renay's baby shower

it's not often that i am rendered speechless, but when i walked into my friend renay's baby shower today, i certainly was. i had been asked to attend and assist with the desserts a few weeks back, but then covid threw a spanner in the works and the shower was cancelled. yet as luck would be on our side, not a single further case was reported during our week of lockdown, so renay's family decided they would make the shower happen. oh and did they make it happen.

an entry hall full of dried and strung citrus, along with huge while helium balloons and lights... 

and then exquisite decorations throughout the house

no detail was left untouched, with beautiful florals

greenery and wooden pieces

and crisp whites to set it off

renay herself was a vision, also in white, absolutely glowing. she is so deserving of a beautiful day like today and i felt truly blessed to be a part of it and to be able to capture some memories for her.

i'd been asked to make all the desserts for the party, banoffee pie, carrot cake,

brownies

chocolate chip cookies and lemon pie bars.

plus the drinks, watermelon & mint water and strawberry, cucumber & lemon water

honestly, check out these details, so simple, but effective. glass bottles with greenery, water and a long white candle to complete the look

and the foodwas amazing. renay's mother and sisters had spent hours setting up a grazing style feast for the guests. delicious!

we had a diy pamper section, where guests were able to make themselves a soak/scrub to use at home, led by the lovely dom

and a few games that left guests roaring with laughter

before renay settled in underneath her little arbor to open her gifts. baby honda is definitely very loved already!

the rouse girls

and one with their mum. truly a wonderful family. so lucky to know them. ❤

and this girl? she is going to be the best mum. 

she's amazing.

and for once i actually appeared in a photo. ❤

today was a good day!

 

joseph is 7

this hilarious little dude is 7 today. i love him so much, because he always makes me laugh. he always says the weirdest things, which are hilarious - and looks at things in a different way to everyone else. he comes out with some amazing one liners and is always giggling away to himself.

he loves pretty much everything. like seriously, you could give him anything and he would love it, so he is so easy to buy for.

he's often off in dreamland and you have to call him over and over... hates doing jobs and would happily play video games all day long if it was an option.

one of the funniest things that has happened was when last year, he decided he wasn't cutting his hair to compete with another little boy in his class and ended up with this huge mop on his head by the end of the year. considering he only did one year and this other kid has been growing his forever, he definitely gave him a run for his money - but oh was i glad to see it go.

here's a classic example of joseph trying to make me laugh - trying on the most ridiculous pair of glasses he could find at the pharmacy.

he's recently started to love being in the water and has spent hours in jared and donna's pool trying to perfect his swimming.

and he still loves his food. definitely takes after his dad 100%. he is always hungry.

he has been dying for mario lego since he found out it was a thing, and doug and i pre-ordered it as soon as we could. then he needed a bike for christmas, so we had to put it away for a little longer... but today was the day

he was so happy with all his gifts...but the lego?

he was squealing and dancing when he opened it. definitely a good choice. my favourite part of the day though was him opening the ridiculous card i bought him. it had a pug dressed up as darth vader on the front - and when you open it, it barks the vader theme. it is so so funny and the look of utter disdain he shot me was worth the $10 it cost - as was the video i took when he opened it. happy birthday! from the bark side. hahahahaha.

his one request for his birthday was a caramel mud cake and aunty dom delivered. look how happy it made him.

happy birthday little dude! i hope all your dreams come true.

we love you joseph evan kendall ❤

 

scrunchies!

 

so... i made a stack of school scrunchies - and sold them! i found a skort in madeline's school tartan at the opshop, but they aren't allowed to wear it to school because it's not an actual part of their issued uniform... so i made scrunchies out of it and gave them to madeline and her friends... then i found another one and did 4 more and listed them on the uniform page - and they all sold really quickly. then, i found a size 4 dress in the opshop and got 12 scrunchies out of it - and sold all those. so this time i went big. found a size 14 and got 24 out of it. that kept me busy for a while! but for some insane reason mum was really impressed with the way i made them, so here's my pattern getting recorded here, just in case i need it for future reference.

cut a strip approximately 6/7cm wide (or 3 squares on the tartan haha) by 40cm long. fold so the front is facing inside and sew straight down the open side. allow 2.5cm each end and leave it open.

turn your tube in the right way and then match up the short ends and sew across

you'll end up with this

fold your sewing inside and you'll end up with a circle with an open piece on the side.

using a piece of elastic about 17-20cm long (i measure it around my wrist) safety pin one end to the seam directly inside our opening and using a larger safety pin, pull the elastic through and then sew the ends of the elastic together to hold it tight.

fold your opening edges in neatly and top stitch the edge to make it neat - and you're done! 

so so easy... and you can make dozens. i made rainbow ones last week too. you can make them out of anything and just use scraps. the best. 

valentine's day cookies with the madi's

doug and i never really celebrate valentine's day, but i think it's something fun for kids, you know "the day of love" and all that. so when we had to stop by madeline's friend madison's house to collect some ballet shoes, i decided to be nice to the girls and make some cookies for them to decorate. we took over pink icing and some things to top them with and the girls got to work. they were having so much fun, all i could hear was giggling and lots of talking as i chatted to madison's mum on the other side of the bench. really the cookies were just a distraction so i could have some adult conversation...shhh. haha

i used my favourite cookie recipe from here (i love it cause it's no chill and can be used straight away) and let madeline cut them all out

baked at home...

then threw them in a box to take over.

for the icing, we just used the free icing mix that comes with store bought cupcake mix with pink food colouring added - and whatever we could find in both my cupboard and theirs.

they got pretty inventive though, i was impressed.

and little brother was even allowed to taste test!

i had the best afternoon with these little valentines. ❤

back to work - in a mask

this may be the one and only photo of me in a mask that there is, because they are sure as hell not flattering. i started work at the school canteen for the year today, only this year it's a little different as i will be doing one set day a week. alex will be going to nannaleah for the day. so i get a break (and get paid for it! lol) she gets some alex time, and everyone is happy.

but that mask rule. wow. i had no idea how fun breathing my own air for 6 hours was going to be. yikes. i am so, so grateful that our state is in the position for this to only be a 2 week thing. but i made it through and most of all i am grateful that i was able to do the right thing. because in a nutshell: "we believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring and sustaining the law." (article of faith number 12) i think a lot of people would do well to remember this instead of causing a scene when asked to comply with local laws during this time.

the lovely canteen staff for 2021. i'm very lucky to work with such a great bunch of ladies! 

back to school - covid style

these kids finally got to go off to school today after an extra week "holiday" involving lockdown, evacuations, masks and general insanity. but that's not all, because the wearing of masks will be continuing for another week - and only ceasing then if we have no further covid cases reported in wa during that period. fun times. primary school students are exempt from the mask rule as it's not applicable for children under the age of 12, but all teachers, staff and visitors to the school will be required to wear one - and everyone in high school. intense.

but even teachers in masks wasn't putting a dampener on these two. they were so ready to go and were dressed and ready well before time and outside having their back to school photos taken. madeline has a teacher we don't know this year, mrs. foti

and this kid is thrilled to pieces as he has another year with his fave - miss salomon. she is just the loveliest and we are so happy to be with her again. she put so much into joseph last year and he just thrived with her help.

they really were excited. that extra week at home was just so unexpected and confused everyone so much!

i am so proud of these two, they've done so well at school in the last few years and i know they are going to rock it again this year.

so let's hope the beginning of the school year has no reflection on the rest and that they love every minute! 

 

it can always be worse

(photo by ben merrick - found on facebook. showing the sheer size of the fire against the horizon from perth, taken tuesday evening)

just when you think things couldn't possibly be any worse... don't. cause they can. 

at 1:47 tuesday morning, we received a text message telling us to evacuate our home, because of the threat of an out of control bushfire burning in the perth hills. it had started in woorooloo and rapidly spread along to become a threat to the people in our area. we found ourselves packing our car with irreplaceable items, then moving to dougs mums house which was in an act and watch zone, compared to our evacuate zone. we arrived there at 4am, after filling both cars with fuel (in case we had to move again! not that we could go too far, the regional borders have been raised again to assist with the current lock down situation so we couldn't even go to my mums which would have been the most logical solution) only to have alex think we had arrived at grandma's for a play. it took hours to get him back to sleep again. 

i must admit i had barely thought of the fire until almost midnight, i had seen it started half way to my parents so had messaged them to check in, not realising it was headed our way! i'd even asked one of my nieces how they were... before finally looking it up and noticing where it stood in relation to us. bit silly of me considering the amount of smoke and dark skies it was causing over our way.

i won't lie. i was so freaked out when we got that message. what to do, where to go... the only thing i was truly certain of was what to pack as we had had a similar scare the summer we moved into our house, just not nearly as close. i carefully moved documents, jewellery, photographs, hard drives, baby books and other things to boxes and put them in the car - i had made a list and saved it, in case we ever found ourselves in this situation again, and i am so glad i did! before we left our home i asked doug to place his hand on the door and bless our home. i was so worried for what would be, but in that moment, i felt confident that our home would be okay. i was still nervous, but i felt confident in another way.

all day tuesday the light was crazy. a dark yellow haze fell over the area, it was so quiet, other than waking to the sounds of the choppers going back in to drop assistance retardant and water on the land. it started to rain ash everywhere and all we could do was wait and pray for the best. i kept praying and hoping and wishing that ll would be okay with our home and the homes of friends and loved ones within the area.

we returned home wednesday around noon, even though our home was still in the red evacuation area, we felt confident it was safe as our neighbours and a few others nearby were home. a few hours later, our home was moved into the yellow watch and act zone. we still await news from the school, due to being in a red/yellow emergency zone they have to have the school inspected and cleared to reopen monday. fingers crossed!

even now, friday night, (lockdown has been lifted a few hours ago with no further community cases coming to light - yay!) the fire is not completely under control. there has been erratic winds this entire time causing it to be unpredictable and out of control. it was more than 75kms in length at one stage, 85 homes have been lost and thousands of acres of land. but. the response of the firies and the public has been phenomenal. even during evacuation, people wore masks, socially distanced and gave the best of themselves. help has come from everywhere. hundreds of fire fighters were and still are fighting for people, homes and property. not a single life has been lost. 2 aerial tankers were sent from the eastern states to help. and people have prayed, for a miracle. rain is forecast for tomorrow and a few days after and i still hope it will give them the last of the relief they need to get this fire out.