Ruby turns the BIG five!!!!!

Where did the time go? Five years has flown by. She had a lovely day celebrating her 5th birthday, with lots of gorgeous presents including the doll house you can see in the background.
It doesn't feel like 5 years on one hand, on the other she is wise beyond her years and it feels like she's been around forever!

Happy Birthday beautiful girl.
We love you!

Chocolate Cupcakes

I made these easy peasy reindeer cupcakes for the girls to take to school for their class parties. We only managed to fit eight on each plate, so there was a few left at home for us! They were quite delicious!

What's been happening?

In no particular order ...

• Four more days of school for 2009. They have both had a great year making lots of new friends and learning plenty of new things. We don't know which teachers they will get next year yet, but I'm secretly hoping Ella will get the Year Two teacher Kate had last year. Fingers crossed.

• Five more sleeps until Phil gets home for a well deserved break. Seven weeks away seems like an eternity.

• The girls are excited about Christmas. They have lists a mile long, I'm hoping they will be happy with what they get.
  

• We are off to Busselton on Boxing Day for a week camping. We are so looking forward to regrouping as a family before no doubt, another hectic year.

• Ruby turns FIVE on the 21st. Fulltime school for her next year!

• School Christmas Concert this Wednesday night. I'm looking forward to seeing what the girls have been working so hard on the last few weeks.
  

The new look Ella

This sweet little girl has been wanting a fringe like forever. Well about a year anyway. I'm not a fan of fringes on girls - they constantly require trimming and it's hard enough to get to the hairdressers for a haircut a few times a year without going every six weeks for a fringe trim. Plus with doing dancing, especially ballet, all their hair needs to be off the face. far easier when it's all one length. Anyway after much begging and lots of being good, I gave in. So here she is looking very proud!

Concert 2009

The girls had a wonderful time at their end of year concert last Wednesday night! Here they both are in their tap costumes, looking very bright and colourful. They both had four costumes each which was a mission in itself keeping track of all the bits and pieces! They were both very tired wee things by the end of the second night (they had a full dress rehearsal the night before) the collapsed into bed. Now a break until classes start up again at the beginning of February!

Sunday Afternoon

Ella went to her best friends birthday party today. Courtney & Ella are very close and have had 2 great years in the same class. Anyway it was a super gorgeous day, the kids had a ball in the pool and playing in the backyard. The sun was out & the company was lovely. What a great Sunday.
Next Sunday Ella has another pool party to go to - this time a little boy in her class.

NZ Trip Nov 2009

So we set off last Tues the 3rd to the land of the long white cloud to celebrate my brother Philip, marrying Jan. The girls were very excited as it's been two years since we were there last. Sadly Phil & Brendan couldn't make it due to work, but we had a good time anyway.

saying goodbye to Brendan at Perth airport


We flew through the night and with the time difference we were utterly exhausted by the time we arrived in Hawke's Bay. After spending all day with my family we needed an early night. I left everyone at the cabin and headed out to get some dinner. By the time I got back, everyone had crashed and didn't wake up for 16 hours!


Nana & Grandad meet Jonah

We only really had 2 or 3 really warm days while we were there. The day we arrived , the WEDDING DAY and the day we left! It was a beautiful wedding, the girls enjoyed their first ever wedding. I'm so glad we could make it. I kept forgetting to get the camera out of my bag though, so I don't have many photos. I'm hoping to get some more of other people.

delightful four year olds
Cole & Ruby

The church was beautiful and the vows were ones to always cherish. After the ceremony we had a bit of time before the reception, and as everyone was starving we went to a seaside cafe for some afternoon tea. The trick was to keep the girls dresses clean whilst eating mud cake! (there wasn't much choice)

Ella having a sit down in-between dances

Philip & Jan dance the Bridal Waltz!

We didn't have much time for sight seeing as we were only there for a week, and we really just wanted to spend the time with the family. But we did visit this wonderful playground at the beach. Kate loved searching under the rocks for crabs, hence her dirty knees!


The girls were really looking forward to swimming in the heated pool at the camp. That and shopping were high on their lists of what they were most looking forward to. However the pool was freezing! So much so I couldn't even get in half way. The girls managed just two swims - but they are much tougher than me.


We visited the Arataki Honey House which was just down the road from where we were staying. I love their honey but unfortunately we can't get it into WA, so I have to make the most of it while I'm in NZ.

Mum & Dad with all the kids
Napier airport.

Alltoo soon our holiday had come to an end but not without a bit of drama first. Our first flight was at 8am, so after dragging the kids out of bed at 5:30am and finishing the packing we checked out of the camp and drove to the airport. Checked in at 7am. Found out closer to 8am that our plane had engineering problems and they would have to fly and engineer in to access it.

watching the planes at Auckland airport

However after 3 hrs of waiting and no engineer in sight, they flew us down another plane from Auckland. That was all well & good, except we had now missed our flight to Sydney! So straight to the Qantas desk to see what we could do. No worries, we could get on the next flight to Sydney. Fine. What time would we arrive in Perth? Oops sorry, there are no more flights to Perth that day. Okay. So they arrange to put us on a flight to Melbourne, then onto Perth. Perfect! So we check through with our passports and luggage. Then get told, sorry, can't go on that flight either as their are no meals left!!!! So we ended up flying to Brisbane. Problems in Bne getting from International airport to domestic. Trains delayed. Can't get a Maxi Taxi for love or money. Finally all organised and we make it home to Perth. By the time we get to bed we've been on the go for 24hrs. We could have travelled across the World in that time :)

waiting in Brisbane for our
final flight home

Amie had had enough too :)

Trick or Treat

As we don't allow our girls to go door knocking, they have always felt like they were missing out on something. This year their dancing school held a halloween disco last night, so they didn't feel left out this year. Then their school which holds a disco once a term decided to make it a halloween theme. As their school one was on Friday night and the dancing school held theirs last night they had the opportunity to go to two this year. However as we had Ruby, Jonah, Amie & Brendan here for tea last night, Ella decided not to go to the one last night and instead chose to stay home and play with Ruby. So Kate went by herself and had a ball.

Saving at the Supermarket

I bought this book a couple of weeks ago, and I am thoroughly enjoying the recipes in it. For next to nothing I can create delicious meals that the kids love. Amie got a copy too, as it has so many ideas about saving money at the supermarket. I've lent my copy to a friend at present, will have to get it back tomorrow as I'm missing it.

For Today October 18

Outside my window... Cloudy, but not cold

I am thinking... what time will Kate get up today?

I am thankful for... Sundays when we don't have to be anywhere

I am wearing... my nightie still

I am remembering... what my old vege garden used to look like before it was destroyed for demolition work

I am going... to clean the car inside and out today

I am reading... The War Children

I am hoping... Kate is better again when she wakes

On my mind... finding the luggage for our holiday

I am hearing ... Mary Poppins in the background

Noticing that... I should be cleaning the kitchen


From the kitchen...dirty dishes

Around the house... pretty good apart from the kitchen and Ella's pile of dolly clothes she is playing with tipped out on the floor

One of my favorite things~ checking our strawberries

The Week Ahead... watching swimming lessons every day, work 2 days, dancing after school ...usual stuff

A new look

I had been promising Ella I would paint her bedroom every holidays all year. I painted Kate's last Christmas and then Ella has waited patiently ever since.

So these school hols were time to just get on with it! At the last minute before buying the purple paint, she decided to swap bedrooms and have the spare room, even though it is smaller.

So here it is. Now I have a bigger spare room to iron/fold washing/scrap/whatever else takes my fancy!

I have some gorgeous prints of fairies/mermaids etc on layby. They should finish off the walss just nicely.

before: the girls start clearing the room out!

Nude Lunches

I discovered these from my friend Libby, and as I'm always on the look out for little containers for the girls for snacks, plus they needed new lunch boxes I thought these were perfect.




The girls had a wee practice run with them last night and enjoyed filling them up with all sorts of goodies.







We try not to use any gladwrap etc in our lunchboxes, but everynow and then we have to as we don't have the right size or shape container for something. I am hoping these will help. Our school is hoping next year to steer towards a waste-free environment by cutting out all the prepackaging that unfortunately most people tend to use in making lunches. They held a day in Term 3 where this was put into practise. My girls were two of the few who succeeded.

We got the snack cups too which hold 3 individual snacks. All we need now is the cooler bags (Woolworths didn't have any) and then they are all set.

You can read more about it here plus get lots of great ideas for snacks and lunches!