Waiting for the grandparents

Saturday is here and we have cleaned the house for the arrival of the grandparents. They will be here soon for afternoon tea. 

The chocolate cake has been made, just needs to be iced. 

The kids lunch is ready on the table. And in just 10 minutes its nearly all gone. 

Well I'm off now to ice the cake and make sure some toys haven't been pulled out of their hiding places.

I hope you are enjoying your day today!

Yay, its Friday!

I finished my knitted dish cloth last night. I know I said that my goal was to finish it on Wednesday but after the kids came home its all on with unpacking school bags, getting homework done and starting dinner. Then after dinner its bath time, reading and getting ready for bed. That's our routine every night and my hubby and 

I focus on the kids and try not to do our stuff until kids are in bed. 

So Wednesday night, kids are in bed and I get my knitting out, hubby makes a cup of tea. We sit down to watch some TV together and before I know it its 9.30 pm and we are falling asleep on the couch. Oh crap, I'm just going to have to finish the dish cloth on Thursday. So that's what I did and here it is!

I really enjoyed knitting it and it was a very easy pattern to follow. Not bad for my first try, it has been along time since I have done any knitting. I also have some green wool (pictured with the dish cloth) which I will make another dish cloth out of that colour too. I am going to knit a few so I will have a pile of them in the linen cupboard. 

I have never used a knitted dish cloth before but after reading that Rhonda on Down to Earth uses them all the time I thought I would give them a go. I will let you know how it goes.

I am looking forward to the weekend. Making a cake tomorrow as my hubby's parents are coming to visit for afternoon tea. Sunday I am going to get out into the garden and fed the veggies that are growing in my veggie patch with some seaweed mix. The broccoli and Brussels sprout seedlings are getting taller but no sign of the actual veggie growth yet. Hopefully soon!

Hope you have a great weekend!

Knitted dish cloth

Yay, I finally started to knit a dish cloth today! Since I did baking yesterday I gave myself some free time and sat down to knit. And I can tell you that it feels so good to have done some knitting. My goal for today is to finish the dish cloth and show you all tomorrow.

What are you knitting at the moment?

Baking day today

It's about time that I did some baking in our house. I have been abit slack lately and haven't baked any homemade goodies. So I jumped online and headed over to sallysbakingaddiction. Sally has some fantastic yummy recipes. There are cookies, slices, cupcakes and more!

For my baking day today I choose to make the very vanilla cupcakes, rolo stuffed peanut butter cookies and ultimate fudge brownies with peanut butter chips. When I made the fudge brownies I didn't have any peanut butter chips so I used white choc chips instead.

Very Vanilla Cupcakes 

Rolo Stuffed Peanut Butter Cookies

Ultimate Fudge Brownies with White Choc Chips

Did you do any baking today? I would love to know what goodies you are baking at home.

Sunday morning craft with the kids

I decided to make Sunday morning a "no electronic games" time. That means no ipods, no playstation, no nintendo ds, no computer and no playing on mums ipad. During the week we have a rule that there is no playing on these devices. If you have homework then you are allowed on the computer. On Friday night and the weekend we let them play on their games but still limit the amount of time.

It has a been awhile since the kids and I have done some crafting activities so I thought I would try it out on Sunday morning. There are some great kids activities on Pinterest. I found one to get our Sunday morning craft time started. There were a few links to this activity so I will just put the link to the one I used which was
contact paper rose windows.

We traced a plate on some black paper. Try to not use a thick paper as it will be to hard to cut when folded. Once traced you can cut out the circle.

Next fold it in half then fold it in half again. If you can fold it again then go ahead but make sure that its not too thick so you won't be able to cut it.

You can start to cut out shapes on the folded sides. Get creative and cut some different size shapes!

Once your shapes are cut out then place your circle on a piece of contact and pat all around the circle so its on the contact nicely. I liked the idea of using the contact as it held down the pieces of paper quite well and there was no glue that needed to dry.

I made a pile of coloured tissue paper and some coloured cellophane. I just cut it in pieces and if the kids needed a smaller size they just used their scissors to make smaller pieces.

Once they had finished decorating their windows I put another piece of contact on the back where they had stuck all the paper. Then you cut around the circle and you are finished!

The kids really enjoyed making the windows that we made another one! All their fantastic coloured windows are proudly displayed on their bedroom windows. And it does look very nice when the sun shines through them. 

I hope to make the Sunday morning craft with the kids a regular activity and post it on my blog. There is a huge assortment of kids activities to choose from on Pinterest. I really enjoyed spending the time with them.

Already choosing what to do for this Sunday. Looking forward to the next Sunday craft!

Mood Board Challenge 3

Here is my entry for the Mood Board Challenge 3. I finally finished it before I lost any daylight so I could take some photos.

Water tank and Ikea (and Gastro)

Unfortunately the lovely Gastro bug came to visit our house this week. It hit my hubby and two kids. So far noone else has been affected, cross fingers! So, hubby and three kids were home yesterday, one child and hubby recovering from gastro and our older two had a day off as it was report writing day for the teachers. Hubby was feeling better so we decided to head out and look at a water tank for the backyard. And since we were in the area of Ikea we dropped in to have a look at some shelving for the boys room and shelving for my crafting goodies. I was going to take a few photos of some of the new things Ikea has in store but my hubby pointed out a sign upon entry that "NO PHOTOGRAPHY IS ALLOWED". Oh well, no photos to show of our trip for the day. We did buy some shelving though so I will post some photos of them once they are all in place.

Today is catch up day with washing and some house cleaning. I am trying to finish a project for the mood board challenge 3. Competition closes tonight. My little miss has a birthday party to go to soon so I am going to make a birthday card and will enter that in. I will post a photo of the finished card on my blog later today.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Yummy curried sausages recipe and raspberry choc chunk cookies

This curried sausage dish is always a hit with the kids. It's easy to prepare and is a great budget recipe. Our recipe has been adapted from the original recipe by Jennifer Cheung for Kidspot.

Yummy curried sausages recipe

Ingredients:

12 plain sausages
2 tbsp oil
1 onion, diced
3 carrots, diced
4 medium potatoes, diced
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp tomato paste
1½ tsp curry powder
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 cups water
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup frozen or tinned corn
3 tbsp jam (any type except for marmalade)

Method:

Cook sausages and when they are all cooked, slice then set aside.
Saute onion, carrot and potato for 10 mins.
Add curry powder, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste.
Cook for 2 mins. Add water and stir.
Add sausages to the pan and add corn and peas.
Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 mins. It will thicken when its left to simmer. Stir occasionally.
Stir in jam.
Serve with rice.

Serves 8-10

Notes:

We cooked the sausages outside on the bbq. It saved having oil spitting on our stove inside. Easier to clean up aswell.

Raspberry choc chunk cookies

Yesterday over at retromummy Corrie posted a raspberry and chocolate chunk cookies recipe. I definitely had to give that recipe a go. The kids needed something for their lunchboxes so it was perfect timing! The cookies turned out great and are very delicious. Thanks Corrie for a great recipe.

What to write about on my blog?

I decided to do a blog so I could write about what we do as a family and get to know all the other bloggers out there. I love reading other peoples blogs and following what they do in day to day life. But now I am starting to wonder what I can put on my post for the day as I don't do much. My days are mostly filled with doing washing, tidying the house, cooking for the kids lunchboxes and deciding on what to have for dinner that night.

I don't do heaps of knitting or sewing. I do love buying fabric though and have started a little collection. When I will use the fabric to make something I don't know. I know basic sewing and knitting. I own a sewing machine and my hubby bought me an overlocker for my birthday 2 years ago. And I hate to say this but its still in its box. I would really love to open it up and use it. I do handmade cards and gifts whenever there is a birthday coming up. So I dabble in a little bit of crafting.

I love sitting at my computer and browsing the internet whether its reading blogs or finding fabric and crafting supplies on etsy. Love my phone, computer and ipad!

I was reading Down to Earth blog this morning and her post for today was blogs give us a voice. It was interesting to read and it made me realise that I can blog about my day to day things (I will give it a go), even if it is doing the washing.

I never really took alot of photos before. But now by doing this blog I am taking photos nearly everyday and I am really enjoying it. I probably don't take fantastic photos or my writing about things isn't in top notch journalist form but I am learning along the way and I hope to improve my skills. Hey I'm just a mum along with my hubby living life with our five kids and enjoying every moment of it.

This weekend

Well I wanted to stay home on saturday and chip away at my mountain of washing but we decided to head out in the morning and get some things done. Spotlight first on the list: thread, zip and pillow insert. I bought some gorgeous fabric off etsy a few months ago. I am making a decorative pillow for my mum whose birthday is coming up soon.

Next was JB Hifi: new mouse for the desktop, some cd's and dvd's and of course the kids wanted to spend some of their birthday money and get a new ds game.

Thats how they were until lunchtime. In the afternoon headed out and arranged some fire wood to get delivered.

Did I get any washing done? Two school uniforms and some bed sheets. Guess what I did Sunday, more washing! My mountain of washing is still in the laundry and I cant work out that somehow it keeps getting bigger!

Hope your weekend was good. Did you finish what needed to be done?

Mood board challenge 2

I am enjoying doing the mood board challenge. This time I made a 4 year olds birthday card.

You can find the challenge over at jot magazine.

My photo a day challenge: Day 14. Texture #fmsphotoaday Come on over and have a look.

Photo a day challenge: Day 13

I was deciding whether or not to do this photo challenge for today as it was to take a picture of your kitchen. Most of the time our kitchen is clean and tidy but there are always things laying about. At the moment we still have some easter eggs sitting in easter bags on the bench. The kids drink bottles are in the dish rack, rinsed and ready for filling up tomorrow. There are 2 loaves of bread sitting on the bench to make sandwiches in the morning. There is a fresh homemade raisin bread sitting on the cake cooler rack near the chopping board and I could go on and on. So I decided to take a photo of my favourite large kitchen appliance, my oven. I love my oven. 

What does your kitchen look like during the day? Are there all kinds of things hanging out on your bench?

Photo a day challenge: Day 12

I thought I would give the photo a day challenge a go. Chantelle over at fatmumslim is running the challenge. The June photo a day for today is take a photo of what you were doing at either 11am today or 11pm tonight.

My entry for today. I was loading the clothes dryer at 11am.

A trip to Maldon

After dropping the kids off at school, my travelling buddy (my hubby) and I plus our two furry children headed up to Maldon. We had a nice walk up and down the main street, looking at the shops then decided to head into Castlemaine for some lunch. The four of us enjoyed our trip and it was lovely to have a day with my hubby. Can't wait for the next adventure!

Relaxing long weekend

It was the long weekend here in Australia. The Queens Birthday long weekend. Just stayed at home. Had breakfast sitting by the fire, had a sausage sizzle for lunch and made some homemade orange cordial. It was nice not to go anywhere, we got some things done around the house and spent some time with the kids. 

Our lovely stair carpet

I was over on Retro Mummys blog having a read of her latest post. She has replaced her lovely green carpet in the family home sneak peek at the new carpet and she wanted to know "Can you beat me with older carpet at your house or beat my green carpet???" Well this is our family homes original carpet from the early 70's. This lovely coloured carpet was throughout the house in the lounge, hallway, bedrooms and stairs. We have still left it on the stairs as we haven't decided on what to put on the stairs as yet. It was a nice carpet but made the house seem small so we put a light beige carpet in which made the house look bigger and opened it up really well.

This photo probably isnt that great to show the colour but the stairs area isnt that bright. The colour of the carpet is a red/burgundy colour.