A Mermaid Party

Mayana’s fourth birthday party was over a week ago now… with all the floods and everything that has happened since then it feels like a month ago! I’ve finally gotten time to write a post about her party… better late than never. Enjoy!

Pretty much since her third birthday Pancake Party, Mayana has been asking for her fourth birthday to be a Mermaid Party.

And so, after much pinterest research (what would we do without that wonderful website?) and creative thinking, we managed to do just that… we pulled off a Mermaid Party for Mayana’s fourth birthday.

I designed the invitations, asking people to dress up either as a mermaid or their favourite sea creature. Mayana was quite insistent that her friend Max had to be Prince Eric, but other than that people could be whatever they wanted to be.

I found an awesome tutorial for making a mermaid tail online, and Mayana chose a deep turquoise velvet, so that she could look like Ariel. I drew the line at colouring her hair though! (just a note if you’re looking at the tutorial – I used velvet instead of the stretchy sequinned fabric, and tulle – soooo cheap, and much easier to work with, no fraying!- instead of the organza)

My sister and I spent half an hour plaiting Mayana’s hair in tiny sections so that she would have super-wavy mermaid hair for the party instead.

We originally intended for the party to be outside, turning the trampoline into a giant sea anemone and setting up ball games and other things to keep sugar-hyped kids entertained. Unfortunately the great rains started on Friday, so we had to change tactics. We cleared the furniture in our dining/family room area and set up the party there… food at one end and a mat at the other for sitting on to eat, play games and open presents. I had made a huge… I don’t know what you would call it.. banner maybe? decoration out of tulle and ribbon, and bought three paper lanterns to hang above the table.

The morning of the party we were very busy, finishing off the decorating, the food and dressing up our beautiful mermaid… Before we knew it Mayana’s friends were arriving!

I had planned a game of pass the parcel, and other than that the games turned out to happen organically – a round of musical statues, and then an impromptu dance party. Mayana has a thing for dance parties at the moment, and most of her friends were keen enough to join in eventually!

The cake was a Lady Flo butter cake, with buttercream icing and white chocolate decorations, topped with a mermaid Lala-Loopsy. I couldn’t quite get my head around a mermaid cake, and thought this was a pretty good alternative.

I had gone all out with the food… while there was nothing especially fancy, we had gotten very imaginative with the names, and everything had an under-the-sea theme, complete with a little mermaid label describing what it was.

We had chocolate fish, and the tiny coloured biscuits I’d made along with some multi-coloured jube lollies became ‘mermaid treasures’. Drumstick biscuits were ‘shark bait’ and carrot sticks in tatziki dip became ‘crablegs with seaweed dip’ (these were a huge hit actually, the kids and adults both loved them… I liked the idea of individual serves, because kids are notorious for double dipping!)

Triangles of cheese were ‘shark teeth’ and a bowl of potato chips were ‘sand dollars’. I’d made colourful rainbow fruit kebabs and named them ‘fruits of the sea’.

I think for novelty value, the ‘octopus in a blanket’ were probably the biggest hit. They were a cheerio/small frankfurt sausage cut into 8 legs, with the head wrapped in puff pastry then baked. As they cooked the legs separated and splayed out, turning them into octopuses! More simple were the ‘fish egg’ jelly beans.

I usually over cater and have heaps of food left over, but someone this time I did well. At most there were only a few things left.. everyone was satisfied and we weren’t eating sea-food for the rest of the weekend!

For drinks, I poured a bottle of lemonade into my funky new punch bowl, and added a few drops of blue food colouring. I had been making up the ‘goldfish’ all week, by freezing orange juice onto a fish mould I had bought from Ikea for 99c. It looked very effective, and the kids loved drinking it out of the cute little milk bottles (purchased from The Big Little Company for last year’s party) with the paper straws that I picked up from Typo!

All of the kids and some of the adults dressed up. We had a handful of  mermaids, some sharks, a crocodile.. a Poseidon (Greek God of the Sea) and a Neptune.. it was lovely and Mayana appreciated it so much!

Mermaid Mayana and her Prince Eric!

Peter and I loved putting on this party for our girl, it was so worth it to see her big smile and watching her have fun with all her favourite people.

Another year’s over…

Is it just me, or did 2012 seem to fly by?

And here we are… already a week into 2013. That’s the first time I’ve written that.

2012 was a good year for us. The year of Reuben. Our life changed again… Pete became the worker, I was back at home, and now with two kids instead of one! We moved house again. We became more involved in our church and cemented some really fantastic friendships in this town we live in. I feel happy with how 2012 has gone. We have grown and been stretched and overcome the difficult patches. I’m happy. We’re happy. We like where we live (despite the rough patch that got us here) and how we’re living, we love our friends and family, we adore our two kids and each other. Life is good.

I’ve been thinking about my goals for this year. My goals – our goals. It’s soooo clichéd to do New Year’s Resolutions, but I do like the beginning of a new year, and after all the hustle and bustle of the wind of of a year, it makes sense to reflect on how life has been and make some choices about how things could be different.

I think this year, I’m more going for some overall philosophies in my New Years ‘Resolutions’. Lifestyle changes… or even tweaks… that I hope will help send me and our family in the direction that we want to go.

I’ve noticed a growing trend for bloggers is to choose a ‘word’ for the year, that will be their focus… like maybe trust or choice or courage or expect. You know me though, I talk way too much and one word…. will it just wasn’t gonna cut it for me. I’ve decided to choose a scripture instead. You can’t get a more powerful word than one straight from the Word of God! So, my overall theme for 2013 is this:

Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord {Colossians 3:23}

I think that just about covers it. I can apply this scripture to any and every area of my life. It’s not an easy one, that’s for sure. It’s going to require lots of attitude checking, I can already tell. If I was doing my housewifely duties for the Lord, I probably wouldn’t be calling my husband a nasty-so-and-so under my breath for forgetting to take out the garbage again and leaving the lids off the vegemite and butter for the eleventy-billionth time that week. If I was parenting for the Lord, I would be speaking with a heck of a lot of love and patience and grace in my tone. So this is my ‘Word’ for the year… whatever I do, I will do with all my heart – no half-heartedness here folks! – and with an attitude that would be pleasing to the Lord. Thankfully God has grace in abundance, because I know I’m going to fail at this daily, but hopefully I will learn something along the way!

I’ve also been reflecting on five key areas of my/our lives that I would like for us to work on.

1. Spiritual

Man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord {Deuteronomy 8:3}

A pretty important little sentence there – especially when you consider that Jesus himself quotes it over in Matthew when Satan is taunting him in the wilderness.

This year I want to devote myself to spending more time with God. Whether it’s reading the Bible, listening to teaching podcasts, reading books that teach me more about Him… I want to rekindle the fire, and build my relationship with Him.

2. Marriage

We will celebrate our 8th wedding anniversary this year! I love my husband very much, and love parenting and doing life with him. Life however seems to develop a busyness that can leave relationships by the wayside. We have days where we realise we’ve spent maybe ten minutes actually talking to each other… between Pete’s working, parenting, running the household and having some down-time, the days seem so full that we’re scratching to find space for quality time together. We need to do that, SO much. I would love for us to go back to our ‘date nights’ that we did for the first few years of our marriage, where we would have a date on the 10th of every month (we were married on the 10th). Nothing fancy – we were super-poor uni students back then and sometimes a date was just a picnic on the lounge room floor –but it was scheduled, quality one-on-one us time, and just what we’re needing right now.

On this topic, and I guess to also tie in with my first point, I’m reminded of this scripture:

Though one may be overpowered,
two can defend themselves.
A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. {Ecclesiastes 4:12}

God is so much a part of our marriage. I don’t want to be at risk of leaving Him by the wayside either. Pete and I need to involve Him more in us.

3. Parenting

Of course this is a big one. My kids are my world. I see them as the ‘talents’ God has given me, and when it gets to the part where God looks at what I have done with what He has given me, I want to hear Him say, “Well done good and faithful servant!” When I think of parenting, the verse from Proverbs-

Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it {Proverbs 22:6}

is often in the forefront of my mind. I want to show my kids how to love, and be patient and kind and gentle, show grace, and to be in relationship with God. I need daily to remember that

a gentle answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger
{Proverbs 15:1}

I need to remember that my children learn their cues and reactions from me. Scary though some days! I have so much to learn.

4. Health

I remember learning this scripture in my Sunday school days:

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you…. Therefore honour God with your bodies. {1 Corinthians 6:19-20}

I’ve made (probably half-hearted) resolutions before about losing weight and getting fitter…This year, I just want to commit to being healthy. I want to learn the right things to put into my body, and eliminate things that are hurting me. I want to exercise, and build my fitness to make my body stronger and healthier. I want to be able to run around and play with my kids. If I can stick to this, losing weight and gaining fitness will be a bonus, but I don’t want to make that my goal and turn this into a dieting thing, I just want my body to be healthy, and I want to feel good and know that I’m looking after it.

5. Stewardship

I guess this is the one that is overarching all my previous four. We live such a blessed life… we are blessed with each other, with a beautiful home to live in, health, family, relationships, jobs, finances, possessions… I want to be a good steward of what I have been given. Again like in the parable of the talents that I quoted above – I want to be good and faithful with what God has given me. All of it.

Like I said, not so much resolutions this year as I guess a new philosophy. Maybe not even new, but this year it’s intentional. I want to learn this year, and grow as a person. I’m so excited about what this year holds!

Are you getting all reflective this New Year too?

home sweet home

Tonight will mark one week since we moved into our new home.

We are feeling settled here already, and I think every night so far Peter and I have looked at each other and said I love our new house! We really do. It suits us very well. As much as we have loved living in our Queenslanders, there is something wonderful about being the first ever people to be living in this brand new house!

I feel as though things will be easier here. It’s the little things, like the fact that the laundry is inside my home. I can easily pop on a load of washing on the way to the kitchen in the morning – and I don’t have to duck downstairs leaving a screaming baby or balancing him on one hip and an overloaded basket on the other. Because the laundry is inside, Mayana can help me with putting clothes in their proper washing baskets, and collecting her folded laundry to put away.  Plus there is a living area right in front of the kitchen bench… the perfect spot for Reuben’s play gym and a few toys, where he can see me when I’m in the kitchen. It’s so much easier to get things done! The kid’s playroom is right near the living space, not right down the other end of the house, and the TV is in its own loungeroom, which we don’t go into until later in the day, and Mayana is watching far less ABC2 without the TV right there nagging her. It’s all just so convenient.

We are pretty close to being unpacked, and when we are I’ll give you a proper tour of things.

I just want to segue momentarily and just say what an amazing experience it was moving with the help of our church family. Our lovely friends (and Reuben’s Godparents) Brad & Petrina had done a few loads for us with their trailer through the week, and I had done my best to get as much else organised at the old place as I could while still living with my two small children. Saturday morning, we had just finished breakfast and were pottering around organising things when the hoards descended. I think we ended up with three trailers and a ute, and more helping hands than I could count. In less than three hours, the house was completely emptied, and our amazing friends had even started in on the cleaning. Meanwhile at our new place, more friends (including some very capable and wonderful young teens) had been taking care of our children. One of these lovely young ladies even stayed with us for the entire afternoon to entertain the kids while we got some essentials unpacked. Later that evening, her Mama came to our house, set our table ever-so-beautifully, and provided us with the most delicious meal (um, peanut butter chocolate brownies with salted caramel ice-cream anyone?) We had other friends come in with cold drinks (oh how we needed those) and delicious food throughout the day. Pete had help doing the yard clean up at the other place this week, and one of our friends even came to do mowing and a dump-run while Pete was back at work! I cannot even say how completely and utterly blessed and honoured and blown away I felt by people’s willingness to just help us and bless us. I love being a part of this group of people!!

So. Things are going well at this new home of ours. The children have adjusted seamlessly – I think our decision to completely set up their room the day we moved in has helped with that. While this house has more bedrooms and two living spaces, in square meterage it is smaller, which has meant we have to downsize some of the stuff we own. I’m quite happy about this, and am looking forward to holding a garage sale (hopefully next weekend) and getting some of our excess and unnecessary bits and pieces off our hands.

In the meantime, I’m enjoying making this lovely, brand new house into our home sweet home and can’t wait to show it off to you!

{Point + Shoot} A Crazy Weekend

This weekend we had a baby shower to go to. In Brisbane. Which is about 4.5 hours from where we live. Quite ambitious for a little family with a four week old baby, no?

We stopped for a sleepover at my parent’s (about half way) on Friday night, then hit the road again in the morning. The baby shower was for our very good friend Katherine, who is expecting her and Daniel’s first baby in about four weeks. We are very excited, and it was well worth the big weekend!

I got creative with wrapping my baby shower present.. and used a blanket! No one knows whether the baby is a boy or a girl (Mayana has put in her bet for a girl), so I used blue and pink ribbon.

Daniel & Katherine are Mayana’s Godparents, and she loves seeing them. We had a lovely afternoon and evening with them, and ate delicious Indian food.

Katherine’s 36 week bump is looking gorgeous! Next time we are all together we will have three children between us!

On Sunday morning we headed to church with my family, three of whom were on the worship team. My little bro Jordan did a fabulous job at leading, Alexie debuted with her ukulele (which we all chipped in for as her birthday gift), and Papa was on bass. It was a great service.

After church we had a lunch date with friends in beautiful Kenilworth, and my husband treated me to this delicious pumpkin cheesecake. I’m officially on the hunt for a recipe, because it was a.maz.ing. Seriously.

And then it was home again! We are laying low today, recovering from our big weekend. And looking forward to a quiet one next week!

I’m playing along with the lovely Lou for Point + Shoot… you should too!!

You should enter…

My very good friend from high-school days, Peter Wilson, is putting on a show. He’s a very funny man, and an incredible mime artist, and I promise you his show is going to be fantastic! He’s doing a one-man show, aptly named ONE, of which he is the star. It’s running between the 11th-21st of March, at the Lind Lane Theatre in Nambour, and tickets are only $15!!

But even better, another friend, Talia, is running an awesome give-away over at her blog, Life’s Visual Journal. Peter has given her TWO tickets to give away to one very lucky reader!!! All you have to do is leave a comment on her post.

Even if you don’t win, $15 is a great bargain for a night of quality theatre and a good laugh. Details of the show are as follows:

Where: Lind Lane Theatre, Mitchell St, Nambour, QLD
Dates: 11th, 12th, 13th, 17th 18th, 19th, 20th March @ 7:30pm
Matinées: 14th, 20th & 21st @ 2pm
BYO alcohol (soft-drinks, tea & coffee available)
Bookings open on 22nd of Feb on: 5441 1814

So go on…. enter!

Being all industrious and what-not

I have been inspired by my friend Hannah. Hannah blogs over at A Mother’s Creations – (you should check her out, her daughters are gorgeous and her photography is beautiful). Anyway… as I was saying she has inspired me to make my own laundry detergent. Chemical free, good for the environment AND good for my budget :)

Last year, just after Mayana was born, we bought this massive bulk pack of laundry powder, on this massive clearance for about $18.00, because the corner of the box was all smashed in. Cos that really affected the laundry powder (which was inside the box sealed in plastic vacuum pack)…. but anyway. We’ve just run out. We did well eh? So for the first time in about a year, we’re fresh out of laundry detergent. Unfortunately there are no damaged massive boxes on clearance anywhere I’ve looked. And then I was talking to Hannah about how she makes her own, so I decided to give it a go.

You have two options when you make your own laundry detergent. You can make a liquid, or a powder. Hannah makes the liquid. You make this massive 10L bucket of awesome goop, and use about half a cup in each load. I decided to go with the powder. Mainly because I don’t have a big bucket, and also because it has less steps and seemed easier. We’ll see how this one goes, and maybe next time I’ll make the liquid, maybe I won’t.

And because I know you’ll all be wondering – yes you can use either the liquid OR the powder in both front and top loaders. It’s totally low-suddsing (is that a word?). You just use about half as much in a front loader than you would in a top loader. I have a front loader, in case that matters.

So here we go: my first ever tutorial:

HOW TO MAKE YOUR OWN LAUNDRY POWDER

You will need:

Sunlight Soap ($2.95 for a box of four)
Lectric washing soda ($4.06 for a 1kg bag)
Borax ($6.00 for a container)

Here’s what you do:

Grate one bar of Sunlight Soap.

To the grated soap, add the following:

* 1 cup washing soda

* 1/2 cup borax

 

 

Whizz together in a food processor until you get a washing powder consistency. Apparently you can do this by just stirring it with a spoon or whatever, but this just seemed quicker and easier to me.

 

 

And then you’re done!

I’m storing mine in an old formula tin. A double batch would fill it perfectly, but I’ve just done a single one for now, until we know we’re happy with it. You need to use 1 tablespoon for each wash. The scoop that comes with our formula is around 1/2 a tablespoon, so that makes it super easy for me.

And voila!

How easy is that?

And super cheap. I’ll be able to make at LEAST another three batches out of what I bought, and each batch should last a good while I’d think.

I will update you on how it all goes, and how long it lasts for etc. Meantime… anyone else done this before? Hints? Tips? Tricks? Please share :)

So this is what a social life feels like…

In the last week we have really enjoyed catching up with friends… actually being invited out for dinners and just to hang out. I’m definitely a fan.

Last week we had Friday, Saturday, Sunday & Monday nights out, and Friday just gone too! Mayana-Berry has coped better than is to be expected, she goes to sleep pretty much anywhere we go so long as she can have a dark and reasonably quite place to sleep in. It’s definitely handy.

Most of all we have enjoyed being with people. A lot.

Hopefully 2010 is the year we stop being loners. Ha.

new generation

Sunday saw us attending the 1st birthday party of the daughter of one of my best school friends.

Also there was another of our schoolmates and her 6 month old son.

It was kinda cool, the three of us, from the same year at school, with our three little ones born in the same year. And they had just as much fun meeting and playing together as we did catching up!

Nick  & Willow, Me and Mayana, Danielle & Callum