Dinner?

I had thought of having spaghetti and meatballs for dinner tonight.....

I think the girls would be pleasantly surprised by this one... it is chocolate cake covered in spaghetti icing, with Ferrero Roche meatballs smothered with raspberry sauce!!

Check out here for other wacky desserts http://thisiswhyyourefat.tumblr.com/archive.

A good week...

Nutella returned to our house - another good thing!!

It started last week with a win at soccer on Tuesday night. Our soccer team has never won a game and we won against the undefeated team, the Crazy Pixies I think they are called! Still looking for a name for our team if you have any ideas?

To celebrate we went for a drink at the pub and then went a saw a movie - on a school night and everything!! The movie had been planned for awhile as a birthday present from my friend but it all worked very nicely. I think the last time the four of us had been to the movies was probably a babes in arm showing. We saw Water for Elephants which I thought was excellent and beautiful.

Wednesday I took my MIL and SIL to Burnt Orange for their birthdays (didn't buy anything new!) and it was a gorgeous autumn day with great food and great company.

Friday MIL kindly looked after JJ so that I could take Goofy to gymnastics and actually interact with her. I then took her to lunch and we did some shopping together. We both had lots of fun, just the two of us.

Saturday saw friends from Brisbane at our place for lunch with some of the old gang. Birthday party for our godson were I unexpectedly got to catch up with an old friend that has been on my mind of late.Then a roast lamb dinner at the in-laws. All very good.

Sunday after church we had a kindergarten picnic in the glorious sunshine with new friends.

Sunday night you may have seen disco lights out on our street from the impromptu family disco. The girls eyes sparkled with joy. Priceless.

Today was a quiet day. Bit of tidying up, ordered some patterns from USA which is exciting. Chicken pie with SIL and her kids tonight. Offspring to look forward to with the American chocolate that SIL left for me.

Life is busy but all good.

Planning for the best....

I was given a pearl of wisdom today which I thought I would share.

Instead of planning for the worst case situation, plan for the best case.

I think I tend to plan for the worst case situation and so it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy. Goofy is going to whinge at me for food all day and that is going to be annoying and I will get my cranky pants on and so will she. Sure enough, that happens most afternoons.

Today I am going to plan for the best case scenario. Goofy wont ask for food from afternoon tea till dinner. I don't often think about afternoon tea so it ends up being a long drawn out process with me constantly plugging them with bits of food. So I am going to have a plate of afternoon tea ready for her when she gets home for preschool and explain that this is all the food there is till dinner. All with a smile on my face!!

Will see how it goes......

Recreating the balance

Families are like mobiles, or so I once read. There is a balance in each family that creates stability, harmony. If one piece changes it throws the whole balance off. Everyone needs to shift to accommodate this change to make sure that the overall balance is maintained.

When my Mum died almost five years ago now, our mobile was forced to shift, life felt like a yo yo as we all adjusted to the piece that was removed. The family communicator was gone, the one who knew what all the other pieces were doing was no longer there to keep us all up to date.

As we have just past another mother's day and birthday I have been reflecting on our new balance. It feels like after five years we may have settled. I don't feel so tossed around. The are constant adjustments but I think our mobile is calming down.

This is not to say that the missing piece is not always felt. The weight of Mum's absence has become part of the new balance. She will always be a part of all the pieces.

This is the stuff....

So I have been getting a little bogged down by the things of everyday life at the moment but have just discovered this song.

This is the stuff by Francesca Battistelli

'In the middle of my little mess, I forget how much I am blessed.'

So this week I am going to try and focus on remembering how much I am blessed rather than focussing on the mess....

Check it out..... and enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yPEQKIpFUwI&feature=player_profilepage

Cake stall....

I attended the preschool AGM at the beginning of the year and I thought it would be a good idea to help out with something to get to know people at the preschool as I failed miserably to do this when MiniMe was there.

How hard could it be to organise the cake stall for the fun day I thought, so I put my hand up.

Finding other food stall proved difficult but we finally have a coffee van and a fairy floss machine. Now I need to get baked goods for the cake stall.

I have never purchased anything from a cake stall and am not sure what I would buy if I were too.

So my questions are: -

What have you bought?

What would you buy?

How much would you pay?

One equals Six and Three...

JJ is just one year old and she requires the same amount (if not more) work than my six year old and three year old combined.

She unpacks, clings, whines, toddles towards me with a big grin, plays games. She feels all consuming at the moment.

She is currently on my lap 'helping' me type!

Hence my quiet blog of late. There are just not enough hours in the day and there is only so much you can do one handed.

I don't seem to be able to find anything that keeps her attention. I know she is only one but am I missing something obvious that she could be doing?

Life is good but very contained to places were a one year old is happy, so mainly home.

A friends dad just told me that parenting becomes easier when all your children are 21 years old ...... only 20 years to go!