ready, steady, cook: welfare edition (a relief society additional meeting)

this evenings handout, complete with a cookie... please scroll to the bottom to have a look!

tonight we had another relief society additional meeting, with a focus on welfare. the girls did an amazing job and we had a great time as always.

someone had been lined up to sing a song on the evening to open but wound up sick and i was handballed it last minute... oh my word. it honestly is one of the hardest ones i've had to learn short notice and i am still amazed i managed to pull it off. thank heavens for the lovely emily who played it for me and helped me stumble through learning it at such short notice. you're a gem! it is pretty... you can listen to the original (not me thank goodness) here

our opening presentation was about spiritual welfare, discussing what we can do to keep our lanterns full and be prepared for times of sadness and hardship. it was really lovely, especially having the room darkened and being given a candle each to light as we talked about it.

our second topic was about the benefits of honey... it is good for soooo many things and stores indefinitely! fun fact: they have found honey in the ancient pyramids that is 5000+ years old and it's still just as good as it was when it was packed... never loses any nutritional value or takes on bacteria. it's such an amazing god given gift!

lastly we had a presentation about the importance of emergency preparedness... having a plan in place, what we need on hand and a 72 hour emergency kit in case we ever need to leave in a hurry.

then the fun began! elena and her activities team had planned a competition to follow... ready steady cook, with things you'd typically find on hand in your pantry or food storage, plus some extra things to make it more interesting.

it was kind of a cross with masterchef with a judge ready to pick a winner at the end... and the teams being given just 20 minutes to put something on our plates. 

i was paired with my mother in law and one of our sister missionaries... to make an entree

quick peek in the box found enough ingredients to make crepes, both savoury and sweet (once i'd swiped some chocolate from the other teams pantry - totally fair considering they'd stolen our frypan and we had to find another one and plug it in haha). 

i used the pancake mix according to directions then added onion, zucchini and tomato, which the other gals sliced and siced while it was cooking, then whacked in some pizza sauce before rolling it up. sweet ones were cooked normally, strawberries and cream and chocolate added once on the plate, which melted perfectly seeing as they were still warm when we served them up. yes i know, they don't look very appetising, but you gotta make do with the time you have! 

our entrees were marked as a draw with the opposing team... but our team won the competition overall for the evening... yay! i also was super chuffed as i won a prize for having the best presented dish (not my crepes obviously) just by making jelly slice and putting it on a two tier plate. if only presenting everything in life was that easy!

an action shot of our crew, filling our sweet crepe with chocolate before serving.

now... the highlight of the evening... my beautiful friend jennifer asked me if she could make cookies for any of our church activities as she's just recently started doing decorated cookies and needed to practice. i suggested these hive ones and she delivered them yesterday much to my absolute amazement... i can't even imagine how much time and effort went into them! i am gobsmacked. 100 points to baked on benrua, her little side venture. aren't they amazing?!

a pretty hot night!

there is nothing better than an epic fire... and the bonfires at my parents house in clackline are famous! the build them up until they are so big it's ridiculous and then light them up with family and friends around to share the fun.

(mums helpful path from the house to the paddock)

this one over the weekend was no exception... there was a stack of us on hand to watch as dad tipped a bunch of petrol around the perimeter (goodlet's love fire and explosions... i swear it runs in our blood!) then threw a match in and ran off! it went up like nothing i've ever seen before and between grace cackling and maddie screaming... it was certainly a sight to behold.

burning in full force

sitting with my love enjoying the raging heat

of course the fires are always so huge that there is no way you can get anywhere near them to toast marshmallows, so our crew of kids scrambled around collecting their own little stack of firewood to make their own fire, which after a little while was successful enough to start toasting. so cute! i love our little people!

especially this one... look at his swollen little cheeks full of marshmallows. he looks good enough to eat!

of course a party in clackers wouldn't be complete without the bestie... it was a great night!

a surprise birthday morning tea for elena

it's our beautiful elenas birthday tomorrow and my gal pal luisa decided we needed to throw a surprise morning tea for her today. it was super fun and i am so glad we managed to pull it off.

she was so chuffed with it all and it was lovely being able to spoil her. we played a game of "who knows elena best?" with answers that lu had maanged to get out of her under the pretense that we needed them for a relief society lesson next week. the best bit was hearing what her husband had said in answer to each one. crack up!

all the ladies bar one who had just left!

decorations were easy, i had pretty much everything on hand, but nipped down to an undeveloped area that's less than 5 minutes drive away, that has geraldton wax growing wild everywhere! it's amazing cause i could just snip off what i needed and race back home afterwards to put together huge vases of it... then gift what was left afterwards in old empty jars. i love real flowers so much more than fakes when they are an option. 

tea cups from mums house... used over and over and over. i think they are probably the best investment she's ever made!

ready for our game...

balloons delivered by luisas mum just in time and gorgeous bunting made by mum whilst working in the home ec department at pesega in samoa on her mission.

of course there was food galore as everyone turned up with something...

was a lovely little morning. happy birthday lanes! ♥

school faction carnival

not much to see here, just a little red head, in red faction (giles at her school...) wearing red, with red painted hair (cause her already red hair isn't red enough) on school carnival day!

she was so excited to go off and run in her race, even though joseph isn't well so i couldn't come and spectate this year.

her epic red braids done by nanna who stayed over last night.

best bit of my day was logging on to facebook at one stage and seeing this picture posted by my friend with her daughter in the number 1 place... and my little one in second! she was so pleased when i picked her up and i know she did her best. clearly she takes after the kendalls... cause goodlets are unashamedly useless at sports. all of them. haha. 

ward father’s day gifts

our ward father's day gifts are officially sorted. a cute idea, worded right... and all packed into bags ready to go.



i made the handout on the app "canva" which took all of 5 minutes, then printed them off at our local big w...
-pads were 3 for $2 from red dot, a discount variety store
-chocolates on 1/2 price sale at coles
-pencils were wood engraved by a member in our ward, who owns winter woodworking (and can pretty much make anything!)
-clear bags from the reject shop, 30 for just $1!

miss madeline helped me bag them up and they are now in the bishops office ready for next sunday! hope they are enjoyed by the boys in our ward. ♥ 

matchy match! (34 weeks )

here we are... 6 weeks to go and still feeling good. madeline got dressed for church this morning and insisted she was wearing her "skirt that matches your dress mum" and that i needed to wear mine too. i happily obliged and it absolutely made her day... i just wish it was that easy to make her happy all the time!!

maddie is going to be such a good big sister... she is super excited about her baby brother arriving soon and i know she will help so much. maybe this having a 7 year old and a baby thing won't be so bad after all! fingers crossed!

coles mini shops

look at that face! this is the face of a child who is almost finished collecting the mini shops from coles supermarkets. yes. the major supermarket chains have struck again and created a "must have" collection that our kids are going crazy for. i must admit, when the promotion started and i saw what was on offer, i didn't even think about collecting them and thought oh that's nice and left it there... then the craze struck our 7 year old daughter who insisted she needed to collect them. insert eye roll here... thankfully i had the mum brain to think ahead about the fact that i have a 4 year old as well who would jump on the bandwagon and started two sets at once... turns out he loves them more than her!! 

grandma got on the case and told the girls at her work that her grandkids were collecting them and they started arriving by the dozen... and with some swapping and haggling with friends, family and the girls at church - we are so close to our goal... two sets, and two happy kids. woo!

to be fair... they are so adorable! i mean seriously who wouldn't want teeny replica groceries?

(sample from the good old internet, so that one day 10 years from now haha we can look back and remember this ridiculousness)

an afternoon with the cousins

sunday afternoon after church found us at the cousins house in glen forrest. i love watching them all out playing together. it was cold, late in the afternoon and the cul de sac they live in was deserted, but somehow a lemonade stand was constructed (this isn't the first time it's happened either, must be the country setting and the abundance of lemons in the backyard!) on the back of uncle jareds ute and we had to come by and buy a cup. with gumnuts, cause no one had any money!

these three are the cutest! i just love them! ♥

p.s. the sign says "don't forget to recycle" hahaha

a great night out!

oh did we have some laughs tonight... a bunch of us from our ward got together and went to play pool in warwick, above the bowling alley. it was so much fun and i hope we can do more stuff together in the future!

highlight of my evening was definitely having one of the boys break and one of the balls flying off the table and smacking into the wall next to me, just a few inches away... i can only imagine how much fun that would be to explain on sunday if it had have gotten me, i would have had a black eye or a huge bruise for sure. moral of the story, when the boys take a shot, move away!

good times good times... for those who actually know how to play. i was called to take a shot a few times, but thankfully they gave up quickly - i really am terrible at all sports, pool very much included and i was more than happy to spectate.

elena did get a shot of me attempting to look like i knew what i was doing...
please note
1) i have literally no idea
2) my nice fresh locks
yeah lets just concentrate on my hair

see this bloke here knows what's up!

it was a great night! ♥

solar panels!

yesterday we did something pretty cool... we got solar panels!! i am so excited, as electricity here in perth is so expensive, especially seeing as there is only one provider, so no competitive pricing. :( they were all installed in under 6 hours (we used perth solar force, hit me up if it is something you are thinking of doing as there is a referral program you can use!). their system and tracking system is installed for us to watch and gauge how things are - and now all we do is sit back and hopefully enjoy the savings!

yay for solar!

getting blonder

after putting it off for months (almost six in fact) and showcasing almost 3 inches of pretty much solid grey hair (there is a reason there is no before shot included here!)... i finally bit the bullet and went for my second "blonding" appointment with my very clever next door neighbour karralee who happens to be a hairdresser. i am so chuffed and cannot believe how much my hair lightens with each session... i'm well on my way to my target of being ash blonde in the near future. yay! ♥

baby kendall has an impromptu 'photoshoot"

last week at my midwife appointment, we found out that my fundal height (basically the height of your belly during pregnancy after the half way point) hadn't changed since my last appointment, two weeks prior. although i am fairly certain (as was the midwife) that this would have been caused by the bout of gastro i'd had, i was booked in for another ultrasound, to confirm that baby k was happy and growing away without any issues. so off we went this morning.

seems as though our ultrasound tech moonlights as a comedian, as when i asked him if he could confirm that baby k was indeed a boy, we were given this printout with a pic of his boy bits, labelled complete with little arrows. oh did we have a laugh at that!

seems all is well, hes comfortable, happy and most importantly the right size... ready to meet us in just under two months time. exciting stuff!!

a sad goodbye

over the last few weeks, our ward has been left to deal with a tragedy that truly left us shaken and in mourning. we lost 3 of our members and it was a horrible time for us to deal with. i have been amazed at the outpouring of love that has been shown throughout this time. of our sisters offering comfort to each other, serving in anyway they could and simply showing so much love. i know that the family truly felt of our love and concern and i am so grateful to be a part of and represent the relief society of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints, especially  in a time like this.

our sisters in the gospel love, support and serve so easily, without hesitation. i am so grateful to have had so many of them by my side yesterday as we said a sad goodbye to 3 people we loved so much.

as i have said before (many times i am sure), i spent the better part of 10 years working in a funeral home on and off and learnt so much, including so many things that i could never put into words or advice that i could never attempt to write down on paper. but, when i came across these quotes some time back, i could see that they explain grief so much better than i ever could. so please use them, quote them and pass them on to those you know that are mourning, because i feel like they could really help someone. 

♥