a catch up!

Well hello there dear readers!

Its been a little longer between posts then I intended. I hope you had a lovely Christmas!

Gingerbread house made from scratch

Things have been downright hectic here the last few weeks. We have covered thousands of KMs driving around the country after a flying trip to the farm in NSW to drop off the old caravan and my fathers old tractor. Then we came home to quickly unpack and wash only to repack and do the rounds visiting family for a few nights over Christmas.

Th old tractor we carted across the country.

It was wonderful to see the farm again, and it helped to re-assure me that we have in fact made the right decision to move our family half way across the country. We got the boys into the school we wanted which was wonderful, and I feel really happy about that. Grant has had some hopeful leads regarding work and although nothing is locked in officially, he has been asked to keep in touch with a large and very professional trucking company in the district. Once he has a job formally secured it will be a huge relief.

I hope this works, its a little clip of the farm. Listen to the sounds!

The house has gone under contract and fallen through a couple of times, but is under again now and it is looking solid. The buyer is pre-approved and we will be moving in a little over three weeks, so we are in the process of collecting boxes, and finishing clearing out the sheds. I have packed some things and decluttered pretty intensely so hopefully the packing wont be too hard from here on out.

The 30ft yurt is on its way from America, and I look forward to getting it all set up. I can't say I'm looking forward to camping without power, or internet in the old vintage caravan, in a sub-tropical summer whilst managing a new school routine. Grant will be putting a shelter over the van and I predict I will be spending a lot of time in the comfort of the library over the first couple of weeks until the yurt is set up. Which will no doubt lead to lots of blogging and reading for me!

Christmas was nice but exhausting. It was really lovely to spend time with family, but after all the travel we all felt a little zombie-like. Gifts were a pretty simple affair this year due to a super tight budget, but it was enough and there were happy faces all around. There were board games, art supplies, books, PJ's lollies and I sewed up these dragons from "How To Train Your Dragon" for both Angus and Henry, which were hits! We listened to Christmas carols, drove to see the Christmas lights, a Christmas pageant, sewed decorations and baked ginger bread in the lead up to Christmas, which was all good fun. The magic of Christmas is after all in the spending time together, not expensive gifts.

The dragons turned out beautifully, though don't use the pattern for the blue dragon I linked in an earlier post unless you are a pretty competent sewer. The pattern was more of a rough guide and there were many adjustments that needed to be made. I hand tacked then altered it many, MANY times to get everything to actually fit together. However it did turn out really well in the end. The pattern could do with being reduced by about 1/4-1/3 I reckon too.