Lovely CHOGM long weekend

Instead of feeling refreshed after a long weekend, I feel a little bit tired today. In spite of being tired we did have a nice weekend all up. Here are some snippets of us out and about.

Posing every time she saw the camera!

Out for Lunch -He doesn't like to smile on command!

Kisses for Mummsy

Another pose without prompt. All dressed up for a princess party

Enjoying the party festivities

checking his emails while waiting for his fish'n'chips

 Tonight is Halloween. We don't celebrate but it will be interesting to see if we get any knocks on the door. If you're out and about stay safe.

xxx

getting crafty and spooky

We don't really celebrate halloween in this house. I guess thankfully it is not a big tradition in Oz and so it has only just started being pushed by all the supermarkets and advertising. And while i really would never entertain the trolling the streets for lollies, I would like to embrace the festivities with friends etc. So this year I thought I'd have a little dabble at some decorations. They were so cheap to make they would even be great party deco's.

So I started with some 8inch paper lanterns which were $1.50 each and a packet of plastic spiders, also $1.50 and some craft glue. And really from here it is a no brainer, glue as many or as little as you like over the lanterns

as many

or as few as you like

The lanterns could be linked together easily or hung separately wherever you want to decorate. It is raining outside tonight so we have them on my favourite tree inside to show you.

Here is a shot of them with some battery operated tea candles inside
Wouldn't they be dreamy scattered around you garden!

I loved the idea so much I even made a pair of spring inspired ones with colourful paper butterflies. I will definitely be making many more of these for future parties!

As you can probably tell the dark and dodgy pics are by me, whereas the light, clear and arty ones were done by Clint. I might have to make him my official blog photographer. Do you agree?

A quick house dress

I HATE throwing away Miss Lucy's clothes just because she has had another growth spurt. Especially because she is growing so fast lately that everything is becoming so short but she is not wide so even if I was to buy her new stuff it wouldn't fit nicely.

So I thought I'd have a go at a little house dress with and old purple tee of hers and some cheap gingham.

There is no close of photo simply because my sewing skills seemed to have slipped a bit recently, and that is the other reason why this will be a house dress and not an "out in public" dress.

Still with summer on our doorstep I think she will get at least another 3 months out of this.

I really do need to get back onto the brother sewing machine and keep the skill alive. Maybe in the middle of the night I can find some time on my schedule?

Trying to find a balance

Today in between school drop off and kindy gym classes I have been cooking up a storm to freeze so that we can still live our busy lives and have some simple healthy home cooked food on the chaotic days. It's something I should have done a long time ago - but stubbornly I tried to ignore common sense.

• I have made chilli mince for 3 nights
• lasagna for 3.5nights (the half is enough for the kids and I can grab a soup or salad)
• chicken parmi's for 2 nights
• beef curry for 4 nights

All I have to do is steam some rice/vegetables and/or add some fresh herbs, or possibly whip up a quick salad and we are done. I also have lean burger patties and buns, snags and steak in the freezer so a BBQ's is another option. I'm hoping that all this mixed will sort my mid week dinners out for the next month.
Now I feel we can do everything we have planned to achieve this school term and still eat safe meals. Can you tell I am so stinking proud of myself? Ha

our favourite fury family member

This is Ozzy. He is our best fury friend. Recently a facebook friend of mine commented how her dog was unwell and how incredibly sad and worried she was for her. It go me thinking about how important Ozzy is to us.

So this post is dedicated to how wonderful he is and all the love he brings to our lives.

He came to us when he was only 10weeks old. The moment he entered our house he was "home" All fluff and completely adorable. He spent the first month sleeping in the laundry at night and never cried once.

Before we knew it he had grown so big  he was taller than we had expected. But still weighed in at just 20kgs so he was really all legs and fur. He and Lucy were best mates and they did almost everything together - including trampoline

He happily accepted Flynn as another member of our pack. I'm sure the added benefit of sharing food helped in his transition. Even today Flynn is the only one that can get him to eat raw vege's

And over the last 3 odd years he has been with us, he has suffered many hairdo's, the good, the bad and the terribly awful.

Still no matter what he has loved us unconditionally. He has always greeted us will a happy face and a wagging tail. When he is with us we feel safe and protected. He is always up for a game of laser chasey or fetch and won't pester you when things are chaotic.

We trust him completely. He never chews anything but his own toys. He doesn't sneak food off of counters or out of the kids hands. He never runs away or even tries to go on adventures without us. He sat up with me for every night feed with Flynn and helped Flynn learn to walk by letting him climb up on his fur (grabbing handfuls of it) and then clumsily walking his way around him - all the while Ozzy would stand completely still and patient.

We look forward to many more memories with Ozzy with hopefully many more years. Thank you for the love Ozzy.



candle holder upcycle

 I have recently started enjoying scented candle and have discovered that we really don't have anywhere for them to sit and nothing to catch dripping wax with.

Well rather than look at this as a problem I thought of it as a challenge. I could of course go out and buy something new, but that has never really been my style. So a trip to the local op shop and this pair of candle stick holders came home with me. $3.99 for the pair = BARGAIN

 However the colours were not doing anything for me

So a coat of primer followed by a few coats of shiny white spray paint (at $2.95 a can I will do a lot of projects in white!) After a few days of drying I glued them to the base of some old white mini pie dishes I had (I used them in the days pre-children, but now we never make anything on a small scale). I also glued some felt to the bases to avoid scratching cupboards and give them perfect balance

Voila

Now we have two wonderful candle holders. Although I suspect that they might also be used as candy holders or other ornament displays on table centrepieces at Christmas and the like

our super hero

take one spunky boy

Add a mask

And get a cute little superhero

Fly used to be frightened of dress up masks, now he is brave and is the complete dress up master. Too cute right?!

the spring holidays are over

Yes the school holidays are over and we survived with smiles on our faces. Lucy passed her swimming lessons and will be going up a grade next term. I am a very proud mumma. Fly-monster will also be doing swimming lessons this term which means I'll have to get back in the pool (eek bathers) so hopefully by summer holidays we will have two little water confident rugrats

It is also the countdown to our friends wedding and then Chrissy so I have been on a workout goal of 4 gym workouts per week. I have 34 workouts left till Christmas and need to start backing it up with a dietary change now to make the most out of it. I think I needs some cooking a freezing days to stay organised. HARD WORK

Also the wonderful weather has delivered us some awesome strawberries and the promise of mandarins on our little tree. 

Have you noticed that my photo's are looking better than usual? The old man bought a new whiz bang camera. A canon e60 or something with a fancy lens that was far too expensive but very impressive. I am clearly an amateur however Clint is getting good. Nothing professional, but still very good quality to keep our memories looking pretty. None the less the kids have enjoyed us playing paparazzi

Good sports

week two, october holidays.

What an absolute corker last week was. We finished off with lots more visits with friends and swimming lessons and extreme speed wedding shopping. Unfortunately I ended up sick over the weekend so that has slowed me down a bit but every plan is flexible so nothing to get upset about.

In some extremely rare snippets of spare time I have managed a few little craft activities. This one I will show you today was an awesome treasure find from my local op shop.

$4.99 - how could I leave it there?



A small spray of primer



And then a spray of cool metallic silver

Then attached inside Miss L's wardrobe door



How cute

So all up, approximately 8 dollars later and we have a unique and funky necklace holder for our very trendy little girl.

Tomorrow we have a 2 year birthday party on our agenda and this is what I made for part of the decorations. Abby is her theme and the little miss whose birthday it is, is sweet and cheeky just like Abby so it really fits well. I hope everyone gets some great photos with it.