Magic!

Well I don't know about you, but I have struggled with having a clean bathroom. One thing especially. No, it's not the toilet, as gross as that is, its fairly easy to keep that clean. 

It is the bath! More often then not, Mr 5yo and Mr 3 1/2yo have a bath together, they play and be boys. Which is all well and good until they start throwing the toys EVERYWHERE! Not only is the water on the floor from said toy throwing annoying, they leave horrible scruff marks on the inside of the bath. It was starting to look like a rainbow bath with all the different coloured scuff marks in there. 

The reason I have been away - its too much!

Well I would like to start off by apologizing for not posting for a while. We have had many things go wrong in life lately, that the one more thing that happened recently, was all too much for me. I am so very over everything bad happening at once. 

It all started in October last year, my wheelchair bound grandmother went into the hospital and never came out. She passed away on October 27th,my youngest child's first birthday. I was there, holding her hand when she slipped away to a better life. I had never seen anyone die up until that day. It was hard.

Chicken & Vegetable Lasagne

 Prep: 15 min             Cooking time: 35min           Serves 6-8
This is one our favourite meals! My mum used to make it for me when I was a kid. Its nothing special, but its yummy and has vegies.

Rocky Road

Just a quicky, made this yummy slice while dinner was cooking. Actually my 7yo daughter made most of this slice! Head over to 
 No Excuses! Easy Organising For Large Families 
 to get the recipe. :)

Bread clips

I got these nifty little bread clips a few months ago at the home wares shop House. They are only $3 but I find them fantastic! 

Mini Pizzas

Tonight we had home made pizzas for dinner. They were yummy! But we had a left over pizza base that I knew if I put in the freezer, it wouldn't get used and go to waste, so instead I made some Mini Pizzas for the kids/hubby's lunch tomorrow.   

 

Great for uniforms

My kids are starting to do a lot of after school activities. Holly does dancing Jack and Holly do Little Athletics. Jack is also wanting to do Karate, so he will be stating that soon, then there is school. 

Picture worth a mention

Just a quick post that I wanted to share with everyone. 

My mother in law made this gorgeous cross stitch for my daughters 5th birthday.

She loves dancing and just adores this gorgeous picture. :)

Let sleeping babies lie.

Well, today I had plans on going to Aldi, IGA, big W, Best and Less and Vocroads. I reeeeeally needed to go to Aldi to get some groceries, but left it till last so the groceries wouldn't go yuck and I could just go straight home. Well I got everything done, and on my way to Aldi, my 16 month old decided he was too tired to go on and fell asleep in the car. He has a small cold at the moment so I couldn't bring myself to wake him to be in a trolley in a supermarket for over an hour, so we went straight home. Only problem is now he will be alseep until its close to school pick up time, and I am NOT going grocery shopping with all 4 of the kids. (I have done that before and vowed to never do that again). Also tonight my 2 school kids have a start of the year performance tonight at 5 so I wont have time to do them tonight anyway. The school is putting on a sausage sizzle, so thats dinner sorted at least. At least tomorrow hubby will be home so I can do the groceries by myself, which is lovely! Might even spoil myself to a nice hot chocolate while im doing it . :)  

Cool, cheap shelves for boys

My partner and I painted the kids rooms not long ago, and as a birthday pressie for my now 5yo son, we painted a feature wall (we got him real pressies too) in his room. It looks great, but it was lacking something, shelves on the wall. 

We had a look at floating shelves but they were quite expensive and they lacked my sons interest. 'They are boring mum, I want something cool 'cause im cool!' these were his words lol.

Anyway I was at Kmart one day and came across a very cool idea for him....

Shoes, shoes and more shoes

Shoes are usually such a fun topic for me as I am obsessed with shoes. I love them! I dont love them all over the floor however, and with an almost 8yo daughter, who loves shoes as much as I do, they ended up all over the place. 

I was at Coles doing some groceries one week and found this little beauty which has saved me alot of work picking up shoes. For $12, me and my daughter are happy! :)

Laundry

Just a quick storage idea that still looks nice....

I got a cheap 'hat hook' thingy from a hardware store, it sadly didn't fit where I wanted it to, so I hung it up in the lundry, and I hand my broom, squeegee and other bits 'n' bobs on it.

No more smells!

I dont know how many of you have the fear of a guest coming over, the house is clean, but since you have kids you just dont know if it smells or not because your used to the smell and dont smell it anymore?

I know I get paranoid as we have a bubba in the house, who as we all do, poops! When you change the nappy the smell lingers but you get used to it and you dont know if its still there or not. Well I found a way to get rid of that fear, and its more then likely in your house right now....

Vileda Mop

Ok so my old mop, he had it, he was worn and over used. I went to get a new head for it only to find it was cheaper for me to get a Vileda Microfibre Mop. I have found this mop FANTASTIC! I get the floors mopped in half the time, literally, and it has a nifty little feature on it, want to know what it is?....

Another busy day!

Well today is another busy day and im going through it VERY tired. It is my own fault though getting wrapped up on a movie last night and not going to bed when I should have.

Spaghetti Bol Bake

Tonight for dinner we had Spaghetti Bol Bake. Its one of those meals thats quick and easy and cheap. Great to make ahead of time and reheat afterwards, and great for the freezer.

RECHARGE STATION

Ok so I came up with this idea all by myself, and it works so well for us I thought I would share it.

I made a 'Recharge Staion', a place to recharge all the modern day gagets. I was so sick of them laying scattered around the house at different power outlets and with a 16 months old running around the place, I was scared he would get them. So I created this......

Caramel Cups

Today I made some afternoon tea to take with my to the School Fair Committee Meeting. Yes I am part of the small group of people that organise my children's school fair. I thought I would share the recipe with you as it is quick, easy (fail proof actually) and cheap.

Birthday weekend

Well I have had a super dooper beautiful weekend with my family! Despite the fact from Friday 5.30pm until saturday 8pm, we did not have any electricity, which in my house also means, no water, as we have water tanks which operate by pump, using electricty! Veeeeeeery frustrating time, but also super fun, as we played different games and played outside alot.

On Tuesday (yes valentines day) it is my birthday! So since my mother-in-law was up from Melbourne, she said she would look after the kids while Chris and I went out for dinner. We had Mexican and it was DELICIOUS!! We walked around for a little while after then headed home and went to bed. Then this afternoon, the MIL took us out for lunch at the local pub. It was lovely too, and we have all come home to have a little rest as we are so very full! I got some lovely gifts from the mums and have had a very fulfilling weekend. Can't wait until school tomorrow though. I like the time I have with my two little boys at home together. I hope everyone else had a great weekend too! :D

What a beautiful morning

As the title of these post implies, it was a really beautiful morning here at my house. It was cool, but not cold, the birds were out on the old tree outside, everything was just gorgeous.We got off to school on time this morning and it has been smooth sailing all day.

We have a house inspection today, so after a quick stop in at Aldi, we came home to clean up a few little bits and peices. The house is presentable now and the baby is sleeping, my 3yo is watching Batman on the couch and I have a cup of tea in my hand. Life is pretty good right now.

Hair ties and clips and ribbons oh my!

I am guessing that people with girls are like me, finding clips and hair ties etc all over the house. Well I thought I would share my storage solution for my daughters 'bits and bobs'.

Enough!

Well what a day I have had today! We have a house inspection tomorrow, so I have been scrubbing and cleaning ALL day. After picking the kids up from school and having dinner, I put them in bed only to find the house looks like it did this morning allover again. Toys everywhere, dirty floors, marks on the walls. I have just about had enough, I think I might go on strike soon! We are going through some tough times at the moment as my fiance Chris found out his work is shutting up and moving to QLD, so he is looking for another job, which is not easy around here. Plus in November last year, my mother was diagnosed with Gaul Bladder Cancer. This is a terminal illness and she only has a few months left with us, this makes for trying times. Ever felt like you just wanna quit, let the house go to ruins and just sleep for a little while?!

Motivation

I am really not feeling motivated this morning. We all woke up late, got to school just in time, and the rush of the morning just exhausted me. On days like this, I find if I turn on some music and put it up loud (loud enough to be good, not loud enough to hurt little peoples ears) it gets me going and I can usually catch up on what I needed to do for the day.

I haven't been able to do washing for a few days as I have been out and about doing bits and pieces I have needed to get done, so today is washing day. Then the dishes, we don't have a dishwasher yet, it drives me nuts as I hate having dirty dishes on the sink. Then I might try and re-organize the kids toys in the living area/play area. Ill take some before and after photos and post on here tonight. Wish me luck!

Dancing Queen

Tonight was my daughters first dancing lesson for the year. She started dancing last year and LOVED it! The dancing studio is non competitive, just for fun, and do 2 concert per year which is included in the cost which is really awesome.

My first post.

Well here I go, my very first post. I suppose I can tell you about my day. I got up at 6am as I do every morning and have the first hour of the day totally to myself! I shower and do my hair and make up, have breakfast etc. It feels really nice when I have this special time all to myself. 7am the kids wake up (or get woken up by me or we will be late for school). They follow the routine and we are out the door by 8.30 am. Its a 10minute drive from our place to school.

My son has only just started Prep this year, so he had a 'rest' day today, which I think is for the benefit of the teachers, rather then the students to be honest. So I had to drag him around, along with my other 2 little boys to run errands and pay bills this morning.

I will be picking up my daughter this afternoon after school, then taking her to her dancing class, by time we get out of there its 5.30, so I think a quick dinner might be in order tonight (or perhaps a sneaky little take-away night).

This is a great little venting spot, and I hope to get some followers soon. :)

Tiff.