Another cold rainy day here in Noosa. 

I find myself almost apologising to strangers for the weather, - the holiday makers who have paid $3000 + a week for their Noosa holiday and have had to swap bikinis for brollies -  I'm so sorry, that's Noosa at the moment, beautiful one day, raining the next - I hope they can still find beauty in this rather soggy Noosa!

We're snugged up in here wrapping presents and drinking coffee (well that's me, not the tots!), hope it's warm and sunny where you are!

Cheers,

x

                                      These little tea lights are from Mitre 10 - who would have thought!

Just loving this time of year.

My big kids aren't so big that they don't still feel the magic, and my littlies, well....I don't think they can believe it, the lights, the decorations, the sparkles - all totally up their alley!!!

                                 My big girl made this dove at school, I just love it.

                                    My attempt at a stick/twiggy thing!

I'm off to brave the shops for some last minute shopping!

Have a great day! x

A game of tag...things to know...

Oh goodness, this is a bit new to me being so new still to the blogging world, but the very lovely Emma Burgess has tagged me in a game, so *deep breath*, here goes :)

What is the one thing you can't stand?

Rudeness.  Our time on this planet is short enough and I just see no rhyme or reason for deliberate rudeness.

If you could go back to your childhood which cartoon character or TV show would be your favourite?

Oh I was just a huge Bewitched fan so I'll say Samantha but I know I used to pretend I was Tabatha.  In fact, I think it went past that, I'm pretty sure I thought I was her!

What is something you do or have done that would surprise a lot of people?

Hmmm.  Well, I had four children and that seems to be something that surprised many!

Do you believe in ghosts?

You know, I am really not sure.  There have been times in my life where I wished I did for sure though.

When you go to the store what's the one things you can't stop yourself from buying more than one of?

Oh gosh, I love candles, big fat white candles, I'm sure you know the ones, with that smooth waxy lustre, oh I do love them.  And then I need something to put them on or in...and so it goes on....

What is the funniest story you have about your significant other?

Oh there are so many!  The oldest one was the time he made fried rice to impress me with his culinary skill (we were newly dating) and he didn't know you had to boil the rice first.  That was 20 years ago and we still trot out that story every now and again!

And then most recently, he bought a magnificent ham for his staff for their Christmas lunch do (which in a rush he had to grab from our garage fridge in the dark early in the morning and pop into a cooler bag). So then with much fanfare and to-do many hours later, he lifted off the lid (and from what I have since heard, with a bit of a flourish) of the cooler (a la Basil Fawlty and the famous duck) ...to reveal....2 X 3 litre bottles of milk still in their Woolies bag - he'd grabbed the wrong bag out of the fridge in the darkness of our garage!

What is your proudest moment of being a parent?

Oh too many, but for me it's seeing my big teen boy take the hand of my littlest one to help with some stairs or when my tween teaches the preschooler a dance routine and they are both laughing, these moments, they warm my heart.  I love being a Mum and even though it's very busy with four, it also feels very right.

If you could go back and relive one day in your life what would it be?

I found this really hard to answer actually. 

I think the day I met my husband.  It was such a very ordinary day and I think it needs some hoop-la to mark it a bit more as the day that my life took such a new direction.  A balloon needs to be released on a beach somewhere or something.

And in turn, I'd like to tag -

Cherie over at her lovely Samford Valley house

and

 Simmone over at Crazy House Capers

Thanks for reading xx

Oh my poor neglected blog, I still love you really, it's just been a busy fortnight with no time left over!


Anyway, I wanted to jump on quickly because I bought these little led and pearl fairy lights at Woolies (who would have thought!) and I just love them and thought someone else might want to duck in and grab some too - they were $7.99 a string and they take 3AA batteries - I bought 4 strings and this one is in my bowl - I was thinking along the lines of some sort of centrepiece for Christmas Day maybe, I'll have to have a proper play with them when things settle down a bit!

And just quickly, this too - I love it, it's in Target, $45 (was $60) - and it's a great size, quite large, perfect for all those yummy Christmas treats I plan to whip up (umm, yes, when things settle down a bit!) looks beautiful sitting on the bench :).

Here's some brownies we just made to christen it properly  - it was sitting on the bench with nothing inside it and it looked lonely!!

 Next to my Doulton beach bunnies, just to give you an idea of scale - it's quite big and for the price, well I have to admit to quite liking Target!

It's beginning to look like Christmas around here - my girls love these reindeer, they take them off the table to play with them all the time - one is the "mummy" and one is the "baby" - just really too cute to watch them!

Have a great day everyone :)

x

Relish?  Sauce? Semi dry?

We have more cherry tomatoes than we know what to do with now and they are so very sweet and so very delish.  I'm googling this morning though looking for recipes to use some up, I think I might try my hand at relish - any pointers?!?

You know, I am seriously amazed that in this soil (that is more sand than dirt) and that still coughs up the odd brick or broken roof tile every now and again, that we can grow such lusciousness - ha, is that even a word?  I'm really loving it, the kids love it and I love that we can walk outside and ta da - a salad in about five minutes.  It's all tucked away behind one side of the house that otherwise would probably not have seen much use anyway.
We pick at least this many everyday, sometimes more even.

 And look at the cucumbers now, they have spilled over on to the lawn.  I really didn't think these were going to work out - we're picking one a day now, it's lucky we love salads! Miss 2 eats them like apples!

 And our new "crop" haha (there's only two!) - rockmelons, have to see how these go, this was more of a let's see what happens experiment than anything!  We had lots and lots of flowers but only two kept going.

 And I wonder if anyone knows anything about mangoes??  I'm expecting these to fall off really but secretly crossing my fingers that they won't. 

And to leave you with...this container was half full from this mornings "pick" (see I'm taking up farmer lingo already lol) and by the time I'd fetched the camera, Miss 2 had scoffed the lot!

Have a great day, hope the sun is shining where you are as brightly as it is here!

x

Don't you love it when you nab a bargain...

I do, puts quite the spring in my step!

Since I found those oars, I do try to stop in at the Salvos and the like every now and again, not as often as I'd like to be honest, (the shopping gene seems to have skipped a generation when it comes to my girls) but we did find these last week :)

• the fish blackboard - $1
• the white table - $4 (!!!)
• the shells were $1 for the lot (I'm going to hang them from the tree)
• and the shell/pearl tree was $4

Best ten bucks I've spent in ages!

Have a great day!

x

Happy Monday everyone :)
Thanks so much for all your lovely comments, I really do appreciate each and every one of them.  I don't always get to reply because I am so time poor these days (four kids does that to you!) but please know that I am very grateful that anyone takes a minute out of their probably also very busy day to leave a comment!

You'll be happy to know that the trunk is still here in the  family room and although Husband's initial comment on seeing it was "how long is that staying there", it looks so at home in here now and I love it!  It would look great with a driftwood star or two ha ha but let's not go there, what a disaster that was!!  I have a new project in mind now (thanks Felicity for the idea!) but I'll wait until it's fait accompli before I blog about it (learnt my lesson there!!).
I want to move the chiffonier in too but I just don't know where to put it - I'm running out of walls to put it against - still looking.

It's such a beautiful day here, with my favourite shades of blue in the sky.  I've got my white sheets on the line and they look just so fresh, so crisply white and summery out there I wanted to take a photo*! 

Here's a photo of the sky instead (taken five minutes ago, I love the sky here, must be something to do with the ocean reflecting, or is that vice versa?!?)

Have a great Monday :)
Cheers x

* ok, so I actually did take a photo of the washing on the line, all that brilliant white, and that beautiful blue sky, I couldn't resist, but it's a sad day indeed when it's the washing on the line that gives so much pleasure ;)

Driftwood star update....

I've decided (after a somewhat harried morning trying to convince a 4 yr old and a 2 year old that aquadhere glue is in fact NOT white paint) that driftwood pieces look much nicer in a bowl instead.....

...and that if one really wants a driftwood star, it is much easier to pop into one's local homewares shop and purchase one.

'Nuff said.

x

Ok, this should be interesting....

.....this morning I'm going to try (please note, the key word here is try lol) to turn this...

 (Sorry about the very glam container, I had to commandeer the yabbie bucket, we just found so much of this lovely driftwood.  It's just beautiful (the driftwood, not the bucket!)  - such lovely rounded edges and worn so soft and smooth.  I just love holding it).

into these.....

Or maybe this...

Should be interesting - two preschoolers and a pot of aquadhere - I'm scared already!!

Have a lovely day x

I'm in one of those moods, you know the one, when you have the urge to move things around a little. 

I've just brought this in here.

It's been in the garage since we moved in and I hated it being in there.  It had to come out.  This is the trunk that my great-grandfather brought all his worldly possessions in when he came to Australia from Ireland so it's a little piece of our family history.  Can you imagine having to fit everything you own into one of these to move to a new country!

It should never have been left in the garage but we didn't think it fitted in with all our white here, and new furniture so it just sort of languished in there (it was with friends though, our chiffonier is still in there, alongside a 1920's wardrobe and more!) until we could find a home for it.  But it's been playing on my mind, so here it is for now, right smack bang in the middle of the room.

This is what was here before.

And looking at that photo again, I think the white table actually looks nicer, but I just can't put this trunk back in the garage!!  Maybe upstairs would better?
The girls are watching Playschool so I've got half an hour up my sleeve to play with it!!
Have a great day x

Today I'm loving...

Right,.... back to blogging about trying to love my home again....today I love our tiles, our outdoor tiles. 
Sorry, very unexciting photo!

They are travertine and we extended them through the alfresco (what a posh sounding name for what is essentially just an outdoor dining area!) through to the pool and even used them as the edge around the pool (with a bit of a sand to take the hard sharp edge off) , which makes the pool a bit different in  that it doesn't have the traditional bull nosed tile, and we hope gives it more of a modern look.  Maybe lol. 
But I do love them, I love their natural look and texture, but I mostly love how soft they feel under bare feet, if it's possible for a tile to feel soft, but they do.

I love sitting out here in the very early morning. You can hear the surf softly and it's a great place to start my day with a quiet coffee (or two if I'm lucky) before the family descends and the usual morning mayhem begins!
Have a great day x