Peddle powered Christmas shopping!

So my HUGE to do list of handmade gifts has been seriously culled due to lack of time. Still, this pile of handmade goodness isn't too bad considering. I still have a couple of things by the sewing machine that may or may not get finished in time for our departure on Tuesday. And that's o.k. Life's been so crazy busy with the business lately it's a wonder I achieved any sewing time at all.

(For some details on what's here see my flickr photostream...)

I realised something pretty cool today. We did all our Christmas shopping on the bike. Kept things local, and did all our necessary shopping at our fantastic local art store, the farmers and young designers markets and our local deli. That means that while many of our gifts were bought and not home-made, they were acquired car-free!

I'm constantly surprised by how much we can fit into our saddle bags. It's actually easier and less hassle than taking the car. No drama with getting wriggly ones in and out of car seats. No drama with traffic. No drama with parking or parking meters. No drama with carrying heavy bags long distances as we can usually lock the bike within meters of our destination. It is TOO easy!

this moment

In the tradtion of soulemama, here's this weeks moment. No words, just a moment from our week that we'd like to remember...

Some of this and that

Few words today, life is much too busy at the moment for constructing coherent sentences! A few moments snapped in the past few days...

Little D crafting - still his number one activity. It's a rocket ship of sorts.

Little H dressed himself yesterday - isn't it a fantastic outfit?! I suggested it may be too hot for socks but he wouldn't have a bar of it.

We had ourselves a spontaneous outing for pub grub at a very kid friendly beer garden over the weekend. A playground, fantastic views, good company. One of those looong hot December evenings that you just don't want to end!

And here's some of the Christmas gift crafting that's been keeping me up too late recently.

this moment

In the tradition of soulemama, here's this weeks moment. No words, just a moment from our week that we'd like to remember...

A Christmas time ritual

Will and I have a tradition of watching Love Actually every Christmas. Total dags aren't we? We put the DVD on when wrapping pressies late at night when the kidlets are asleep, or have it playing in the background while cooking dinner. And at least once in the days leading up to Christmas we actually sit down and watch it start to finish with bowls of icecream or summer fruit after the kids have gone to bed.

Today Little D enjoyed his first taste of this family tradition. Not the whole movie of course, just the music scene of All I Want For Christmas. He was suitably impressed! He sat glued to the screen and asked to watch it again as soon as it finished. We indulged him of course with several repeat viewings. How can you not want to listen to/watch this loudly on repeat for 20 minutes or so on a hot sticky mid-December evening??!

busy busy busy

Oh this time of year! Busy busy busy. I can barely find the time to sit and concentrate on words to accompany this space so I think some photos with few words is in order for the next few weeks. But before that a wrap up of our lives of late.

As well as as much time at the sewing machine as I can possibly manage (which is never enough I must say!) we've been making the most of our beautiful bike set-up and heading out car-less every single day that it isn't raining. And simply loving it. LOVING it! The kids complain if we have to use the car now and possibly love cycling as much as I do. Thank goodness - how tragic would it have been after spending so much time and money on converting my bike to have kid-hauling capacity if they'd hated it?!

They were completely and totally cracking up the other morning when they put their helmets on backwards. Boy these two are adorable! They share the same ever so easily satisfied sense of humour. Bum jokes, helmets on backwards, silly rhyming or made up words....the simplest things have them in hysterics.

We had way too much rain last week and only made it out on the bike twice. It was a pretty miserable week, Little D had a slight cold and as each day dawned wet we all felt frustrated and ripped off. What happened to summer huh? Will has been extra busy with the recent opening of our first ever Melbourne store and our 2nd ever Sydney store. Extremely exciting but draining times! By Saturday I was in desperate need of my Tai Chi class only to have it cancelled due to poor weather.

It was after a week of this that we decided that come the first proper sunny day we would make a special trek to our favourite little beach. And that we did on Monday. Perfect time for the beach mind you, no-one around, school still in. We had the place to ourselves for the most part. It was beautiful. Everything we needed and more. I don't know why we don't go more often.

this moment

In the tradition of soulemama, here is this weeks moment. No words, just a moment from our week we'd like to remember...