Easter already!

Wow! 2 days until Easter, how did this happen?

I have had such a busy week, rushing here, rushing there?

I dragged out the Easter decorations on the weekend, but somehow they are still sitting in the corner of the lounge room. I still have Good Friday and Easter Sunday lunches to plan and shop for, easter crafts to organise, easter eggs to buy, chocolates to make and a chocolate cake to bake.

Yes, I am feeling very much the flustered white rabbit indeed.

I better go and get this place feeling Eastery!

Snow White goes to Vietnam

Nanny arrived back from Vietnam on Tuesday. Her travel adventures sounded so exciting that Snow White has packed her bags and going travelling herself.

"Look Mum, Snow White is going on a big plane to Vietnam. She has packed her bags, she has her jarmies in this one and her dresses in this one and her coat for the cold in this one."

She sounds very organised! Have fun Snow White.



Speaking of Barbie roll play, this Barbie, I'm told is sneaking out the window of the dolls house.

"You know Mum, just like in your Mummy movie, the one where the little boy's mummy died"

A moment later I realised that she was talking about Sophia Loren in the movie "HouseBoat"

Oh, we do love our old movies and Barbies in this house!

Blues skies

Blue skies at last!

On Wednesday I walked out into the back yard to see this. I hope it lasts! I know the rain was good, but I'm a bit over it.

Spoilt rotten

Well, we have been lucky ducks around here this week, with a bit of spoiling going on.



My mum arrived home from a 2 week holiday in Vietnam. I was just happy to have her home. I can't tell you my surprise when I saw what she produced from her bag for our little family. Bags, scarves, dresses, t-shirts, stamps, little statues, big statues, a photo album, christmas decorations, a hat and linen.





Thank-you mum for your generosity, it was so unexpected.



These also arrived for me in the mail.



Beautiful paper by Laikonik and Korean stamps from Etsy. This was me spoiling me.

Dream home

I spent today in my office. Phoning, emailing, updating, sorting, filing. I was on hold forever on one of those phone calls, so I popped over to Design Sponge and spotted Emerson and Ryan's amazing house.

I am in loooove!



This is the perfect kitchen.



And the pantry! I live just for the day when I will have a walk in pantry like this one.



Dinner at this table. Yes please.


(all of these lovely pictures are from Design Sponge)

Just beautiful.

See more pictures and the original Design Sponge post here .

Pizza - Bellissimo!

Inspired by this great book I got from the library last week, we made pizzas tonight. And I tell you they were good!



Spunky Monkey's sauce base of choice was Tomato Ketchup. Hmmm. Notice his very unique design - a little man with crazy hair, he is upside down in this picture. But you see it, right?



Ta da! See, a man with crazy hair, pineapple eyes and a ham smile. It took a bit to convince Spunky Monkey that he did, in fact, need a bit more topping on his pizza.



Okay, the other ingredients have been added. Ham, pineapple and mozzarella. But wait, we need more ketchup! I did not taste this one.



Pizza Verde, the recipe for this one was taken from the book and it was yummo!

We also made a kind of 'what's in the fridge' pizza. Tomato base, marinated mushrooms, roasted peppers, kalamata olives, capers, mozzarella and basil. It was pretty darn good too.

Almost Autumn

We thought that the Autumn weather was finally here, so, we set off to the markets on Saturday morning wearing scarves and gumboots. However, not long into the morning, the sun came out and the day warmed up. We removed our scarves and went in search of ice-cream. Sitting on the steps, listening to Irish folk music while sharing a large cup of chocolate organic ice-cream with your children. It doesn't get much better than that. I love the atmosphere of markets. I got some Balinese tin from Petit Voyage's, beautiful stall and some nice soap from here. Some for a gift, some for me.



I bought some of this.



I want some of these.



I love these. All images are from Petit Voyage's blog.

With a quick stop (bargins) at a garage sale on the way home and our day was complete.
I got some vintage fabric $1.00, a small mid century style coffee table $5.00 and a small (you know the workout kind) trampoline $2.00. Money well spent. The kids put the trampoline in the garage, because it started raining again and bounced the whole afternoon away. Happy days.

Top of the mornin' to ya

Happy St Patricks Day.

I hope you all have the luck of the Irish with you today!

Pancake day

(this image is from one of my favourite childhood books, "Debbie Learns to Cook")

It was lovely to start a weekday morning with pancakes. I made traditional Pancake Day pancakes, rolled up with with butter, lemon and raw sugar. Divine!

For dinner I made these feta and spinach pancakes. So, so yummy. Miss Moo Moo didn't like hers, even thought I had made her a special one without the spinach.

"Mum, I don't like this. You know, you really shouldn't have pancakes when it is not breakfast "

So there you have it, it looks like you will only be seeing pancakes for breakfast around here from now on.

Lovely rainy days

Well, who can believe it, it was raining again today.

With the boys at work and school, Miss Moo Moo and I met some friends at the indoor playground this morning.

Then a lovely afternoon was spent at home. We watched Funny Face while drinking home made cappuccino's (me) and eating leftover birthday cake (both of us). All the while it continued to rain and rain outside.

This rain has bought a welcomed cool change, autumn is coming. I will be making a big pot of soup very soon, I can feel it.

It was nice ending the day with a glass of wine and baked ziti (well I used macaroni - is that the same thing?) from this Soprano's cookbook. Heartwarming food and a table full of happy family chatter.

Our weekend guest

We have had a little visitor, Fluffy, the classroom pet came to stay with us for the weekend.

Spunky Monkey read him stories, while Miss Moo Moo sat next to his cage singing him songs from the Sound of Music. He loved eating carrot sticks and watermelon, on Sunday we woke up to find that Spunky Monkey had put a whole apple in his cage!

“He really loves apple, Mum.”



Spunky Monkey spent the entire weekend drawing guinea pigs. This is one of the many.

Missing out

Yesterday morning I sent Mr Moo and the kids off to the beach so I could get in some uninterrupted sewing time.

I ended up pretty cranky with myself, not only did I spend more time with the quik-un-pick than the actual sewing machine, but look what I missed out on!

Birthday Cake

Because Mr Moo’s birthday was on Tuesday and we were away, we decided to stretch out the birthday celebrations (as all good birthdays should) and make his birthday cake on Saturday.

A discussion with the kids lead to the following cake suggestions:
• a dragon cake
• a prince cake
• red and black like the prince in Sleeping Beauty
• love hearts
• definitely chocolate

As I was short on time, I settled for the, definitely chocolate option, and cooked the chocolate birthday cake from this book.

The Pearl Cafe

Here are some photo's I forgot we took, at the Pearl Cafe last week.



Mr Moo needs his morning coffee.



My breakfast. The menu said: 4 minute boiled hens egg, rye soldiers, cured ocean trout and dill. I said: Yummo!



Mirror magic.

Bris Vegas Mini-break

(This photo was taken from here)

It was Mr Moo’s birthday on Tuesday and we went to Brisbane on a much needed mini- break. Grandma and Grandpa so very kindly looked after our children for us while we spent the next 3 days shopping and eating our way around the capital.



Movies: The last movie we saw together at the cinema was over 18 months ago. So, we took advantage of all our free time and saw “The Blind Side”, brilliant and “It’s Complicated”, where we both laughed until we cried.



Shopping: So many beautiful things to see, my wish list is too long. I am trying to work out how I can get back down to Brisbane for the day without Mr Moo so I can buy everything at Biome and Nook. We spent a lot of time in antique, bric brac and vintage shops – pure heaven. And went into way too many bookshops, of which I had officially banned myself for very good reason. On the back of a ratty envelope, I have a list of at least 14 new book titles that I simply must have. I also had a lot of fun buying a mountain of demin offcuts at Reverse Garbage, I huge place, but, I somehow did not make it past the fabric section!


(the Pearl Cafe)

Eating: As usual we ate far too much food. We had lots of coffee (lots!) We ate some great lunchtime panini’s at Brown Dog Café. Ate Vietnamese, Lebanese, Yum Cha and some fabulous modern Australian food at Anouk and Pearl Café. I really wish that Pearl Café was my local, the food was amazing, a great menu, made with top ingredients. Fresh, seasonal and local. Did I mention the attentive service and fantastic atmosphere? We ate a very special birthday dinner here, as well as going for coffee one day and breakfast the next.

Yes, I could see myself just popping in for a coffee and a piece of that Chocolate and Peanut Butter Cheese Cake every other day. Divine dreaming!

Sunday roast

(I really wish I looked this great as I served up our dinner tonight - those shoes!)

It turned out to be a pretty lazy Sunday, as we were all very tired today.

Banana and chocolate pancakes for breakfast with Poppy and Tiya Ning. A little bit of beach: sandcastles, exploring, climbing trees, catching crabs, the usual. Fish and chips and ice-blocks for lunch. Both Mr Moo and I had a rest (a couch each) in the afternoon while Spunky Monkey drew pictures and Miss Moo Moo played and read books in her room. Perfect.

For dinner we had yummy Roast Chicken made with mum's fresh tarragon (recipe from this book) steamed asparagus and roasted vegetables.

A hot shower, leftover chocolate birthday cake and a period drama on ABC. A great way to end a busy weekend.

Gotta love a bargin!

Well, it doesn't take much to make this girl happy.

On Saturday morning, I told Mr Moo I was off for a hour to a couple of local jumble sales. I put a french jazz cd into the car CD player and headed off, (alone) into the rain. With $20.00 in my pocket, I had the best me time and got some great bargins. I even came home with change!

See above, a small grey japanese vase, 2 ivory mixing bowls, a retro ivory plate, a ivory glazed japanese tea cup - all 50 cents each. The linen tablecloth was $6.00. I also ended up with a large pile of last years Vogue Entertaining magazines at just 20 cents each and... wait for it - vintage Christmas decorations! Yay, yay, yay!



I so wish it was Christmas right now, I mean, look at this, who can wait!



Be still my beating heart.



And this tablecloth, (see top and bottom photos) it needs a very good soak, but for $2.00, tell me could leave this behind. Too Cute!

Blogging

(this picture is from Moopy and Me)

This was the very first blog I ever came across. One day I was searching for some funky children's bedlinen when I found this link to Carly's blog. Not only did I discover the delights of Sprout, but also by going from link to link, I discovered other people out there just like me.


(image of Sprout fabric is from here)

At the time we had just moved to a new area. We lived in a very crappy house, where I spent all of my sleep deprived time with a new baby and a 2 year old. Speaking goo gaa all day long and falling asleep an hour after my husband got home, led to a pretty isolated existence. These blogs were like beacon of hope to me at that time.


(just look at Fiona's gorgeous monkey's)

I have been blogging myself, for just 2 months now. Still quite the amateur, wishing I had a better camera and not having a clue about some of the jargon that is being thrown about. Putting yourself out there is scary, what will people think? how will I be perceived? But if I could just inspire one person out in the big wide world, just like I have been inspired time and time again in so many different ways. Well, it would all be worth the risk.


(this fabric is from the talented Lara Cameron now of Ink and Spindle fame)

The people I have put onto my blog roll are some of the first blogs I ever discovered and have stayed close to my heart. There are so many, many, amazing people out there sharing there stories, talents and wisdom. I am discovering more with each day.


(this beautiful fabric design is from Auntie Cookie. We have this in red in Miss Moo Moo's bedroom)

I thank-you all for sharing a piece of yourselves with the world, and making anything seem possible.


(check out what some smart person did with Kristen's fabric. Too cute!)

Please note: All of these images are from 2007, when I first discovered these blogs.
Some products may not be available anymore.