millie is 2

a few weeks ago, this grade a cutie turned 2 and today we had a bunny party at the macqueens house to celebrate. she is seriously the most delicious child and i just love her little face.

i mean seriously. look at her!

jen made another epic cake, complete with raspberry highlights and rabbit ears

and as usual, we combined forces to make sure that the food was plentiful and delicious

smiles like this make it 100% worth it

our friend chloe did the flowers and it all looked amazing 

happy birthday miss amelia! ❤

 

temple thursday

thank goodness for nannaleah. i managed to slide in to do one last temple session this morning before our temple has an extended closure until after christmas. no matter how hard it is to get there, i always feel better for having been. i always race in with just minutes to spare, but somehow always make it. 

i am grateful today - and always, that we have a temple within our reach. i feel for those who are able to visit only once in their life, or never have the opportunity. it always makes me think back to one of my favourite ever talks by thomas s monson, about a family who worked their entire life to get there.  

"May I share with you the account of Tihi and Tararaina Mou Tham and their 10 children. The entire family except for one daughter joined the Church in the early 1960s, when missionaries came to their island, located about 160 km south of Tahiti. Soon they began to desire the blessings of an eternal family sealing in the temple.
At that time the nearest temple to the Mou Tham family was the Hamilton New Zealand Temple, more than 4000 km to the southwest, accessible only by expensive airplane travel. The large Mou Tham family, which eked out a meager living on a small plantation, had no money for airplane fare, nor was there any opportunity for employment on their Pacific island. So Brother Mou Tham and his son Gérard made the difficult decision to travel 4800 km to work in New Caledonia, where another son was already employed.
The three Mou Tham men labored for four years. Brother Mou Tham alone returned home only once during that time, for the marriage of a daughter.
After four years, Brother Mou Tham and his sons had saved enough money to take the family to the New Zealand Temple. All who were members went except for one daughter, who was expecting a baby. They were sealed for time and eternity, an indescribable and joyful experience.
Brother Mou Tham returned from the temple directly to New Caledonia, where he worked for two more years to pay for the passage of the one daughter who had not been at the temple with them—a married daughter and her child and husband.
In their later years Brother and Sister Mou Tham desired to serve in the temple. By that time the Papeete Tahiti Temple had been constructed and dedicated, and they served four missions there.
My brothers and sisters, temples are more than stone and mortar. They are filled with faith and fasting. They are built of trials and testimonies. They are sanctified by sacrifice and service."

a small video has been made by the church about this talk and is available on you tube and i cry every single time i watch it. how spoiled i feel to be so close to a temple. i hope to never take it for granted and to be able to attend regularly as time goes by. the months when the temple was closed during the peak of the covid-19 pandemic were so disappointing to me and i am so glad it's open and i can attend again.

 

alexander james is three!

somehow this adorable little minion made it to three years old and i am so proud of myself. my kids are now collectively 20 years old - and i feel 20 years older than i actually am as a result hahaha. alex had the best time at nanna and grandads for his party and was actually dead on his feet by the end and fell asleep fully dressed on the couch.

today he was super excited to open more presents, especially because they were wrapped in minion paper of course. highlight present for him was his new backpack - a minion one from smiggle and minion lego.

he has been my most difficult child by far, but i wouldn't change it... cause amongst the bad there is always good. even with the fact i've barely slept for 3 years, he loves to kiss me on the face 24/7 and cuddle, well force, his way into my personal space and just be 3cm from me at all times. but. i guess that means he loves me so i'll take it. i love his little face, the weird things he says, the way he loves to be with joseph even though he barely tolerates him, the way he constantly hands me things that aren't lost and says oh here's your xxxx mummy. i love that he still wants me, cause joseph sure as heck doesn't. 

i think i'll keep him. happy birthday little mate. welcome to your threenage years.

alex's farm party

sometimes things just work out and we had the stars align perfectly to be able to give alexander the best third birthday. our house is currently a mess with the ensuite reno in full swing (which extended out to the theatre due to the water damage) so a party at our house was out of the question. but somehow we made it work.

mum and dad have been building a bonfire at their house for quite some time - and i had this great idea to light it up for alex's birthday, we could invite a few friends out to clackline... but then the fire restrictions got in the way, because the date we wanted was outside of the free burning period. the amount of boxes that had to be ticked before we could make it happen was ridiculous so we put that idea to bed.

until jen got a message from the shire of northam saying that the unrestricted burn period had been extended by 2 weeks because of how wet this season has been. wheeeeeeeee. game on! with just a few days notice, we called everyone and got it organised.

everyone turned up, and it was seriously the best party. mums only condition was that people bring something to share for dinner, which worked perfectly. we provided the fun party food and everyone else shared dinner.

alex was thrilled with the cute gifts he git. he was spoiled and loved and loved every minute of it.

my brother isaac brought his quad bike and took the kids for train rides in the hand made carriages and they loved every minute. best party entertainment out!

i even got to have a turn driving (then stalled it in the paddock but shhhh)

fun times fun times.

i even managed to pull off another decent cake which we drove up there. this time i did banana and it was so yum. it worked perfectly to be made into a stack cake.

and as you can see, once the minions were on, alex was so so so happy. he couldn't stop looking at it and smiling.

cutest almost 3 year old i know!

banana cake

ingredients:

125g butter

1 cup white sugar

3 ripe bananas

1 tsp vanilla essence

1/2 tsp baking soda

2 tbsp milk

1 1/2 cup self raising flour

2 eggs

directions:

preheat oven to 180 deg celcius

cream butter and sugar

add eggs and mix well

add mashed bananas and vanilla essence

mix baking soda and milk, then add to main mixture

add sifted flour

pour into lined cake tin and bake for 45 minutes

ice with cream cheese icing

icing: 

2 tbls softened butter

55g softened cream cheese 

dash vanilla essence

1 cup icing sugar

by the time we had finished dinner and then cake, it was time to light the fire and in true goodlet style up she went! i love a good bonfire and this one was no exception. there's something so magical about watching the flames.

we even had special cookies from aunty jenny, shaped like minions for all our guests to enjoy.

so cute. i have the best best friend.

so lucky that things worked out the way they did. we had the best time and most importantly, alex loved it. farm parties for the win!

tooth fairy fail

what do you do when you're daughter arrives home waving the tooth she just lost in the air, it's late and you have no coins whatsoever in the house? you wing it. i 100% stole this idea from a friend who did the same last week. in fact - i even had her text this to me and then changed her name to the tooth fairy in my phone. joke was on me when she called the next day and joseph yells- why is the tooth fairy calling you?! awkward. hahaha. but it worked - and the coin arrived the next day. phew. thank goodness for friends with dodgy amazing parenting ideas. 😂 follow us for more tips! 

starlight festival of dance: october 2021

what a week. dance comps are done and dusted, as we rounded out today with dance number six! this time was a little bit different for us, as madeline entered the lyrical solo category for the first time, as well as entering duos with her bestie madison.

first up was her lyrical solo, to an acoustic version of waves by dean lewis she danced beautifully but i could tell she was nervous and she wasn't thrilled when she didn't place... saying that, there was 21 dancers in that category and that was after it had been split into two! wowsers. with more practice and working on her technique and routine, i have no doubt that she will get there. these things take time and a lot of these girls have been dancing since they were in nappies!

lyrical duo with madison was number two off the ranks. they did a beautiful job also, but were against some very strong competition and definitely need more experience here too.

i loved watching them on stage together though, they work so well with each other and it was an absolute joy to watch. they danced to lonely by violet skies.

we had a full afternoon on saturday with her three troupes who did really well. first up was their contemporary troupe, it's a new routine for them to take it to the heart by odette that they started just recently and they performed it so well. despite them being the only entry in their category, they were awarded a well deserved first place. 

i love this girl gang!

and this girl was proud as punch to have her turn with the first place trophy.

second up was their lyrical troupe, doing their dance to here comes the sun by syml for the last time. it was lovely and earned them third place.

same little girl gang - just as cool in a different outfit.

having her turn with the trophy

we rounded out the day with her jazz troupe, performing to the medley of umbrella/singing in the rain from glee. with no further comments necessary, it made me very grateful that madeline's dance school is big on age appropriate moves and music. 

this dance is super cute and it certainly helps that singing in the rain is one of my all time favourite movies.

they took home an honourable mention for their dance. 

today was the best of the days though, it was finally time for madeline and madisons dance that they made up themselves in the own choreography category. they had the time of their lives making it up together and are so ridiculously cute when they do it. they just look so happy and carefree, the exact way dancing your own dance should be.

i love these girls. the dance is done to problem (the monster remix) by becky g and they decided to be monsters, complete with dark eyes, tattoo necklaces and black lipstick, so in reality they were me and my friends at our year 12 school socials hahaha.

i especially loved the hair which we sprayed green once their spikes were in place. it really set it off.

they were great on stage, it was the first time they had really smiled and looked happy in all their dances throughout comps. the girls they were against (in my opinion only) didn't have as good a dance but were very polished and perfected, earning them first place and gave our girls second. they were still happy with that - and there's time to go off and perfect their routine. 

so on our last day, she got the trophy she was after and went home happy. i'm so proud of our girl, 6 dances over 4 days and still smiling and raring to go.

we love you our tiny dancer!

 

golden gaytime truffles

sometimes i don't reaaaally read through recipes very well and mess things up. this was one of those times when i started making these golden gaytime truffles two hours before i needed to take them somewhere, only to find out they need to set for aggggges. oops. but i made it work. lots of improvisation (and time in the freezer) and they came out okay. in fact, they came out delicious, they just weren't perfect. next time. 

i made them to take for table treats at madeline's dancing showcase a few weeks ago, and they got great reviews, especially from doug who was very specific with his instructions that the leftovers were not for sharing hahaha. so i'm adding this recipe to the repertoire.

golden gaytime truffles (from taste.com.au)

ingredients:

360g chopped white chocolate

90g chopped caramilk chocolate

1/3 cup thickened cream

1 chopped golden gaytime icecream

1/4 cup malted milk drink powder

200g malt biscuits

400g chopped dark chocolate

1. place white and caramilk chocolate in a heatproof bowl

2. place cream and icecream in saucepan over medium high heat. heat, stirring until the mixture just comes to the boil. remove and add one tablespoon of the malt powder and stir until smooth.

3. pour the cream mixture over the chocolate in the bowl and stir until mixture is smooth and combined. ( i found i had to put mine in the microwave to get it completely smooth as it wasn't hot enough anymore to simply stir it.) place in the fridge for 1.5 - 2 hours until just firm

4. line a tray with baking paper and roll 2 teaspoonfuls of mixture into a ball and place on tray. repeat until all mixture has been used. place in the fridge for around an hour, until firm.

5. in the meantime, process biscuits in a food processor until fine crumbs form. place in a bowl and add remaining malt powder.

6. melt dark chocolate in the microwave and stir until smooth.

7. line a tray with baking paper. working in batches (keeping remaining truffles cold), use a fork to dip the truffles one at a time in the chocolate to coat, then roll in the crumb  mixture. place in the fridge for 15 minutes to set.