supermum

it has come to my attention that my mother is basically supermum... i show her something i like, and next minute she presents me with an awesome copy of it. exhibit a... i am reading em falconbridges blog and see her particulary cool circle scarf, now i'm no fan of pink (rather inconvenient being that i just gave birth to a girl) but i found this awesome as piece of green stretchy material at the op-shop in singleton a few months ago and could see it becoming one of these scarves one day. so i show mum the fabric and the picture here and voila! one cool as circle scarf, which has barely left my neck since!

oh - and did i mention the awesome bag i found on etsy - that she also copied. honestly - my mum is awesome, can copy anything and saves me bulk cash when i have my heart set on something. what a legend. love you mumsie! xx

tradition

the day i was born, dad bought me a teeny silver bracelet with my name on the plate. years later i was re-gifted the bracelet with a new chain to make it long enough for me to wear (from the bracelet dad gave mum for her 16th!!) - and now... i still wear it all those almost 28 years later.

so... baby maddie was also gifted one from her grandparents and this week we had it engraved. so so cute... and maddie keeps laying with her arms up - as if she wants to show off her bling. a kid after my own heart!

tasty

when madeline was just a few days old, doug caught me jokingly licking the side of her face and said to me, "what on earth are you doing?" to which i replied, "just checking to see if she tastes as good as she looks."

and with cheeks like these... who wouldn't want to eat her? :)

not so long ago...

not so long ago... miss madeline was in there! yep. just over five weeks ago! it's so hard to believe that she even fitted. luckily... we managed to fit in a pregnant shoot in - just hours before i was admitted to hospital to be induced. in this case - there was definately not going to be any do-overs!! penny (the photo whiz!!) doug and i went over to lisa's house to "borrow" her navy blue wall and got some fabulous results!

my favourite! i am constantly amazed at pen's awesome skillage!

i love this guy - best dad there ever was, he's doing such an amazing job with my little girl! x

joseph smith fireside

"joseph smith, the prophet and seer of the lord, has done more, save jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it"

last night i had the privelege of singing in the australia perth mission missionary fireside at dianella about joseph smith: the prophet of the restoration. it was such a beautiful program with lovely readings and a missionary choir; there is nothing more awesome than hearing the elders singing "armies of helaman" - it gets me every time.

i sang "how great thou art" as a solo, and a duet of "i stand all amazed" with miriam... and it went so well. it's the first time ever that i have managed without terrible stage fright - which was such a wonderful feeling!!

i feel so blessed to be a member of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints and for the sacrifices of those who went before me, so that i can have the freedom i have, and the blessings i have. it truly is a wonderful gospel and i know that there is no where else i would rather be.

amazing cake

check out this amazing cake!! coolest idea ever... i totally wish i could take credit for it, but my friend michelle actually made it, for her daughters birthday/ baptism yesterday, but i am totally making one sometime soon.

so... i asked for her secret - and the idea is very similar to a marblecake (only you don't swirl the colours together)... you make up your cake mixture (all vanilla flavour) - and then split it into different bowls and add extremely bright food colouring to each one, then pour them into your cake tin one by one - each one spreads out to make the coloured layers, and then you pop it in the oven, put filling between the two layers and icing around the whole thing
and as you can see here - you can't even tell it's a rainbow cake until you cut into it. such a cool idea!! nice work michelle. can't wait to make one.

mum also made these for the baptism "afterparty"... adorable little girlie cupcakes with pink icing, rainbow sprinkles and little ctr and 8 signs that we made the night before. too cute. :)

sleepover at nanna and grandads

madeline had her first sleepover at nanna and grandads on saturday night - in mums wicker wash basket! it was so adorable! she didn't really want to sleep much at all though... maybe the excitement was just all too much for her, being in a new place.

she made up for it the next afternoon though... having a nice long snooze with her grandad on the couch in front of the heater. i couldn't resist taking a picture... they looked so sweet and peaceful.

family history

since i was pregnant with maddie, i had this sudden desire to start working out some of mine and dougs family history line. after emailing and phoning both sets of our parents and numerous other family members lots of times, i started getting quite a lot and have been uploading it to my info page on the church family search website and it's kind of addictive.

yesterday when we were at church in northam with mum and dad, two speakers from stake spoke of the importance of family history and then challenged us to work out the number of direct line ancestors you would have going back 20 generations... so you begin with yourself, you have 2 parents, 4 grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents and so on, so the number doubles each time as you go back. doug and i ripped out the calculator and worked it out... and the answer blew us away...

1,048,576

so it looks like i better get back to work... i have a lot of family to find!!

scoopon

last year a friend of mine introduced me to scoopon - an online deal that's emailed to you each day... cheap hair appointments, half price dinners, golf deals, photobooks, pretty much anything. Most of them are pretty bored and the delete button on my computer gets a real workout, but one caught my eye in this case, canvases for $40 each - printed, finished and delivered to your door. so... i bought these for jen and mat for an extremely belated wedding present.

so easy - all i had to do was go to the printers website, upload the pictures, check they were where i wanted them, clickclickclick and they arrived a few days later.

and... they look amazing!! :)

a labour of love

miss madeline received a pretty fancy gift today... from aunty jen. a cross stitch done and personalised just for her. jen has spent months stitching this for madeline, and all i can say is wow! i certainly don't know if i would have the patience to sit and stitch this masterpiece. thanks jen! we love it! xx

just like daddy

it's totally true that is nothing of me in her whatsoever... yet

and here's some more proof!

too cute!

some more snapshots of miss madeline

just because she's so freaking cute - couldn't help myself!

cousins

miss madeline already has five cousins! five! all from one of my brothers.

grace, emma kate, jared david, laura and ben. they all got a cuddle yesterday and absolutely doted on her. it makes me so happy to see how much they love her already... even though the poor kids had to wait almost 2 and a half hours for her to wake up!! but as everyone knows... you don't wake a sleeping baby! i know they'll be wonderful cousins! x

what time is it...?

i honestly wonder how long it will be before i stop caring what time it is... i constantly feel like i need to be somewhere, like i'm late for work, like i need to be doing something... it's making me a little crazy!!

i am well aware that i am doing the most important job in the world, that looking after baby madeline is my job now - but i am still waiting for it to sink in...