Chez Lee

The start of a new season always motivates me to search out craft ideas to do with my children. There is an overwhelming selection of wonderful ideas on the Internet. Here are a few lovely finds that I’m looking forward to doing (if I can find an opportunity to get to a craft store and find the right supplies with a baby in tow):

Crafty Crow is my absolute favourite place for crafty inspiration. Check out these beautiful ideas I found from the Crafty Crow’s Spring collection…

Lavender Doll Tutorial from One Inch World

Tin can wind sock from Wabi-Sabi Wanderings, using directions from ‘Under the Table and Dreaming‘.

Blossom Painting from Musings from Kim K.

And here’s some fun finds from Family Fun…

Handprint Lillies from FamilyFun

Garden of Weavin’ from FamilyFun

Grass Head Guys from FamilyFun

We love having ‘Fun with Art‘ – though Mummy usually draws the short straw and does more of the facilitating and cleaning Visit the Fun with Art tab on the menu bar for some fun projects we’ve done. Sophie’s Tulips and Tissue Paper Window Collage are great fun for Spring (especially on the wetter days x).

What Spring crafts do you enjoy doing? Share them here…

The first day of Spring was glorious and I spent the whole day far away from the house & the chores. The morning was spent walking up and down the beach with Alice sleeping for most of it.

I was browsing blogs on my phone, whilst taking photographs of the beautiful waves and decided to join fellow Kiwi Mummy Bloggers in ‘Wardrobe Wednesday‘.

I had the beach all to myself, so a bit of self-portraiture was involved. I tried to get a photograph of my shoes with a wave nearly touching them – but ended up ankle deep in water when I mis-calculated the waves and a larger one sneaked up and caught me out! Ha! That will teach me for trying to be arty and creative.

Anyway, here I am, very au natural, bare-faced and casual looking.

If I’d taken one of me yesterday and compared you’d think I was suffering from split-personality disorder. Yesterday I donned heels, favourite jeans, a beloved belt from Country Road and a gorgeous Lakeland suede jacket that my dear Mum bought me in the Lake District last time I was in England. The occasion was ‘Yum Char’ lunch with hubbie in town (accompanied by my excited daughter Sophie and baby Alice – yes, I was brave wearing a suede jacket – especially when you see what a messy eater she is!).

Today I braved going out with only a smidgen of mascara and terribly unkempt hair – but there was no one to care and it felt great. My old tattered trousers from Kathmandu dragged along in the wet sand, having seen many a beach on many a land in the years and years I’ve been wearing them. My comfy Ecco shoes have also seen many adventures and were nearly kicked off as my feet were tempted to feel the sand and paddle in the cool sea – but the sight of a few too many sand-flies made me think better of it. I was glad of my dusty pink jumper from Just Jeans, covering my arms from the pesky flies and warming me from the slight chill in the virgin spring air.

The sun was just the tonic I needed after the deluge of rain over the past few days. I’ve been filling a little out of sorts and was very grateful to the Universe for throwing down a cracker of a day.

I loved watching the fisherman coming and a going…

This delightful couple of Oystercatchers looking for food…

And watching the waves crashing on the shore…

After picking Sophie up from Kindergarten at midday we headed to Lyall Bay beach, where we spent the rest of the afternoon till Charlotte finished school. It was so good to remember the days of summer past and look forward to the coming summer. There were more than a few happy faces at the beach today.

when you have food!

Alice really has a taste for pasta bolognaise!

She just needs a sombrero and she’d pass as a Mexican with this smattering of sauce all over her chops

She’s the girl with the wooden spoon, forever thumbing the recipe books for something new to stir up. The biggest obstacle to her cooking success is a kitchen sized for an adult. She drags a chair around the kitchen floor from cooker to cupboard, from fridge to microwave, from the sink to the pantry. What she lacks in height she makes up for with enthusiasm and wisdom beyond her years. Roald Dahl’s Matilda character is perhaps a close match.

On Saturday, whilst Daddy played soccer, Sophie took over the kitchen to make fairy cakes and iced biscuits. Alice and I were given our orders to film the proceedings. Charlotte was happy to stay clear, except for a brief interlude from researching animals on the Internet to make some jelly (the black rings round her eyes aren’t anything to be concerned about – merely left over face paint from an impromptu Harry Potter dramatization earlier in the day!).

Sophie is fast becoming ‘Head Chef’ and when she starts chanting, ‘A good chef is a tidy chef,’ the chef’s hat is all hers! Here is her first video blog bake (Vlog)…

And here she is demonstrating her multi-tasking skills (what a love x); decorating fairy cakes whilst waiting for her iced biscuit dough to firm in the fridge:

Finally, here’s Alice taking mental notes, whilst eyeing up the 100’s & 1000’s…

Sophie has entered the Persil Kiwi Kids Have a Go in the Kitchen – click here to VOTE FOR SOPHIE! THANK YOU X

Check out the ‘What’s Cooking?’ tab on the menu bar above for more recipe ideas or click here!

In a room on one side of the world a mother plays on the piano, whilst her baby daughter sits smiling and shaking a rattle. She listens to the rain beating down on the metal roof of her warm home and thinks of the synchronicity of the piece she is playing, ‘Kiss the Rain’, with the weather outside.

Far away, on the other side of the world, a mother packs her bag for a brave journey to a place where children have no home. She is taking her laptop and camera with her. She is leaving her child in good hands. She hasn’t flown anywhere before and she is not going for a holiday, but to tell a message. She has a gift with words and there are thousands of women with stories to tell. Mothers to children that don’t have the basic health care to keep them alive. Mothers that have said sad farewells to their children needlessly.

In a tent, somewhere in the middle, a mother holds her crying child in her arms and wonders where the next meal will come from. She wishes for clean water for her child to drink and bathe in.

And so it is, these women miles apart are joined by their love for their children, but one woman is powerless – as are millions of others. It is up to those who can, to press for change.

And so the mother on the piano presses down the keys to sing out a melody, hoping for change. She presses a button and signs her name to a petition for change. She sponsors a child in a country far away and sends letters of hope. She contributes to emergency aid requests with small donations. She hopes that world leaders will pull together and listen to the pleas for help. She feels a united pull around the globe of mothers everywhere uniting and giving a voice to those who need to be heard.

And on one day in August, a mother takes a photograph – inspired by ‘Sticky Fingers: The Gallery‘.

It is the same day that three UK parenting bloggers, Josie, Sian and Eva, fly to Bangladesh for a week to help raise awareness of the work Save the Children is doing with mothers and children in one of the most poverty-stricken places on the planet.

My photograph is one of hope on a backdrop of rain. Hope that the basics of clean water, food, shelter, medical aid and a better quality of life one day become a reality for all. That the earth becomes their playground and not their foe. That their voices are heard and truly listened to.

Sarah x

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