boot heaven

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My beloved boots that I bought brand new off ebay for just $6 have finally after 5 years, told me they have had enough and would like to go to boot heaven. I was unaware how sick they were until I put them through a small puddle and my sock was instantly soggy. Until I popped them on the front step to take one last photo I was in denial of how dodgy they were looking, no wonder my feet hurt after I wore them the heel had basically worn away.

So now I'm on the hunt for another pair, I can't make it through a whole cold season without a kick ass pair of boots. I wonder if I can find another brand new pair for six bucks. Me thinks I am dreaming!

Rain Rain...

...Go away.

Were having a seriously wet week.

This morning Jack still has a yucky looking eye so for the forth day in a row he's stuck at home with me. Poor kid.

Today is one of James' Kindy days so instead of driving him the 2 blocks we decided to walk in the rain.

I have fond memories of going for walks in the rain at their age. Now as an adult I realise my mum didn't drive so if we were going somewhere we would have walked. At the time it seemed like a lovely way to spend a rainy afternoon.

Yes I dressed my children in shorts and gumboots. Its raining but its still Queensland.

These are all the boots I found in our shoe box, Charlie was already wearng his blue gumboots. Seriously just because your a boy doesn't mean you must wear blue.

My aim for this winter is to not buy them any more blue shoes/clothes. Five pairs of blue gumboots but only three children. I am hopeless.

Polly Dolly

I'm very late with this weeks polly, but I did mange to finish one. First time in ages I've played along!

This weeks theme is flowers. I embraced the hair flower like every female in the world after getting hooked on Sex and the city, since then I've been a big fan on flowers on clothes, bags, hair accessories.
When I typed flowers into polyvore this dress caught my eye and it screamed Carrie at me. I had to match it with some seriously kick ass shoes, cute matching hair flower, funky jewellery and subtle makeup. I want it all!
If you'd like to play along or have a look at some other flower creations head here.

My place and yours

I love this weeks MPAY theme. Every ones posts have been hilarious. I never thought tea towels would be so fun.

So this is what tea towel we are using right now. We go through tea towels like we go through nappies. I'm not sure what happens to them but after an a few hours they are wet dirty and need to be washed.

Anyway I've inherited my mothers weakness for charity's not being able to say no. Hence the guide dog foundation tea towel.

If you want to see other peoples tea towel entries head here 

Bumblebee love

On Sunday my funny looking boys let me take some pictures of them in their new adorable outfits. They decided to pose, I'm not sure what models they took their inspiration from, I don't think we'll be getting any phone calls from talent agencies anytime soon though.

My very talented friend started making her daughter some gorgeous pyjamas and now she's spending her days making retro/vintage inspired clothes for little girls all over the place, thankfully for me she has branched out to boys clothes.

                    As soon as I saw this outfit I knew it was for James and guess what it was in his size.

Perfect.

While I was picking up James' cute outfit I got mesmerised in the beautiful things. Talk about girl envy!

I managed to get Jack this fun dinosaur set. I could have brought home some seriously cute girl stuff.

To see more of  B Bee Bumblebee Designs  go here, but be careful you may not come back without wanting to see more.

My place and yours

This weeks theme for My place and yours is: Where do you blog? 

Now I know we've done this before, and before I had even read Danielle's entire post the first thing that popped in my head, we have moved twice since then and we have a new computer. Perfect theme!

So this is where you can find me most afternoons when my babies are snoozing. I love having a laptop but it really makes it far to easy to spend way to much time online.

If you'd like to see where everyone else blogs from head over and see the lovely Danielle

what a camping trip

As part of our 20 to do in 2011 Michael wanted to take the kids camping/fishing more often. So this was his weekend to do it all. Pity we have had the wettest year on record so every camping spot was under water or so sloppy we could barely get there. But he is a determined stubborn bugger so first thing this morning we went for a drive to find somewhere

you see all that mud? it was over the bonnet that's how much mud we drove through.  I am not a good 4WDer. I braced myself the entire time. My muscles were sore when we got home.

So even though we couldn't get to any of our normal spots Michael still had faith. So after lunch he packed the boys up and piled stuff into his his car and they were off. Charlie and I were in for a quiet weekend. I was much better than last time. I had a small person to keep me occupied this time.

He's a serious camper my husband, only one night but look at all that stuff.

About 3 hours after they left I heard the car in the driveway and a sad Daddy followed by two sad tired looking kids walked behind him. New plan, camping at home.

The boys in their tent.They still got to have sausages on a stick so they had smiles on their faces. Charlie and I had Chicken out on the lawn with them, then we followed it up with marshmallows on the fire. We may have snuck inside to watch Alvin and the chipmunks but they were straight back outside after that for proper camping, there my even be bacon and eggs cooking as I speak, I love camping at home.

New Recipe Saturday

OK so it's hardly what you'd call a new recipe, but I'm sick, can hardly breathe sick, and I was only cooking for Charlie and I so I thought packet mix would definatly do.

Chicken Chasseur

Ingredients:

8 Chicken Peices (1kg)

1 onion sliced

1 1/2 cups of mushrooms sliced.

2 tbsp tomato paste

Method:

Heat 1 tspn of oil in a pan brown onion chicken and mushrooms for 2 minutes.

Add recipe base, 1 cup of water and tomato paste, bring to the boil stirring.

Cover and simmer for 30 minutes until cooked.

Serve with potato's and steamed vegetables.

It was actually pretty tasty. I didn't have any onions which is weird for our house, but being a Saturday the supermarket was shut before I started cooking so we missed out.

I made it with chicken thighs but I think chicken on the bone would be great. I served it on mash with carrots and broccoli, Charlie and I liked it and there was enough left over for Michael's lunches for next week, gotta love that!

So tell me or show me what are you cooking this week?

Don't mess with me I'm a mother

Remember this? I'm not doing so well with #7 or #8, who am I kidding I am failing terribly. I'm failing so badly I ended up crying over the mashed potato tonight.

Michael and I have fondly nicknamed our big boy Sheldon because he is a brain on legs, takes everything literally and has no idea what sarcasm is. Some of this is because of his age but some of it is just his personality. 
He has a very black and white sense of right and wrong and sticks with his guns (read as teachers pet who tattle tales when someone does the wrong thing) I was worried about that more than his reading and writing skills when we sent him off to school last year, but we made it through the year with only a few incidents so this year when school started I wasn't concerned I just packed him off thinking grade 1 would be a walk in the park compared to Prep.
So today he told me he took a little car to school in his pocket to play with at lunch because no one would let him play with them. My stomach turned and I could feel the lump growing in my throat. I tried to be very casual about it and let him talk, I probably looked like a stiff board, but I tried! So it seems he's been left out, one kid kicked sand in his face, one sack whacked him, one told him out right, no you can't play with us.
I know his sense of right and wrong will be a good trait to have once he's an adult but the road to adulthood will be hard and long but we all know that. Being a teenager is hard enough but far out the kid is only 5 years old! 
So while my mother tiger instincts were still taking over my body I suggested we ditch the birthday party and have a fun weekend away instead. Bugger throwing a party for a bunch of kids that let my kid play by himself at lunch time.

Don't mess with me I'm a mother.

Holidays

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You know before your kids go to school when you ran on your own schedule, when nap time didn't work around school pick up and drop off? I miss those days terribly, especially when we come home from holidays where you can run on your own schedule.

Ah holidays, the boys and I are still in holiday mode. Staying up late and sleeping in. Eating take out and having baths well after bed time.

Yesterday morning we sat in front of the TV til 7.50am. We leave the house at 8.30am. We hadn't even had breakfast, Jack's lunch wasn't made and we were all in our pjs. Not a good start to the week.

Last night we didn't get in the bath til 7pm, were usually in and out by 5.30pm.

Luckily there is less than a month of school left, I'm not counting down at all!

What a week!

While we were in Longreach watching our friends get married we also became godparents for the first time and helped host a 4th birthday party. Yep we were busy. 

I feel oh so special that Michael and I got to be godparents at the same time. Now even though I am a parent already when someone picks you to be a parent (of sorts) its far more special. Well it is to me anyway.

I'd like to introduce you to Sam aka Sambo, Samwich, Samuel. He just turned 4, when his mum and I were pregnant we were due within 2 weeks of each other. Our boys birth dates are almost a month apart. He is a clever little man who is big brother to...

the beautiful Benjamin. He's 7 months old and absolutely gorgeous. The only time I heard him cry the whole time we were there was when Charlie tried to feed him, give him drinks and toys. Charlie is called bull bar for a reason!

I'm taking my godmother role pretty seriously, the first thing I asked for was something deep fried and covered in chocolate.

Driving Driving and more driving

Yesterday we made the 5 hour trek to Longreach, Michael's home town. Its the first time in 15 months Michael has been able to drive us somewhere and he loved it, me not o much. I get car sick if I'm not driving, and very bored! To keep myself amused and keep Charlie occupied I took photos, lots of blurry dodgy photos, I wont share all of them with you, it was 5 hours after all.

Michael driving my car, still looks so odd to me, I have become a control freak while he wasn't allowed to drive and now I'm a little over protective of my car, sorry hunny.

The view for quite a while, coal wagons such a pretty part of the scenery, ha.

Awww...little rat woke me up at 4.30am ready to play, so obviously by 9.30am he was back to sleep, unfortunately I was not. Thanks Charlie.

The road to Longreach, its very long and very straight, that's road as far as you can see, in one big straight line.

Yes I know I'm the only one looking at the camera, the boys were far to engrossed in the movie, like they hadn't seen it 100 times before.

My sweet boy with his pink blankie, always sucking his fingers, it's a constant battle between us.

I love this picture, I had the front screen of my camera switched on so Charlie could see himself, he loves my camera. Or maybe he just loves himself.

Were here til Sunday, I'm sure I will post more exciting trip photos before then, your excited aren't you?

Polly Dolly

blog meet by mrsstano22 featuring velour handbags

I am so jealous of all these blogger meet ups that I'm missing out on at the moment. But at least I can pretend by dressing my polly, that works doesn't it?
So I decided to take Danielle's advice and stick with what your comfortable in. So a super cute dress, very fun flats, I had to get a little pink in their somewhere! A shrug cardigan in case its cool. A big bag to fit all my most important things. Mascara for great eyes and lip gloss, you must look your best in all those photos that you and others would be taking! Pink earrings to match the awesome shoes and I LOVE these bracelets! I may have to look in to some for myself!
We would obviously sip tea from very cool cups and eat cupcakes til we were full. Sigh. I wanna go!

Play along with Danielle. You know you want to!

New Recipe Saturday~THE VERDICT

I'd just like to inform you my kids aren't huge fans of fish, unless it is almost still breathing fresh and cooked to perfection. So when I told Michael I was making fish cakes with tinned salmon he asked what I would make for the kids, this didn't charge me with confidence but I did it anyway.
I am trying to broaden their horizons, they like Mexican food they'll eat curry, poppadoms are bribery tools. But were in a real rut with food, salad is non-existent they know what they like and unfortunately what they don't like. They definatly got both their mothers and fathers stubborn streak. Sorry boys.

Now although you can see the lemon rind in them you couldn't really taste it. They tasted very much like they look, boring and bland. I added a serious amount of salt and pepper a heap of herbs and once cooked doused with tomato sauce.

Told you mine wouldn't be as pretty.. I realised rather to late that we didn't have any breadcrumbs left so mine are only egged and floured.

James and Charlie scoffed theirs, so did Michael, not that hes a very good judge he would eat just about anything I put in front of him, Jack and I weren't so impressed.  Oh well you win some you lose some.

Now I'm off to look for next weeks new recipe!

Playing along with the lovely Rhi at Hummingbirds Song 

New Recipe Saturday

This is what I'm making tonight. 

Although mine will not look this pretty.

Ingredients (serves 4)

500g potatoes (such as pontiac or desiree), peeled
440g can red salmon
1 small onion, peeled, grated
2 celery sticks, finely chopped
1 tbs chopped fresh dill
1 tsp grated lemon rind
20ml (1 tbs) lemon juice
2 eggs, lightly beaten
40ml (2 tbs) milk
1/2 cup plain flour
2 cups fresh breadcrumbs
Sunflower (or similar) oil, to fry
Mayonnaise, to serve

Method


Cut the potatoes into rough chunks. Boil or steam until tender, then mash until smooth. Transfer to a large bowl to cool.

Drain the salmon and remove any bones. Add to the potatoes with the onion, celery, dill and lemon rind and juice. Season with salt and pepper. Mix well together, then use your hands to form into 8 patties. Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Beat together the eggs and milk in a bowl. Place flour and breadcrumbs in separate bowls. Dip each patty in the flour, then in the egg mixture and lastly in the breadcrumbs. Heat the oil in a heavy-based saucepan over medium-high heat. Add patties (in batches) and fry both sides until golden brown. Serve with a dollop of mayonnaise and the cucumber salad.

Sounds good yes? I will post my dodgy pictures and the verdict from the tribe tomorrow.

Recipe and photo  

What are you making this weekend? Tell me!

My place and yours

Danielle stumped me this week. I have been looking at everything, touching things, trying to decide: What one thing do you take out of your house if its on fire?
Apart from your loved ones and of course your photos? It's hard sn't it?

I tossed up the idea of a few things but this eventually won. My beautiful, talented, well traveled sister bought this for me while she was in Africa. It's hand carved and smells so good.
Its jam packed full of valuable things. But only valuable to me, I can't believe I was thinking about anything else!

If like me you like to snoop in other peoples lives head over to Hello Owl x

Food Glorious Food

When people ask me how many kids I have and I reply three boys I often get a shocked look or a look of sadness. I realise its an automatic reaction but it drives me crazy, I am positive I'm not the first or last person to have three boys. Apart from 'When are you going to try for a girl?' and 'Oh you've got your hands full don't you?' the other things everyone says is 'Your grocery bill will be a killer when there all teenagers!'

News Flash it starts well before they are teenagers, Jack Jack usually has a big growth spurt over summer, this year it's a bit late, how do I know this? Because he is eating us out of house and home.

This is what he's been having for breakfast, a huge bowl of cereal he then followed it up with two pieces of toast.

Then this is what I have been sending to school with him, a sandwich two pieces of fruit, some popcorn or cheese biscuits, fruit bar, muesli bar, cheese and a yogurt.
They have a 'power snack' at 9.30am today he had an apple.

As soon as we walk in the door from school he wants afternoon tea.

Bickies and milk anyone? Can I have something else?

By 5pm he's asking for more food. We eat dinner about 6pm so now way he's eating at 5pm.

Last night for dinner we had this

Chicken and veggie skewers, coleslaw, garlic bread, cheese, strawberries.

Believe it or not he finished it then finished his brothers then asked for ice cream.

All that and he's not even six. I'm in big trouble.

Just Because

Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion's starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don't see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often, it's not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it's always there - fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge - they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I've got a sneaking suspicion... love actually is all around.

From: My favorite love movie of all time Love Actually. If nothing else could cheer me up this movie could. Still makes me cry every time. Sigh.

Post inspired by this post by the lovely Melissa from Suger Coat It.

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Wedding love

On Saturday the boys and I were lucky enough to head to the beach to watch our friends get married at a resort, what a good way to get married! Next time we get married I'm defiantly looking into resort weddings.

The big boys in their wedding clothes, even though they only came to the ceremony I still wanted them to look nice.

The bride and groom saying their vows. I love weddings.

The beautiful bride as they left the chapel, she looked stunning.

Our little man who ended up with a gash on his head after rolling down a hill and hitting his head on a garden bed edge then falling down some stairs. Note to self, double check your husband has packed the pram before you leave home.

Michael and I, I wish I'd gotten a better photo of my dress, I love it.

Jack and I hanginh out in our room between the ceremony and the reception. The kids went to the kids club at the resort I think there was only three kids left at the wedding and they were all tiny. Such a good idea, the boys wanted to go back the next morning, well worth paying $45 for each child to go.

You can dress them up...

....But at the end of the night your still married to a bogan.

Polly Dolly

   My favorite big girl who always looks fantastic on the red carpet. The one and only Queen Latifah. I actually googled Jennifer Hudson, but she is not a big girl anymore she is a skinny minny!

Anyway it took me a while to decide on a dress as she is one well dressed lady all the time. I love the sparkles on this dress and my polly does as well that's why shes rocking the diamond cuff bracelet, and ridiculous earrings. I am in love with those shoes, although you cant see Queens shoes I can imagine she would be wearing something stunning like these. I had to top this outfit of with Queens own perfume, seems fitting yes? Now if you excuse me I need to figure out how I can get around $3000 to buy those earrings!
Play along over at Danimezza 

when will the craziness end?

We've had one of those crazy weeks and before I knew it, it was Friday. As I was uploading my photos for my place and yours, I realised there were some cracker photos on my camera that defiantly had to be blogged about.

Charlie 'rocking' get it get it? I am hilarious!

Jack showing bucket loads of respect to his Dad by making this sign for his back which reads: Kick my butt cos I'm old. I laughed so hard when I read it, defiantly one for the scrapbook!

What? Isn't the bath seat in the hallway a good place to sit?

And last but not least I think I now know what the noise coming from the bathroom is...Michael laughing at himself doing silly things with my perfume and his cologne. You'd never know he is turning 30 this year would you?



My place and yours

Although this is the boys having their afternoon tea this is also where we have dinner. Very boring I know, nothing can live on our table as it would get broken/destroyed by the cyclone that we call our youngest child. I have also almost scrubbed the lacquer off our table. I am hoping by Christmas we have a new dining table and chairs, nothing crazy or fancy just something that matches!

Play along with Danielle over at Hello Owl