T-shirts.  That is what my life has revolved around this last week.  I traced out a pattern for each kid, did a test t-shirt and then cut/pinned/sewed my heart out.  Now the kids have four new t-shirts each and I can now move on to some tank tops for them, using the same fabric and same basic cut.

How much is this week going to suck?  Doing the kindy run in 37C heat does not appeal to me at all, and it really worries me that the garden centre outing has been rescheduled to Wednesday and that it going to be one of the hottest days.  Fingers crossed they reschedule it again and I don't have to go out in the scorching heat with the kids.  The house seemstot be coping much better than the Magill house as far as keeping out the heat goes, but we'll give it until Friday to see how it stands up to a whole week of over 35C heat.

The kids now have a bunk bed in their bedroom and I'm hoping the novelty wears off in the next few weeks (before the baby is born.)  I'm not looking forward to rescuing Felix off the top bunk every time I sit down to feed B3 so I'm just hoping we've left enough time for him to get that out of his system (or work out how to climb safely down the ladder by himself and that's pretty unlikely.)  The bottom bunk is actually a double bed so they can hang out together down the bottom during the day and then Daisy can retreat to the top at night and if Felix needs a cuddle during the night then it is comfortable for one of us to lie down with him.  Getting the bunk then frees up the single bed Daisy currently sleeps on so we can store that and bring it out if we have visitors come to stay.

This week is about surviving the heat.  Simple as that.  If I get other stuff done like tracing or cutting out etc I'll feel very pleased with myself but it is not the priority it has been of late. 

Well we've sure had some warm weather the last week, finally reminding us what the next three or four months are going to be like.  Surprisingly the heat hasn't really bothered me as far as the pregnancy goes, I think because I am already at the limit of being uncomfortable plus this house is much better at dealing with the heat than the last place.  What did catch me out was the complete lack of hot weather clothing for the kids but I quickly sorted that out over the weekend after finally finishing Chris' laptop bag.

I'm really proud of how the laptop bag turned out.

On the inside it has a pleated pocket with a flap that has a velcro closure, and on the other side are three deep pockets that span the width of the bag.  I'd show you those but Chris has already filled his bag up with stuff and I couldn't be bothered unpacking it in order to take photos.

After I got that task done I moved on to some pairs of shorts for Felix.  I realised during the week that when we moved I accidentally put the bags of his Summer clothes in with the Goodwill stuff instead of packing it into a storage crate (I blame preggie brain but it was really just disorganisation.)  So when this hot weather hit he only had tracksuit pants and jeans to wear which obviously wasn't suitable.  I quickly whipped up three new pairs using the Ottobre pattern I used last year and he loves them.  And the temp is going to drop down to 20C tomorrow.  Of course.


Now I can get on to the t-shirts and get a few of them ready for when the weather turns back to hot again (at the end of the week I think?)

Mum's return from South Africa meant a much needed break from the computer for me and far less trips out of the house in the afternoon.  As much as the kids loved the runs to the post office I was getting a bit worn out from it all so its really nice not to have to do that anymore.  She brought back some lovely souvenirs though and the kids love what she got them.  I love little handcrafted objects and I appear to have handed on that love to my kids so the zebra ornament and spider toy have been given a solid workout. 

I got the babyseat into the car so the kids can get used to it being there - unfortunately it means Felix is no longer able to 'blast off' into his seat from the centre of the back seat.  I'm thinking of putting a little step in the footwell below his carseat and hopefully he can blast off from there instead.  I also need to sew up a couple of 'car caddies' that I have a tutorial saved for somewhere as they can't store their books etc in between their carseats anymore.

This week is about dealing with the miseries of the last few weeks of pregnancy (welcome back sciatic pain! nice to see you again!), the heat and the myriad tasks I have on my to do list.

Well I can finally talk about the sewing project I have been working on for over two weeks.  I bought a laptop bag pattern from Nicole Mallalieu's website after seeing a great hat pattern of hers used on another blog I read regularly, originally planning to use it around Christmas time to make a present for someone.  Then I realised that the messenger bag Chris used to take to work had gotten quite ragged and realised I could make a new bag for him and give it to him as an anniversary present.  Of course I didn't factor in how tired I was about to get, or how much time Mum's business stuff was going to take up, nor did I realise how hard to find some of the bag pieces were going to be (way to go crappy Adelaide craft stores.)  This final problem would actually result in me giving Chris an unfinished bag for his present today but fingers crossed the small black plastic clip that is part of the strap assembly arrives in the post soon and I can finish off the bag in relatively decent time.  Once I've done that I'll post some pictures, as it really isn't much to look at at the moment.

Now that the bag has taken a backseat for a while I now need to get the kids' summer t-shirts organised.  I've traced off a basic t-shirt pattern for both of them from an Ottobre magazine so now I just need to make up a copy in the grey jersey I've been using for t-shirt 'muslins' lately and make sure I have the sizing right.  Once I get that sorted I can then wade through the enormous pile of cotton lycra/jersey/interlock that I got on sale from Spotlight recently and churn out as many t-shirts as possible. 

The poor old garden.  It gets watered but that's about it really.  It needs weeding in the spots where the mulch wasn't thick enough (there is some kind of voracious vine type weeds sending in suckers from another property I think) and I need to set up the trellis for the peas but I just don't have the energy. 

I am so incredibly sick of being pregnant.  And I am sick of people saying "Well you'll be even more tired once the baby is born!" as though I don't already have two kids and know what it is like to have a newborn.  I may be tired but I won't have indigestion, back/hip/neck pain, a constant need to wee, a massive belly that gets in the way all the time, etc.  I just want my body back basically, and will happily trade that in for someone who just wants my boobs every two hours for a few months.  New preparations for B3 this week involve moving the car seat into the car so the kids can get used to it, and finding the sling and running it through the wash a few times to soften it up.  

The postie has just gone by and dropped something off so fingers crossed it is the clip I need for Chirs' bag.  It still has a bit of work to do on it and I want it done before I start on the kids' t-shirts.

The last few weeks of pregnancy are pretty much all about the title of this post.  With Daisy my back pain was so bad I used to cry when I was trying to get out of bed.  With Felix it was back pain again, but not to the same extent, and also a variety of other pains that crowded in on my day.  And now with B3 it is the same.  This weekend was particularly awful and because I'm not getting much sleep I really don't have the resources to deal with it properly.  Of course I am trying to do much and of course my standards are too high but realy that is just part of my nature and not something I can fight.  When Mum gets back from O/S I'll get her to mind the kids so I can see my physio and see if something can be done about the back pain (other than simply giving birth and getting rid of the problem completely) and also see my psychiatrist as well.  I need to get her ready for once B3 arrives as I will more than likely have some serious issues again, but I could actually just do with a good chat right now too. 

I went to Brown Owls during the week and that was really lovely.  It was quite a quiet night, really mellow and small, and was exactly what I needed.  I think I got exactly three rows done of Felix's jacket sleeve done but I really feel Brown Owls is as much about connecting with other crafters as it is with getting things done.  I have a running joke with myself that B3 will definitely be a week late just so it can arrive on a Brown Owls night, as babies love nothing more than to arrive at the least convenient time posible. 

I haven't done any sewing lately but I am pushing myself to patch the knees on a few pairs of Daisy's jeans.  I figured it would be leggings and skirts weather all the time by now so I let the maintenance slack off a bit and a few bare patches show through.  But she has still needed those jeans for kindy (except for the last two days, which have been divine) and will need them later in the week by the looks of it.  I've gotten as far as ironing on some light interfacing and have even cut out the zebra fabric patches to put on but I just haven't gotten to the pinning and sewing point yet. 

The midwife's visit was great but tinged with disappointment.  Turns out she is just a relief midwife for the permanent midwives when they are on leave so I'll get my crappy midwife back by my next appointment, along with having to go to the stupid 36 week checkup they make all VBAC clients do.  Quite frankly I think it is a waste of time for me as I have proved I can do a VBAC and don't need to be intimidated with scare tactics relating to exploding caesar scars and what not.  As it is my germ fears are going through the roof right now and the thought of going to the hospital freaks me out, so I'm not going to be in the best of moods when I get there.     

This week is simply about soldiering on.  About recognising that I have limitations and that it is OK to leave all the things I want to do on a list or in my head. 

Another home visit from the midwife this Friday so that'll be nice.  Always a joy to hear the heartbeat on the doppler, even though the endless kicking of this child reassures me that it is doing just fine.  When B3 dropped down a bit lower last weekend it set off a chain of events that now leaves me in a fair amount of pain so I've really had to pull back on how much walking around I do.  And I think my tiredness has a lot to do with coping with the constant pain as well, but because I can't nap (thanks to the pelvic pain and heartburn) I can't really do anything about it.  Anyway, only about 7 weeks to go (please be on time B3!) so I just have to suck it up and move on.  Slowly.

This week I really have to finish off Felix's jacket.  The sleeves sucked all of the joy out of the project for me so it is in serious danger of becoming a UFO, except that the cotton yarn is really beautiful and cost a bit of money and it would be a terrible shame to put the project in my UFO container. I also have to keep my head above water in regards to Mum's business and not allow all the emails and ebay crap and trips to the post office overwhelm me. 

The first week of the holidays was as bumpy as expected, as Felix lost his quiet mornings and Daisy wallowed in the throes of intense boredom. Of course her first choice for boredom relief was to needle her brother endlessly but it seems we now have a lot more harmony around the home. We are swamped by craft projects now - seed pictures, paper bag puppets, play dough dioramas - as I have desperately tried to fill some of the long boring hours and most of the toys have not been put away for days but so far I've kept my sanity intact. I'm just glad the weather has been dried (if not much warmer) than predicted so the kids have been able to play outside for most of each day.

I've been using up my meagre supply of energy with small and manageable jobs lately. I figure that I am going to be exhausted by mid-afternoon no matter what I do so I might as well get stuff done in the morning. I had been taking it easy after I got up in the hopes of preserving my strength for the rest of the day but I finally accepted that wasn't working so now I just go for it and then collapse in a heap later. I made a pair of maternity capri pants from an Ottobre pattern but they need cord and toggles in the leg hems before they are properly finished so I'll sort that out before I post a picture. I also have a maternity top from Ottobre also in the works but this is more of a 'muslin' as I get my dimensions and measurements right. I prefer tops to be longer than average and I prefer cross over tops to not gape open too much so I need to see how this top works before I make it in any of my 'good' fabric. I made this top during my last pregnancy too but I'm a different shape this time and I need to fit me at the end of the pregnancy, rather than the middle, so I really do need to make it again (several sizes larger around the bust and belly!) to see how it sits.

Mum goes off to South Africa tomorrow so once again I'll be baby-sitting the business while she is away. I'm just selling existing inventory on eBay though so I won't have to do any sewing, so it'll just be a lot of computer work and regular trips to the post office. I handled it just fine when she went to Europe a while back but I guess the most important thing is to ensure that the baby stays put until she gets back. I'm pretty good at one handed typing whilst breastfeeding but I'd rather not have to do it!

Chris did a heap of new work in the garden and now it is looking fantastic. We solved the issue of where to get the extra soil we needed by simply stealing it from one side of the veggie patch. It is huge so it wasn't a problem to just split it in half and just focus on one side, and now we finally have some seedlings in. Once we get a little bit more money coming through we'll slowly dump bags of cheap potting soil into the hole, along with some compost, and then perhaps get some vine type veggies such as zucchinis and pumpkins in. Hopefully all that admiring I did of Cat and Nathan's garden the other day will sink into my subconscious and I will feel energised to do some planting here as well. The problem is of course that I feel worn out after about 1o mins of physical activity and that never seems enough to actually get anything done.

The second week of the school holidays started with a public holiday so that was a bonus. Only four days left and then it is the weekend again! Hurrah! A trip to Spotlight will sort out the toggle/cord issue and a bit of persistence will get the top done, so I should be able to get those done. The only thing other than that is getting the watering can out to all our precious little seedlings each day and that will just about do I think.

So I've started to waddle like a duck. A duck in a great deal of discomfort too. Apparently there was room for the baby to drop down a bit further so it did, and now life is a little bit more unpleasant. Bring on the next ten weeks and get them over with I reckon.

I've bought a ridiculous amount of cotton lycra from Spotlight lately, starting with my trip to Sydney and then following on with a voucher funded shopping binge a few days ago. At $3 a metre for most of it I was buying 2 metre lots so I should be able to do a whole heap of leggings for Daisy on top of all the t-shirts I am planning to make both the kids. Unfortunately the shopping without kids bit is the easy part, and now I have to trace off the patterns I want to use and get into some sewing. I didn't really finish all the SWAP items but they aren't really appropriate for the hot weather coming up so I'm not too bothered, and will just get on with the new items I want to make. I did manage to add ribbing cuffs to all the pants that were getting a bit short so at least I didn't have that job hanging over my head any more.

I'm still working on Felix's jacket, despite a few sleeve related set backs. I tried to pick up the stitches and knit it in the round but I just couldn't get the decreases right. No matter what I tried it just didn't sit right so I had to frog back several hours of work several times in a row. It was not a happy process. Now I am knitting the first sleeve flat, will seam it up and then set it in place just as the pattern asks. But I won't like it and it will not look as nice as if I had been able to knit it in the round.

Two weeks of school holidays loom ahead of me now so I doubt I'll be getting much done other than organising endless activities and constantly breaking up fights. We got some more storage for the craft/exercise room so I think I'll just spend some time doing that. I need to transfer some words to plastic storage bins and need to think of the best way of doing it. Vinyl adhesive letters would be ideal but I don't know if I'll be able to find the size I want so I may end up stencilling them on. A quick trip to Officeworks is probably the bext way to start I think (my second favourite store chain after Spotlight.)