All the fun of the fair

The Junior Crafter's little school held their biennial Village Fair yesterday, and it was a wonderful day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and there was an air of festivity all about the place. The Fair also incorporated the *ahem* Grand Opening of our (not quite finished and not really how we wanted it but shh don't mention the war, it's not at all PC and we may seem ungrateful) new Junior Learning Centre which was overpriced   massively behind schedule  bungled  built as part of the Federal Government's Building Education Revolution. Our local federal MP put in an appearance and cut the ribbon. I'm hoping it will be completed by the time the Boy Genius commences school next February.

Anyway, back to the fair. The Bloke Who Lives At My Place organised races and games for the kiddies on the school oval, including the egg and spoon race, sack race and three legged races; some good old fashioned fun. I held the fort on the Cake Stall for the day, along with 2 other mums, and we simply couldn't keep up with demand! We had two trestle tables, which were completely covered and sold twice over, thanks to the generosity of our school community who baked and donated all the goodies which we sold.

My contribution this year was 4 dozen Anzac Cookies and two batches of my famous Chocolate Slice, a family recipe passed on to me by my cousin, who got it from our Great Auntie Jess, who I believe had it handed down from her mother (my Great Grandmother).
I'd love to share it with you of course, but I think that publishing a recipe like that on the internet would amount to some kind of sacrilege!
Hope you had a lovely cake filled weekend too :)

Bright sunshiny day

Today I am grateful for beautiful warm sunshine, the great aussie bbq, and the laughter of my children as they run and play outside in freshly mown grass. 

I *heart* Spring.

Donate Life



Image from here

Today, our family is rejoicing. A much loved family member today received the gift of life from an anonymous stranger: My husband's beautiful Aunt endured 9 hours of surgery today and is the grateful recipient of new lungs. Truly a gift of life.

Our entire family is rejoicing in this amazing gift we have all been given today.

But also in our hearts today are thoughts for another family, a family in grief and sorrow at the loss of their loved one. We have only thanks and immense gratitude for this anonymous family, who, in their time of grief, were able to donate their loved one's organs to give new hope to so many families. We are eternally grateful, and our heartfelt thanks cannot be adequately expressed in words.

Have you made a decision to donate your organs? Have you talked to your family about your wishes? Please do, your decision could save many lives. Visit DonateLife for more information about organ donation.

Don't take your organs to Heaven. Heaven knows we need them here.

In Bob we trust

Image from here

Yesterday we celebrated Father Bob Maguire's 50th Anniversary as a Catholic Priest. If you live in Melbourne, you probably know of Father Bob, he's somewhat of a celebrity these days, appearing on television, radio, Twitter, Podcasts and even has his own Wiki entry. Bob's commitment to humanitarian and charity work through the Father Bob Foundation is long standing and well known.

But Father Bob is more to us than priest, community leader and charity worker. He is also The Bloke's Great Uncle, and so we proudly joined a huge family contingent at Sts Peter and Pauls in South Melbourne yesterday for a special Mass celebrating Bob's 50 years in the priesthood. This is the same beautiful church where The Bloke and I were married, by Father Bob, more than 11 years ago.

I love this photo of Bob with my little Cheeseboy, taken at a family wedding a few months ago.

It was a wonderful celebration, which Bob took in his stride although he did seem a bit bemused about 'all the fuss'. At one point during the service he said he hoped the Church police weren't here because they would lock him up and throw away the key if they saw this Altar Cloth made for him by members of the parish:

Congratulations Bob, on 50 years of service to the community and generally being an all round caring and compassionate man. We love you.

Completed - Reversible Winter Pinafore

Buttonholed. Buttoned. Taken in a little. Unpicked. Restitched, taking care to line up the seams properly this time. Hemmed. Wrapped. Delivered to the birthday girl. Well received. Yay!

Pleated pockets made using this tutorial

Heart shaped pocket all my idea!

Vintage self cover buttons from the Op Shop.

The Storm and a Wedding Day

On Saturday, The Bloke and I were heading off to celebrate a family wedding in South Melbourne and looking forward to a night in a fancy-pants hotel followed by a lovely sleep-in, late checkout and a leisurely brunch before heading home to the hills.

I had somehow pulled off the seemingly impossible task of arranging to have all 3 kids looked after overnight, and it was to be our first night away together in about 4 years.

I had my hair done, bought a new frock, and was feeling very glam and excited as we set off. We were so thrilled to be able to share in this very special family wedding.

Then the storm hit.

We were on Toorak Road when the hailstorm hit us, we pulled over and sheltered in the car. The hailstones were about as big as large marbles and sounded very scary hitting the car, I was terrified our windows were going to break. After the storm eased, we spent the next 30 minutes or so trying to find a road that was not flooded that would get us to the Church on time. We were having no luck, everywhere was flooded.

We were trying Swan Street when my sister called (she was at our place looking after the Junior Crafter and Poor Point 3). My sister took the kids into the hallway and shut all the doors to protect them from flying glass as the windows were broken by hailstones larger than golfballs. She said the windows were smashed, there was glass everywhere and rain pouring in. At one point she opened the hall door into the kitchen to see what was going on and a large hailstone flew in a broken window past her head and down the hallway!

This photo was taken by my neighbour

We turned around and came home immediately, but I knew it would be at least an hour before we made it home. I called my brother who was only 5 minutes away and he went straight to our house and started the clean up and boarding up the windows.

We arrived home to find:
11 broken windows (in our house and bungalow)
Weatherboards damaged by hail
The shed wall damaged by hail
Our Colourbond roof looks like someone has taken to it with a large hammer
Skylight broken and leaking water into the bathroom

My car (which was in the driveway) has hail damage to 7 panels, but luckily no broken windows so it is still driveable.

I am still unable to contact my insurance company.

We didn't make it to the wedding. We called the hotel and told them what had happened and asked if they might transfer our booking to another night (they sounded doubtful and said they would call me back this week). We ordered take away and stayed in feeling very grateful that it wasn't worse, devastated that we missed the wedding and just a tiny bit disappointed about missing our night away.

I called the mother of the groom and explained what had happened and was relieved to find out that the wedding went off without a hitch and the happy couple still enjoyed their special day despite the storm going on outside.
Congratulations Pete & Beck, we wish you a lifetime of love and happiness, and wish we could have been there.

Did you miss me?

Hello lovely Bloggy friends, I'm back! I have been lost at sea for the last couple of weeks, drowning in an ocean of ballet classes, family birthdays, working bees, immunisation schedules, a family member's health crisis, daily readers, renovation plans, a new baby cousin, meal plans, kinder orientation, earth moving contractors, tennis lessons and all the other madness that makes up my daily life!

Recent creativity at Chateau Craft Gypsy: not much! (unless you count my creativity in cramming scheduling at least 8 days worth of activities for 3 children into each week). I still haven't started finished the safety vests for kinder, my granny square is still in a bag awaiting some attention, but I did manage to throw together this last minute library bag for a dear little girl's 4th birthday last week. 

And I am working on another fun little project with a bloggy friend which we will be announcing very soon, stay tuned for that!

Today is our 11th Wedding Anniversary. And we will be celebrating together as a family as our two eldest children will be flowergirl and pageboy for their Aunty's wedding today. And just in case you were wondering what we did last year on the 19th of December to celebrate our 10th anniversary...our two eldest children were flowergirl and pageboy for my best friend's wedding and I was Matron of Honour (and 7 months pregnant with number three, see pic below!).

(This is me a year ago, stay tuned for an updated pic after today!)

My little ones, a year ago today.

I'm starting to sense a pattern developing...I wonder who is thinking of getting married on our anniversary next year?