Little Alice Heidi has arrived

It is so exciting to share our special news with all of you today. On Thursday, 12th June at 4.39pm, little Alice Heidi was born. She was 3.1kgs and 49cm long and is just so perfect and beautiful. Mummy and Daddy are thrilled to bits as are we, the doting grandparents. What a thrill to have another little person in our family.

 Aunty Amy just loved meeting her new little niece.

 There were very special visitors yesterday when Great Grandma came to visit with Great Aunties Janelle and Deirdre.

Yesterday afternoon we minded the little men so their parents could visit little Alice. They just seemed so grown up and were lots of fun.

Busy week...

I can't believe where this week has gone to! It was a bit busy. Last Sunday was Mother's day here in Australia so we had afternoon tea here. It is always busy with the little men and it is getting hard to get a photo of them together or with their mum. 

 I had finished the quilts (shown in the previous post) but here are the boys enjoying the bags! They have played with them again several times this week.

 On Tuesday night they came here for their first sleepover at Nanna and Pa's place! I was a little worried about them and while they did the right thing and slept, I was very restless! It all went very well.
Wednesday came and Shirley came into social stitching with some lovely projects! They are all looking so good.

 Then on Thursday we headed up to Sydney to see Ma and Pa. Pa has been in hospital for a few weeks and had just come home. Nice to see him back home again though he is very frail.

Birthday gifts and little boys

Fiona spoilt me so much for my birthday! She bought some gorgeous liberty fabrics to finish my dilly bag and for other stitching. The liberty buttons are gorgeous too.

 She also gave me this great crochet pattern using perle 8 balls to make a scarf. Couldn't resist starting it!

 There was also this lovely necklace in the package too!!!!

 We ordered these lovely liberty fabrics too. They are so beautiful.

 I am in a fat quarter swap with some lovely stitching sisters and received all these beautiful French general fabrics.

 There were some lovely cards, a little pattern, a magnet and a chocolate too.

 Here are just a few photos of the growing little men. Over Easter they enjoyed a little chocolate! We missed them lots while we were away so it has been lovely to see them in the past few weeks.

Lovely weekend in Bundanoon

Last weekend, after just 2 nights in my own bed, we headed to Bundanoon for a family get together. We headed up in Saturday morning as we went to see an Agatha Christie play in Canberra. It was well done and quite a new experience. This gorgeous house was where we were were staying in Bundanoon.

 Ma and Pa and all their children and wives and husbands stayed overnight.

 On Saturday, some of the grandchildren and great grandchildren came to visit. It was fun to have lots of the family together like this.

 Here are the great grandies that managed to come....Braxton, Joshua, Phoebe, Sophie, Lois and Noah.

 Little Joshua turned one this week so we celebrated a little with him on Saturday

His Aunty Sarah made him a gorgeous birthday cake.

 Little Sammy and Benny didn't come last weekend but it was lovely today as they came over for brunch. We will miss them very much as we are heading off overseas on Monday. (Again!!!! I know, I am a bit spoilt!)

The bags are almost packed again. I hope I will be able to post while I am away. Best get some more stitching packed and do the last bit of ironing!

Shopping in NZ and Hobart and stitching...

We had so many opportunities to shop....at the ports and on the ship. It was great fun stocking up on kits and patterns. These kits came from The Quilted Crow.

 These kits and bits and pieces were from the ship classes and from some of the shops along the way.

 Judy Newman gave me a lesson in hand piecing so just had to have 2 of her gorgeous patterns.

 Here are a few of the patterns bought at Rotorua and at the Quilted Crow and some cross stitch designs from the needlework shop in Sandy Bay. The shop had some great specials.

I also stocked up on some woven wool felt, wool felt, some paper piecing shapes, some scissors and a few other useful notions.

 It was lovely to get Gail Pan's latest book and another Yoko Saito book for my collection.

 I also bought a crochet pattern and a few bits of wool along the way.

These gorgeous French buttons came from The Ribbon Rose in Wellington.

One of my class ladies, Cathy, gave me this lovely bag for being her tutor. How very kind.

I did manage to stitch some of my projects in my spare time on the cruise. So good to have this town hall all appliqued and stitched.

I stitched this little stitchery for the bag in Natalie Bird's latest book, In the Garden.

I have also stitched the last block of Chateau Hexagon.

Here is my little Japanese pencil case all stitched and quilted

I bought these little fluffy sheep for the little men and they really liked them. I didn't buy many other souvenirs but these little notebooks and sticky notes were good to buy with my leftover NZ cash.

                                         
Here are the little men with their sheep (Baas). It was so special to see them again and to see how much they had changed even in 2 weeks!