Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Cousins Photo Shoot





My beautiful niece is over visiting from Perth and while she was here I wanted to take some photos for her, so I dragged my nephew (her cousin) along for the shoot as well. We went to a local park that a talented scout of mine found which has lots of long green grass (maybe they were weeds) which is lovely for a soft background. Here's a few photos from the shoot.

Sunday, November 28, 2010

The Cake!!!






Today I had all my family over to celebrate James' 7th birthday and made this very special cake for him. I saw it on a blog a while ago and I can't remember who's blog it was to give credit to however I did print out a picture and attempted it this weekend. It was super easy and tasted fantastic. Ingredients, home made chocolate cake x 2, 2 tins of chocolate wafers and a huge bag of smarties or any lolly of your choice. I made chocolate butter cream to go in between the cake, on top of the cake and around the sides which I pushed the wafers into. It certainly was a conversation piece at today's gathering.

Saturday, November 27, 2010

James 7th Birthday




James turned 7 today and woke up early at 4.45 am very excited. I decided that we were going to have pancakes, maple syrup and ice cream for breakfast today (healthy eating is out the window this weekend I'm afraid). For his birthday he got a Ben 10 Speed Racer Track, a game and a couple of DVD's, Tom & Gerry and Scooby Doo. He was thrilled with his presents and yummy breakfast. Here's a couple of pic's of our pancakes this morning. I love the shot of James savouring those pancakes like he is in heaven.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Face Painting






In a previous post I have spoken about my talents face painting (or lack thereof) however today Sienna spotted the paints and wanted me to do her face up. I copied the picture and although it doesn't really resemble what the picture looked like I did step it up a level by mixing colours together to make a different colour (baby steps).

Sienna was happy with the job (her expectations are low thank goodness in the face painting dept) so we popped outside to take a few photos.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Swimming Fun Day




James had a swimming fun day today rather than an actual carnival for prep's, grade 1 and 2's. He was pretty excited about it and was thrilled that he got to swim the 25 metres as well. Here's a couple of pic's on a sunny day in Queensland.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Veggie Garden





Here's a few pictures of new things in the veggie garden. I've planted some Lebanese cucumbers which are growing nicely and I'm excited about that as Sienna and I love cucumbers and the plants look as if they have a heap of them growing. Also the new tomato bush which unfortunately this morning nearly got dug out by the chickens when I wasn't looking. They went straight back into the chicken coop after that. I really need to get some more to plant out one box as we've eaten what was growing and now half of it only has dirt in it which is why Coco and Fluffy thought it was for them to scratch around in. I still enjoying walking outside and picking some coriander and lettuce for my lunch or Sienna's sandwich. I miss not having tomatoes at the moment but hopefully we will have some soon.

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Playgroup Mum's Dinner







On Saturday night I hosted the playgroup mum's 6 monthly dinner since all our kids are now in school/kindy so there's not really anymore playgroup these days. We ordered the main meal from a local thai restaurant again and I made the nibbles, set the table and got to work making desserts.

I had fun getting every thing ready for our little Christmas get together. The main event was 3 different dessert but all small sizes. I made cranberry and raspberry jelly (that was straight out of the packet, just add water, pretty simple), next was the yummy chocolate moouse that I had made for Melbourne cup lunch (see earlier post in November) and then I also made home made french vanilla ice cream without an ice cream maker. It was absolutely delicious and the kids said my ice cream was better than the shop bought ones (how's that for a recommendation). I surfed the internet for a recipe - where would we be without the super information highway. With shop bought ice cream, that's where!!!

I also put together the shape of a Christmas Tree using tea lights which looked great and added some ambiance to the evening.

It was great catching up with the mum's enjoying good food and company.

Sunday, November 21, 2010

Diffendoofer Day Dress Up at School







James' class has been doing lots of Dr Seuss this year and on Friday they had "Diffendoofer Day" where they had to wear bright silly clothes to school. Well they got right into it wearing their clothes back the front and by the end of the day undies on their heads. Yep, you heard it right. I went to school and James was calling out over the road, Mum... and I look over and here he is with his bright red RIO jocks on his head (just so you know this was a spare pair I sent to school just in case for the photos because his mates were going to wear them over their shorts (like superman) but it was a bit tight wearing jocks, shorts then jocks again so I just put them in his bag to take to school. They had pizza for lunch and had a ball.

We were lucky enough to borrow a very colourful wig off dear friends of ours so James was in character of being "cool" in these photos.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Fresh Juice


I love watching my kids make fresh juice and what's even cuter is that they have to stand on the little chairs to reach the bench. I love being their mum.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Coco and Fluffy update



Well our beautiful chickens are going well and we love having them. Fluffy is now laying a egg a day as well so we are getting 2 fresh eggs a day. I can't tell you how cool it is to go outside and collect the eggs and come inside and cook them. The kids are having fun playing with them, talking to them, looking after them and collecting the eggs as well. They are free to roam the yard for hours at a time as long as I get them past my veggie garden first. It's funny because as soon as they are let out they both run a million miles and hour and head to my veggie garden to munch on my lettuce. (not happy Jan!!!) however if we can get them past the veggies they go down the back to scratch around and dig for worms in a garden bed that has no plants so it's great for them. They are down there for hours digging around.

Here's a couple of pictures I took of them the other day underneath the mock orange trees.

Monday, November 15, 2010

2009 Project 365





My work of art is finally finished and on one canvas I have 365 days of photos (one photo per day) displayed for all to see. A year of our life. I am so pleased with it and looking at each and every photo I remember the moment where we were and what we were doing.

If anyone is interested in having a wall canvas like this done the place where I got this done has the template set up so it's just a matter of getting all your jpeg files together. Feel free to leave a comment or email me if you are after the info.

Even though I have all the photos printed in a big album it's fantastic seeing them displayed altogether. I LOVE IT!!!! I will be doing my "photo a day" again in 2011 and at the end of the year will get another canvas done. Let me know what you?

Saturday, November 13, 2010

My sister's birthday







We had an absolutely beautiful sunny day today for entertaining outdoors for my sister's birthday which was great. She got some lovely presents from everyone and Mum's tradition is to make the birthday cake which is meringue with walnuts and almonds. It is very rich and delicious and I think there is some alcohol involved mixed in with the cream....tooo yummy!!

The kids played with the chickens, had a couple of swims, played table tennis and had a great time. Here's a few pic's from today.