Silent Auction

My friend Mari is holding a silent auction to raise money for those suffering and in need from the disaster in Pakistan.

Mari is a fantastic quilter and has made a beautiful girls quilt up for auction.

Plus she has also made a fantastic Hungry Caterpillar pencil holder which is also up for auction.

So go and visit Mari at Carpe Quiltem for your chance to bid, win and help those in need.  The funds will go to Medecins sans Frontieres/Doctors without Borders.

Spring posies

The freesias and lavender are popping up all over the garden at the moment.  The air is warm, the windows are open and the delicate smell of freesias waft through the house.  It's my other favourite time of year.  Spring!  I love this time of year because of the flowers.  There are some amazing ones in the garden this year even though Spring isn't officially here yet.  The gazanias are roaring their Autumny colours in the garden too!

My table is covered in little bottles and vases that have been gathering dust over the winter.  They get a little clean, are filled with water and stand proudly filled with Spring posies on my dining room table, bed side table or any other little spot that needs a little lift.

We have been doing a little weeding and garden work this morning.  The garden gets a little neglected over winter and the weeds take over as we are busy with soccer every Saturday.  It is our first soccer free Saturday and it is such a beautiful day.  Whilst weeding Toby thought that we had been working really hard.  He is very helpful emptying our buckets of weeds and pulling some up himself. I suggested that I'd been earning lots of points with all of the weeds that I had pulled.  Toby suggested that he wanted to pay me for my hard work.  Bless his beautiful heart.  He went inside and came out with a $50 note for me from his money box.

He wouldn't take no for an answer.  So I tried to trick him by saying that he had worked extra hard too and that I should pay him.  I gave him $50.  I'm afraid he was a little too smart for that trick.   I think I'm just going to have to slip it into his money box while he's not looking.  It's funny because he's been talking about wanting to give me some of his money to pay for groceries the last few weeks.  Ahh! The mind of a nearly 5 year old works in wondrous ways.

Vague memories and a very yellow room

I have been looking at some old photo's today that I had scanned whilst in Melbourne at my Aunt Desley's a couple of years ago.  I could sit and look at old photo's for days on end, getting lost in the memories of times past.  Desley was always good at taking photo's at family gatherings and she has lots of albums that I love going through every time I go down to visit.  There are some photo's which bring back so many different memories and there are others that I only vaguely remember.  

So Gabby and Desley I'm going to need your help here to fill in some gaps.  The following series of photo's, from my memory, were taken at the Gold Coast.  I think Desley and Karen had rented a holiday flat there and Gabby and I got to come for a day, maybe a night, I only say that because I have my pillow there (the pillow case that Jackie made for me) in the second photo.  I love the serenity in the photo below.  A hot lazy afternoon with nothing much to to do but read....or get bored.  I have a feeling I might be about 10 years old here (that's me on the right) and Gabby was 12, about late 1980 early 1981.

The name "Helga" comes to mind in the photo below. Maybe it was an afternoon of playing hair dressers.

I love the laughter captured here.....what was so funny?  Helga's hair??  I think there might have been a snort in that laugh too!  We always have a good laugh when Desley is around.   Maybe we were laughing at the wallpaper and lounge coverings!?

Gabby all bright eyed and with recently brushed hair, but what are you holding? And what was that look for?

Whistle preparation.

So help me out girls, I would love to know what memories you have from these photo's.  I don't really remember much else.

The Don Solo

Soccer Champion 

Hats in the wind...anything could happen

It was an interesting mix of events this Saturday past.  It began at the polling booths down at the school, selling cakes while the early risers voted.  My two big boys were dressed in their school uniforms and politely asked those who had voted, whilst exiting the new school hall, if they would like to buy a raffle ticket in our school Fathers day raffle.  Who can resist a handsome face with a polite demeanor? A little competition was on to see who could sell the most raffle tickets. The boys wished they could stay all day, although a little shy at first, a certain bold confidence came over them as they used their good looks and gentle voices to melt voters hearts.  Over an hour and a half later the boys had to relinquish their tickets to give others an opportunity to sell.  The final tally of tickets sold, and it was a close call, Ethan 20 : Sam 21. 

After our first deed was completed that morning our next task was to get Donald to his Grand Final game.  His team, the 35/9 Tigers, won their game last Saturday which put them in the Grand Final versing the Sharks who had been undefeated all season.  

While Donald and his team warmed up their bodies and psyched up their brains for the game, my three boys entertained themselves with a few games.  It was a very brisk and windy day out on the field, very brisk.  To keep warm, the boys ran around crazy, the wind does that to them, wrestled a while and threw their hats to the wind.

Just as good as kite flying, throwing their hats to the wind provided endless rollicking fun.  Whose hat can fly the highest or land the furthest away?  Whose hat can I steal and throw into the wind?

Turtle chairs was another favourite.  The wind kept blowing the chairs over, so the boys went with the wind and created turtle chairs.

Then of course there was Donald's game that we watched intently. 

We cheered the team on, we laughed, we cried...

We put our hands to our heads in frustration at missed goal opportunities...

We ducked as the ball and players came thundering by...

We watched the clouds go by and found a kangaroo/camel cloud....

....and nearly missed out on Donald's run towards the goal with the ball which in turn helped the second goal being scored for our side.

And then it was all over.

They had finished triumphant!!

Final score Tigers 2 : Sharks 1.  They were Grand Final Winners, defeating the undefeated Sharks (that is until yesterday they were undefeated).

  

Medals were presented on the day, there were a lot of happy boys...and girls.

We went out to dinner with the team to celebrate their victory....What a day!!

Guess who wore his medal to bed?

And still no Prime Minister decided :+/

The End

It's baking time again

It's Australia's big election day tomorrow, with the possibility of a new Prime Minister tomorrow night.  The boys school is trying to raise some money with a cake stall while people come and vote in their new school hall.  I'll be down there bright and early selling cakes.   So it's baking time again for me today.

A quiet day at home, a friend for Toby to play with and baking smells wafting through the house.  I've even reinvented an old family recipe Caramel White Chocolate Blondies, pop over to my cooking blog  "What's for dinner Mum?"  for the recipe.  You will also find my old favourite Jam Drop Cookies there too!

Lots of taste testing going on here today!!

We also have a Grand Final for soccer to go to tomorrow afternoon.  Little did I know last Saturday was not the last day for soccer.  Donald's team won their game last Saturday which put them in the Grand Final.  Wooohooo!!  So we'll be cheering him on at 1 pm.

Treating myself

It's not often that I buy jewelry for myself, I would buy a jewelry gift for someone else, but not necessarily for myself.  I was inspired by a blog I had visited and came across something quite unique that I had never seen before.  They were hand carved trees made from old silver spoons.  Click here for pics and just scroll down the page a bit.  They really were amazing, I just loved them but I haven't been able to find anything more on them.  It got my mind thinking about possibilities for jewelry that I might one day like to create myself (laugh, laugh).  So in my search for more information I was looking around on Etsy the other day and just a general search for silver tree jewelry.  There were lots of different possibilities until something caught my eye.

I love the Tim Burton style swirly tree.  I'm a big fan of Tim Burton style swirly things.  I have two silver candelabra's bought years ago inspired by "The nightmare before Christmas".  Aside from that I really fell in love with this pendant.  I talked myself out of buying it, but couldn't get it out of my mind.  It called to me.  So I bought it.  It's fun getting treats in the mail.

You can find Unique Dichroic Glass Creations here.  They are made in Western Australia in a little old historic wooden hut studio by a lady who loves playing with glass.

Spring is in the air

I am in love.  In love with some photo's I took today on my way out to work.  The blossoms are popping everywhere at the moment and I remembered my camera, so I pulled over to the side of the road and started snapping.  The flowers were so magical and smelt luscious, I wanted to sit under the tree with the bees humming, the sun warming my cold body and the petals falling gently to the green grass below.   It would have been a perfect morning, to just sit and ponder, unfortunately I had work to do.   

I just want to cover my walls with these beautiful blossom photo's.  It's so hard to choose which ones to post.  So sorry if it's a bit of a pink blossom overload.

Which one is your favourite?

Fun with Grandma

I've been meaning to post these photo's for a while now, I've just been a little side tracked by a few things.  We had some fun with my Mum while she stayed with us for a few weeks, the boys love it when she visits (so do we all, things just seem to run smoother when she's here).  She's really good at filling in the gaps in our family life, so here's a little of what we got up to while she was here.

We played lots of card games.....

Donkey especially!

Grandma and Toby consorting together, they are quite the pair.

My Mum bought an extra pair of toenail clippers as she thought we were getting a little overgrown!!

Except she used them on the garden instead!