lego bricks and pieces

i know after this week i am officially a lego mum. oh my word. joseph has been super lucky and well loved by friends and family over the past couple of years and has received many lego sets, much to his delight - and as a mum, i have to say i've been well impressed with him. he's been very careful with the pieces and has rebuilt the sets over and over and over. he is absolutely lego obsessed. bonus, he likes to follow the instructions and do it "right."

however. he is only five years old now and over time, a few pieces have been misplaced... so doug and i decided we would do something about storage and replacing the pieces that went missing. doug went through and rebuilt every single set, which was not an easy task, especially with said five year old wanting to "help" the entire time, which mostly consisted of him hoarding the pieces doug needed. each of the sets went into a large ziplock bag with the manual once complete and i wrote down any missing pieces (amazingly only 11 in total from all of them) using the set code and then brick codes found in the back of each of the manuals, before each of those bags went into a storage tub. he is now playing nicely by the rules of one set at a time and is thrilled to have a system (he's obviously been brainwashed by his very ocd parents, because he is just as particular as us), so when he is does, he brings it to one of us to "zip up" and then he puts it away before choosing another. funniest thing is, some of the zip lock bags have arrows to show how to close them. heaven forbid that you close them sliding the arrows the wrong way. he has a fit! "no! no mum! slide it the way it says!" such a little character.

anddddd, you can order single pieces online from lego.com. does everyone know that?! massive thanks to my friend for that tip off a few years ago. all of the pieces we needed, minus one, which was part of a disney cars lego set were available, but that was an easy solve... we ordered the same piece, without the dinoco print across it! so easy to do and our lego boy is thrilled to pieces.

heads up though, if you're in australia, the postage is outrageous! $15 for those 11 tiny pieces!i keep reminding myself that i'm the one that wanted them and as it's a demand thing that they can charge whatever they want haha. andddd it's not quick. i ordered in april and they came earlier this week. be prepared for a long wait. but it's done, they are here and everyone is happy.

hooray for lego! 

mothers day 2019

i seriously love my kids and am obsessed with them to the point that it's actually ridiculous. i can't live without them, but most days i feel like i can't really live with them either! but like i said, i love them - and that alone keeps me going. looking at this adorable photo certainly helps too. my husband who generally can't take a photo to save himself snapped this with barely any effort and now i am seriously suspicious of him. has he been lying all this time whilst secretly practicing his photography skills to impress me at a time like this?

in my opinion mother's day is the most ridiculous day of the year. feel free to change my mind. but when i still have to be a mum on the day i am meant to be appreciated and not do anything, it really seems pointless. i joked to one of the ladies at church today that the best thing anyone could ever get for mother's day would be 24 hours away from their kids. she laughed loudly and said she understood what i was saying only too well.  it probably doesn't help that alex hasn't been sleeping... all i really wanted for mother's day was a sleep-in or a nap. strangely enough, i got neither one.

the kids rushed in first thing in the morning to give me gifts which was amazing! our school p&c organised a stall with gifts purchased from a supplier, which cost between $2 and $6. i sent my kidlets in with their money and they picked what they wanted to get me! best idea ever!

joseph chose me this gorgeous necklace. i seriously love it and am so impressed with him! madeline got me a thermos mug. she loved it so much and was so excited to give it to me. i better start drinking hot drinks i guess, because it is also very cute.

i also got a card and a phone holder joseph made in class as well as an "about my mum" paper

my mum is 35 years old. her favourite food is rocky road (not wrong, but not my favourite thing) and she likes to drink water. when i am at school my mum looks after the baby. i think my mum looks the most beautiful when she wears a dress. 

what a little love!

maddie's class filled out one of those too:

my mum is 35 years old. her favourite food is honey chicken (true!) and she likes to drink juice. when i am at school my mum looks after my baby brother alex. i think my mum looks the most beautiful when she goes out. 

pretty spot on, both of them!

this had me in fits though... a report card about my mum. singing, cooking, cleaning, driving and cuddles... all A+, with a C+ for jokes. i am so offended haha. there i was thinking i was funny but in reality i think she got it right with her comment. 

knock knock. who's there? mum. mum who? best mum ever! 

not going to lie, that's absolutely something i would say!

my little haul from maddie. the bookmark is adorable too!

my favourite part of the day though, was finally being able to have my watercolour painting doug let me order from love stax. she is here in perth and paints the most gorgeous pictures from a photo in her own style. i sent her our family shot from alex's blessing day and here's what she did with it. i love it so much and am so thrilled with it!

dinner with dougs mum. i love to make things look fancy, something i definitely learned from my mother!

happy mother's day! you're all doing an amazing job!♥

baby alexander: seven months old

baby alexander is now seven months older and cuter than ever!

during the last month:

-whenever we would give him a spoon of food, he would suck his thumb as if he needed it to swallow what was in his mouth hahaha 

-he has a tickly spot on your back below his armpits and giggles non stop when we tickle him there.

-when someone sits him up, he can sit up leaning forward for balance, for brief periods before he topples over

-he is now sitting in the high chair and can be involved in a lot more because he is at our height

-he has often been caught sucking his big toes like a thumb and it is so funny!

-he is pushing himself backwards on the floor until he gets his legs stuck under furniture. 

and he finally cut his first two teeth!!!!

baby alex, you are so so loved!

exploring with the kids

it never ceases to amaze me just how many parks there are in ellenbrook. i read somewhere once that the aim is for there to be one within 600m of every house... it can't be far wrong. i took the sister missionaries to a local park to have pictures earlier this week and when we were there stumbled upon around a dozen painted rocks. there was a huge trend of painted rocks being hidden in parks (you can read about it here) around western australia and although it's not as common any more, you can still find them. i knew the kids would be thrilled to pieces, so i decided to take them exploring. 

the park doesn't have a name on the map that i can see, but is surrounded by the broadway, elmridge parkway, farmaner parkway and addingham drive. it has a real bushland feel, with paths through trees and a creek, plus a (pretty murky) lake. but it was fun to explore and the kids were even more excited when they went off the path and discovered a fairy door too! (another craze that came along with the rocks, you can read about that one here)

there is no play equipment in this park, it's more of a nature playground, but this old tree has been placed in a sandpit for climbing and the kids had plenty of fun on there.

take a photo of me mum! with pleasure ♥

we spent a good couple of hours wandering and it was so nice to see them occupying themselves with nature. i grew up in the country, well before ipads and youtube and barely even watched television... because there was always something better to do. living in the suburbs doesn't really offer that.

one of the cute rocks we found and rehid, a bright blue ladybug.

ellenbrook, we love you! ♥

butterscotch cake: happy birthday steve!

it is my amazing father-in-laws birthday today and i definitely want to give him a mention. he has been through so much in the last few years and is still hanging on like a champ. i won't lie and say he's an ever cheerful beacon of hope, because he has bad days. days when he wants us to all go away and you know what, that's fair. but. i love him and i can't stand the thought of losing him, so i will continue to be a cheerleader for him and help him keep on keeping on through his cancer and all the downs that come with it.

he is a great man. we get along wonderfully, forever stirring each other and bickering over nothing, but we love to make trouble together. i am so glad he is a part of my life and even more glad that he and oli took a chance and moved here 3 and a half years ago. having them here with us has been the best thing ever.

best of all, he loves the blues brothers just as much as our family does and was thrilled with his birthday present, a scale model of the "bluesmobile."

stevey boy, i love you. that's all there is to it.

happy birthday fil! ♥

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i used one of my favourite recipes from mum to make him a butterscotch cake and it was delish!

butterscotch cake

ingredients:

57g butter

1 egg

1 tablespoon golden syrup

1/2 teaspoon vanilla essence

3/4 cup flour

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 cup milk

butterscotch topping to fill

whipped cream and

chopped walnuts to top

method:

cream butter and sugar

add egg, syrup and vanilla and mix to combine

add dry ingrdients, then milk and mix again

spread into a well greased pan

bake at 180 degrees celcius (160 fan forced) for 30 mins

cool and fill with butterscotch fillling, then cover top with whipped cream

and decorate with walnuts

butterscotch filling:

mix 1 1/2 tablespoons cornflour 

with 1/4 cup brown sugar in a saucepan

slowly add 1 cup milk

stir over low heat until thick

add a dash of vanilla essence and 1 tablespoon of butter

cool and then beat well before using

temple nights

quite unexpectedly doug was home today which meant after picking the kids up from school i could rush over to the temple and do the 4pm session. game changer, because it meant i could be back for dinner and in time to tend to the grizzly baby who wants a feed before bed and does not like the bottle. 

the last few weeks have been a struggle, we have been stressing with all the appointments and hospital visits for doug's parents and it was so nice to be there in the peace and calm for a few hours. it was exactly what i needed. 

for those of you who may stumble across this and are not members of our faith, we do not attend the temple for a weekly meeting. we attend as often as we can (some weekly, some once a month, some less often - just whatever we can personally manage) to perform sacred ordinances first for ourselves and then on behalf of others who have passed on before having the chance to do them for themselves or perhaps before ever having a chance to learn of the gospel of jesus christ. we often attend to witness a marriage of friends or family members, or a sealing, which binds family members together for eternity, allowing them to remain together after this life. many are under the impression that the ordinances we perform are a secret. not so. we do not speak of them publicly as they are sacred in nature and should only be discussed within the temple. it is a place where we can go to feel close to the lord and to be able to take our troubles and receive inspiration and personal revelation. it is the place we believe we can be closest to the lord on earth and brings us so much peace. how grateful i am to live so close to a little piece of heaven, the perth australia temple. ♥

the unicorn squad

some of the girls in maddie's grade at school have gotten together and formed a club that they refer to as the "unicorn squad." i'm not entirely sure what the point of it is, but i (along with the other mums) think it is adorable and love to see them having fun together. we walked to school with two of the other girls this morning and i couldn't resist snapping this picture of them, with their pastel backpack goodness, just before we reached the school. 

life is so much better with friends... 

and i am grateful every single day that she has good ones ♥