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The 52 Project: A portrait of my children, once a week, every week in 2014

Linking up with Practicing Simplicity

We spent a beautiful day at Lorne beach today.

 Mimsy loves the beach more than anyone I know. She ran between teaching Juju how to build sand castles and trying to convince her dad or I to take her into the water.

 Juju was quite happy to sit with me in the shade and play in the sand. He has a new name for Mims, whenever he sees her he giggles and yells out Zsa Zsa, it's very cute.

T.G.I.F.F Giraffe Cot Quilt

This week Thank Goodness It's Finished Friday is being hosted by Glory Be Quilter. Some gorgeous projects if you follow the links.

I really am excited about this finished project! A quilt for my little man. He is almost 11 months old now, so it's been some time coming.

I used Giraffe Crossing from Riley Blake. I wanted something colourful and fun. We tend to use quilts for everything rather than simply for sleeping under, so I was happy to have bright colours and lots to look at.

I made each block using a charm square for the centre (fussy cut to include the various giraffes in the different colour ways) surrounded by 16x 2.5" blocks. It is sashed using the cream dots and the binding is made using the multi stripe.

I used straight line quilting on the cream dots in an attempt to make each block pop a little more.

Like each of the quilts I've made so far (this one is my third), there are plenty of mistakes and things to practice. But, I'm happy to have it finished, and Juju man gave his standard seal of approval - madly clapping his hands.

What have you been working on this week?

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The 52 Project: A portrait of my children, once a week, each week in 2014

Linking up with Practicing Simplicity

 Mimsy asked if she could take Juju's photo this week. I think she did quite a good job!

 We've been working hard in our garden this week. Our new house doesn't have a lemon tree, so we planted a new one. Mim was very proud of her planting efforts.

Tomato flavoured bread

I've decided to branch out in my crafty endeavours. Cooking and gardening are on my 'to do' list. I'm not skilled in either and funnily enough, as much as I can follow a sewing pattern, I'm terrible at sticking to a recipe. This does not bode well for my cook aspirations.

But, nevertheless, today I thought I'd make some tomato flavoured bread.

Juju was there to oversee the process.

I started with The Road to Loving my Thermomixer's go to bread recipe. I love Peta's recipes, they are well set out and easy to follow - important for me! Lucky me, I have a Thermomix, so I used that for my preparations.

I decided to just wing the quantities and initially simply replaced the water with a tin of tomatoes, that I had blitzed and warmed to 37 degrees. When I started kneading the bread I quickly realised it was too dry. I added about 120ml of water and this helped to combine all the ingredients. In the end it was possibly a little too wet, but it still worked.

I also got distracted with visitors and went out for lunch with my dough still sitting at my window sill. Instead of leaving it to rise for the recommended one hour, it was probably there for more than 2, whoops!

But, by the afternoon, I had a delicious loaf of tomato flavoured bread. It was quite dense, and it packed a bit of a tangy punch. Overall I was happy with my first attempt at it. I think next time I might add some basil through it for something extra.

We ate the bread, still warm, for afternoon tea. It was delicious and the kids loved it too.

52 Project catch up (again!)

Ok, I say this all the time, but this time I am determined to catch up on my blogging and stay on top of it! So here goes with my big catch up on what we've been up to lately.

The 52 Project: A portrait of my children, once a week, each week in 2014
Linking up with Practicing Simplicity

35/52 - it takes a lot of concentration playing with wrapping paper! Both Mim and Juju loved wrapping up their toys and rediscovering them while they played "birthdays".

36/52 - Spending a beautiful Father's Day at the beach. Mim and Ju have a wonderful relationship with their brilliant Dad. Playing upstairs with a ball is the current favourite activity for these three.

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 Mimsy styled her own photo this week.

 Juju watched on, somewhat amused.