Boo's quote of the day...

There was silence in the car today as we were driving home from our Maternal Health Nurse appointment.

Obviously the silence prompted Boo's mind to start ticking over.

Of all things that a nearly 3 year old could be thinking of... This came out of her mouth.

Boo: "Mum........ (insert long pause)"

Me: "Yes Boo"

Boo: "Acey is strange"

I'm sure over the years she will call her brother many names... but at nearly 3 years of age, I didnt think strange would be one of them!

I love Boo. Listening to her all day is the most entertained I have ever been in my 28 years. Her thoughts, quotes, ideas. They are wonderful.

Oh and by the way, he isnt strange at all LOL.

xx

Get ready... Im putting on my ranty pants on!

I don't often have a rant on here. Dad'n usually cops the brunt of it and then I seem to move on.

However... for some reason, this issue here seems to have reved me up a little more than I like and what better way to get some relief than share it with the world ;)

What is this issue your thinking?

Well.

At what point are you seen to be "wasting" an estate agents time?

We have been dealing with a real estate agent that had a block of land we were very interested in. We were very close to making an offer on this block but at the end of the day decided it wasn't the block for us.

As a lovely and helpful real estate agent... he continued calling each week, offering alternative addresses to look at, expressing which vendor's NEED to sell. I have actually not made any phone calls but the initial enquiry on the first block of land. He has been doing all the chasing!

Moving on.

Over the weekend, an established property caught our eye. To our surprise, it was our original agent that had the listing. I was actually really pleased as he was so lovely, I knew he would help us with any enquiries we had on the property.

Wasn't I wrong there.

I explained to him that although we were originally looking to buy land... maybe this property would be ideal and then we wouldn't have to go through the building process... That it couldn't hurt to look right?

He was less than helpful. He was cold. I felt like I was putting him out even mentioning it to him. He was negative. He was presumptuous in some of the things he said. He annoyed me. A LOT!

Where had my lovely, friendly and helpful estate agent gone?

Then it came to me. Did he feel we were wasting his time?

Yes, he had been putting a lot of effort in with us. Offering us lots of blocks of land that were on the market. We didn't like any. That's not our fault. And then I did a 180 degree turn and asked about an established home.

But really, how dare we explore our options!

So now I have a bitter taste in my mouth regarding that beautiful home all due to one grumpy phone call. Yes, I can be high maintenance sometimes but really... If its our so many hundreds of thousands of dollars we are spending, I really don't appreciate getting the vibe that I am putting someone out.

*un-buttons ranty pants and chucks them in the corner*

Ahhhh that feels better :)

Cookie cutter kinda day.

Boo decided that she wanted to use cookie cutters today! Filled in our morning fabulously.

A simple, not to sweet, plain biscuit recipe that was just perfect for us to cookie cut the morning away.

Ingredients:

250g butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
3 cups of plain flour
1 tsp baking powder

Cream your butter and sugar

Add eggs in one at a time and mix between each egg

Add flour and baking powder

Mix well and then turn dough mixture out on to some glad wrap

Wrap it up and pop it in the fridge until nice and firm

Roll it out and start cutting your cookies

Bake cookies at 180c until golden brown (approx 10 minutes)

Spend afternoon keeping the toddler away from the biscuit tin!

I showed those water marks and stains who's boss!

With little kids and forever leaking sippy cups... you are bound to get water marks / stains in your car.

We had a heap of ugly marks on our grey upholstery in our car.

There is also heaps on the micro suede couch... I haven't attacked them yet, but is on this weeks "to do"list. Hopefully it will clean them up too!

I found an easy tip to get rid of them. To tell you the truth I didn't think it would work so I didn't bother to take before and after pictures but now I kind of wish I did.

All I used... glass cleaner. You know your "Windex" or similar type sprays... I think mine was the Aldi version. Bless Aldi ;)

All you do... Spray over the whole area (in my case, the whole seat) until it looks completely wet. Leave it for a few minutes, blot dry with paper towel. Then you let it dry naturally. As it dried... the water marks disappeared!

Fabulous. Saved myself some $$$ as I was about to book it in at one of those car cleaner places and god knows how much they would have charged me!

xx

Apple slice.

I had some apples that weren't getting eaten in a hurry so decided to use them up in something scrummy. Scrummy is definitely what it was!

Apple Slice

This recipe is using a Thermomix, but could easily be adapted without one.

- Preheat your oven to 180degrees
- Grease and line your baking / slice tin

Apple filling

6 x apples (They always say use Granny Smith when cooking, I just used what I had...)
1/2 cup of water
2 Tbs of sugar
1 Tbs of cinnamon

- Peel and slice apples into chunks, add them into your bowl with the water, sugar and cinnamon.
- Cook for 10 mins / 100 degrees / reverse Speed 1 or until your apples are nice and soft.
- Then just give them a quick blitz (4 seconds / speed 5) to chop them up ready for your slice
- Set aside

Slice
185g of butter
2 eggs
1 cup of castor sugar
1 cup of plain flour
1/2 cup of self raising flour

- Soften your butter ( 1 minute / 60 degrees / speed 1)
- Add castor sugar or blitz until combined
- Add eggs and blitz again
- Add the plain and self raising flour and combine it all to make a batter

- Pour half of your slice mixture into your tin

- Cover mixture with a layer of your apples

- Finish with the other half of your slice mixture to cover your apples

- Put it into the oven and bake for approx 45 minutes or until golden brown

- When its out of the oven, sprinkle with some sugar while its nice and hot

Serve warm with some custard or icecream. Its pretty devine.

When in a crisis... Always ask Google!

Today's crisis... My exfoliating scrub ran out!

You can add over exfoliating to my list of "OCD habits".

I . love . it

There is no better feeling that a nicely scrubbed face :) Well maybe there is...

How about we just add it to my "feel good" list? Right next to clean sheets, washed hair, painted toe nails, clean kitchens...

Lists lists lists. Mmmm. Love lists too!

Back to the story.

I'm all for natural alternatives for cleaning at home so figured why not google a DIY scrub to get me through until I can restock at the shops. I wanted something super simple. I didn't feeling life mixing up some huge elaborate scrub.

Sure it would have been lovely with some fragrances. Something nice and moisturizing. But somehow I don't think ABC2 was willing to babysit for that long this morning. I needed something with a couple of ingredients that I could use to get the job done.

 I found it! It was a huge success!

It was called a "blackhead clearing scrub".

1 x Tbs of granulated sugar
1 x Tbs of baking powder
2 x Tbs of water

Mix it up... Scrub away... Leave it on for a few minutes... Rinse.

It cost me $0 and actually felt better than what I pay $30+ on.

Will definitely be doing it again. Face feels FAB!

Moral to the story... No need to stress when your exfoliator runs out. Just ask Google :)

xx

The update on our move.

Our move.

Before my break, we had not long made our "sea change" and we were adjusting to our brand new life.

That was about four months ago now.

Am I still happy with our decision? Absolutely. It was the best decision ever.

Do I miss our old home and life? Sometimes.

It is easy to sit here and marvel at how awesome our new life is, because it is. But I also remember that I left a place a called home. It was home for a very long time and sometimes I just miss that feeling of everything being familiar.

Slowly, things here are feeling like home, but it is taking time.

Each visit back to our old home town is feeling better... I'm not getting so much of that feeling that I am saying good bye to an old friend each time I leave.

Really though, it is hard to compare the feeling of my whole life verses four months of our new start.

Each week, we continue to build our new life here.... and hopefully soon, our new home!

That's a whole other story that I'm excited to start filling you in about.

xx

Clear the cobwebs! I'm back....

It seems as though my blog got lost not long after we made our big move! Maybe I left my motivation in those last few boxes that I didnt bother to unpack ;)

Making my way back here was like saying hello to an old friend again! Im excited to start sharing again.

So what now? I need to clear the cobwebs... maybe I even need a new look? We will see, cant get to far ahead now.

Time to play catch up.

Stay tuned....

Don't you just love a satisfying Sunday...

Today is Sunday.

It has been a satisfying day!

I love it when Sundays are a good day. It makes it feel okay that the week is about to start again.

It was an early start, which I must admit I wasn't too impressed with. Ace decided he wanted to start his Sunday at 4.30am. Hmmmm. Bit early! The rest of the day has just been lazy. But it hasn't been the lazy type that you get grumpy that you have wasted a day...

It's been cloudy, and definitely not the warmest. We got fish and chips for lunch. Both babes had a lovely long afternoon nap soon after. I went back to bed and followed their lead. Dad'n got to enjoy watching some football and even managed to bake some muffins for us (our Dad'n is a bit awesome like that). I got woken up by the sound of super heavy rain on our tin roof. Afternoon coffee from my new coffee machine with a side of a Choc Muffin.

Babes now chilling out in the toy room and Dad'n and I milking our lazy day by relaxing on the couch... iPad attached to my lap ;)

Oh yeh!

Now to think about scooping up the the babes to put them in the car, and make our way over to my parents for a roast!

And that my friends... Is a satisfying Sunday in my little world!

Me and my BFF... The Universe.

I know... I know... I preach a lot about the Universe.

But seriously.... It is a good way to live!

Lately, I have just been receiving one confirmation after another. I obviously have taken the right path.

I  just put something out there, I send it to the universe, and I wait. Lately, it seems everything is returning back to me almost in a gift box with a bow and card saying "Here you go Steph, enjoy!'

I blogged about our move and over a month on can tell you... BEST MOVE EVER!!!!

And now I will be taking you on my next adventure that the universe has quite happily plopped in front of me over the past few days.

What is it you may ask? Well if you are a friend of mine on Facie you would already know by my flooding of your newsfeed ;)

I have always loved Photography. Always been a photo junky but never really thought much about it.
A few weeks ago, not even, I decided that I was going to learn how to use my camera properly (loved auto mode!!) but wanted to start taking some awesome photos! Not really thinking where this would take me... just really putting it out to see what would happen through social media. What do you know... I have been now been presented with several opportunities to persue it further!

My head just spins!

If you haven't already.... Do yourself a favour and read The Secret.

This is what I am thankful for today on this lovely Thankful Thursday. Linking up with KateSaysStuff!

Leaving you my favourite photo from my first newborn photo shoot. Oh Miss E, you are still making me cluck!

A thing called a Liebster Award!

I've received an awesome blog award! It's called the Liebster Award.

 

 

This award is given to blogs with under 200 followers who inspire others. It came from a lovely lady over at Delightfully Tacky Little Squirts.

 

There are a few rules for accepting the award:

• Copy and paste the award on your blog
• Link back to the blogger who gave you the award
• Pick your five favourite bloggers with under 200 followers who deserve to be recognised and leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have received the award
• Hope the five chosen bloggers will continue to spread the blog award love

I will happily accept this delightful award and share it with five worthy bloggers who I love to follow. Check them out:

 

Dianna @  Married with a Blog

Amy @ Amy Carries World

Renee @ Playing House

Stacey @ The Random Adventures of My Life

Tammy @ Mixing it in the Kitchen

 

Love sharing the love!

 

xx

 

 

Thankful thursday's "A picture is worth a 1000 words"

Joining in today with KateSaysStuff's "Thankful Thursday".

I was so excited with the prompt of "A picture is worth a 1000 words". Photo's just my favourite. I cant get enough of them. I am always lurking to capture a moment.

They truly can say 1000 words. They are my memories. <3

Picking some of my favourites was very hard though, there were SO many.

And one for a smile. Ï think this one can say more than a 1000 words. Probably not nice words though ;) Cheaky girl. Poor Ace. He is getting his own back as he ages though.

What are you thankful for today?

Time for Ace to have a bedroom

Anyone that knows me, knows I love a good nursery. As soon as I found out we pregnant with both of the babes, the nursery was almost the first topic of conversation.

In our "old" house, I can call it that now we are all settled here, we decorated Ace's room whilst he was still a belly babe. We painted the room, got the nursery furniture, but I never got to put the finishing touches to it. He was still sleeping in our room up until before we moved. I hadn't really got the idea of it being his room as he didn't live in there. It still needed fluffing.

Actually, now that I have just uploaded that picture, it does look finished but it wasn't, I promise, I still had plans.

So now that we have moved, Ace is in his own bedroom, and yes I'm still sobbing about it weeks later. His bedroom is a blank canvas. I would like to "finish" it. I cant go all out on this one as we are renting at the moment but I'm sure I'll be able to make it look good ;)

The room decorating begins.

I'll keep you updated as I make progress.

So far:

I have kept the lime green as my accessory colour, as I already had so much in the colour.

I found this adorable fabric at spotlight this week and have covered a frame. God I love staple guns. Oh and glue guns! Sorry, distracted much... So now I just have to hang that up.

Hopefully I will get back to spotlight later in the week to pick up some more projects to continue....

She will always be my baby girl.

Almond Biscuits

An extremely quick, simple and delicious recipe for some biscuits (from the Thermomix EDC book)

Ingredients











100g whole almonds (or any type of nut would be nice)
150g plain flour
100g sugar
130g room temperature butter
2 tbs vanilla essence

What to do:

1. Preheat your over to 180c.



2. Get your trays ready.



3. Blitz your almonds and sugar for about 30 seconds on speed 8



4. Add all the other ingredients (flour, butter, vanilla essence)


5. It says to only mix for 10 seconds on pulse but I had to do it for about 25 seconds as nothing was    mixed. Just be careful not to over do it.


6. You should end up with a crumb mix.


7. Roll it into small balls


8. Bake for approx 18 mins or until they go brown.


9. Wait until your mum and sister come over and then watch them eat them all!

A toilet training adventure... On the go.

After a very big month for Boo, her success in the toilet training department has been taking one back step after another. Understandably, her life has just been turned upside. So we relaxed things a little and went with the flow and have just decided to get back onto it now we are settled in our new home and life is starting to resemble something like normality.

Today was our first day back at playgroup since the move which means an hour each way. Yes, I know I could find one closer but I don't want to. I love our group. End of that discussion.

An hour drive does make an interesting trip whilst in such early days of the toilet training adventures, let me tell you!

After about ten minutes into our journey, Boo starts yelling "mummmmma... weeeeeeeeeeee".

So I pull the car over while screaming "hang on Boo, hang on, mumma will get you out, hang on!" If you have toilet trained before, you know how that plea goes.

There is Boo on the side of the road, pants around her ankles, sitting on her potty, me kneeling down next to her with gentle words of encouragement, it was peak hour so cars everywhere... Your getting the visual, I know you are.

There was no wee. It was a false alarm. That's okay though. I remained positive.

About 5km up the road, "mummaaaaaa weeeeeeee".

Yep, you know the drill, we did it all again, then again and then again.

So at this stage I was still positive, I knew I couldn't ignore her prompts, as the one I do, I'm sure she will wee.

On the fourth stop we had success. One wee and we had managed a total of approx 15kms in about half an hour.

Boo thought it was great. She screams wee, and then gets to get out of the car. Pretty fun.

After that I knew I needed to up the an tee and distract distract distract! A Wiggles CD did the trick, over and over again. LOUD. And I had to do the dances while driving too. Oh how I would have loved to have seen the look on the truck drivers face that I was driving behind.

Just another day. Oh Boo you make me laugh.

Another case of second child syndrome...

With Boo, introducing solids was such a scheduled thing in our house. I was SO cautious with the fear of her being allergic to something. I followed the correct age suggestions for each thing. Never a new food within three days of the previous new food.  We did well, I was a new mum finding my way.

Then there was Ace. He has followed his own schedule of solid introduction, along with the helping hand of his sister, who is more than happy to assist him with trying new things!

Tonight for example. Ace was happy sitting in his highchair watching me cook dinner while Boo was at the table eating / playing / stashing her omelette. I turned around after noticing the silence to find Ace munching away on a hand full of egg that Boo had quite happily shared with him.

I guess we can cross egg off the allergy list. Thanks Boo!

Sunday afternoon... Quality woofie time.

Sunday afternoon. It was the woofies turn to feel the love. Too many fur babes hanging out at the doggie beach, our two can be a little unsociable at times. So we took them to a gorgeous reserve at the end of our street. I can't believe they are "ute dogs" now. LOL. We started them on there just before we moved so we could just run them down to the beach without messing the back of the car up. They LOVE it! Who knew...

Now I really feel at home.

A freezing miserable day while we are tucked up in our new cozy house.

We had absolutely nothing to get done. What a welcomed change after the full on week we have had.

Decided to get my bake on for some yummy afternoon tea! My first baking session in our new house! Let me just say that the oven is fab... What a relief.

Made the usual favourites... Choc banana muffins. We didn't have any choc chips though so I just added some cocoa instead.

They make life easier... Thankful Thursday!

My parents. They make my life easier. I am so thankful for them.

Today was "go back to the old house and make it pretty for the new owners" day. It was so draining for me as I really have already left that part of my life behind and moved on.

My mum, I picked her up at 8.30am, we drove an hour and half through peak our traffic with the two babes who really didn't feel like being in the car.

She helped me clean, she made sure we all ate and occupied Boo & Ace so we could get the job done and get out of there as quick as possible.

We didn't get home until 5pm. The babes cried all the way home. It was not fun.... another laugh or I'll cry day perhaps?

We arrived back at Ma & Pa's house at 5pm, we go inside, babes still feral.... we were over it.

Pa had made me a dinner to a) take home and serve to Dad'n or b) make the call to Dad'n to tell him to make a detour on the way home from work and we could eat dinner there. I chose option b). It was so yum. It was so easy.

Just one day of so many that they make my life easier.

Very thankful.

Linking it up with KateSaysStuff today!

Help, my 12wbt wagon is in need of repairs!

The "Fitness Friday" blog hop has prompted me to be upfront and honest about the condition of my 12WBT wagon. It's not looking to crash hot this week!

I was doing so well. Like really really well. As focused as I have ever been. Loving all the healthy food. Smashing out the exercise like no tomorrow. Having that "need" to get to the gym. I thought I was invincible.

At last weeks weigh in, I had lost 4.8kg and 30cm's (since kick off).... Motivation was sky high! I was only 2kg off my wedding weight! That was a very exciting prospect. I was very proud of that fact that after 3 and 1/2 years of marriage and two babes I was staring at my happy wedding day weight!

I saw the red flag ahead.... Moving house. I was sure I could work around it. Of course I may not of got all my work outs in but as long as I ate clean I should be right??? Wrong :(

I have made bad food choice after bad food choice this week. I'm almost like a drug addict and once I got the taste back for the junk, I just wanted more, so I ate more. Anddd it showed on the scales! Booo!

So, I have had my bad week, it's time to fix my little wagon, jump back in it and journey on. There is nothing I can do about the past week... I can just know that I ate lots of yummy naughty things but it's time to start kicking bum again.

Let's see if I can do it hey!

Watch out world... The boy is on the move!

At 8 & 1/2 months old, my newborn (yes, I'm in denial and still feel he is my newborn), is officially crawling.

Its the EXACT age that his sister started!

Big week for Ace.

At the start week he pulled himself up to standing in his cot, then he started crawling around on just the carpet. Yesterday, he figured out how to go from lying to sitting and vise versa. Today, he made it official by mastering the floor boards so I would say that today is forever going to be known as the day Ace mastered crawling!

It was definitely a day where if I didnt laugh I would have cried...

Today was just one of those days where if I didn't laugh, I would have just cried. Hang on, there were some tears in there somewhere, but definitely a lot of laughing.

Just like every other day, Boo sets the tone for how the day will end up. Of course she does you say, she is running riot through her terrible two's after all.

We managed to make it out the door by 9:30am with no tantrums and tears. Maybe I yelled once or twice after chasing her around her bedroom to get her dressed but overall, great start!

We picked up 'Ma' on the way into town... we were heading in to check some things off my "to do" and "to get" lists.

Full steam ahead with our day, until....

Incident No. 1 - In the car, half way there, Boo starts gagging... saying "sick Mumma... sick". I've never pulled over so quickly in my life. I really don't do vomit so I had to get my equipment into that back seat pronto. I screamed at my mum, "quick, shes going to be sick... open the glove box!!!" In there was a vomit bag container thingy from the days of working in a hospital... bonus... and a big cloth nappy square and a plastic bag. I didn't want to get her out of the car because we were on a highway and the weather was as wintery as it gets. So I jumped in the back seat, how I have no idea, I'm really not that agile... but in a vomit situation I obviously am. Draped the nappy over her as a drop sheet, I had the sick bag ready for a catch and then..... nothing! So we journeyed on, Ma driving, me still sitting there waiting for the catch and still.. nothing. False alarm!!! I'm going to use that situation as a drill... you know the fire drills you have at work... yep, we have vomit drills now, and I'm damn efficient!

So we get into town, park the car, wander into the shopping centre. After much discussion, we had come to the conclusion that Boo might have been car sick as she was playing with the iPad from the moment we left home, hardly looking up so.. maybe??  She seemed a bit flat so Ma and I, the bright sparks that we are, decided, lets get her a bottle of apple juice... that will pep her up. And so the story continues....

20 minutes later, I no longer had a flat, quiet toddler on my hands, I now had one that was swinging from the ceiling, jumping the isles of all the shops we were in. Seriously... like she needed all that sugar. We are so clever sometimes ;)

So you can see where the day was headed... This post really could go on for pages and pages as it was seriously one thing after another right up until bed time, but I'm just going to talk about a few of the "outstanding incidence" that made me think, yep, today is one of those days.

Incident no.2 - Ma had decided to go to a shop that was just outside the shopping centre so I decided to park on a chair near the entry and feed Ace some food. Boo was bouncing around me, bouncing being an understatement! All of a sudden their was "Boo silence".... oh ohhh.... WTF!!! I turn around  to see Boo lying on the ground in the middle of the entrance of the shopping centre, flat on her back, hands behind her head, legs crossed, just like she was on the Queensland coast catching herself a tan! Oh my, I tried my hardest to remain calm and not look like the crazy woman with the feral child but I don't think I did a good job at it! You get that....

Incident no. 3 - Mummy fail of the day, I put a brand new pair of pants on Boo today and for anyone that knows her, knows her waist is tiny! So, the pants were way to big but I thought they weren't too bad after I pulled her top over them. I was wrong. Now, picture in your mind a major shopping centre food court at 1pm, got it? Madness. Now picture me walking down the centre of it, pushing the pram with Boo trailing a metre behind and we come to a very quick stop when I hear... "MUMMMMAAA, MAH PANTS FALLED DOWN!!" being screeched at me. I turn around to find Boo with her pants around her ankles. Oh dear. I admitted to all the people around me that thought it was the funniest, most cutest thing that they had seen that yes, it was a mummy fail day... and then it got worse because on closer inspection, I realised that I hadn't even cut the tag off the pants. Oh yeh.... oh dear.

I could continue with incident no. 4, 5,6,15, insert tears by Mumma at incident 16, but I think you get the picture.

The joy's of toddler's. Lucky she's damn cute and finished off the day with a "Love you Mumma"!

The END...of today! Thank god. Time for a drink?

Catch up!

Before logging onto here tonight I thought I would have to dust the cobwebs off first! My blog is in some desperate need of some love! I have so many posts ready to go in the blog bank in my head, just have to find the time to get them all out.

So it's time to play catch up and get you up to speed!

We have moved. We have made the sea change. I have a new nest to fluff and am loving every second of it.

It was a very VERY stressful couple of weeks packing up our old life, but now we are here and unpacked, and it was so worth it. My last post was the very emotional realisation of leaving our "home" but now we are on the other side of it all, I couldn't feel more at home even if I wanted. It feels right.

The babes have adapted wonderfully. Boo has registered the difference between our "old house" and "new house" and she seems to love the move just as much as us. She has had her first sleep over at Ma & Pa's house already and loves the thought of waking up and going for a visit. The joys of living around the corner from them... not an hour and 10 minutes away! Oh and I'm still not sick of her saying "I see beach!!!" every hour or so.

The woofies have also settled in well. They have a lovely big back yard to run around and cause trouble in. They have been well behaved and are loving their sea change.

So we are all happy. Loving our move. It's the best decision we have made. I know it.

Time to turn the last page in this chapter.

When we decided that it was time to move, it was all so exciting. The thrill of a new life, starting fresh, it seems so appealing! Our whirlwind of selling, sold, packing, moving has all happened so quickly that I think I am left trying to process how I feel about it all.

As we draw closer to our "moving day", we are living in our house which is no longer our "home". It is completely upside down and we are now living out of bags with everything near the doors, ready to go!
I know that there is so much excitement surrounding where we are heading, but at the moment I cant help be sad of the memories we are leaving behind. The words "sad" and "leaving behind" probably aren't entirely correct but at the moment, it is just how I feel.

We put so much love and thought in to building this home. We brought our two babes from home from hospital to this home. I have memories or building their nurseries. Working on our backyard. Being happy with what we had achieved here. But now we are saying goodbye to it, something we loved, and something we are leaving.

I know whats in store for us in the very near future will be just as exciting, if not more. It's just time to pack up our old memories to take with us, and  then get very busy making new ones.

I'm sure once I'm settled in our new house, I will feel much better about it all as I will have another nest to fluff into a "home".

This is our journey and we really are just at the end of a chapter. I just need to get my head around it, and feel okay about turning that last page. Cheers to the next chapter, to be continued...

This week in review (week.seven) Captured.

Let's turn our life upside down!

You know the one where you have a happy settled life. You love your home, your kids are settled in all their activities and you are cruising along in life nicely. Then you and your hubby start talking on a drive home from your parents house, the conversation goes something like "want to move?" then it gets scarier when you say, "yeah, lets do it!". Well that's the short version of how our conversation went Sunday, two weeks ago.

Don't get me wrong, we had plans to eventually move down there but it wasn't going to happen for a little while for lots of different reasons.

As scary as it all is, moving away from everything I know, my home that I adore, my friends, my petrol station I get fuel at, my supermarket I do the food shopping at, kids swimming, my mothers group. Its okay. I think its all okay because it is obviously meant to be. The whirlwind that it happened in is enough confirmation for me that this is what the universe already had it store for us.

Rewind back to that Sunday. It was decided that we should call the real estate agent on the Monday and start the ball rolling by putting our house on the market. We were told by so many people "who knows how long it will take to sell in this market". By Tuesday we had signed the dotted line with our agent and our house was on the market.

Long story short, we ended up having friends that fell in love with the house before the real estate agent could even get the photographer in so before we knew it... the estate agent got ditched (but we did love him!!!) and we had SOLD!

Then it was time to find somewhere to move to! Arghhh that was a daunting feeling. We had already decided that we would be looking for a rental as we are going to build our next home. So we were straight onto real estate.com searching for a house!

The the universe really did work its wonders with us finding our house. It was the first house that we picked and set our sights on,  we just had to go on a wild goose chase to get it! Last week I called the estate agent it was listed with to organise an inspection only to be told they already had enough applicants and will not be taking anymore. Insert the vision of me sulking in the corner about... now!

I luckily found another house that was okay... no where near as a nice as the one we wanted but I had got my head around the fact that it was just somewhere to live for now, it would do. So I was straight on the phone to organise that one... only hours later to be told, sorry, they have already offered it to someone else. Great... at this stage I did start wondering what this whole rental market was about because it didn't seem to be going our way! Scary thought when your house has already sold.

After the second set back I was pretty disappointed as there were no other houses that we liked... in the area's we wanted so it meant we would either have to take something we really didn't like or sit and wait in hope that one would come up.

After some serious sulking, as ya do, I decided to call the first one that we liked, the one that wasn't taking any more applications, and plead my case. Our case being, we will give them more money than what they were asking, we would be the world's best tenant... it goes on... but i feel even more lame now for typing it, never mind that I was actually going to say it! I didn't get a chance to say it as the estate agent greeted me with the information that they weren't satisfied with the applications they had received and that they would be holding an open for inspection the following day if we would like to attend and bring our application.

I went. I dressed in my most responsible "look at me I'm a fantastic tenant"clothes.  I did end up pleading my case (sad i know), but i really wanted that house!!!! but after all that I can say that the following day I received a phone call to say we got the house.

Now its time to turn our life upside down...pack up our life and move to the beach!

 In less than two weeks :)

xx

If this ain't dedication....

I have eaten clean on my birthday!

No cake.

No sweets.

No party food.

No champagne.

We got take away Chinese for dinner and prawns with vegetables is as bad as it got.

No prawn crackers.

No rice.

Ahhhh... I'm proud!

Yes it was my birthday and I would have happily indulged in a treat or two but it just so happened that it fell right on the day before weigh in.... I was not willing to risk disappointment tomorrow morning when I launch onto those scales for a few moments of food bliss. I have worked to hard for that.

So, yet again, another red flag proven to be a walk in the park! Go me!

This week in review (week.six) Captured.

Just us minus the babes.

 

Ace's first vegemite toast experience.

Setting some ground rules with Boo early on.

He said that they can still play "hair".

That smile!

Roasted beetroot with garlic & thyme.

We are lucky enough to always get given fresh beetroot from Pa's veggie garden and are even more lucky now that we have our own to harvest from our own veggie garden!

After eating our beetroot like this for quite sometime, the stuff out of a can does not interest us what so ever.

Its simply delish and ridiculously easy!

Ingredients:

Fresh beetroots

Some fresh garlic cloves (I used 4 in this batch)

Fresh thyme (I used 3 sprigs)

Olive oil

Balsamic vinegar

What to do:

1. Cut off the ends off the beetroots
2. Place them on a big piece of foil
3. Smash the garlic cloves up a little bit (skins and all) and pop them on the foil as well.
4. Add your thyme on top
5. Drizzle with olive oil
6. Wrap the foil up with all the goodies into a little parcel
7. Put your little parcel on to a tray and into the oven on 180c  for an hour (approx)



8. They are done once you can get a fork through them.

Once they are cooked, let them cool down a little bit (so your don't burn your hands)

9. Time to rub / cut the skins off (I suggest wearing gloves as the colour stains your hands)

10. I throw out the thyme and garlic but you could definitely include the roasted garlic
11. Then cut them all up into small pieces and dress with a drizzle of olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

YUMMMM!