Friday Brunch

Hello Friends!

Well how have your holidays been?  It has been so wonderful having my wonderful husband off work for a few days. 

Last friday, I had the extended family over (brother/wife/daughter, sister/husband/son & Daughter) for a long awaited family brunch.

It was a really nice day.
Everyone arrived at 10am.
We ate at 10.45am.  I had the newspaper, coffee and fresh flowers ready as I made the Hollondaise sauce for the eggs benadict,  while miss Mimi made the pancakes...all was wonderful as the morning progressed. 

Here are some pics...

 

I had a vintage, fresh, summer theme with lots of white, lace, glass and flowers.

 

I even used some of my own nannas milk jugs for vases, they were so pretty.

 

This particular one was my favorite!!!!.....

 

 

Here was the menu, placed on each plate...

 

 

 

I also had a mix of old plates to add to the vintage charm...

 

 

We had a very loverly morning/afternoon.  After brunch the kids swam in the pool and us adults lazed around, read, chatted and laughed.  It was so wonderful catching up with my siblings.

 

 

Expect nothing...appreciate everything!

WOW!  What a  year My family and I have had.  To be perfectly honest, Ill be glad to see the back end of it. 

That said, I wanted to just write about although there is bad...there is always good to counteract.

I believe this.

There is ALWAYS someone out there worse off than you...and more often than not theyre happier, hehe.

I feel in this world we forget to just simply STOP and smell the roses.  Something we need to do, not once every now and again but every single day.
Look at the things we often over look.

For instance, to me...
The simple pleasure of sitting on the beach, late afternoon deeply breathing the salty air and watching my children, dog and husband play and run is just simply breathtaking.  The peace, the calm, the contentment. Perfect!

Another.  There is nothing more decadent, indulgent and sensual than biting into a semi-soft chocolate Lindt ball.  The hard shell, cracking and the gooey inside pouing into my mouth.  YUM! Pure pleasure.

Also, the feeling you get when you are with your most favourite people and you are having a huge, big belly laugh.  You know the kind that makes you wheeze, make tears run down your face and your stomach muscles are so tight they hurt...that is awesome.

Flowers...almost everyday My gorgeouse 7 year old son pics a flower for me.  Whether its a perfect gardenia from the neighbors garden (oops...) or a wilted dandelion...to me it makes no difference.  They are all beautiful.  Beautiful because flowers just are that.  Also, because my son gave them to me...he thinks of little things like that and to me thats special.  I put each and every one into a vase.  My house is always full of fresh flowers...lucky me!

Finally...those night i go to bed and that drizzly rain outside starts to pour.  My bed seems so much more snuggly and it feels that little bit sweeter knowing the next day is a day off...and there are no plans! ahhhh...PURE, AWESOMENESS!

Its the little things in life that make life wonderful.  There is so much uncertainty in life (so expect nothing)...but so much beauty (appreciate everything).

Just had to share this positive little thought.

What simple things make you happy?  I would LOVE to hear them...

Another sad loss for our family!

Oh My!
what a few months we have had.  First the loss of our baby (as my last post explained), then on the 3rd of September we lost our beloved little Jojo (Jonah).  our loyal, loving, almost human like doggy. :(
I wont go into the details of how we lost him but all I will say is that I found him and the circumstances werent nice.  I was devistaed...the whole family was devistated.

Jonah was our dearest baby!  He came everywhere he possable could with us.  He listened to us, knew us and connect with us in every sense.

 We rescued Jonah from the Animal welfare legue back in 2009.  He was only 4 years old then.  He was instantly apart of our family.  Even though he was a little white fluffy dog he was a mans dog, never afraid to do anything.
 He wasnt scared or agressive.  He always seemed to have a big smile on his face and was always so happy.  Even at the park, the biggest, loudest, scariest, agressive dog could come up and jojo just bounced around as if to say "can we play?" totaly obliviouse of the fact that anydog could ever be angry.  He was just always happy and friendly to everyone and everything.  He even loved our neighbors cats, LOL.

Jonah was a little burst of sunshine!

He was my little shadow, my companion and buddy.
Everyone who knew him said he was such a unique, beautiful dog.  Everyone in our neighborhood new him and loved him.  He would go and visit them all and they all loved him visiting.  One neighbor was devistated the day he died and came over sobbing with flowers.

Jonah understood each of us as individuals. I didnt even need a leash for him as he would stick by us and if he did happen to wonder off, we just say 'jojo' and he waould casually wonder back.

We buried him  under a big beautiful tree in our back yard ourside our bedroom window. 
We are still doing renovations in our back yard but when we get to fixing that area we will put a proper little plaque there in rememberance our our awesome little dude.

We, as a family had a memorial service for him and layed flowers on his grave.  We placed a rock there with his collar, bed and bowls, as well as flowers.

JoJo...We loved you more than any pet ever!  You will forever be in our hearts, minds and family.  You were a legend and will always be remembered as our friend and gentle being as well as fun, cheeky and mischieviouse.  We will ALWAYS LOVE YOU!
                                                              

                                                                  ♥♥♥♥

                                                               JONAH

                                                             2005-2012

                                                                 ♥♥♥♥

4wd with our wonderful friends.

Well a big hello!  As the school holidays draw to an end and my lil' family winds down I thought i would blog about the day we enjoyed last Monday with our beautiful friends...Claire, Dave and their lovely daughters Megan and Olivia, Maddona and Eric, Larissa and Paul and their gorgouse kids Tiana, Jay & Ally....and the 4 of us, of course.

About a month ago my husband was lucky enough to get a 'brand spankin' new, off the showroom floor' work car.  It so happened to be the new B-50 Mazda 4WD duel cab ute.  It was a bit of a treat for us as we've never had a new, new car ever before.  My hubby is 40 at the end of this year and feels a bit chuffed that he actually got a brand spanker before he hit 40, LOL.

Somthing we never expected to ever have...that along with having our own home!!  The 2 things we NEVER  in our craziest thoughts we'd have...pretty exciting huh?

Anyhoo...back to last Monday.  We, along with our friends decided to head out west...just past beau dessert (around the scenic rim) and head for a 4WD track.  Now as ive mentioned many, many ties me and my husband are coasties.  We've only been 4WDing a couple of times and it was on Stradbroke island...along the beach another once when we camped at Balina beach.  So heading out to the dust and hills was a tad different...but it was such a fun, fun lovely day.  Just check out the scenery...

Can you see the waterfall in the distance?...

Sooooo Pretty....

Through the water....

Our friends poor car suffered a little...

When we pulled over a few horseback riders passed, was pretty cool...

  ...and moo cows greeted us on the road side, perfect...

After a big days driving we got home, tired, dirty and happy!  We all slept well that night.  It was the funnest day ever.  I must say, it does help when you have friends that make you laugh the whole day.  Im very thankful and lucky for that.

The stunning moon ♥

I had to share with all the beautiful moon our God has blessed us with tonight...

These pics were taken about 15mins ago in our back yard, {8.15pm Sat 12/11/11}

 I know the pic quality isnt the greatest but you get the idea.  Stunning huh?

Oh the craziness!  I have been totaly out of the loop with blogging this year!  My laptop died about 3 months ago and I have been using my husbands tiny little notebook that he uses on the road for work, as cute as it was....I hated it!  You can only see half the screen.  You need to scroll down to see the whole page, UGH!
Anyway, yesterday I was out and about and when I came home there was a shiny new laptop sitting on our dining table...woohoo!  I love my man! {and its a little more modern looking than that in the pic LOL}
So here I sit on my New Toshiba typing my blog...ahhhhh, life is good again!
So now I promise to be a better little blogger and upadate a bit more often than I have.
~I Promise!

I love 'date day'!! ooh laa laa ♥

I just had to share my wonderful day with you all.  Today is Friday 1st April and on a typical Friday here its like anyother weekday.  You know...Get up super early, hang out washing, make lunches, get breakfast, eat breakfast, wake the kids, get uniforms ready, put dinner in the slow cooker, tidy kitchen, have shower, get dressed, do hair, do daughters hair for school, make sure kids have packed homework...show and tell and any other bits and pieces they need for school, look for the lost school shoe that my son misplaced and for some strange reason ends up being somewhere like the shower??, tell them 158 billion times to brush their teeth, make beds, make sure house is tidy and have all this done before 8.30am *phew*...No wonder I get so tired LOL. 
Anyway, today was a lovely change.  Yesterday my dear husband came home last night and said he can get today off work which rarely happens.  It was a little exciting because it meant we got to spend the day together. 
So this morning, instead of my husband being gone to work at 5.30am he was there lying next to me when I woke up *yay*.  The extra bonus was 'it was pouring with rain'.  Theres just somthing about waking up in your mans warm arms wrapped around you and hearing the rain falling outside, ahhh simple pleasures.
Next, When we got up (which was a little later than normal for a week day) HE got the kids breakfast, while I quitely sat in front of the telly sipping a coffee watching sunrise and having my breakfast.
Next the kids got dressed while I packed lunches and then my wonderful husband offered to take the kids to school for me *another yay* so I got to stay warm, in my jammies and have that 2nd cuppa.  I slowly got up to have a shower.  When my wonderful man came home he said he was taking me to George's Paragon seafood restaurant, at Sanctuary Cove....ooohhhhhhh!  For those of you who dont know this place its only the "BEST seafood resturant....in the world".
I got all pretty-ed up ...and I felt pretty too (for a change) .We had the best date day ever.
The resturant is overlooking a bay of yachts and stunning water views...it realy is nice. 5star service, top quality food and delish wine.
Next we went for a little stroll though the sanctury cove village and we just had to have a coffee and dessert (as you do).
It was DEVINE...we ate just a little too much today me thinks but it was well worth it.  We talked and talked and talked, it was just so refreshing.  The best thing for us both.
This past week we had yet again, another...hmmmm, shall I say *cr@p* time with "family issues" so I think it was a nice little escape for the two of us.
I must admit I was a lil' spoilt today...it was a bit spesh.
We then picked the kids up from school, went to the dvd store, picked up a dvd and a couple of wii games for the kids.
we have all just piled into the loungeroom this afternoon for a lazy night in....games, movies etc, after all it is still raining outside and I JUST LOVE spending time with 3 of my most favorite people of all time....Andrew, miss mimi and Little T.....

♥ Ahhhhh, aint life grand ♥...Gotta get back to it........just had to share.

Beautiful name frames for my little girl.

Today I have been sneezing, coughing, sniffling and sleeping.  *blah* Ive been quite sick all day.  I thought I would jump online just to use my brain for the first time all day LOL.
Anyway, I decided to put up a few pics of some art I did for my daughters room some time back.  The results were quite lovely.

I put each letter of her name in a frame and put it on her bedroom wall.  I used fabric for the background....One was soft pink and white stripes, the next princess dresses and tiraras and the last was soft aqua with small white spots.  These colours refelected her room.

I used diecut letters for her name and used 2nd hand wooden frames that I sprayed in antique white (almost a cream).

Instead of simply just hanging them on the wall like that I put sweet ribbon on the hook of each one and tied them in a bow.  I hung them with the ribbon above her white set of tall drawers.

My daughters room has all white furniture, big thick white long curtains with soft sheer ones behind.  Her dooner cover is white with soft pink and beigy pillows.  She also has a feature wall that is a mullberry colour {the wall the frames are hung}

My daughter is 7 so the Princess theme is still big in her life.  I think these little frames fitted nicely in her cute room.

The big smoke!

Yep, holidays are great but wow, its great to be back home! 
Sydney was a whole lotta fun.  We were busy, busy.  Did alot and caught up with alot of friends. We enjoyed ourselves and the kids had an absolute ball.

It all started early last wednesday when we all rose out of bed early at 5am to get to the airport by 7am.  It was super exciting!

After an hour and a bit, on the plane we were in sydney!!!!

Next we picked up our rental cars and were on our way to our accomadation in Cronulla. 

Little T and his cousin waiting for the big plane to take off...

Miss Mimi on the big plane holding her baby (Timmy) just before take off.  Her little cousin is in the back ground.

We spent the next few days just relaxing and catching up with friends...

With my most favorite gal pal...

One day we went for a drive to Kurnell, which is pretty much neighboring to Cronulla.  We got fish and chips and went for a walk along the headland.  It was soooo beautiful.  I didnt relise it until we got there but this was the actual site where Captain James Cook landed on Australia.  There were all these monuments and the kids had fun looking at them...

It was such a beautiful place.  Very green and lush and as we walked around the headland, I found my dream home....check it out..........

Cant you just imagin sitting here in the morning with a cuppa tea or in the afternoon with a glass of wine?

The kids admiring the view from the house.

I mean seriously, this house came out of nowhere and has everything....Ocean views, fireplace, beautiful big massave trees.  It was just stunning!

Dont you just love these little steps?...

We then did the whole city thing.

The kids Loved the city.  The last time we were in the city was when Miss Mimi was 2 and Little T was 4 months old so they dont realy remember it, this city trip was fun for them.  Unfortunalty, the day we travelled to the city it was cooooold, wet, windy and grey...but we had fun anyway!  We made sure we found a cute little german pub (yes...underground it was) for a warm cosy lunch.

The boys ordered 1litre beer jugs (as they do) and it was Shnitzels all round...

The kids loved the opera house, harbour bridge and seeing the big face of Lunar Park.

The bridge!

The amazing Opera house.

You can see Lunar Park in the background.

So, Thats our trip....I must admit, I am glad to be home.  I relise I love my own bed, my own car and my own food, my own surroundings...but it was still great.

I am so thankful to have shared this with my family xoxoxo