Christmas Time!

On the 19th of December we had a bbq with some friends and their kids and trooped out to see some Christmas lights after.Our camera batteries ran out quickly so we didn't get heaps of photos (typical!).Isabella and Sienna had never been out to see the lights at the Hamilton Temple before,and Im pretty sure they loved it! (not sure as they were probably more excited about going with their friends and chasing each other :p ).

 What Steve said looked like hell :p It was at the bottom of the hill and we were told we weren't allowed down there haha.Not that Sienna listened (that's her in the little white dressing gown)

 How gorgeous is this??I have been to the Temple before but I'm sure there were just white lights up that time,this time it was so colourful and gorgeous!

 Sienna still talks to me about how Mary,Joseph and baby Jesus live at the Temple :p Trying to explain any differently to her has not been accepted.

 At the top!Best photo we could get of all of them.Who knew kids wiggled so much.Left-right,Vili,Hannah,Sienna,Malachi,Isabella and Zaria.

Christmas morning!We didn't get many photos (again!what is wrong with us?!).We spent 5 days camping out at Raglan,our first holiday in 6 years!My mum was wonderful and came out Christmas morning to spend time with us and watch the girls opening their presents.Was an awesome morning.

 Sienna wasn't so keen on opening her presents,I think us adults opened most of them for her.Lol I really thought it would be different from last year,but I guess shes just not fussed.

 Isabella carted her rabbit around for a week straight!I am so glad she likes it so much! (I now need to go and sew it back together).

The pile of presents they had was huge! Doesn't look like it here (seriously we suck at taking photos on special occasions :p ).Excuse the yuck photo of me.

 Isabella's dolls bed and bedding.

Sienna's dolls bed and bedding.

(how is this for,I shall say funny but really its slightly annoying,they don't play with them!After all that hard work haha. I'm hoping they will when the weather gets colder and they are stuck inside more!)

After opening pressies we had breakfast,went to church,came back to our tent,the girls played for a while,had lunch and then best of all went for a big swim!!!!I love the idea of a white Christmas,but I love how on Christmas Day in NZ we can go swimming!It was a relaxed day and was lovely spending it with our girls and family.

Introducing...

Introducing.....

Isabella Esther Penelope Yoke Lin Wong

and

Sienna Evelyn Abigail Yoke Mae Wong!!

Honestly nicest photo I could get today :p

Funny story...not just one of my funny stories that only I find amusing!When Isabella was born we obviously had her names picked out.Being the dorks we were,when Grandma offered to give Isabella a Chinese name,my first thought was 'that is way too many names for a little girl!'.Yup we said no.In the last few years though Steve and I have really come to realise how important our girls Malaysian and Chinese heritage are to us.We don't really identify with any of the rest of our ethnicities and those are the ones we encourage our girls to be super proud of.So Steve asked his Grandma to chose a Chinese name for each of our girls.When Steve and his siblings  were babies his Granddad chose their Chinese names,unfortunately he is no longer with us.So Grandma went to Europe on holiday jealous much?  asked her sisters for advice (there are 8 of them!).She chose our girls names as they were her Mums names,so our girls Great Great Grandma's names!How cool is that?!
Isabella's one,Yoke Lin (silent e in the Yoke) means Jade Lotus
Sienna's one,Yoke Mae (again,silent e in the Yoke) means Beautiful Jade.

I love them,and Isabella and Sienna love telling me they have Chinese names,Isabella recites her full name with so much pride,Sienna leaves out her English middle names now haha.

I love that we are able to pass some of this awesome heritage on for our girls.

'Upcycling'

Photo dump!lol nah I have just finally taken some photos of some things around the house that I love and are new(ish).

When I took the Christmas tree down our lounge felt boring and not colourful,I had some left over material so made this flag bunting for our mantle piece.I took this photo and realised that yet again our girls had kindly rearranged things on it :p Still putting it on here cos whose house looks perfect all the time?!

 THIS is what it should have looked like lol.

I helped my mum clean out a room the other day and she gave us this old tea trolley.Its like crazy old and I LOVE it!!The sides can be folded down,it has a drawer for all my crap  sewing things.And a bonus,aside from me loving it and thinking its gorgeous,the girls use it as a 2nd dining table!No more eating off our once nice footstools.

For most of our marriage I have been telling Steve I want a new bookcase.When we do have the money for a new one I cant get over the guilt of spending that much money on something that lets face it is ,mostly for me.So last week Steve bought home some pallets from work,took them a part and built me this bookcase!Its not perfect and all that but I really REALLY like it!Excuse the books being crammed in,my hubby has said he will make a 2nd bookcase this coming weekend!Im a lucky girl :D

I have really realised that even though most of our furniture is 2nd,3rd and 4th hand lol,I actually really like what we have in our house at the moment.I love that a lot of stuff,no one else has,its unique.AND I have no problem with our girls putting sticky fingers on anything (bonus!).We have been very blessed with what we have,and I am so thankful.Plus I love that even though what we are replacing old furniture with isn't new,we are then able to pass our 'old' furniture onto other people.Paying it forward!
Random post finished

(haha just remembered the new word for 2nd hand furniture, 'upcycling',makes it sound fancier anyway,and makes me laugh)

I know,I should be doing Christmas posts,and I will once I can figure out how to upload photos from Steve's phone (yeah we were awesome and forgot to charge the camera batteries BEFORE Christmas!).But right now I just really want to write about today.

I realised today that I am a freakishly insecure person haha (who isn't really??).See my Mum has bipolar.I love my mum so so much.But I find it hard explaining it to other people,especially people who haven't known me for a gazillion years like 99% of my friends.I had to tell two new(ish) friends today and seriously a big freak out moment for me!I worried they would think I'm like my Mum (not totally a bad thing most of the time lol),that I would be totally judged.And you know what?I got none of that AT all!It shouldn't have taken me by surprise but it totally did.In a good way.I felt like these people had my back and genuinely cared.It was honestly a wonderful feeling.One took our girls for the afternoon so I could deal with some of the stuff that came up.Its one of those moments where I am unbelievably grateful that life led us back to Hamilton.

AND to make today a bit nicer just before it ends, Steve's Grandma told us she has chosen the girls Chinese names!!!She wants to tell us in person on Sunday,but she told Steve that Isabella's one is her Great-great Grandmothers and Sienna's is her Great-great-great Aunty's name :) Am so friggin excited and cant wait!

So even though today has been hard its been awesome at the same time!

That feeling of writing a post,saving it and not posting it :p

At least I got all those thoughts out!

Projects projects projects

So the crazy sewing I was talking about?Here ya go!

 I decided our spare/sewing/washing room needed to be spruced up a bit.We put the fold out bed in there and made it into a bit of a day bed.Far too much money later,I made these cushion covers.I cant believe how much cushions can brighten a room up!

We moved our girls room around a bit (again),to accommodate not having bunks.This old tv cabinet used to be a giant monster thing of my parents when I was kid,we had it as the monster,a few years ago Steve cut it down to what it is now (just still had the black vinyl ickiness on it),I eventually stripped it down and painted it white.It was storage in the girls room for their toys and books.But with having to move things around it wasn't going to fit any more in their room.SO we took the squab that was on the bench seat in our dining area (really wood is so much easier to clean when kids are sitting on it and eating),Steve was wonderful and cut it down.I had this fabric lying around,safety pinned it on and voila!We have extra seating in our lounge!As well as more storage for my books (babe if you ever read this,you really should buy me a big beautiful book case!).

 I am a bit too much like my mum,I make people things and then dont want to wait till whatever occasion to give it to them.This giraffe was supposed to be Mums Christmas present..yeah she got it a few weeks ago :p I got the pattern from a sewing magazine Steves Nana gave me!I also made some hippos (which came out like a hippo/elephant/ant eater hybrid) for our girls friends...I wrapped them all before thinking I should have taken a photo :p

 My sister-in-law is pregnant with her first child (due February,yay!).I've always liked to acknowledge babies even when they are still in the womb.So I made this rabbit for bubs for Christmas!The material is nice warm flannel (I kicked myself for not thinking of using that kind of material for our girls ones!).The girls watched me make it and Isabella kept asking me to make her one...hard to answer that knowing that I've made them their ones for Christmas haha.

 We chose to mainly make our girls presents this year.My mum had some wood in her shed that Steve took.I am always amazed what he can make out of scraps of wood!Anyway he made these dolls cots for the girls :) We sanded them down and painted them.I think they are pretty neat for being made at home.

I will have to take photos of the presents all together on Christmas Day.Once again I wrapped everything without thinking to take photos first! (my brain is seriously mush right now!).

We also painted the bench seat in the dining room (again I forgot to take a before photo).For some reason our landlord painted everything around it white,left splotches of white paint on the bench but didnt actually paint it...Yeah go figure!So Steve was wonderful (ahem,after me having a hissy fit because it wasnt painting how I wanted it too!) and painted it for us.It brightens the area up which is great!

Thats it for now :)

Yeah...Im a Christmas fan

I LOVE Christmas...everything about it I adore!!When I was a kid I loved Christmas but our family situation wasn't the greatest (I think my Dads name should be the Grinch :p ),but since Steve and I have been married I have really REALLY been loving Christmas.My mother-in-law is big into Christmas (decorations at least) and she was wonderful enough to start my collection of ornaments (actually I haven't had to buy anything on our tree!All the ornaments are from both of our Mums,and even the tree itself was a gift from the Grinch himself).

Our Christmas tree (I say our..its really mine!)

I'm not completely mean and don't let the girls touch the tree...so they got their own tree!!!It was our old one,so we put it in a bucket,let them choose some tinsel etc and voila!They have their very own tree,that they can play with and not have mum growl at them :p (its obvious they play with it,which is why it is wonky as haha)

I have been a bit sewing crazy the last month (seriously,its crazy!In my defence Sienna has wanted to watch movies galore but wants me with her,and I cant seem to just sit and do nothing!).
I made our own Advent calendar thing. I'm not sure why I set these projects for myself,I haven't had my hands cramp so badly from sewing!But it looks pretty :) I was going to make one with pockets to put things in for Isabella and Sienna but Sienna doesn't eat lollies (wont rather).

 In our entryway

Up close.The girls have bee having fun counting down the days till Christmas.

I made some friends some Christmas flag bunting,but forgot to photo it!Dang...I may just have to make some just for our house :p

Steve has 6 days off over the next week so we are going to go camp at his Nana's house out at Raglan.We haven't had a non-hospital trip holiday since our first wedding anniversary. We've told the family to stuff off (kidding,I did try to say it in a nicer way) and have decided we need some much needed family time (I am so grateful Steve has a job,but him working 50 hours a week has been hard-waa waa woe is me!haha).The forecast stupidly is for showers and rain (welcome to summer time in NZ),but we have just planned some rainy day activities for the girls,and seriously the temperature is still supposed to be in the mid 20's so will still explore rock pools and go for some massive walks.A little bit of rain never hurt anyone!

We had been hoping to use my in-laws tent but the yard isn't quite big enough for it,so we will use our trusty one room tent for Steve and I and the girls can sleep in our other 2 person tent.Seriously they think it is the most awesome adventure ever!

I'm looking forward to it!

We're even going to go to church Christmas morning with Steves Nana,shock horror!!I am looking to forward to some much needed relaxing and fun!