{Table Update....}

Remember our table dilemma?

 

Hey we had a moment today where for some unplanned reasons we had enough strong hands in one place to "flip" the table......

 

 

I am so proud of my husband......it is so beautiful......

A few more splinters to knock off it and we are ready to have a feast with friends around this grand table.....

...and the best part was other than all the hard work gone into it ...it was a steal of a deal made with scrap yard jarrah wood......never could we have afforded to have bought one!

Sunday Snippets

Gotta love birthday celebrations that just keep celebrating!!!!

Joining in with Sunday Snippets here.

Things I am Loving...

 

 

I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something that you can be thankful for... no matter how simple it is.  

 

 

Things I am Loving this week......

Time for little cousins to celebrate a birthday with something new to them.....

Beautiful and generous gifts from big boys off to kindy and leaving playgroup......

My phone back after two months in a little battle with the "Telco"

Today being Friday and a day to myself to finish a requested apron.....

Nice long cuddles with this beautiful nephew and a cuppa with my sister.....

More time for little guys to be busy with simple plans and ideas.....

I am joining in here with other loving people.....

Have a fabulous rest of Friday. xx 

 

Simply Lovely

From My Love.........

Simple roses from our Garden

Heart Stamps and green rice

I guess you already know it is Valentines day tomorrow?

I thought I would run with a bit of a pink heart theme at playgroup tomorrow.....

I want to achieve this idea.....so I set about in my usual thrifty manner to create what I would need....

A heart stamp.....or two or in my case 30!

I purchased some cheap thick kitchen sponges and cut out my hearts.....

I then took my stash of corks and began gluing the sponge on top......

I had second thoughts about whether that would be strong enough and decided to raid my sewing pin stash.....

Handy tips :  Choose short pins and find the softer corks.....because I had a large stash I could choose from the batch the softer ones to make it easier on my fingers.

I also managed to colour up some rice for a sensory tub  I am setting up also at playgroup tomorrow....

Easy peasy....green food colouring dropped throughout the rice then mixed by hand until desired colour spread. 

I am hoping these couple of things will be a huge hit with each of my playgroup sessions this week.....I begin a brand new group tomorrow afternoon bringing it to three sessions per week.

 

Thirteen

This morning I woke to realise that this little girl.....

was all grown up and somehow was now  thirteen today.........how did she get to be Thirteen?

Did you hear the squeals at your house......

 

That would have been this  girl.....

There was a little excitement in the house when two tickets to the  "Taylor Swift " concert were opened.....

Oh alright.....I did get a little excited too!

Happy Birthday Meg.....

It is going to be a fabulous year of firsts for you.....

One that we know you will do very well at and know that you can be a leader and pace setter in all things......

We love you heaps.xx

The afternoon was spent celebrating with family....

Thirteen .....REALLY????

WeetBix Slice

I was reminded of a childhood slice the other day .

My mum being the stay at home type, always had a homemade afternoon tea waiting for after school.

Well that's what I remember...maybe it wasn't every day and not always homemade but pretty close.

(I was reminiscing with one of my sisters the other day about eating weetbix slathered with butter for afternoon tea when the homemade slices were not available!!!!)

Here is a slice recipe that is not only very easy but very tasty.....

CHOCOLATE WEETBIX SLICE

 
185gm butter
4 crushed weetbix
1 cup self raising flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup coconut
1 1/2 tbs cocoa

I just made a simple chocolate icing to go on top....

icing sugar

teaspoon butter

milk

You can find the variations here where I found it and went for a trip down memory lane. 

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The Good Thing: Baking a yummy easy slice for snacks.
The Good Thing for:  All of us.

Photo a Day

Front Door   -  Photo A Day

Self Portrait   - Photo a Day

Things I am Loving....

• I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something that you can be thankful for... no matter how simple it is.  

Things I am loving this week......

 

 

 

Simple gifts made and bought for thirteen year old friends.....

Afternoon childhood snacks that are proving to satisfy.....

Local public libraries to source books for my playgroup programme.....

 

The fact that it is Friday and we have survived the first full week back at school and all the other commitments that have begun......

Lovely surprise mail from all the way around the world from here.....

Joining in with "Things I am Loving" here..

Distractions

Sun - Photo a Day

I have been very distracted from here the last couple of days......

good distracted....

Work  has kicked into gear this week. As part of my Children's Pastor role I have a hands on job running and overseeing midweek playgroups.

We are in a real growth area and so the demands for activities such as playgroups is high.

This year we have taken on the decision to run an extra session making three a week.

Currently we have 34 families enrolled in each of our  two sessions and the third one is well under way to being full too.

I love this part of my job, I love the interaction with families, the relationship with the parents and the fun of seeing little ones grow through out the year.

So with all that beginning this week, my  brain has been working  over time....so many great ideas to implement and no more time than usual.

I did whip up a  very basic set of bean bags using some of my fabric scraps...... 

I also had fun preparing this sensory tub......a mini beach 

I made some surprise ice cubes that contained some sea creatures.....

This was enjoyed by little people discovering hidden treasures....

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The Good Thing:   Preparations for playgroup under way.

The Good Thing For:  All my lovely families heading to playgroup.

Buttons

Buttons   - Photo a Day

 

 

A Riddle....

Q.   When is a table not a table?

A....When it is so darn heavy that you need 5 men to turn it over....

5 men we didn't have on hand today!!!

We have had an idea for a while of a nice long table for our outside eating.....

after hunting around and not wanting to pay the prices for a table that wasn't what we wanted....

the decision to make one was made.

Now not just any table ....beautiful recycled Jarrah that need to be worked over.....

Many hours have been spent by my very determined hubbie with the sander and other very noisy power tools to bring this wood into it's full beauty....

Today with the help of a talented friend the table was assembled.

One small problem...It is so heavy that we will need an army of men friends to help turn it over.....

This is one table that will hopefully see lots of food, family and friends around and will not be going anywhere  soon.

No" Photo a day"  today -   dinner  it was eaten before I photographed.

10am

10 am   Photo a day

 

This is where you will find me each and every Sunday at 10 am.....

This is the place my family and I worship....

Where I spend a lot of my week on staff as The Children's Pastor.....

Where we are seeing exciting things in our community happen....

This week the mid week programmes I oversee come alive.

A Bloggy Award...

During the week the lovely Mardi  at  The  love Supreme  included me in a Bloggy Award.........

Go and say hello to her.... 

Its an award for bloggers with less than 200 followers (give or take a few)....and who have a lovely blog. So...now its my turn to share some of the love.... 

So now I am sharing this award with these girls......

Mandy     at     Fell 4 U

Kylie   at   Lucy Violet Vintage

Sophie  at   Little Gumnut 

Claire   at   Sweet Birdy Love 

Mel    at    Making Memories

and I know only 5 but here's one more.....

Miss Prudence  At    A life of charming moments.

Go and say hi and leave some encouragement.

Please follow these simple rules. 
1. Share your appreciation with the blogger who awarded you the Liebster by linking back to their blog. 
2. Post the award. 
3. Share the 5 blogs you are awarding the Liebster with and let them know that they have received it. 
4. Enjoy the new attention this award brings to your blog. 
5. And last, but not least - have fun.

A Good Thing

Another version of banana bread......

Just had to make using the over ripe bananas sitting on my kitchen bench.

I used the recipe I found here......

but I can't call mine low fat !

I used whole milk and honey instead, cause that's what I had in the fridge.

My Not so low fat version....

2 Bananas mashed

125g margarine(melted)

2 eggs ,lightly beaten

2 tbsp milk

1 tbsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp honey

1 cup of brown sugar

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

Mix together the bananas, margarine, eggs, milk, vanilla, honey and sugar. Sift in flour and gently combine. You don't want to over beat your mixture just make sure the flour is well mixed in. Now pour into a lined  loaf tin and bake in 160 degrees oven for about 45 mins or until top is brown and cake cooked through. Lift cake out of tin by the paper and cool on a cooling rack.

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The Good Thing:Making banana loaf with over ripe bananas......

The Good Thing For : All who partake!