to put the decorations on the tree where she wanted them 😉


We left Mary on the tree...

Holly even got to play with a Santa decoration made with a dolly peg that her Poppy ( her mum’s dad) made when he was at kindy! (Some how this family heirloom is still in my Xmas boxes) 

Before Holly went home after her sleepover, she had time to write out some of her Christmas cards...

This was the card for Mummy and Daddy...

A few days before Christmas I dropped something I’d made in the letterbox at Anthea’s place...ready for Christmas Eve. 

A mug rug! There’s a pocket to put a letter to Santa in. 

As the month went on I did some more Christmas decorating...this year the knitted Nativity was set up on the corner table...

 We added some battery operated candles....

But alas no Mary and baby...she was still on the tree. 

As usual we had the family Christmas on the evening of the 24th. And what a bonus; this year all 5 of our girls, our 4 sons in law and 5 grandchildren were able to come! 

All lovely memories. 

Who knows what Christmas 2020 will be like. It’s closer than you think...a mere 6 months and 2 days away! 😂 🎅🏻 

Well that was Christmas!

Today is New Year's Day and the tidying up and putting away of all things Christmas is almost done. The weather has turned very hot and humid, so we've been a bit lethargic. DsD1 and Dan have been staying with us since Christmas Eve but today they headed off up to Coolum on the Sunshine Coast for a beach holiday. When you live on a cattle property 6 hours drive from Brisbane, with summer temps often in the 40s C ( over 100 degrees F)  a beach holiday must seem like paradise! 😄 
Christmas 2017 was lovely. Most of the family were able to be here for the family dinner on Christmas Eve, with just DsD2, her husband and Anthea  not here as they were having Christmas in NZ with Karl's family. But my nephew and his family were visiting from Sydney so that was a lovely bonus.
You may remember my blog post about the Sunday Stitchers Christmas which was held at Sandi's home. Sandi's decorating for Christmas was just stunning...mine is very, very modest. I tend to decorate little areas and because Anthea wasn't here, I could put out lots of Christmassy knick knacks...although she did come over one afternoon before they left, and loved playing with the knitted Santa and Reindeer in the little chair.

Both granddaughters got a handmade tree decoration from me...I made mini stockings for them but with a few extra things stitched on them compared to the basic ones I make for K4BN...

In 2016 I had made a hexie decoration for Anthea with the middle hexie being a photo of her printed on fabric. So this year I will have 4 to make!
The two babies who entertained us all at 2017's Christmas dinner are cousins...

The little girls weren't too sure about Grandma/Aunty Maria's antlers! Lol

My niece was once again wearing my early 1990s Christmas dress that I gifted to her a few years ago. Her baby brother is now so much taller than her!

Lots of good food; lots of good-natured banter and laughter...

And that was Christmas for 2017. 🎄🎁🎉

Sunday Stitchers Christmas Party

Yesterday we gathered together to celebrate Christmas. Instead of meeting at the Orneau Community Centre, one of our members, Sandi, had invited us to her home. I had heard that Sandi loves Christmas and that her home is always beautifully decorated for the Season. And that is certainly true! 

Amazing isn't it? And that is only one small section! 

Where I was sitting, I faced some shelves that had a wonderful display of nutcrackers...I suffered a fair bit of 'nutcracker envy', I can tell you! 😆

We were sitting around the large table chatting when there was the sound of a hand bell being rung. A flurry of red and white and we realised we had a visitor. 😉

Yep! Sandi had organised for Santa to drop in to hand out the Secret Santa gifts! 

We all got our photos taken as Santa handed us our gift...until I saw this photo I didn't realise how close I snuggled up to Santa...I'd better watch out or I'll have Mrs Claus after me! Lol

My Secret Santa was Marilyn and these are my lovely gifts from her...

I have always wanted a water bottle cover but had never got around to making one, so I was thrilled with this lovely one that Marilyn had made me! I joked with her that the days of the hand towel wrapped around my water bottle and held in place with a rubber band were over! Lol

And that 'cathedral window' pincushion is just gorgeous too! 

Before Santa headed off (to golf), he took a group photo of all of us.

Then it was back to chatting...

There was an amazing cocktail on offer! 

And there were lots of little gifts being distributed...

These were the little decorations that I had made to hand out to everyone.

Before lunch we played some games outside which were a lot of fun...there was a LOT of laughter I can tell you!

Lunch was next...everyone had brought something to share...

After lunch, the 2 birthday girls unwrapped their gifts...

All too soon, it was time to head back to Brisbane after our day in the country 😉(Jimboomba). It had been a great day and Sandi really spoiled us with lots of extra little gifts handed out during the day...including gifts when we're leaving! 

Christmas came...and went!

Yep! Christmas 2016 has now been celebrated, and except for a Christmas meal with DsD1 and Dan on Wednesday night, it's over for another year. ( they spent the actual day with Dan's extended family who all gathered in the town of Brigalow for Christmas)

So DH and I had our usual Christmas Eve family gathering for all family who could make it.
Anthea wore her Christmas dress that DH and I had bought her in November (hoping it would still fit by the end of December) and now she is crawling, I realised that Eduardo's water bowl would have to be relocated as soon as I took the photo!

As well as Anthea being on the move these days, DH and I are also  babysitting DD2's dog Jimmy while they are away at Rainbow Beach. So that's two potential escape artists, so DH and I had bought a gate for the back steps of the veranda. DH took one look at the instructions and was a bit flummoxed. But two of our sons in law are a builder and mechanical engineer respectively and I had asked for their help. 'Fifteen minutes tops, to get that installed!' they both said...and they were right!

 

 

Because DsD2 wanted to get little Anthea fed and off to bed by about 7ish, we gave Anthea her gifts before this. There was a bundle of things for her but I think the favourite was the mother quokka, complete with a baby in her pouch that we had bought on Rottnest Island.

And the 'touch and feel' animal books from Albany were pretty popular too.

 

This year I was thrilled to have my nephew from Sydney fly up to Brisbane on Christmas Eve, so he and my niece joined us. My niece Jenny, is the Coronary Care nurse and she had to dash off after dessert to start her shift at Prince Charles Hospital. Max and Lucy my great niece and nephew were spending Christmas with their dad Eric...a few changes there since last Christmas.

On Christmas Day DH and I went to the second church service in the morning, as I was serving...so a little sleep in! The Nativity had been set up at the Family service on Christmas Eve... no dinosaurs or exotic animals like lions, tigers and giraffes were in the stable this year...unlike some years in our other parish church, when 'littlies' want to put 'special' animal toys there. :-)

Christmas lunch was at DH's younger brother's place with all that extended family in attendance...always a lovely meal. This year my sister in law's nephew brought some afternoon tea items that he had prepared...my goodness, the spread was overwhelming. I asked DH to take a photo of this spread as I had forgotten to take my phone...he only took a photo of the multi layer pavlova, not the 2 fancy trifles, some fig pastries, profiteroles and honey puffs. There was a lot, plus my SiL's signature cannoli.

We came home to our place around 4pm and were visited by DD1 and Cam. They were hoping that I still had some of the rumballs (well brandy balls really as I used that spirit not rum) I had made, left. Apparently the box of them that I'd given Cam and DD1, had all been 'accidentally' eaten by my daughter and Cam had had none. :-(. Luckily there were some left here, so hopefully Cam can finally try some.
Despite having visitors, DH and Jimmy were caught snoozing on the cane lounge...

 So that was Christmas!