October in Numbers

I just can't believe how quickly this year has gone

So without ado here are my numbers

The month started with 2 weeks of holidays.  This was the final break before the long summer holidays.

• 2 weeks school holidays begin....Well the second week of the holidays is October.

• McKenzie played 6 days of hockey, 8 games and her team finished 4th in the Colliers Cup (Under 13 girls) New Zealand tournament.  Here is the coach giving the girls their half time pep talk.

 

(photo source The Times)

• 6 weeks at work this month with a new pay roll company and none of my pay fortnights have been right.  Grrrrr .....Just as well we are not solely reliant on my pay to live.

• I spent a whole 2 hours making my daughters outfit so she could look like a pupil attending school with Harry Potter.  Right down to  the owl made from a pinecone.

 

You can read about this project here on my blog.



• Working (I am a primary school teacher) 4 sometimes 5 days a week this school term.  I am trying to put some money together to pay for the house paint. 

 

 

 

• 2 days raking up bamboo, cleaning up the yard and paddocks so that all the winter rubble can be disposed of .  You can see that my 3 children helped us move the wood and bamboo

 

(The credits for this page can be found here at Nuts4Digi)

 



• Finally the need arrived for McKenzie 11 years (or nearly 12 as she would say) to have a phone.  It came with a set of rules but with her staying away with the hockey tournament we thought that it was time.

• McKenzie played her flute at St Mary's College Junior Proms.  She was one of 85 first year instrument players in the band she played in.

I am linking this post to Notes on Paper.

Fridays Fabulous Five # 25

What with me working more days that I usually do I am sort of time for browsing the web as much as I usually do but here are my finds for this week.

1. I love this new find.  As the summer holidays are not many weeks away I am sure that Plan my play will come in handy for the staycation moments.  A day out but local and hopefully something that I have not thought of doing with the family.
2. I am so into instagram now and the Thankful project found on eighteen25 looks like something I will be doing starting today.
3. The try this tea towel idea from Skip to my Lou.
4. Some green Christmas Ornaments
5. Then there is this post which is important in my house all about broken Trust Cycles

Do you have any interesting links I might like.  Please let me know.

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.