Travelling with a toddler

We are now in the great USA after having made 4 plane trips with our 3 little rascals.  The girls being older were fine on the plane but the little man was a nightmare!!! Our first flight started at 11pm (bad idea) he was tired and grumpy as he is usually in bed by 5pm.  He screamed blue murder for the 30 minutes we were boarding the plane I was sure we were going to be asked to leave the plane, so I kept praying they would shut those doors.  Then he continued to cry for the next 30 mins as more and more bells were pressed around us with people asking for ear plugs.  The stress was unimaginable knowing you are disturbing everyone on the plane, no one would meet our eyes!! Then the over dressed extremely posh lady asked us if she could try settling him down, are you kidding me! I am not inept he was just not going to settle until he went to sleep. Hubby laughed when she asked me in the condescending tone, I told her to step off and let me handle my business.  The little one probably would have ripped her much styled curls out and slapped her a good  one, later as he slept peacefully I contemplated  how easy the trip would have been without a screaming toddler but looking at him all peaceful and gorgeous in hubbys arms I thought Nah, the other passengers can just suffer in their jocks!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What makes you happy!

I thought I would share the picture that makes me happy everyday! This sits on my desk and I love it, it is the girls at a Halloween party.

Countdown until holidays!!

photo courtesy of behindthestudio.com (I found it on Pinterest)

It is 1 week until we leave for America for 2 months.  We have a gorgeous friend who will be housesitting so we can leave a lot less stressed than might otherwise be the case.  We will be hitting the east coast from Florida, up to Washington and New York, then over to hawaii for a month over Christmas, all with 3 kids in tow!!  We are uber excited but also very nervous about being in the air for 20 hours with a 18 month old on our lap.  We know he will cry a lot, we know we will cry a lot (at least I will do mine i the privacy of the airplane bathroom!!).  He is so gorgeous and he has no idea what is coming his routine which is set in stone of sleeping from 5.30pm until 7am ,with a 2 hour nap thrown in at 11.30am is about to be uprooted in a big way.  It will involve long car rides, late nights and unfamiliar cots, I hope he manages ok.  But on the plus side we will be saying Mele Kalikimaka this year (Merry Christmas - from Hawaii) xoxo

cooking with the kids

Ok I am not one of those mums who loves cooking with the kids! I am ashamed to admit it, but the mess and the length of time everything takes to do drives me nuts!  But I am learning slowly (thanks Junior Masterchef) that the girls especially need to learn how to cook.  After all if a 9 year old can whip up a confit of duck surely my girls can make cupcakes..  So today I let them loose in the kitchen and they made delicious lamington cupcakes.  I resisted the urge to hurry them or get involved apart from helping them read the instructions. 

The result was beautifully light and moist cupcakes..



My son clearly loved them..

All in all a successful cooking experience, eat your heart out Junior masterchef!!

Possible Halloween ideas!

With Halloween fast approaching I thought I would put up the pics of the homemade costumes I made my girls for Book week.  They were very cheap costing me next to nothing and a big hit with the kids.  First my daughters astronaut costume, was a pair of painters paper overalls from bunnings (hardware store), the jet pack was 2 painted coca cola 2 l bottles, with paper badges from google images on them.  The helmet was bought at spotlight for $12, and the badges on her arms were from google images and printed off at home.

My other daughters costume was free, I took an old black shirt and cut out the feather shape template and then sewed them on in lines and then searched google images for owl mask and came up with the one i used.  The idea I got from pinterest cannot remember which site it was from but was easy and she got lots of comments on it.  Hope this has helped some looking for cheap and easy halloween costumes!

Little Fingers everywhere!

My little man has decided he is a big boy now! he opens the fridge to get his own drinks out, and then puts the drink bottle up to the fridge water dispenser and lets the water flow!! oh it flows all over him, and the kitchen floor.  Its hard to tell him off though because he is so cute.  Here he is inspecting the freezer.. 

Its hard  to believe he has grown up so fast, he knows what he wants when he wants and how much he wants..  but when he gives you this look my heart just melts xoxo

Basketball Grandfinal!

Well Emerson Had her basketball grandfinal coached by dear hubby.  They played the top team and just lost.  Emerson scored 10 out of 14 points and was so chuffed with herself for getting a seasons all star award by the association. 

I made these cute cupcakes for the girls, but think I may need to go to cake decorating classes!!
Anyway a busy and exciting day for our family, we all yelled until we were hoarse.  We definitely love basketball even Hudson (15months) was yelling xox

Thank you my love!

And finally before I head to bed, this is for my long suffering husband who coaches our girls basketball team every year (he once played in the NBL and still loves the game) xoxo

Organising our medicine shelf

Ok I love love love to organise spaces and things!  I have set myself a task of doing 2 jobs a week to get this house in tip top shape.  I started today with the top shelf in one of my 3 pantries!! yep I said three but I also forgot to tell you I love to cook and do so in bulk all the time.  Anyway here is the before pic

And a closer look at all that junk..

half way through the process..

I ended up putting all like things in glad bags, ie all cotton balls, all scissors ( I had 4 pairs of surgical scissors for bandages) etc, and putting everything neatly into some large decor containers

and finally

Mackenzie's 10th Birthday Cake

Due to my daughters complete and utter love of basketball I decided to make her a basketball cake for her birthday party.  Her party was a small affair, and next year will be her turn for a big party.  She had a small group of girls sleep over and have a movie night.  Anyway below is the cake I made for her enjoy!  As you can see I am no professional cake decorator but I love a homemade cake and this one was no exception.

Cookie Monster !!!! turns 10

Mackenzie turned 10 this year,so I decided to do something special for her classmates instead of the usual freddo frogs.  I stumbled across the idea of doing Cookie Monster cupcakes whilst searching the net one night, and ta da this is the end result.  Yummy!! but maybe some blue faces in class that day!!

Finally I did it!!

Well I have thought about doing this for a long time but finally got around to it - I am now a blogger!!
My posts will be a visual diary for my family who lives both in Australia and in America, to see what we are up to as a family.  It is also a great place to put my pictures rather than clogging up everyones inboxes!!
I am a Stay at home mum to 3 beautiful cherubs, to daughters and 1 son.  I am married to my soulmate and am blissfully happy in my big old house.  This blog will document my craft, my cooking (love bulk cooking), my organisation which we are currently doing step by step, my decorating (love the holidays) my scrapbooking, and our renovations of our big old house, room by room.  So stay with me and any questions ask away xoxox Jodie