I think I have had my worst week in a long time. Down and out!! lol! I'm having a laugh at the moment but haven't laughed much at all this week. Do you ever have those weeks???

Things that have pi**ed me off this week (in no particular order)

the heat

the humdity

me being unwell

Lexi being unwell including a temp of 40 and a over protective mother (me) taking her to the hospital, just to get checked out at midnight... i don't care, I'm a Mum and that's what I do. Lucky my favourite nurses were on! It was 'hi ali' when I walked in!! lol!

Brenton leaving home before 6am and returning back home just before 7pm, EVERYDAY for the last 13 days including today. Really sick of doing feeding, bathing, stories, toy clean up... just the whole damn show on my own. Tea and clean up not being over until after 8.30 or 9, then we are ready to go to sleep half and hour later!!! 

No scrapbooking because of above.... Which is really getting to me, as it has been making me feel good.... really good! 

Uuuum, what else has gotten to me??

I think I will just leave it there.... could go on and on. Really. I could.

Oh dear, what a sad sack I am!! It's all good now! My parents are coming for a visit tomorrow and I think I am going to try to get out of EVERY school drop off and pick up this week. Let you know at the end of it how I went! I am getting out of it Tues/Wed anyway, Brenton and I are off to Adelaide to AC/DC and a some us time. Should be good. Would rather be going to a B&B with a spa, and going to wineries and eating lots of yummy winery type food!! 

I wonder if I've complained enough yet?? LOL!!! Sorry!! 

Anyway some pics of our week. Pooey that I don't have a scrap of scrappiness to show.... anyway.

My girls being bucket heads in the bath.. Mia loves this kind of stuff...

Bit of sisterly love!! 

Tuesday night, in bed watching MKR, and of course Mia VERY jealous as she wants a tv in her room, complaining about anything, just to hop in with me! so she manages to get us to let her watch it with me.. Big mistake. She. just. can't. keep. still.

(photo in black and white to try and help me (this pic looks REALLY bad in true colour!!) Really feeling bad to be in bed before 8)

And then, look at this angel face.... *sigh* so precious!! 

And little angel drinking her milk. Loves it. So cute. 

Uuum, a photo of my delicious breakfast I think on Friday morning..... 

Tommorow it's eggy crumpets, and crispy crispy bacon... Mmmm

Oh baby, this face sums it all up.... I love you!

New half clam around here. The local newsagent was having a 50% off toys to make way for a new shop fit so thought it was a good time to snap one up. But alas when I went to pay I was charged full price. Too timid or wussy to ask for the discount... I guess I buy enough stuff online, I am happy to give the locals some $$$ too sometimes. The newsagent has good service which is rare in this town....

This special little girl received an award at her school assembly on Friday, the photo is very pixellated as I have cropped alot of kids out and then re-sized the photo! She was very proud of herself and I was too. Her award was for helping her peers and being a good team member!! YAY for Mia!!! Maybe you do listen to your Mumma, hey? We work pretty well as a team don't we sweet....

Stormy skies. I wish it would have amounted to more than it did. I would hazard a guess and say the whole town would have loved more of a show AND a lot more rain... So many insects flying around at the moment. Flying ants.... I think that's what they are! 

And finally, went to the local op shop (30kms away) today, it has re-opened after a Summer break... It was an exciting day in the area, so many people there.... Picked up these top notch books for the kids... brand new condition. I'll be going back at the end of the week... it was a bit mayhem-ish today...

Thanks for visiting... 


Just came back to add that I have no idea why or how I got the white behind the text... bloody blogger. And it's hard to remove and I really can't be bothered right now.... sorry.

Mia let me take this photo of her and her 'castle' this morning. She is bizarrely really right into playing with them at the moment. She makes all sorts of things... 

 Bubba in her pj's watching me make a coffee this morning. 

Lexi eating her lunch of sausage roll from the Bakery. We now have 2 bakeries. I bought a donut from the new one today (and then went to the first one for bread, rolls, etc...) but am thinking I will stick with the first bakery. It's a bit cheeky to open a bakery in opposition to your previous employer, don't you think. This is a pretty small town! Lexi loved her first try of sausage roll!! 

Mia of course hiding her face from me when I tried to snap her eating lunch!

Ingredients out for cupcakes.

Cooked cupcakes. They are Red Velvet ones. I don't know where my baking/cooking would be with out Tatum!! She put me onto a fab cookbook with these in them! 

Decorated Cupcakes. This evening Brenton and I ate 2 each. Deluxe is all I can say. So different, but just delicious. Thanks Tatum AND Lauren for the best tasting cupcake Brenton said he thinks he has ever had! lol! 

Little Miss is just getting on her knees to crawl instead of commando style. Soooo cute!! 

And then!

Oops, over she goes!! 

But it didn't bother her much... Love this face!! 

Mia with the best bit! Licking the icing off of the thingies! (i have a mental blank!!! ) 

With the paper flowers we made,which involved a trip to the newsagent as I didn't have red tissue paper and it caused tears!! And yes, we got white and dark blue too! Have to have as many colours as we can now!

Cheeky monkey, as soon as she sees a cupboard open, she is straight there!! 

Right now I'm listening to the rain and I'm just really enjoying it. When we first moved here, I could not care less that it didn't rain much but today, I was hoping hoping hoping madly that it would. And it is. Wonderful. 

Could have taken so many more photos... 

just a snapshot of us today.

(oh and Mia is a willing poser for my photos again... I told her if she didn't let me take photos of her I could only scrap Lexi... Next time I pointed the camera her way, it was 'Are you going to scrap that MUM?' Yes, Mia I will!!! xxx)

 

It's been a week of food food food. 

Love food, although can feel my waistline expanding a little bit! 

Don't care, when the weather cools down, we are going to be walking Mia to school, (not far really) and go to the Park just to get out. I am over the heat and so are the girls... 

Anyway, back to the food subject,, above is the Baked Lemon Cheesecake that I made for Brenton for Valentines Day.. That was about as romantic as we got. Oh and Brenton, his parent's and Mia went to Woolies for something or other and came home with a rose for me. Nice Hubby!!

Mother's little helper of a Vodka and Orange earlier in the week. It did the trick and of course I had to take a photo... 

 Grilled Snapper and Spicy corn Salsa. I just really enjoyed the salsa, ate it for lunch the next day too! Brenton's parents bought us some fish when they came so we will be eating 2 meals of fish every week until it's gone! I loved this salsa so much, I know I already said that but the flavours were unreal! Chickpeas, corn, red capsicum, avocado, coriander, lime juice and probably a couple of other things I have forgotten! YUM!

 

Lexi eating her Sisters leftover noodles... she loves them. She had already eaten her own food but ate these too!! 

 

 More food! I made a zucchini and noodle slice out of one of the latest SFI's. Uuum, it was ok, but it had milk and noodles (as in vermicelli) and I felt that it was a bit too sloppy-ish. So not so much milk, another egg and the noodles will only soak until they are just al dente before they are added. And it also had oyster sauce in it which when I smelt it when I added it, i thought, YUCK! But was actually ok when I ate it!

 

  Sneaky photo of Mia while she was watching tele. She has been RUNNING away from me when I point the camera in her direction. So not good. I am hoping that it doesn't last too long. While I love taking photos of Lexi, Mia needs her fair share too!! 

That said, here they are together. Mia thinks Lexi needs help to stand up. (she doesn't) and is always picking her up, or doing these types of things with her... Cute though, aren't they!

The yummy stuff I sometimes put on my coffee. Deluxe addition too I might add. I haven't been making too many coffees with my machine and all of a sudden, this week, I have. And I wonder why I haven't been using it. Machine Coffees are the best. YUM!

One measly LO this week!! lol!! It's for the E2C Feb sketch challenge, although it vaguely looks like the sketch, not much really!! I do like it though. And I have used 3 photos on a LO. I haven't used more than one for such a long time. 

Been a busy week. Brenton gets home not a long time before 7 at night, it just makes my evenings go so much faster. By the time he is ready for tea, we put the kids to bed, I clean up, it's later than I like and so I haven't been sitting at the table much this week to scrap. Not happy. Oh and Wed nights i have to watch Criminal Minds. Did you watch it this week? A heartbreaker. And yes, tears were shed!!! 

And lastly Mia had her little friend over for a sleep over. They are watching a Barbie movie on Mia's little DVD player in her room. Had to get grumpy with them in the end to get them to be quiet, but once i had they were sleeping angels 5 mins later!! Bless!!

Thanks for visiting, and I hope you've popped back Justine and have liked seeing a little piece of our lives from far away,

we miss you!!! 

xxx

 

This baby is seriously cute. I have wanted to get a photo of her in her cot for a while now, asleep preferably, but her sleeps are generally in the dark. She wasn't keen for a sleep on Friday so took a few pics when I was just about to get back out of bed! She is smiling at her sister.

 

Another LO, I quite like this one, mixing old products with some spankin new papers I just got from THE BOXX this week. I don't know how old the papers are as far as in release but I do love October Afternoon. The papers just feel nice. And I just love the KI memories letters, was pretty happy when I found that I had the ones I wanted for the title. Having fun going through the old stash to use on my pages. The tags are old old old, but seemed to tie right in. Well for me they did, don't think I have too much of an 'eye'!! 

My in-laws are here for a visit at the moment, and my MIL, Mia and I went to two garage sales yesterday. We picked up a canvas for Mia for $1 so I suggested to her that she paint a Valentines Canvas for her Dad. She loved the idea. I drew a dodgy outline of a heart, she painted it in and then added some abstract bits and pieces... Her Dad loved it!
I also picked up a cute little white skirt with black detail for $1. I wore it out for tea last night. We went to the local restaurant CHIVES which was lovely but a reminder of why I don't wear white as I slopped some juice from my oysters on my skirt... typical me. Fabulous meal and put us all in a good mood! Especially since as a lovely surprise Brentons parents picked up the tab!! 

The plate that Mia used to have her paints on. Just trying to see things from a different perspective!

The finished canvas. I tried to guide Mia but she was resistant to my ideas, which is good I suppose, it's all her work! 

Lexi loves the pool, she had this little dip yesterday, it was too hot for her to be out there too long, but later on she got stripped right off and had a slash for quite a while... My water babies.

Sick to death of going to Woolies all the time to get something for tea, I have been doing a weekly menu planner, including extras like zucchini and noodle slice (SFI Feb10)

 , I was going to link it but it's not on the TASTE website yet.

This week we are having 

 Roast Chicken (just like last week, YUM!!!!)

Crumbed Squid and Salad (Mia's fave)

Zucchini Carbonara (from Jamie Oliver's Jamie at Home)

Grilled Snapper with spicy sweetcorn salsa (SFI Nov 09)

Chicken Snitzel Caesar Salad (SFI Nov 09)

That should keep us going until next Friday! 

I'm feeling quite invigorated by food again. I don't have to think about what we will be eating for tea, and I chop and change what we are having on the night as to how I'm feeling on the day. I have HEAPS of other recipes to try out. Yum Yum.

Seeing as it's Valentine's Day I have a Baked Lemon Cheesecake cooling in the oven, for Brenton for Valentine's, it's the way to show him I love him!! Last time I used my bigger springform and ruined it, it was spread out too far. Raw in the middle and burnt on the outside, demoralising! I like my food to be nice and to have people tell me that it's nice... Who doesn't like a compliment!! lol!!  But it looks alot better today! I'll be taking a photo for sure!! 

Blogging is abit like writing a letter to an old friend, I feel as if I could keep writing and writing!! 

My head has been all over the place, but feeling a bit more settled with it all at the moment. More content I guess you could say.

TFL!

 

 

The finished roast..

Deluxe!! 

 

Check this cute bubba out!! Love her! 

 
 

This was for a colour challenge for E2C, I haven't actually emailed it yet LOL, but will get it to them soon. This was the one that was doing my head in but it ended up ok. Played around with paint and used a pencil end to sploosh it around.

 
 

And this LO was for the weekly challenge on The Boxx, I quite like this one.

TFL.. 

 

The smell of this chook roasting in the oven is just divine right now. I love the combo of lemon, garlic, rosemary, onion and olive oil!! So yum. So, there is our tea for tonight. I par boiled the potatoes and roughed them up a bit and they are coming along very well!! I love food!!

 

Miss Mia got out her Hannah Montana crafty kit out today and made some pretty pictures... I was able to have a lay down while Lexi was napping this afty which was really nice. I must admit it's not all that rare for me to have an afternoon nap especially if Brenton is home. It's my thing... I just love a Nanna nap. I wasn't fully asleep but to lay in bed in the middle of the afty, well, it's pretty good. I couldn't care less about a sleep in, but love a good ol nap! 

 

Lexi in her high chair eating her tea which was some Golden Chicken Bites out of the freezer... she wasn't so keen on them tonight as they got thrown over the side. She did eat one and then a couple of biscuits. She looks so toddler-ish in this photo. She has just started pulling herself up on her knees, which is going to result in a lot of bruises to her head region as she forgets she has to hold on with one hand at least to the coffee table or whatever she has a hold of. I am still feeling crap about her appointment the other day, but she is a little champ and know that she will be fine... I just feel crap about it... what can I say?

 

Toys on the floor this afty. The girls love playing with the blocks together, as soon as I pick them up and put them in the tub, Lexi is straight over to tip them all out again! And Brenton made Mia fairy bread this afty while I was napping and there are sprinkles ALL over the rug... Mia is a messy eater. She pulls things apart to eat them, which I will admit that she gets from me. I do the same thing but just don't get a mess everywhere... 

 

Still having issues with washing, although at least it is all folded on the spare bed and waiting to get put away instead of being in a big tangled mess.... 

Nothing to show  scrapping wise. I have sat down a couple of times to do the E2C colour challenge for Feb, but am not having any joy, in fact it's getting the better of me, so might put it away and start something else. I did want to do the Boxx weekly challenge this week, but have been mucking around too much with this other LO which was doing my head in. And while it was a welcome distraction last night, a friend from Port Lincoln rang last night and when we hung up I saw that we had talked for 100 minutes... it was great...so not much scrapping while yapping!!  I just can't wait to go back there and live. But that's another post! I am looking forward to the E2C retreat in March, I cannot wait to go and meet heaps of scrappers from the region, and get a foot in the door friendship wise for when I ever move back there so I have some chicks to scrap with. I know that a store has crops every Thursday night so will be going to them that's for sure. I am having BIG fantasies about living back there. It's funny really!! Or maybe just sad....

I am TOTALLY inspired by Elizabeth Kartchner at the moment, when I do scrap I sit with her book open to a page I love and while my pages don't look one little bit like hers, I just love her style. And she just has the most beautiful eyes... A friend that I used to spend a lot of time with in my 20's had eyes like Elizabeth's, they just are eye-catching!! lol!! 

Another thing I am loving is COME DINE WITH ME AUSTRALIA on the Lifestyle Channel. What a crack-up. It's similar to My Kitchen Rules on channel 7 at the moment, but without the top chefs there judging them and it looks to me like a whole lot more fun than My Kitchen Rules (although I like that too)  So glad we got a HDD at Christmas, so I can record all the shows and watch them at my leisure. Brenton hogs the tele, so I can record shows overnight, edit them and then watch them.... Love it!! 

Better go, Brenton is giving the girls a bath together and by the sounds of it, Mia is picking up Lexi in the bath, not really a good idea when bubba is so slippery!! 

TFL!!  

p.s. two hours later I'm back to tell you the Roast Chook was absolutely delish!!!! I took a photo of the baking dish before we hacked in and I will show you next time. The slices of lemon that I chucked in with the vegies were extremely gorgeous.... I ate all the pieces... caramelised yummy-ness!! x