Birthday Interview: Milla 29/11/2012

A fifth birthday is a big milestone and one that Milla has been counting down to for a loooong time now. The first one up this morning, Milla came into our room ready for what the day might hold!
Gifts were ripped open and being used/played with by 7am before a breakfast of pancakes and strawberries as a special birthday treat. The main gift Milla received today was two tickets to see Chitty Chitty Bang Bang the stage show this Sunday so no party was planned for this year and we are now very much looking forward to our special outing in just 3 sleeps time.

Once Matt arrived home from work tonight we had a family dinner that ended in a birthday cake of course... a Barbie Cake in fact that had Milla announce, in between bites, "this is the best birthday ever!"

Just like last year I interviewed Milla with the same 20 questions.. it was a bit of fun to see how her answers differed from THESE ONES 12 months ago.

1) How old are you? 5
2) Who is your best friend? Maddison
3) What is your favourite thing to do? Crafting
4) What is your favourite colour? Pink
5) What is your favourite food? Strawberries
6) What do you like to do with your family? Make craft
7) What is your favourite toy? Scarf
8) What do you want to be when you grow up? Butterfly
9) What makes you happy? Scarf
10) What makes you sad? Snatching
11) What is your favourite show to watch? Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (gee, I wonder why she said this? teehe)
12) What is your favourite book? Tinkerbell
13) What do you love to learn about? Letters and words at school
14) What was the best part of your birthday? Cutting the birthday cake
15) Where would you like to go for a holiday? A caravan park
16) Who is your teacher? Miss Sarah
17) What is your favourite treat? Cake
18) What do you think about before you fall asleep? Nice dreams
19) What is your favourite animal? Unicorns
20) What was your favourite birthday present? New pink dress

Happy birthday big girl! We LOVE you to the moon and back!!

Trick or Treat!

Halloween 2012 is now all packed away safely for another year but just ask Milla or Harris about it and they'll have you know it was LOTS of fun!
We decorated our house again this year with a few changes from last year and added a bunch of orange, grey and black bunting. The neighbours all followed suite with a few skeletons, jack-o-lanterns and witches popping up over the past few weeks on our street!

There was lots of excitement yesterday afternoon when Mahlee, Georgie, Harper, Jo & Oskar, all dressed up with buckets in hand, joined us for Trick or Treating!!

Batman, a Mummy, a butterfly, a princess, a witch and Darth Vader happily went from house to house knocking on spooky doors and collecting treats - our cousins who had never done this before were AMAZED at what they got!!

We handed out over 50 ghost lollipops to other trick or treaters and had people coming to our place to pose infront of and take pics of our house!! I can see Halloween getting bigger and bigger each year and we are loving it!!
Now I wonder how long we can make the treat stash last???

Happy 12th Birthday Felicity!

12! 12! 12! no matter how many times you say it it still sounds impossible... Surley not 12 already?!?
Fliss has had a great few days celebrating her birthday and has the present ripping open down to a fine art now!
Her actual birthday was spent at Tanya's house so after being dropped off at our place yesterday we had a few balloons and fairy lights scattered around and a little family dinner for the special occasion... Fliss' fav meal of (veggie loaded, gluten free) spaghetti bolognese was on the menu then followed by a rather colourful and wobbly (gluten and dairy free) rainbow jelly cake!

Jelly is a fav in our house for all the kids and this cake was a HIT!!

Fliss joined in on singing Happy Birthday to herself and enjoyed every mouthful of the 'cake'.

Happy Birthday Flissy - we love you lots!!!

I did it!!

Half Marathon - DONE!

There has been a rather large smile on my face since crossing the finish line at the stairs of the Opera House yesterday morning.
What a blast! I was aiming for around the 2hr mark so my finish time of 2hrs 3mins 34 secs is absolutely fine with me!
I managed to snap a pic at the start of the race as we crossed the Harbour Bridge but then tucked my phone away again and got down to business.

The course is spectacular to run with some awesome views and Sydney's weather yesterday was stunning which made the whole experience fabulous!
Thank you to Wayne who came along to see us at the finish and snapped some pics while he was there for memories sake.

I'll be back next year - just have to decide if I will be lining up for the Half or the Full Marathon...

Father's Day!

We were at Avoca for the weekend so Father's Day started with a big breakfast of pancakes and bacon made by Anton and lots of little gifts for Matt from the kids then with a gorgeous Spring day in action we all headed to Amazement in the Yarramalong Valley with Grandma and the Peetz family!
Amazement was a new find that is very family friendly. The perfect place to take a picnic lunch and spend the day wandering the few garden mazes, talking and patting the animals including rabbits, sheep, ponies, turkey, emus, chickens and ducks. There was face painting, bike riding, sheep races, garden games, sandpit action and ice creams - a fun day!!

We had some very sleepy kids on the drive home which is a good sign of a day spent having fun!

Dining Set Makeover!

Sooooo it's been rather a long time between blog posts - life has been busy but this I just had to share!
About 4 months ago I had the brilliant (insert sarcastic tone here) idea to give our pine dining table and 6 chairs a makeover. I knew it would be a big-ish job but didn't quite bargain for just how much time it would take. With family life, Giggleberry Creations & training for the half marathon keeping me busy, finding spare time to sand, sand, sand back all the chairs and table's nooks and cranies was tricky but I got there in the end! (this is where a HUGE thanks needs to be mentioned to Matt and the kids who have put up with using our outdoor setting in the kitchen for meals temporarily)
There was nothing at all wrong with the dining set. It was just 'loved' shall we say. It has been around for many years so the original lacquered finish was chipped and wearing away. It is a great table, with two 'inserts' that can be added or removed to make the table accommodate and group of people, which I love, but it just needed some new life...
Not a great BEFORE pic (from a few years ago at Milla's rainbow party) but you get the idea...

A few process pics...

Sanded!

Under coated!

Painted!

'Aged'/ Beaten up / Made to look 'rustic' - this part was tough to start as I had a freshly painted table and wasn't sure if I was about to ruin all my hard work by attacking it with sanding paper and a wooden block!

Table top stained! I controlled myself and left it all to sit and dry for 24hrs. I finally convinced Matt we had waited long enough and asked him to help me carry it all inside.
With a freshly mopped kitchen floor and a few bits on the table top, just to finish it all off, I am absolutely in LOVE with the end result!!!

I LOVE the turquoise colour under the dark stain table top against the red frames on our art gallery wall... and the beaten up legs and chairs almost make it look like it was rescued from an old farm house (and a great way to hide any extra bumps it will get in it's new life with our crazy trio!)

Harris was the first to try it out with a quiet game of Beetle while I stood back and admired my work!