jen's birthday dinner

my bestie turned 30 this week!!! holy moly - that means there is just 6 months until i do! we had a lovely day together (see previous blog post...) and then met up again for dinner at the mahogany inn. yum yum yum. they have the most amazing food!

hayley, jen and i talked and talked and talked and annoyed the crap out of our significant others - and even visited the bathroom together. cause that's what girls do.

best night. i haven't laughed that hard in forever. and the best bit? we still have two more 30th to go between us before this year is over! love these girls far too much!

visit to clackline

friday was my bestie's 30th birthday so maddie and i made a trek up there for the day to visit! it has been quite some time since i visited last so i couldn't resist taking some pictures of some geeky stuff there... like the clackline sign! 

i also felt it necessary to climb the lion monument and have maddie passed up to me (thankyou jen!) so we could have some pics up there. i have climbed it so many times as a kid with my brothers and have watched over the years as the lion has been painted red, green, black, silver with tiger stripes... all in good fun, then painted back by the council.

maddie was a bit unsure at first but got excited about riding the lion after a minute or two.

reliving mummy's childhood together!

aunty jen even let maddie have a turn on her piano and she was a pro. i nearly killed myself laughing watching this video later. such a good day! we should totally visit more often.

maddie's big girl room

my little girl is about to be a big girl. she's turning two very soon and i assume that means that i have to *sob* move her into a big girl bed. that, however means that i need to get her new bedroom stuff, cause her cot quilt isn't going to fit my vintage bed. 

i have been stalking this bed set online from ezibuy for quite some time... and this week discovered they were having a sale and all the things i wanted for maddie's room were 50% off. yay! so maddie now has on the way... a new quilt set, with two funky cushions and two awesome mirrors. 

the best bit? my beautiful bestie went halvsies with me! woop woop! i am sure maddie will be in her cot for quite some time still, but i am excited for decorating when it's time.

shipwrecked

shipwrecked - shane alexander

when my ship gonna come and will I hold till it does?

what should I believe as darkness falls on me?

can you hear me? is someone there?

am I losing my mind? am I losing my mind?

am I all alone? won't you rescue me?

talking to myself... staring at the sea

what will morning bring? will I hear that old sea bird sing?

will her colours fill my eyes as she sails through clear blue sky?

can you hear me? is someone there?

am I losing my mind? am I losing my mind?

am I all alone? won't you rescue me?

shapes in the darkness... staring at the sea

this is my favourite song. favourite. ever. i am obsessed and can't listen to it enough. it has just the right amount of misery for me. one day, i want it played at my funeral. i have written it here - so however far down the line it ends up being, no one can say they didn't know. :)

you'll hear our mighty roar!

today we took maddie to her first afl game. my work has season tickets for the dockers games in perth and every year you can enter the draw to win tickets to a match. our gorgeous pa to the gm is well aware of doug's love for the lions, so each year she makes sure he gets to go... bless her!

this time, someone pulled out at the last minute, so we scored her tickets too and took along our friends mark and jamie-lee.

this little miss has a guernsey, a puffa jacket and a baby scarf, so we dressed her (and ourselves) up and jumped on the train, must to the ausement of passers-by, seeing our maroon, blue and gold along with our dockers membership tags. hahaha. must have been a classic sight.

maddie was hilarious, sitting and staring down at the grounds, clearly had no idea what the heck was going on, but every time someone clapped, she would carefully put down whatever snack she was holding at the time into my lap and clap her hands, before quickly picking it up again and having some more.

having a sneaky drink... i love this pic - looks like she has a little hip flask.

another day in paradise...

our team didn't win (this we established long before the game even started, that it even wasn't a possibility...) but we had a great time and that's all that matters.

when life gives you lemons...

today i threw my first additional relief society meeting! so proud! we had an evening entitled "when life gives you lemons..." i saw an idea for it online some months ago and kept thinking how much fun it would be to do... everybody loves lemons... right?

we had 4 presentations on the evening - the first one was

*lemons in cleaning (amazing cooking demo here!) one of the girls in our ward taught us to make lemon-honey chicken - don't worry i have included the recipe here for you playing along at home...

500g chicken thigh fillets

80g  butter

handful chopped parsely

5 tbl honey

juice and zest of 1 lemon

2 sprigs of thyme

salt and pepper to taste

1. melt the butter in a large saucepan, add chicken and brown on both sides for about 20 min.

2. add the lemon juice, zest, herbs, honey and seasoning. 

3. turn down heat and cook till chicken is coked through.

4. remove chicken pieces and set aside, keep warm.

5. allow sauce to simmer until is reduced by a quarter.

6. pour the sauce over the chicken and serve with fluffy rice and steamed greens for a delicious meal.

you need to go and make this now! amazing. i am just cut i didn't take a picture of it, especially seeing as i was gifted the leftovers and enjoyed every bite.

our second demo was *lemons in cleaning

a sister in our ward then explained some ways to use lemons to clean and sanitise and even to remove stains. pretty cool stuff...

demo number three: *lemons for health

this one was me! i simply shared a few handy tips for how to use lemons in health and to assist with skin issues, bloating etc. all handy for the women of today.

our final demo *what to do when life gives you lemons "the power of positive thinking"

this was incredible! one of my friends did this and it was so cool. she spoke about the power of positive and negative words on the human body by recalling a project that had taken place, by a man that spoke positively and negatively to two glasses of water before freezing their contents. the results were dumbfounding, the positive glass had particles in beautiful, crystal-ish, even snowflake like shapes while those int he negative glass were all higgledy-piggledy and all over the place as though they were unsettled. 

now, consider the fact that the human body is almost 80% water. it explains so so much. negative words can have such a bad effect on us, while positivity can cause us to cause us to simply shine! to read more about this project have a look here!

each sister was asked to bring a lemony treat to share - i was amazed at the variety of things there were... lemon soup, lemon biscuits, vanilla cake with lemon icing, yellow patty pans on other treats, all very lemony and festive! we also made a huge dispenser of lemonade and had lemon tea on hand (it was really cold!)

to finish off the evening i asked each of the sisters to write their solutions to lifes lemons, on a lemon and pin it on the lemon tree which we have attached to one of the boards in our relief society. we had some pretty good answers and i am sure that people got a lot from the evening.

it was great to see something i did come to life and i was so excited watch the night unfold. i am so excited to plan the next one!

twenty-three months...

only one more month until this smiley little girl is two! it's going far too fast and i wish there was something i could do to make her stay my little girl for just a little longer.

she is obsessed with crackers. every morning when she wakes up and i get her out of her bed, the first thing she says is craaaaaka, craaaka? until someone gives her one. little weirdo. i swear she would eat them all day if we would let her. 

she loves being dressed up in her church clothes and sitting on our laps during sacrament meeting. and most of all, she loves going to nursery. we are very lucky to have some beautiful leaders who love our children as if they were their own and play games, sing songs, paint and play. our little girl loves every minute.

she loves to dance and any kind of music. she will dance and dance and dance for as long as you will let her and especially thanks to her aunty loves superbass by nicki minaj. you'll occasionally hear her whispering "bass bass" when she wants to hear it again.

being this cute gets you free things our maddie discovered. we went to the shops the other day and she was gifted a macaron just for smiling sweetly at the man running the kiosk. i don't blame him though. i want to give her everything she wants too.

mason and his mummy and daddy came to have dinner with us and maddie and mason had a great time playing in maddie's cot together. they are so sweet together... i know we all not-so-secretly hope that they still love each other when they are older... 

maddie's puletasi (traditional samoan outfit) finally fits. i was gifted it by doug's cousin marie when i was about 5 months pregnant (they obviously knew i was having a girl... haha) and she looks so cute in it. can't wait to dress her up in it some sunday soon.

one more month... and she'll be two. holy moly.

jo and thomas got married!

 

last week i went to melbourne to see my beautiful friend jo marry her thomas. it was such a wonderful day and it made me so so happy to share it with them. jo was one of my original girls in young womens in dianella when i was first called - a little 12 year old. i have watched her grow up and taught her countless lessons on eternal marriage only to watch her enter the temple and promise to love thomas for time - and all eternity.

she looked amazing! nothing new. :) absolutely stunning.

i waited with jo's family outside the temple for jo to arrive and couldn't resist taking a picture of them all together - screaming "we love thomas!" such a cute family.

clearly jo loves her new brother in laws. they all seemed to be laughing up a storm.

the stuart family

more stuart antics

jo, thomas and their parents 

me - all rugged up - it was such a cold drizzly day and i must admit we were shivering outside waiting. i can only imagine how nervous jo was when she saw the rain! but it was beautiful nonetheless.

 

i normally take so many photos, but maddie was not well (all week unfortunately) so i had to deal with a few quick snaps... while uncle kris looked after maddie in the car, she was not a happy girl. :(

me and my little pina

thomas and jo's oldest brother. a laugh a minute.

stefan! one of my nursery kids - and jo's youngest brother. total cutie

me and the clearly happy groom. what a brave man!

thomas's parents

and with mum - and dad...

and just some pics of the bride and groom looking perfect

it may have been a drizzly day, but it was beautiful! the melbourne temple is lovely.

maddie waiting patiently in the car for me...

jo let her hair out and added a navy blue bow to her dress before arriving at the reception - and it totally added wow factor. she looked amazing!

that train! amazing.

i know maddie felt like such a celebrity at the wedding... between being brought her own 3 course meal and being doted on by everyone that walked past... she had the most adorable little booster high chair on a big person chair that she perched on and loved every minute. she is so freaking cute.

first dance...

and the first time they had seen maddie since the temple. literally stopped mid dance and ran to her for a cuddle. no wonder she is obsessed with them!

mummy and maddie having some cuddles at the end of the night. such a beautiful day. i was so proud to be there - and was even prouder when jo and thomas asked me to make a speech at the reception. i spent the drive there writing it and even managed to make the poor girl laugh.

i love you both and wish you nothing but the best as you embark on your "happily ever after..."