mega barn with cara

number one on cara's perth to do list was the opshop mega barn in canning vale (33 bannister road canning vale m-s 10-4 for those of you playing along at home)



we had an excellent time bargain hunting together. although it can be quite overwhelming sorting through giant bins, i personally think it is the best value for money, as clothing is sold by the kg and ends up being between 65c-$1 per piece on average.

today was probably the best haul i've had, including some good brands (zara, seed, origami, laura ashley & pumpkin patch) and even some things for doug so i was well pleased with my day.

pay the mega barn a visit one day, if you're willing to dig, i promise you won't be disappointed. ♥

pindred spirits: part two

many moons ago, i got busy pinning on pinterest and noticed i kept pinning the pins of someone going by the name cbks. i thought it was another friend who often goes by her initials (which to be fair are quite similar) and kept pinning only to find out from dougs sister dominique that it was a friend of hers from back in queensland!

after years of pinning, cara and i
eventually became facebook friends at dominiques suggestion
discovered more things we had in common
tried to meet up when i was in qld two years ago, which didn't end up happening.
but we kept hoping the day would come.

it did. cara had planned a trip to perth to surprise her mum for her birthday, then realised she had completely gotten her booking wrong and was coming two days earlier than she thought, so had time days to kill! i was only too happy to help with that and when she arrived last night, there was no awkwardness, so lulls in conversation, just plenty of fun like we had always been friends.

tonight we went to the temple together and cemented our friendship with our love for the gospel. what better friends to have, than those you can keep for eternity?

hooray for "pindred" spirits! ♥

another baby mcilwaine blessing

my beautiful friend alexandra and her husband mike blessed baby number 3 today. what a joy it is to have close friends in the gospel and to share things like this with them

baby michael william (the third) arrived just two weeks ago and he is such a cutie! fits in perfectly to their little family... all so genetically blessed. it's so easy to take photos of them.

proud big sisters myra and evie

and three generations of michael williams in one shot. ♥

alex and her baby boy

so blessed to have this girl in my life!

looking just as young and in love as they did when they got married. i love you guys! ♥

girls opshop day 2.0

another girls opshop day advertised on facebook to my friends, found just two of us hitting up the salvation army church opshop in morley. that was cool with us! my friend is new to this - and left so thrilled with her bargains and looking forward to our next day out.

finds of the day:
white 2 tiered plate - $3
2 italian made girls dresses - $1 each
all of the animal cookie cutters - $1
a beanie boo!!! (madeline was thrilled to pieces!) - $1
annnnd joseph managed to find lightning mcqueen boxers and another lightning toy car for 50c each

seriously. who wouldn't opshop?!

ward fathers day gift

every year the mothers in our ward get a present for mothers day... and the fathers look on. this year i broke the mould and made something for the fathers too. something really simple, that i found on pinterest and modified to suit: many & many thanks m&m packets! ta-dah!

they were perfect. small and cute and made the dads feel like they had been remembered.

_______________________________________________

(here's the template if you want to print, print on piece of 4x6" photo paper and select do not crop, then cut to size. staple to a bag of fun size m&ms.

a day for dads

it's fathers day! so here is a photo of my dad. he is amazing and no matter if i typed 16 pages worth of text, i couldn't tell you half the reasons why, so just know he is great.

this guy is pretty great too! every six years his birthday falls on father's day and today was that one in six. he assisted me in making these kids and is a great dad to them both. i love hearing them laugh uncontrollably because he is being silly about something... it's the best.

we love you doug. happy fathers birthday to you! ♥

when life gives you lemons - relief society activity

we had an excellent additional relief society meeting this evening at the chapel, "when life gives you lemons." i've done it before when i was in the relief society presidency in our old ward years ago, we had such good feedback about it and i enjoyed it so much, that i decided to do it again!

i have always been someone who gets super excited when someone offers me lemons. like i jump at the chance to take them. lemonade, lemon cake, lemon and honey... lemons excite me. so when i was browsing pinterest and saw the idea of making it into an evening with the relief society, i thought hey why not?!

we invited the sisters in our ward along to the activity in which the would be educated about the benefits of lemons. we had four people assigned to give a short presentation on the evening about:

-lemons for health

-lemons in cooking

-lemons in the home

-what to do when life gives you lemons (the power of positive thinking)

we had lemonade, lemon infused water and lemon herbal tea bags on offer for afterwards

and had invited the sisters to bring a lemon flavoured (or not) treat to share. so much lemon, i loved it!

we had a good time decorating too, and one of the sneaky girls that was helping did this. i lost it laughing every time i looked!

decorations were simple, reused the honeycomb "pineapples" from madeline's birthday last year, but added a leaf this time instead of a crown...

lots of yellow! yellow paper chains, streamers, tablecloth, flowers...

and these adorable candles, which we gave as a gift to those who had presented on the evening.

best of all, we had two very generous ladies bring baskets of lemons to enable those attending the evening to take some home and put all the tips to good use.

it was such a fun night. i love seeing the end result and everything working out. makes it all worth the effort. ♥