Another Teenager in the Family!

 

This little baby boy is now a teenager! Yes, it's Austin and today is the big day. (Sorry about the quality. I've taken a photo of a photo!)

Austin today lying on the couch recuperating.
He's coming along well but still quite sore.

Here's a picture of Nelson on Saturday night with his birthday cake.
Tonight Austin has requested pavlova topped with
peppermint crisp as his cake!

Happy Birthday Austin.
Lots of Love
Mum, Dad, Mitchell and Nelson
xxx

Stitching and a birthday!

I had lots of time over the last couple of days to sit and stitch! 

I finished this stitchery off for a friend.

Stitched my second Tis The Season block.

Made a start on the Road to a Friend's stitchery.

And why did I have so much time to sit and stitch? This is why!

Took Austin off to the Austin Hospital early Thursday morning thinking he may have appendicitis. And it turned out he did! Got there at 6.15am. When the surgeon came to see him, she felt it was possibly his appendix but due to there being no post-op bed for him they couldn't operate Thursday. As he wasn't too bad, it was decided he would spend the night home rather than sit in the Emergency Department all night until a bed came up. 

We went to see the surgeon first thing Friday morning at a local private hospital where she saw Austin in between day surgeries and reviewed him again. She decided the appendix would come out and when they did, it was very inflammed.

This is after theatre. He responded so well to everything that we came home this afternoon. Only an overnight stay!

Eleven years ago today, this little cutie arrived! It's Nelson's birthday. 

As it's also Austin's birthday on Monday, we had planned a family afternoon tea for tomorrow but that's now been postponed! So this year's birthdays are a little mixed up. We'll be celebrating them properly in November!

Happy Birthday Nelson!

Lots of Love,

Mum, Dad, Mitchell and Austin!

xxx

Teddy Bear's Picnic!

I thought I'd join Melody from The House on the Side of the Hill at the Teddy Bear's Picnic. This is my first (and only) teddy bear I have made. I think I made it about thirteen or so years ago, although I'm not too sure. I enjoyed making him but didn't catch the teddy bear making bug!

Head over to Melody's blog and see who else is at the picnic.

RAK Received!

 I got home from a long day setting up the quilt show to find a squishy parcel in the mail. I had sent Peg of Happy in Quilting a RAK a little while ago and she had returned one to me.

 

I have been totally spoilt by Peg!

 

 A table runner. Just the perfect size for our coffee table.

 A sewing caddy for next to my chair.

 The cutest bag. I'll use this to keep my sewing bits in 

on the table next to where I sit and sew.

 Two key fobs. How cute is that owl!

 

A lovely note book.

Thank you Peg for these wonderful gifts. 

I am overwhelmed by your generosity!

Photos from the NOTYQ Exhibition

I've finally downloaded photos from the exhibition. Unfortunately, they haven't come out very well with the lighting
but it will give you an idea anyway.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 This is Austin's new quilt. Now the exhibition is over he can have it! He's been waiting since last year but I wanted to keep it clean!

 Austin and Nelson had fun doing the activity sheet for children. Here they are counting triangles and listing colours!

 There was a pin cushion challenge. This is the one I made. What do you think of the pins? They were made for me by the lovely Amanda of Krafty Panda and I thought they would be a nice addition.

 

So for my first time as convenor, I think the Exhibition was a success. Only one minor hiccup. One of the committee members and I were locked in a dressing room we were using to count the Viewer's Choice votes. Something was wrong with the lock. We had to wait until we heard someone go by and they got the maintenance man to get us out! We certainly had a good laugh. Leanne gave me a ribbon bow making lesson while we waited for help. At least we had a toilet there if needed!

There were so many inspiring quilts. I realised I didn't get to photograph all the quilts. I kept getting sidetracked. I haven't even got a photo of the winner of the Viewer's Choice!

NOTY Exhibition

Well, Day 1 is over for the exhibition. I would love to show you all the photos I took but alas, I was looking around and talking too much to take any! So I'll show you our raffle quilt again! I'll definitely take some photos tomorrow.

But I did get to catch up with Elyte of Tea, Fabric and Other Things who I met at the Stitches Show in July. I also met Melody from The House on the Side of the Hill. It turns out Melody only lives about 5 minutes from me so I'm sure we'll be meeting up again!

Quilt Exhibition!

This weekend it the Biennial North of the Yarra Quilt Exhibition. If you've got some spare time, come and visit us. We'd love to see you.

Saturday 8th and Sunday 9th October
10.00am - 4.00pm
Eltham Community Centre
801 Main Road
Eltham
Melways Ref: 21 J6
Admission $8, children under 14 free

You will see a beautiful display of quilts, stalls, refreshments and a quilt raffle. There's also a Mystery Pincushion Challenge.
The picture above is the first prize quilt.

To find out more about North of the Yarra Quilters Guild (NOTYQ) go here.

If you visit, please come and introduce yourself to me. I'll be there all weekend. Just ask any of the NOTY ladies and they'll find me for you.

Why "MacDonald's Patch"?

Dawn from As Sweet As Cinnamon has asked how we came up with the name of our blogs. I started my blog back in November 2009. The "MacDonald" part comes from our surname and the "Patch" is about our home and life as a family. It also has a little to do with me liking "patchwork"!
It's as the heading says, "Welcome to the Life of the MacDonald's"

I received this lovely book from Anorina of Samelia's Mum from a giveaway she ran. Thank you Anorina. There's lots of lovely ideas in the book.

A Week at Mildura!

We finally got away for a week and headed off to Mildura on the Murray River. The kids spent hours on the jumping pillow. They made lots of new friends which was great.One evening a hot air balloon lifted off from further over in the caravan park and flew over the top of us. It was a lot closer than it looks in the photo.We went to Orange World where we went around an orange orchard. The perfume from the orange blossom was beautiful. The oranges were so sweet and juicy too!Another day we went to Wentworth. It is a very old town. Here we are at the Wentworth Gaol. The boys (large and small) had fun dressing up!This is where the Murray River meets the Darling River at Wentworth. To the left is the Darling River and the right is the Murray.We sat down to have a picnic lunch when these four ducks waddled over to see what we had. When we'd finished eating, they then headed over to the other side of the park to see what was going there!We also went to some sand hills nearby. Mitchell and Austin had fun "planking"!Wednesday we headed out to Mungo National Park. It was 110km from Mildura, 88 of them on dirt road!Thousands of years ago, this was a lake! This is what they call "The Walls of China". Over time the sand has blown and made these formations.This is the old sheep shed. It was built around 1859!When we left Mungo and had gone about 40kms, a mighty storm came in. It went pitch black, strong winds, thunder, lightening, rain and hail. We had to pull over as you couldn't see anything. There were branches blowing over the road. Luckily we were able to get out. This road is closed when there is rain and in just that short time, the road was flooded on either side. Sometimes we even had to drive through the water. If we had been heading to Mungo, we would have been stuck there until they opened the rain again (and who knows when that would have been).

We were wondering how our campsite would look when we got back to Mildura but only a small shower had gone through (although it was a bit windy).On the last day we went on a paddle steamer ride. Not this one, we forgot to take a photo of the one we went on! Paddle steamers are a lovely way to travel.