One down, about six to go!

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I am so pleased to have finally finished my first (well second really) little artists drawing case. I first saw the tutorial here, Linda is publishing a book with a new and revised version of this case, I will be keeping my eye out for it that's for sure!

Just waiting on some cowboy fabric to arrive from The Humming Mini and I can get started on some for two little boys from Mothers Group that I drew for secret santa.

All this Christmas talk..

..got me thinking how much I enjoyed Christmas with Ellyse last year, and now a year later it is just going to be so much more fun. I know how excited she will be now that she can understand the concept a little better.

Putting the tree up last year was such a special day, I can't wait to do it agian.

Our home and our family!

This is our house before -

Actually no, it was a lot worse than that, in this photo we had already cleared the few trees that were there, include 3 huge date palms that we managed to sell, and we had the roof recoloured from a lovely shade of peach, and we put the cedar blinds in.

I cried for a week when we signed the contract for this house, but prices were soaring and we really wanted to buy in this particular suburb.

My husband has studied horticulture and the like for many years and until recently has always worked in that field, he was just bursting to create a wonderful tropical garden for our family!

Well here we are 5 years, and a lot of hard work later and I am constantly amazed at our garden. We just spent 2 days weeding and mulching and complaining about how many more plants we need to fill open spaces and what doesn't look so good. Then I look back at the first photo in amazement at how far we have come! I just went and captured some lovely snaps of our tropical garden.

And after-

Some beautiful colour in our garden

And by the way, I still absolutely hate the look of our house, but the good thing is you can't really see it from the street now. And after 2 months of renovations when we first bought it the inside is almost like new. We are just deciding now whether to extend the house to include a rumpus room, or to sell and move?? Not sure I can part with all of our hard work!

And just because it has been over a month since I have posted here is one of my two adorable children.

Oh and how could I forget the newest addition to our family - Jessie/Jesse the bird. Ellyse was in love for the first day or too, now it is something extra for Mummy and Daddy to look after!