Christmas ideas

I was trauling Pinterest on the weekend for some inspiration for Christmas decorating and saved quite a few things to my 'Christmas' board.

Here are a few pics of things that I really liked and would be simple to do.

 

 Looks like stawberries, marshallows and maybe a chocolate or cake?

Cute Christmas cards made with buttons.

Decorate Pringle containers with Christmas paper and braid and fill with biscuits
or yummy Christmas treats as a gift.

Nice rustic tree with a message.

Lovely table decorations

Are you getting into Christmas mode?

Weekend Fun!

We had 2 of our friends daughters come up and stay for the weekend to catch up wtih their sister who also lives in Loxton.

They are lovely girls who we have known all their lives and have been like the 'daughters' we didn't have as we had 2 boys!

It's always fun catching up and talking and doing 'girlie' things together.

They were excited to meet Owen our little grandy and the fight was on for cuddles!!

Us girls went out for lunch yesterday at Lavilla. As always, it was delicious!

A giveaway that we had girls staying in the house was the amount of 'product' that appeared in our shower shelf!!  I had a little chuckle this morning when I reached for the shampoo!
This was the lineup.

This is what it's usually like!

We had a lovely lazy Sunday morning. Hubby had gone off on a day trip to Adelaide early, so I whipped up some egg and bacon muffins and I brought out all my 'Bella' boxes (about 12) with excess beauty products that I didn't require and they had fun going through them and choosing goodies to take home. Yay, it cleared up a shelf in my bedroom! I thought about taking a photo but respected their privacy as they were in their pjs and straight out of bed!

Yesterday morning when I was making a jug of fruit smoothie, I took off the lid to pour it into glasses and accidently pressed the 'pulse' button and I had smoothie go everywhere and had a mess to clean up!  Oops....quite funny though!!

The girls headed off around lunchtime today and I potted around in the garden and planted out my wheelbarrow by the backdoor with impatiens and lobellia.

 My impatiens either side of the back door are just coming into flower, they are a double impatiens flower in a pretty light pink colour. They actually look like rose heads.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

An easy sweet treat

If you have a jar of Nutella in your cupboard and some puff pastry you're set to whip up a delicious sweet snack or simple bite sized finger food for dessert.

Simply spread a sheet or sheets of puff pastry with Nutella, like so

Roll up and cut the cylinders into 2cm pieces and lay upright onto a baking tray. Bake in a moderate over for about 15-20mins until the pastry is nicely coloured and crisp. Cool on a baking tray and place on a platter and sprinkle with icing sugar. Mmmm delicious! I bet you can't stop at one!

On the subject of food, I made some scones to take to a friends for a Melbourne Cup Day gathering. I normally make my own whipped cream with a sprinkling of icing sugar and a splosh of vanilla, but this time I cheated an bought the 'Dream Whip' whipped cream in a can. It made them look a little more fancy and the cream tasted quite nice too. Very handy to have in the fridge, I've found out!

 Our little grandy Owen is doing really well. Here he is with Pop holding a present they had just opened.

 

Wow, I can't believe I've managed to do a blog post mid week!

 

This and that!

Something I had been creating in the past couple of months but couldn't show you was a baby shaggy quilt. I came across a pattern on Pinterest ages ago and knew it was something I wanted to make for our first grandchild.

As we didn't know if it was going to be a boy or girl, I chose fun neutral type colours. Here are a few pics of it.

Above: Piecing it together into a fabric sandwich.

Above: Getting out my old 'Singer' machine and stitching away.

Above: The finished 'shaggy' side.

Above: The finished reverse side.

I was quite happy with how it turned out. Here is the link to the instructions.

Owen has just turned 4 weeks old and he is doing really well. He's a very contented baby and we are just loving and appreciating being close by to have cuddles and to be a part of his life. 

A couple of weeks after he was born, I went down to Adelaide with Daniel, Telesha and Owen so Owen could meet his great grand parents. It was a lovely day and he travelled well.

 

Above: Owen with Paul's Mum and Dad and my Mum.

My youngest sister came up the other weekend, and we visited some open gardens and ended up at a local gift shop / cafe for iced coffees...they were delicious!

Friday week ago I attended the MainstreetSA Awards dinner in Adelaide, representing the Loxton Chamber of Commerce and we were delighted to win our category for 'Outstanding Partnerships' with the Loxton Council. It was a great night. 

Last night I did a roast for tea as all the kids were coming around and instead of garlic or herb bread, I made some Yorkshire Puddings to go with it. I'd never made them before and was pretty stoked with how they turned out....they were a hit!  I used Jamie Oliver's recipe, which can be found here.

My camera is full of, yes you guessed it 'baby pictures'!!!  I won't bombard you with them, but here is one of Owen with Paul, it was amazing they had identical coloured shirts on....Ford colours of course!! 

I haven't been very good lately at remembering to take other 'non baby' photos, so must get my act into gear!

A new family member :)

I am delighted to introduce you to our first grandchild - Owen Stanley. He was born on 27th September, weighing 7lb 8oz.  The photo below is my first cuddle...he was only about 5 hours old...naaawww!!

 

Below...Proud Pop and our son Daniel (proud Dad!). I love the way Owen is looking up to Paul as if he's really checking him out. Owen was so alert the whole time we were there.

 

Below...Owen and his mum, Telesha.

 

Below...he was only in hospital for 3 days and then it was time to be strapped into his capsule and go home.

 

Below...6 days old. He's doing all the right things, like feeding and filling his nappy well!

Below...Uncle Adrian bonding with his nephew!

 Below...Last night he was comfy hanging around on Pops lap!

We are so fortunate to have both our boys and their partners living close by.

Owen's middle name, Stanley, was after my Dad (Stanley) who passed away last year and also Telesha's Pa's middle name is also Stanley, so it is a special family name that will live on.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

It's nearly time

It's nearly time for 'baby wints' as it has become known to enter the world and to make our second son a Dad, his fiance a Mum and us grandparents...yay!

Telesha was due on Wednesday, so as you can imagine we are all waiting patiently for the time to arrive! The photo below was taken on Monday night.

I've made something special for the baby, but can't show you as yet, but it has involved clearing off the dust from my sewing machine and using my rusty sewing skills! I did enjoy it though and it has spurred me on to do more.

Last weekend I followed a youtube video on making a halter top, which turned out ok, although I think I'll do away with the tied bow and just make them straps. It was very easy and based on the 'pillowcase' dress.

You can see the video here

I'm loving watching the garden come to life as the weather starts to warm up. Just took a few snaps of what's flowering. My pansies by the back door have been putting on a nice show for a couple of months, nearly time to swap them for petunias.

The lavender is in full bloom at the moment and the bees are loving it.

These little blue bulbs are right throughout the back garden and make a pretty show.

And I have planted quite a few of these little daisies in pots and around the garden, and they are just starting to flower.

I hope you enjoy your weekend. My next post might be advising of the new addition to our family :)

A very sad time :(

Well since my last post we have lost 2 members from my hubby Paul's family.

Firstly his Uncle John passed away from a heart attack in hospital, after a few months of being unwell. Uncle John was a very quiet, intelligent man who was a school teacher and principal in his working life. He spent many of those teaching years in remote areas of SA. As he never married and didn't have children our boys used to like visiting him as little kids as he would have special ice creams and soft drinks in his fridge along with a pool table and cool computer games which were all treats back then.

A week after we farewelled Uncle John we were shocked to the core with a phone call on 27th July from a family member advising us that Paul's brother Richard had experienced a sudden heart attack and had also passed away.  Richard was 18 months older than Paul and a very fit and healthy guy which made this all the more surreal. This has been a really difficult time and it's still really hard to believe that it's happened.

Richard didn't have children but has a beautiful wife, Caroline who as you can imagine is trying to adjust to life without Richard.

His 'Celebration of Life' ceremony was a beautiful tribute to his 53 years of life.

We had a good relationship with Richard as we do with both our families, which is always a peace of mind at times like these as we can cherish the memories and don't have any regrets.