Respecting your elders

Respecting your elders

Today, I wanted to write about how much I respect old people. I have a dear friend that lives across the road from me, her name is Lillie Anne Gibbons. She is the most beautiful person that I know. We named our 5 year old daughter Lily after her and both of my children call her "Nanna Lil". Its fantastic for my kids to have a grandparent figure living so close to us, as their own grandparents all live 12 to 13 hours drive away. Its something that I am sure a lot of people take for granted; She spoils them rotten every time we visit, she helps discipline them and corrects their grammar; but most importantly she is a tower of wisdom and can teach my children things that my husband and I never could.

Lillie came out on a ship from England when she was only 18, with the love of her life "Keith". Sadly I did not get to meet Keith before he past away many years ago, although I feel like I know him from all of the fond memories she often tells us about.

They spent their early married life in Melbourne; Keith was a handsome bank manager and Lillie worked in fashion part time and was a mother to two beautiful boys Paul and David. Keith never wanted Lillie to work, as he did not want Lillie's Mother to think that he could not provide for her. Lillie was bored though, so one day she took herself into one of the up market ladies fashion stores in the city and requested a job. Clearly taken by her beauty, the owner of the store jumped at the chance and said "when can you start?" Well, Lillie was taken back and said "I will have to check with my husband, but I am sure that I can start on Monday". "great!" the store owner replied "you can work 9am until 5pm Monday to Friday." "Oh no!!!" Lillie replied with a horrified look on her face "I will work 10am to 2pm, so I can drop my boys off and collect them from school." She always laughs when she tells me this story because she knows how lucky she was to get such a wonderful job and yet there she was with so much confidence telling the owner of the store when and when not she would work!

Lillie is so inspiring to me, she reminds me of Elizabeth Taylor, she is always so glamorous and makes an effort every day to look her best. Not many people, including myself even know how old Lillie is. She says "My dear Mother always told me, If someone is rude enough to ask a lady her age, they deserve to be told a lie."

Another story that is close to Lillie's heart and I really enjoy hearing, is when Keith retired and surprised her one day with a trip around the world. He took her on a first class holiday, with no expenses spared for about 6 months! He had organised to meet their children and grandchildren in Rome, where they spent a few weeks in a beautiful guest house, enjoying the sights. Still to this day, Lillie always insists on living life to the fullest and goes on a cruise every year to many overseas destinations.

Up until about 3 months ago lillie was very independent, she went out to dinner as many as 3 times a week with her friend Rob, She volunteered at John Flyn Hospital and sung in the choir every week. Sadly she had a couple of bad falls and has not quite recovered, they have really knocked her around. After a month in hospital, she returned home a few weeks ago and is still trying to be independent. She is such a proud lady and I know it is hard for her to accept help. I call or pop in every day to see how she is going and I know she always puts on a brave, happy face, even when she is not feeling so well... she is such a positive person.

Yesterday I popped over with dinner, as I have most nights this week, because I know that she hasn't been eating properly. I walked into her bedroom and said "Hi Lillie, its Jacqui, I have just brought you over some dinner." She looked up with a great big smile and then burst into tears. "Lillie what is wrong?" I said. She sobbed "How did you know that I didnt have any food? I was going to have a poached egg for egg for dinner, but I have run out of eggs." It brought tears to my eyes, because part of me felt very guilty that I had not checked what she had left in her fridge and cupboard earlier! It made me realise how important she was to me and how easily the elderly can fade away into the forgotten world amongst our often busy lives. I believe that Lillie will get better; but at the moment its time that my family slows down and pays back much of the love and attention she has always shown us to get her on the road to recovery and independence.

So please if you have someone elderly that lives close to you, ask them how they are doing, invite them into your life and try to be part of theirs, because as much as they might need your friendship and care, I believe that the younger generations need them!

Holding my daughter at one day old; she brought me in

a gorgeous bunch of flowers.

My two beautiful Lillie's with my wonderful mum Denise.

Lillie holding Lily on her 1st birthday

Lily and Lillie when she came over for dinner

Lillie sharing in My Lily's first day of school

"Your Love is a Rare and Beautiful gift"

"Grandmothers can turn simple moments
into gifts of love
Your love is a rare and beautiful gift
and you show it in so many ways ~
In the pride that you take in your family,
in your words of affection and priase,
In your laughter and warm sense of humor,
in the generous things that you do ~
Your love is a rare and beautiful gift
and there’s no one who shares it
like you."

Source: www.nanascorner.com 17th april 2010

The kombi that i can't drive

I LOVE kombi's - always have and always will. I have wanted one since i was a teenager. I own the kombi of my dreams and the most frustrating thing about it is that i have never learnt to drive a manual! The kombi is manual so i just can't drive it.....whenever i do i get sweaty palms, bunny hop for km's, get lots of frustrated drivers beeping at me from behind and then i give up.....most importantly though my husband,children and I get hours of laughs throughout my "lesson".

So here is a photo of my husband driving it back from the kombi doctors...taken by me sulking in our 'normal' car behind...

sulk (slk) intr.v. sulked, sulk·ing, sulks To be sullenly aloof or withdrawn, as in silent resentment or protest. Have a good weekend!...Kate...xx

MOVIE WORLD WITH 3 KIDS UNDER 6!

MOVIE WORLD WITH 3 KIDS UNDER 6!!

OMG I am tired!! Today I had a HUGE day at movie world with 3 very excited kids! We got there at about 10.30am, lined up for about 40 minutes just to get in! We headed straight to the kids world, which I must say was great for the my kids who are 4 and 5, they could go on just about every ride.

They even have a roller coaster for the little ones, which i think i would still get scared on!!!!! Lily and xaviah lined up while I stayed with Kai; they got to the front of the line and poor Xaviah was about half a cm to short to go on by himself! Luckily the nice lady behind offered to go on with him, but then that left Lily by herself. The ride took off and all I could hear was Lily screaming at the top of her lungs the whole way around. Xaviahs face was pale white at the end of the ride and lil looked in shock!.

before..... A LITTLE NERVOUS!

after!!

We went on quite a few rides and the kids got to see all of their favorite characters, I have attached some photos for you below we had a great day:

La Toriana blog

This morning Elizabeth from La Toriana sent us an email to say that she had just blogged about our winter range. I must say it looks fabulous.... you should all take a look, she has a wonderful variety of clothes on her site and has had a lot of interest in our girls dresses!

OK now to the "everyday life of three little trees" blogging that we have promised:

(above )My daughter Lily and Kates son Xaviah in Bali, they just love each other!! Its very cute!

Kate and I with some very yummy cocktails.. I cant quite remember what they were though?? he he and some random shots from our holiday - we love bali, love the culture, love the architecture, love the oga ogas and Nyepi day!!

Hi guys,

Well another day has just about gone and we have been busy packing more winter orders! It seems that our winter stock is just flying off the racks and we are already sending re-orders out!

The last few weeks have been exhausting for Kate and I. You have all seen that recently we went to Bali on a family holiday together, which was wonderful..... but right now it seems like that was years ago!! ha ha

We flew in to The Gold Coast airport at about 10:30 am after flying all night from Bali. Poor Justin had to actually go straight to work that morning because he thought we were getting back the day before... he doesn't listen very well, probably like a lot of husbands out there! So we raced home and he had a quick shower and he drove to work. I was left with 4 large suitcases full of dirty washing, a green dirty pool and an over grown lawn and 2 very tired and grumpy children... lucky me! So this day was spent washing, yelling, unpacking, yelling, mowing and cleaning!! aaarrrgggh

while we were away our winter stock was delivered to our warehouse, so I set my alarm the next morning for 7am and I sent my poor kids to school with Jet lag so I could get down and start the huge job of sorting through our range! I felt like the worst mum in the world, but there were so many stores waiting patiently for our clothes, I had to start! I dressed Kai in his uniform while he was still asleep and they ate a muesli bar in the car for breakfast.

I got to the warehouse at about 9am to see a huge sea of boxes!! OMG this was going to take me forever and so I started putting them in some sort of order to start packing our 70 orders the next day!! This was just the start of it in the photo below!

We got all of our main orders out over the weekend with many thanks to some good help from family and friends. I even had poor Justin on the forklift, lifting boxes at 11.30 pm on a Sunday night!!

We have continued packing many new orders over the last couple of weeks and now we are even getting re-orders!!! It is all worth while when you hear that parents and kids love our designs and stores cannot get it up quick enough!! I love my job! To see where you can buy our very cool winter collection please see our stockist page at www.threelittle trees.com.au

moving to Bali

Well after a wonderful 2 week holiday we have made the decision to move our two families over to beautiful Bali.

Kate had her mind set on moving before we went and was trying her best to persuade the rest of us while we were there. She organised a trip to the "Green School" up past Ubud. I can tell you now that my husband Justin would have much rather of picked his surf board up and gone surfing when we first suggested the day trip, but the moment we got there his mouth was left wide open in amazement!

We entered through the back of the school across a huge bamboo architectural looking bridge that has actually won a few design awards. From there we trekked up a man made stone path past the bamboo principles office to the main area of the school. I could not believe what I was seeing, the classrooms and students looked so peaceful, there were no walls just a mud based slab and thatched roofing. Surrounding the classrooms was veggie and herb gardens that the school uses for their canteen and lunches. The children learn off the cambridge teaching as well as mixing some steiner teaching methods and most importantly the children are taught how to look after their world so that it is still around for their grandchildren. The computer lab and arts and drama room were in the main building that reminded all of us of being on the movie set of "Avatar".
Justin kept saying that he would go back to school just to go to the Green school!

So all in all we left the school on a very positive note and were edging much closer to the decision to move there. However the boys would not admit to this, because they knew, as soon as they said "yes" to Kate and I we would be like a bull at a gate organising the big move! ha ha

We went from the Green School to The monkey Forrest in Ubud, which the kids were so excited about. We paid our entry fee and started walking down the path. The kids were a little bit scared so Justin decided to sit on the concrete wall and get a monkey to come and sit next to him. He patted the wall gently with his hand and up jumped a big monkey... within a second it had latched onto his arm, making an awful hissing noise sound. blood was trickling down his arm and the kids were beside themselves! 5 rabies vaccinations later and Justin is ok, still quite resentful at the monkey that bit him though. I didnt realise how vicious monkeys could be!

So once again Kate was back to square one trying to convince us all to move! It was quite funny really.

The rest of the holiday however was magical. The relaxed lifestyle of Bali was enviable. Both Tane (Kate's husband) and Justin hired motor bikes for the holiday and they took all of the kids every day for a ride to the beach or around town. We went to a beautiful place called "Dreamland Beach" where the water was as clear as anything and the sand was glowing white. We sat by the pool every night and drank Bintangs, we had local baby sitters at the drop of a hat and the kids even seemed much more relaxed!

We returned to Australia and really missed Bali, it only took Justin 2 days back at work to realise that a move to Bali would be good for all of us.

Our kids would have such a great cultural awareness and grounding. So we are now going through the process of applying for visas and looking at what needs to be done before we go.

We will start manufacturing our own clothes out of Bali so that Kate and I will have much more input through out the production process, which i think will benefit everyone.

Our winners!

Just a quick one before we jet off for Bali....

We had so many gorgeous print ideas sent in for our competition

The winner is.......

Krystal Maree Gough:

Thanks so much, we cannot wait to get this print on some threads!!

xxx

COMPETITION! Yep another one!

For this comp we have teamed up with our photographer Caroline from Mihaja Photography. You all know how much of a great photographer she is so this is a prize not to be missed. The total of the prize package is worth $905!! WoW!

Click HERE to see the full size flyer with details of how to enter!! Good luck!!

xx

Competitions!!

We have 2 competitions running at the moment!

Go to our website, down the bottom click on "follow us on facebook" become a fan and check them out!! Great prizes!!!

I will post about them on here tomorrow but this blog is playing up at the moment!!

xxx

Mathildas Markets

Hi Everyone!

On Saturday 20 February we will be showcasing our wares at Mathilda's Market. This is a fabulous niche market that offers unique, stylish and affordable baby & kids goods that are lovingly handmade or of limited production. The retailers are hand pick to ensure an exciting product range. It's a kid's shopping heaven. Better yet, most of the retailers do not have a shop front, so you know you'll find something special, not available anywhere else.

Please come and see our stand at Mathilda’s Market from 9am to 4pm at the Brisbane Racecourse at Eagle Farm, Ascot. Entry and parking is free.

With almost 80 retailers, gourmet food, plenty of kids entertainment Mathilda’s Market is becoming one of Brisbane’s best shopping destinations for the little ones.

For a sneak preview, have a look at the website (www.mathildasmarket.com.au) and enjoy a browse through the photos of all participants.

We look forward to seeing you there!

p.s. The markets are on indoor so rain, hail or shine, it will be on!!

xx

starting school!!

I am sure there are plenty of Mums and Dads out there that waived their beautiful children goodbye last week to go back to school, some i am sure were relieved after the big school holiday break, but for some it was the start of a new stage in their life and i certainly had a little moment where I thought my baby was suddenly a big boy now, which was very strange.

My children Lily and Kai were so excited they couldn't wait! Kai tried on his new school uniform every day last week and even wanted to wear it to swimming lessons!! He was starting in the ELC program which is composite pre school and kindergarten. Its a great idea and he loves being at school already with his big sister Lil!! This pictures were when I picked them up after his first day. One sock up, one sock down, colar up and shirt out.. ha ha.... a true little boy. He was lucky enough to be starting with his best mate Seamus and they stick together like glue!!!


Lily has been great also, she sat and ate her lunch with
the boys and said she kept checking on Kai in his classroom, and reported back to me each afternoon, she is very sweet.
Second day of school they were both begging me to catch the school bus, so we put them on the private school bus (this only goes to their school) and they both had a HUGE grin on their face, plonked themselves behind Mr Brown their wonderful bus driver and off they went. I called the school twice during the day to make certain they would get on the bus in the afternoon and much to my relief at 3.45pm I could see their little faces in the front seat of the bus waving madly at me from 100m down the road. Kai said "It was great Mummy, very bumpy though!"
Its now Sunday night and Lily is sound asleep, but Kai keeps walking out to me asking "Is it time for school yet Mummy?"
So to all those kindergarten and prep kids out there, "well done guys, its a huge exciting step you have all made last week and there are many great times ahead for you all".
xx