Happy Birthday, Justin!!

Make a Smilebox postcard

My garden

because I'm sure you've missed seeing pics of my garden. =)

Make a Smilebox slideshow

cricket

Make a Smilebox slideshow

Catie got a cricket bat and some tennis balls from one of her friends for her birthday. And as she told me yesterday, "we are so into cricket now!"

Catie's Birthday

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

Australia Day

Today is Australia Day! I believe that would be more like Columbus Day rather than Independence Day. Either way it means a day off work. =) We started the day with breakfast at Hungry Jack's then a trip across the parking lot to Bunnings. Didn't get anything there though. Then we took a little drive (air conditioning!!) and ended up at Josh's parents' place. They were just about to leave to help someone move so he went with them and the girls and I stayed at their place and used their air conditioning and watched their satellite/cable/whatever tv. =) very nice. Then I brought the girls home for naps and now we are waiting on Josh to come home and we'll have dinner.

Tonight is a special night for my friend, Marlana. at 6pm (I think) she will take part in a citizenship ceremony and become an Australian citizen!! How exciting!! Congratulations, Marlana!!

Catie's birthday cake

Finished Catie's cake around 5:30 last night. She drew me a picture and told me how to make it. I didn't follow it quite exactly but she's happy. She definitely wanted 6 buttons. And I let her place them. I hope the cake doesn't melt over night.

For Mom

Goals revisited

So far I've only done some of the goals I had for the week

• I finally realized the laundry needed help. So I took the majority of it to the laundry lady yesterday. $50 well spent.
• Getting some homeschooling done this week. We've prepared snowman goodie bags and started snowman shirts to wear on Sunday.
• hmmmm, haven't done the homeschool plan for the term yet. better get on that.
  
• planning Catie's party is going well. I'm thinking it's going to rain so I need a Plan B that involves all inside activities. hmmm...30 people in my house....should be interesting.
• I got all my thank you notes written and posted. YAY!!
• still working on a schedule
• reminded Josh today that I get "Tamra time" tomorrow night for the Body Shop party. can't wait
• bought some cute Australia stuff for next year VBS. The girls have decided that they need to wear their hats and shirts now though. Hope we don't lose it before next January. (side note: Jennie's sister is doing an Aussie VBS at her church in July and will send us the stuff when they're done. PTL!!!)
• Went to put away the VBS stuff at church and two of my containers are missing!! Hopefully someone already put them away. Can't lose them!!

So, I guess I'm not doing too badly for my list. Today's job is a total house tidying so tomorrow we can sweep, dust, mop etc.

I mopped last Saturday because Emma spilled a kg of honey on my floor!! This week I have to mop because Beka decided to "help" with the laundry and dumped about 15 scoops of laundry powder into my washing machine on top of a wet load that was waiting to be hung out. Then she added a bottle of water!!! Some powder was on the floor and thanks to humidity and little feet my floor is a bit slick and yucky!! oh well.

Have a great weekend!

Grape Jelly

I did something last night that made me think of my Granny. I used to spend a week or two with her every summer. Several times we bought a bunch of grapes and made grape jelly. So yummy! Nothing tastes as good as Granny's grape jelly.

Well, I decided to try it. I found some recipes on the internet that show how to make grape jelly from grape juice. I don't like the grapes I've found here. They don't have the right taste to them. So I made grape jelly tonight. It was super easy. HEAPS of sugar though. I'll let them cool down and then put them in the fridge. I don't have a pot that I can process them in so I'll just leave them in the fridge. I hope it tastes good. The girls love grape jelly too so I'm sure we'll eat it all up.

Recipe I used: (forgot where I got it from) bad blogger!!!

5 cups grape juice
7 cups sugar
4Tbsp powdered fruit pectin (I used one package of jamsetta

Bring the juice and the pectin to a boil. Boil for one minute. Stir in the sugar. Stir and cook for several minutes until it is all dissolved. Take off the heat and ladle/pour into sterilized jars.

Very simple. I sterilized the jars and lids in my dishwasher and then put them in a sink of hot water to get hot before putting the super hot liquid in. I had a tiny bit left over so put it in one of my little Pyrex bowls.

Goals

*random picture of Emily because she's cute and I haven't posted her picture in awhile.

• Laundry =)
• homeschooling--snow and snowmen. We'll be reading books to do with those subjects and finding fun projects and things to do. It will end with Catie's snowman birthday party on Sunday.
• a homeschool plan for the term
• planning Catie's party
• writing thank you notes to the VBS volunteers
• getting a schedule/routine into place
• Saturday night is a Body Shop party. YAY!!!
• Stocking up on Australia Day stuff that all the shops have on sale this week then putting it away for VBS next year.
• Finalize putting away VBS stuff in the church.
  

Hmmm....I think that's enough for one week, right?

House cleaning fairies

Just thought I'd pop on here to say that 3 little and 1 tall, skinny cleaning fairies showed up today. =) After getting out of bed earlier than normal for a Saturday due to a phone call and short visit we decided to clean the house all together. (well, Josh and I decided...the girls weren't too thrilled.) We started in the front room and made it through the main room, the school room, Catie and Emma's room, Beka's room and the girls' bathroom. That means I just have the kitchen, my bedroom and Mt. Laundry to do. MUCH BETTER!!! Catie and Beka are sleeping now and Emma is laying down so I really should be doing those rooms now but the energy has left me. =)

Good Friday

well, we had 107 students at VBS today!! Good fun!! and we decided that was close enough to 110 so we put a pie in Pastor Samuel's face too. =) We got the church and school cleaned in record time as we had heaps of helpers who were all dying to go get on the waterslide. I'll have to remember that next time. I'll try to get some VBS pics up in the next week.

When we finally got home at 4:00 this afternoon there were two big boxes sitting on my front porch. Thanks, Mom!! We can begin our next year of homeschooling now =) And she sent heaps of stuff for Catie's birthday party-for some reason we can't get much snowman stuff here. ;o) And she sent the girls some aprons and chef hats. I need to have them do a fashion show of all the dress-ups Mom has made them. And my wonderful Mom sent me some Dr. Pepper lip gloss. 3 different kinds!!! Thank you!! =) She brought me some in August but I can't find which bag I put it in. Now I have one for each bag. =)

Well, I have pork chops and rice in the oven and 3 little girls in the bathtub so I suppose I should do something more worthwhile than reading blogs. Catch you later!!

Random Friday

• I had weird dreams all night that had to do with VBS. not very good for actual sleep. =(
• I'm hoping the house cleaning, child minding, laundry folding, massage giving fairies show up at my house next week.
• I came down with a summer cold on Wednesday. YUCK!! Friends of ours has it too. I'm hoping the girls don't get it.
• Speaking of the girls, it is 6:30 in the morning, Beka is watching BOZ and the other two are still asleep!!
• So far this week at VBS our numbers look like this: Monday-86, Tuesday-97, Wednesday-100, Thursday-100.
  
• Today is a big day. Regular times at VBS this morning but added water slide and bouncy castle. Pizza lunch for the workers, clean-up of the church and school, then time on the bouncy castle and water slide for the workers until it gets taken away. Then tonight at 7 is the Parents' Night. And between now and then I need to figure out what awards we're giving and possibly go buy more.
• I've started working on next year's program. We're going to do an Aussie theme. I'm trying to tie it in with stories of God's provision to the children of Israel in the desert. We have absolutely no info on this. I'll be doing it from scratch. Which is why I've started now. =)
• My garden is DEAD!!! The heat killed it. I think we'll till it all up and then come March plant some more. The sunflowers are all drying. We often have sulphur crested cockatoos eating the seeds in the morning.
• Marlana, I have Catie's birthday party invite ready to send but haven't made it to the post office this week. It is next Sunday the 25th after morning church at our church. Hope you guys can make it.

Well, I think I am going to crash this weekend so I'll check back in next week!!

Real Time Monday

well, Beka is sleeping and Catie and Emma are watching a Spanish version of Little Einsteins. They think it's funny. And they can still figure out when questions are being asked and know the answers. And they will probably walk around speaking "spanish" gibberish the rest of the week. =)

VBS went well this morning. At our "good, bad, ugly" workers meeting afterwards they all said good. So hopefully this continues all week. We had 86 students which is the most we've ever had on the first day. So we might end up with well over 100 on Tuesday and Wednesday. Those are normally our highest days and then it slows down Thursday and Friday. Although we are having a bouncy castle and slippery slide on Friday so that might be our big day. We'll see.

Anyway, thanks for your prayers. =)

Monday

So, it's Monday morning and the girls slept in until 7:15!! YAY!! We have to be at the church at 8:30 so we're eating breakfast at the moment.

I didn't sleep well as I had weird "VBS gone wrong" dreams all night. Including a little 2 year old walking along a 2 story high window sill and falling off. Good thing we don't have any 2 story buildings. =)

It's a bit cloudy out at the moment which is actually a good thing. Cloudy and breezy will keep it cooler this week.

Do you think it is unfair of me to not go buy camo stuff for the army dress up day for the girls? I don't think they would wear it after so it seems a waste to me. Plus I'm not sure I'd want my little girls wearing camo. Oh well. I'm not wearing any camo this week either. We have a "dress in your team colour" day as well. Emma and Beka are on the orange/purple team. Emma has decided to wear the dressy purple dress-up that Grammy made. Little flower head thing included. =)

On a different note, I made scones/biscuits yesterday and they actually rose!!! I even took a picture for proof but the camera is at church in preparation for this week.

I'm pretty sure I'm gonna need to hire a house cleaner by the end of this week. We're all so tired by the end of the week that I'm not sure much is going to be done. Oh well. No visitors this week. =)

I'm gonna go blow part of my grocery budget on Dr. Pepper's today after VBS. I figure a little treat after each day will be nice. Especially a nice cold Dr. Pepper. =) And next week I'm so going in for a massage.

Well, I'm done with my breakfast and have less than an hour to be at church so I'm off!!

real time...

This is Beka.
This is Beka 2 minutes ago.
This is Beka 10 seconds after she woke up from her 3 hour nap.
This is Beka wearing high heel dress up shoes that she put on within seconds of waking up from her 3 hour nap.

Fun Day

Tuesday we drove 2 hours north to visit with some friends who are holidaying. They normally live 4 hours south of us so this was much easier to do in a day trip. We went to Bargara (just outside Bundaberg) where they were staying. We had lunch together, swam in the pool, walked a couple blocks for an ice cream, played at the playground and had a great time together. I didn't take a camera but oh, the picture opportunities there were. Beka and Nathan walking hand in hand down the sidewalk, messy ice cream faces, fun in the pool, etc.

After we left Bargara we stopped at Subway in Bundaberg for dinner. Then made a last minute call to Shane and Marlana and dropped in on them for a "quick" visit. I think we were there for about 2 hours. =) It was really good to see them as they just got back from 6 weeks or so in the States. The girls had fun playing with Noah and Dave and it was great for us to catch up with their parents.

All 3 girls slept for most of the 1.5 hour trip home. When we got home we stuck them in bed and they slept until almost 7 this morning!! YAY!!

Look, Ma...

NO CAST!!!

It's me

okay, so I've been pretty slack. Everything seemed to happen so fast this year. Yes, I know that Christmas is the same day every year but still... School didn't finish until the 13th. Josh worked most of the following week and then suddenly it was Christmas. And along with that was all the Christmas things--Sunday school program, Carols by Candlelight, shopping, etc. Add to that the idea that I had that most of our gifts this year should be handmade or consumable and it got busy at the end. We kept things simple with the girls this year. They got their stockings which had breakfast, play money, a 4 color pen, and smelly stickers. Then they got two other gifts from us. One gift was books and then the other was actually a family gift. They got puppets (a puppet theatre is in the processes), dress-ups, and the table tent. Even though they didn't get much from us they still made out like bandits. =)

The year ended with the hottest day all year. yuck! And I had the flu! Double YUCK! 2009 was ushered in with yet another very hot, humid day. Think 90+ degrees and around 80% humidity. We spent the day inside with the a/c on. Thankfully it rained Friday and Saturday so it's much cooler now. Those hot humid days just suck the energy straight out of you.

VBS starts in 8 days. I spent quite a few hours on the computer this week getting stuff done. Then I spent about 3 hours in the school office yesterday printing and hole punching, etc. I tried laminating on their big fancy machine and it ate two of my papers. I couldn't figure out how to get them out so they are still inside the machine somewhere. I need to remember to have Josh check that today. I came home to do a bunch of laminating and gluing and cutting. The Sauvageot siblings came and helped out with that. I still have a few more things to do. And hopefully the guy writing the skits has them finished today. Nothing like waiting until the last minute, hey? He leaves for vacation on Tuesday so I guess I'll have them for sure by then.

This week--Monday Catie gets her cast taken off. Hopefully they won't need to put another one on. We've been praying every day for that. Also on Monday or maybe Tuesday we are headed to Bargara for lunch with friends. Possibly some swimming too so double hoping Catie won't have a cast. The rest of the week will just be staying cool and finishing everything for VBS. I think. =)

Check in with you later.