All Things Mum

Happy 2016. I hope it's a Sweet 16 for you all. NYE was spent eating more seafood at mums. It was fun. We danced the night away. In the dark. It was good times. Yeah. That's me. Maybe it was the Moscato but it's yum and sweet and not like wine. I drove up to Salamander Bay for our annual holiday but it happened to rain. Like torrential rain. I was scared while I was driving and doing about 100kms on the freeway. Barely able to see the road. But we made it and there were huge puddles everywhere. We had a big ankle deep one right in front of our apartment/townhouse. I was just glad to arrive. One of my sisters made banana fritters. I tell you they.are.the.bomb. I could eat them everyday. We pretty much sat and ate most of the time or did short trips to the shopping centre. This was the townhouse at Oaks Pacific Blue Resort. Plenty of room for us to sit and play inside. I only wish it hadn't rained.every.single.day we were there except the day we left of ...

Merry Belated Christmas everyone and a very Happy New Year. If you were like me, you were flat out with holiday things and leaving everything last minute. We had a half day Christmas Eve so Missy came with me to work and enjoyed meeting my workmates. The kids enjoyed Christmas at their grandparents and we had a good old Aussie bbq on the day. It was the first time that it hadn't rained for a few years so we really enjoyed it. I made some brownies and that was about it. I left my Christmas shopping for the last few days and went shopping practically every day to pick up bits and pieces. I don't recommend this method but hey, it worked for me. I avoided traffic and shopping queues by either going early in the morning or parking close-by and walking the rest of the way to the shops. Funny enough, I bought things for myself rather than for other people, lol. A bit of retail therapy goes a long way. You can't live down here without feeling the heat and boy w...

We had the best day at the Better Homes and Gardens show. Just me and the girls. It was sprinkling outside and hubby dropped us off. We were a bit late for the Masterclass but when we got there it was so much fun. There were two spots in the second row that Fast Ed pointed out to us and so my eldest girl got to cook too. I spent some time helping her out while the youngest ate the chocolate on the table. It was a bit hard to whisk the icing and actually it didn't taste that great at the end but we're fussy like that. I prefer the ganache type. We even cooked our own little cakes in the small ovens they put on the tables. Here is my cake. I was rushed at the end because I was helping Miss 9 and when Fast Ed came around to check our cakes, he looked at her lop-sided, half crushed cake and said "...Wo-ow" with a big surprised smile on his face. I think we may just stick to my favourite cake mixes like the Betty Crocker Irresistables. Here is the love...

If you're ever around my house on a Friday evening, you'll catch the family watching Better Homes and Gardens for sure. We have been long time favourites of the show and I've got a great opportunity to share with you. The Better Homes and Gardens team have their annual Live show on 13-15 November 2015 at Sydney Olympic Park in the Showground and I've got 3 x Family Passes to giveaway! Yes, three!!! I love how Adam has joined the crew and Joanna has been part of the team for over 20years now! Adam will be at the DIY Building Stage showing you the process on how to make a toolbox, lolly jar dispenser and a cheeseboard to impress your guests. Wow. I've been to a show a few years back and I really enjoyed the day. My tip is to get there early (doors open at 10am and close at 5pm) because there is so much to see and do. I haven't tried the DIY so I think I'll book for that this year and take my daughter with me. I saw Fast Ed (with Jo) and his cooking s...

Braun TS745a texstyle 7 black with eloxal soleplate It seems to be that time again when some appliance of mine has broken down. At the beginning of the year it was my vacumn cleaner. It didn't really break down but we somehow lost the filter funnel in the barrell). This time around it's the iron (which it feels like I have only just purchased). I was doing a batch of school uniform ironing, turned it off and then tried to come back to it only to find that it was auto-shutting off and not heating up. So I found a scanned copy of my receipt and it was over a year ago when I bought it from Target. Hubby said to just get another one (this coming from a guy who wants to keep everything in case he can fix it!) I talked to my friends at work and we checked some models online. My friend said to go for Braun or Tefal and my other guy said don't buy Phillips. My last one (pictured left in the photo above) was the Tefal Azur GC4865. I wasn't really impressed when I took ...

The littlest was sick. He took a sip from his brother's cup last Friday and started to get sick by Saturday. By Sunday he was full blown into the virus with high temperatures and general un-wellness. He was sleeping and not eating a lot. So I had no other choice but to stay home. So I shook off the guilt and prepared myself for my home duties and mothering hat. Generally I only have one day free and that's Friday. Even then I have the little one with me and I have a bit of me time in the morning. But I digress, today I dropped off the other three and came straight back home. First off, I did the laundry (of course, a must first thing) and then had a bit of breakfast and he was asleep. I finished off the dishes from last night (Urghh, we actually normally have dishes in the sink). Anyway, I was pretty sure that mums make and bake things when they are at home and I've been dreaming of gozleme for a while so I prepped up the dough. Lucky it was nice and sunny outside a...

 I  couldn't think of anything exciting  for the blog post title so here it is... we painted.  I had this in mind for a long,  long  time. I purchased this cupboard a few years ago online. It's quite heavy so I didn't want to just throw it out.  It's still very good. The problem was is that it had marks on it that I couldn't get rid of so I really wanted to paint it.   So I went and bought paint and brushes and because it was warm outside on Saturday we dragged it out and I got my eldest to sand it down a bit.  Then the girls wanted to paint and I thought why not? And let them. The nine year old was good. I've been keen to get the kids more involved in jobs. I helped my five year old girl paint as she needed supervision.  She tipped the paint tin over and thankfully I decided to lay down an old cardboard box on the floor so it didn't end up on the floor.  Good decision by mum!    After a while though she w...