Wordless Wednesday 31 October

Here is my photo.  Hmmmm I think it has rained too much in the last week.

The only saving grace is that we collect our rain water in tanks for drinking and so we will start the summer with full tanks.

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys.

The Firsts

The moment of firsts in any house is usually full of excitements.  You know the list

• a first smile
• frist crawlling
• frist steps
• first tooth
• first words
• first food

really in life the list of does not stop.

In our house a first has been fulling my daughters head space since the beginning of the school term....her first school dance.  Last friday my tom boy (I mean that really lovingly) got dressed in our party gear and off she went.  She really is growing up. 

Her school has said that the fierls must wear a skirt or a dresss and that statement threw us into a spin.  Apart from one too small denim skirt and outfit needed to be found.  I could live with that, the shops to find one, within budget, dress.

Oh no my list of one purchase quickly grew.  Who knew that 11 year old girls  could need want so much to go to a school dance.  Take a look

• a dress
• hair cut
• hairstraighteners
• make up
• jewellery
• just the right shoes

This list is just because the others all have/ are going to according to one 11 year old
Then as the day drew closer the list grew some more

• girls to stay over
• time at the mall the next day

Before I knew it, the very simple dance, turned into a major production consuming half of my weekend which was already busy enough.  Who could believe it.

Luckily I had a lot of prior warning about the dress and had one put away and McKenzie was due for a hair cut so I timed that to coincide with the dance but as for the rest......hmmmmm we simply made do with what we had and me the taxi driver had minimum work on.

As I dropped little miss 11 off there were some little points I noted.  When I am told everyone, in future I will read that as one person I know, unless I have seen or know differently

I am pleased to tell you all that I dropped one very excited girl off to the dance where about 500 well behaved Year 7 and 8 tween/ teen agers danced away a few hours.  The girls all looked great in their dresses and the boys typically looked good in their jeans and shirts.  I turned up at 9.30 to collect her and was pleased to see the whole hall pulsing.

While there was plenty of excitement in my house surrounding this event the stress and pressure on me was somewhat overwhelming.  When next time arrives I will be ready for the onslaught of 'but  the others have got/ are doing'. 

 

(Sadly my photos were taken in the twilight and I have to work out how to mimimise the shadows)

Monday Menu 30 October

Here is my menu.  Thankfully summer is nearly here and we don't have the same need for hot winter meals.

Monday  Curry Chicken Pasta

Tuesday  easy fried rice

Wednesday  Beef Carbonade

Thursday  Grilled chicken with salsa verde

Friday  Homemade pizza

Saturday  Cold meat with green salad

Sunday Leftovers

I am linking this post to I'm an Organising Junkie

Wordless Wednesday 23 October

Here is my photo for this week.  McKenzie off to a Harry Potter birthday party

 

 

Costume and owl made by me.

 

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys.

Christmas Baking

Each year my children bake a gifts for the older generation in the family group.  This year I thought I would plan ahead what could be make and might make something fun for the school lunch boxes.

• So the first idea I have is to make a sampler box just like this little bit of eye candy.  Personally I think that I will have the children try and make these kind of cookies as Annabel Langbein makes in this blog post. 
• Then I thought homemade jam or such like.   I know the children would have great fun squashing fruit and collecting fruit.  With spring here and summer fruit such as strawberries now for sale road side I can't wait to get started on some of these.
• Then there are the homemade eadible treats.  Truffles, chocolate on a stick, maybe stainglass window cookies.  Really there are so many ideas out there it is hard to know what will work and what wont.

 

(photo source is Giverslog)

 

I am sure there must be lots of great recipes out there and when I find more I will update my post.  May you have a great recipes that my family might like could share with me here.

 

 

Monday Menu 22 October

Here is the menu for the week

Monday  chicken and salad

Tuesday  Beef and spinach lasagne with green salad

Wednesday  Freezer meal (mince and pasta with vege.  A one pot wonder)

Thursday  Beef with grilled vegetable

Friday  Mararoni Frittata with green salad

Saturday bbq with salad

Sunday   leftovers

I am linking this page to I'm an Organising Junkie

Fancy Dress

Whenever my children are invited to birthday parties I tend to freeze and then think that I detest these kind of parties because I can never come up with the good ideas.  Naturally the internet is a great source of  ideas but they either look too hard for me or I simply don't have enough time to complete such wonderful outfits.

However when McKenzie got an invite to a Harry Potter birthday party and the invite then named which character she needed to come as I have to say still was not too pleased.  Of course it was not the invite that I was not pleased about but the unknown effort that would need to go into the costume for a nearly 12 year old girl.

Naturally these things take place when life is at its busiest and I am short of time.  Of course at the last minute I remember to check out the character McKenzie needed to go as,  Cho Chang.

 A visit to the local fabric shop, buy fabric, cotton and machine needles before I had googled a pattern for a school unform cape.  Luckily I stumbled upon a very easy to do pattern here and had enough fabric to do the job.

Here is how it all went with a little improvisation on my part.

1.  Gather the necessary tools.  They included my husbands building tape measure because it was the longest measuring thing we had, childrens pavement chalk which really did a great job and a school ruler.  Of course as I needed the floor to work on space was the next challenge.

2.  Then there is the need for the snow angel move (refer to linked instrustions for more complete directions.)

3.  Then I discovered the beauty of pavement chalk.  Once you have got your shape marked on one side of the cape don't stress simply remove you child, fold the fabric in half and pat lightly.  You will find the perfect imprint will be made for you to work from.

 

 

 

 

 

4.  Then there is the cutting....

 

 

5.  The very old sewing machine then comes out and Hayden has a very close look.  Personally I use the machine so rarely I surprised I know how to use it.  Three very long seams stitched and overlocked and I was done.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally a pinecone, a red bead and goggly eyes with glue dots to make one messenger owl and we were done after 2 hours of effort.  Not bad if I might say so myself and thankfully so does McKenzie.

 

 





Friday Fabulous Five #24

I can't believe that term 4 of our school year has started and that in 8 weeks school will be finished for the year.  With that in mind here are my links for this week.

1.  Got to love the prinable collection of Subway art found on eighteen25

2.  Here is this dress I love.  Very tempting to go down and get one as the shop to purchase it from is not far from home.  Did I say I love Anna Stretton Clothing

 

 

 

3.  We don't do Halloween in my house but I simply love this little fun idea which would make a great door dressing idea for other special event in my house.

 

 

4.  What about this great little article about the different sorts of sugar you can buy for your house.  While you are visiting My Baking Addiction check out the recipes.  You are sure to find something you like.

 

 

5.  Baking soda and vinegar make for fabulous fun when you need a little something to entertain the tribe in the holidays.

 

Please let me know if there is any link you think I might like.

 

Have a great weekend.

Wordless Wednesday 17 October

I can't help but put a few more photos to go with this post

 

 

 

My daughter is in the Navy Blue.


Then lets not forget the parents on the side line. I am there furtherest away.

 

I am linking this post to My Little Drummer Boys.

When your heart beats proudly.....

Don't you just love it when your children finds something that they are passionate about and then just love everything there is to do with that thing.  Take for example my daughter McKenzie.  She is passionate about hockey.  She really loves maybe that should be is stimulated by hard training.  she is not afraid to make the hard tackles on the really big girls, she listens hard and really thinks strategically about the game.

I know some people might think that I am pushing her, yes I introduced her to hockey but no it is all her.  She is the one that has the dreams, she is the one who  asks the good questions of the coach and she is the one is can visualise the game (has a hockey brain according to coaches she has had).

This year McKenzie really wanted to go the the National hockey tournament for Under 13 girls called Colliers Cup.  So  we helped her by moving where she played hockey, both club and province and she achieved it.  I have to say that her Dad and I were stunned and proud that she made it to the top 16 Under 13 girls of Auckland.  90 something girls trialled.

Well to cut a long story short, last week the tournament was held in our home turf.  Her team finished 4th.  McKenzie played like a deamon and I can't be prouder.  She came away with stiff and tired legs, and seemed exhillarated by the whole experience.  ( I should add here that it is hard work being a parent on the sideline supporting your child and their team.)

So as a tribute to her efforts and abilities here is a small tribute to her skill and determination.  Also she could not have done it without the fabulous coach Scott and team manager Bonny.

 (McKenzie is in the blue kit controlling the door.)

 

 (McKenzie is in the Red (alternate) stip)

 

(McKenzie again in the red stip controlling the ball)

Monday Menu 15 October

Well my blog took a rest last week.  Too much was happening in life and something had to give and so my blog was it.

Here is my menu for this week.

Monday  corned beef (cold meat) baked potato and green vege.

Tuesday  sweet and sour vege on noodles

Wednesday  beef barley soup

Thursday  chicken pot pie soup

Friday  Grilled chicken and spinach salad with white balsalmic vinaigrette

Saturday  Chicken curry pasta

Sunday  leftovers.

I am linking this post to I'm an Organising Junkie

September in Numbers

Boy oh Boy what a busy month.  I am so glad that winter sport in our house is over and we have our weekends back. 

So here are my numbers for September

10 is how old Hayden became this month.  It is somewhat of a miracle considering when he was three he suffered a traumatic medical event from which he was resuscitated.  1 cake was made to share with his friends.

1 tweenage girl in my house was saving her lunch food for a 'science' experiment in her bedroom.  It was accidentally found.  Hmmmm.

3 is the number of fejoa trees we cut down in our small yard.  They were just producing so much poor fruit which then just rotted on the grass it was a problem.  Now we have a rather bare view but time will fix that as the tree line in the background is camillias.

1 experiment with an egg and vinegar was set up for my 8 year old son.  Very successful.  The photo shows the bubbles of the shell disolving as we watched.

Then there is the hockey.  The last 3 saturday games for the season took place.  I am glad my children have fun playing hockey.  3 games out of town for McKenzie and her Auckland Under 13 representative team.  Exhausting but I love how she always come out of the practise sessions (8 in all during September).  Here is Andre making a takle.

Of course the driving for the hockey meant that one out of town game I drove 5 hours return trip to Whangarei with a 2 hour stop to watch the game and back home again.


Spring is officially here and the 6 fruit trees in my yard are all flowering, my lawn is starting to grown and I am wishing that summer would hurry up and arrive.

Then the magic number of 100 arrived.  Yes 100 days until Christmas arrived and sent me into a moment of list making.

This is all for this month.

I am linking this post to Notes on Paper.

Wordless Wednesday 3 October

Last week we were very lucky because Hayden and his siblings got invited to the Kids in Cars charity event which included the Kidney Kids charity which supports children with kidney disease (Hayden has renal tubular acidosis).  The days was fabulous and one of the few that actually invited sibling to attend as well.

Here are Andre and Hayden minicing the big boys by driving little boys cars. 

 

 

 

 

I am linking this post up to My Little Drummer Boys

Monday Menu 1 October

The holidays are here.  No more rushing around and routine to strictly adhere to.  Here is my menu for the week.

Monday   chicken grilled, baked potato and salad

Tuesday  Easy Fried Rice.

Wednesday  Feta Stuffed Chicken Burgers

Thursday   Warm pesto and haloumi pasta salad

Friday  roast vegetable frittata with salad

Saturday  chicken schnitzel with salad

Sunday  Dinner out with the Auckland Girls U13 hockey team.

I am linking this to I'm an Organised Junkie