Mexican and Margaritas

Friday night was just the loveliest night.

It was my friend Jodi's birthday and we were having a girl's night out at Mooloolaba.

Now the last night I had a night out was for Jodi's birthday last year.  Shocking to know it's been a year since I've been able to be free of kids (and husband) and have some time with the girl's.

The weather was VERY different this year though.  Last year it was the most perfect evening and this year it was raining and stormy.  When I say raining, I mean RAINING!  Torrential.  Downpours.  MUST really concentrate on driving or the water will shoosh you off the road type rain.

So where did we go?  Well Mexican was the choice this time so we headed to Montezuma's at Mooloolaba.

A dip and corn chip platter is always good for starters...

...and of course a Margarita had to be sampled.  I didn't even think about a photo until I was nearly finished.  (Oooohhhh it was sooooo delicious!)

Then there was the HUGE meal.  We really shouldn't have had a starter even though we all shared it.  We couldn't eat all our meals so it's lucky they give you a doggy bag if you want one.

As Jodi and Crystal picked the meal I was intending to order, I decided to try something new that I thought sounded pretty interesting and Sandy had the same dish that I did too.

It's called a Mole Poblano and I'll quote from the menu here:

Centuries old chicken dish invented by the nuns of Puebla for the Bishops visit, served with a spicy Aztec nut sauce, 32 herbs and spices, coconut, banana and pineapple.

It was DIVINE!   Then again you'd expect a dish made by nuns for a bishop to be pretty divine wouldn't you?

After dinner (and collecting our doggy bags), it was off for a coffee at a nearby cafe.

More chats and catching up before we decided that the rain really was getting heavier and that we'd better think about heading home while we hopefully still could.

...and home we did get.  We weren't flooded out which was a possibility considering the water laying around everywhere but it was a bit of an interesting drive home.

I'm glad I was in the 4x4 because the water was rushing across the road most of the way and there were a few nasty potholes that we hit because you just couldn't see them in the dark and the rain.

Once snug in my house I enjoyed listening to the rain on the roof and knowing I wasn't going to be dragged out of bed early because the kidlettes were having a sleep over at Nan and Poppy's so I had the house to myself!  Bliss.

xxx Susan

Happy Birthday Kylie!

Happy  Birthday to my friend Kylie!

It's a day late I know and with your three girls I know you can understand a few possible reasons why things happen with kids and why I didn't post yesterday.

I hope you had a fantastic day.  We think of you often even though you're far away and I miss you more than you will probably ever realise.

Happy  birthday to a beautiful and lovely friend.

xx Susie

Getting ready for school

It's that time of the year again.

Books are covered and everything is labelled.

The bag is packed.

The uniform is ready.

All that's left is for lunch to be made.

My girl starts Year 1 tomorrow.

My heart bursts with pride but also weeps a little at the same time....as only a mother's can.

The holidays

I started the school holidays way back in early December with the intention of blogging regularly.

I now know why women with young school children DON'T blog in the holidays. 

It's utter chaos around here most days and some things just have to slide.

Christmas has been and gone.

Master M's 4th Birthday has been and gone too but we can continue to enjoy the pressies.

A first fish has been caught with the birthday fishing rod.

We have managed to spend some time out and about as a family.

On extremely rare occasions I've been able to sneak in a bit of hooky time.

One week left of the holidays then we'll see what changes happen around the house. 

 At least it will be slightly less chaotic.

School concert

Monday night was the Prep to Year 2 concert at Little Miss R's school.  I had no idea what it was going to be all about because Little Miss R refused to tell me as it was going to be a big surprise.

Luckily for her, it was her father's last night at home before going back to work so he got to come along too which was so exciting for her.

It started off with a small group made up of all the classes singing a song and setting the tone for the rest of the night.

The parents waited with anticipation to see their children dressed up and singing on stage.

It was a colourful, musical night.

Then Little Miss R's class came out dressed as soldiers and did a fantastic job.  I'm sure they were the only class that you could hear as the other's were so quiet the taped singing sort of took over.

We did get a lot of amusement out of the fact that we could hear our girl clearly from halfway down the room.  That girl sang her heart out and was very LOUD!

My nephew's class came out as sheep and did their song with some very cute little actions.

Then it was all over after the big finale and encore and it was time to go find my girl. 

She was beaming as she ran up to me saying "I was soooo good!"

It was very cute and cracked me up as only my girl can.

xx Susan

The party

I was very worried Saturday morning.  I had checked out the forecast all week and it was supposed to be sunny.

It wasn't.

We had rain and around the time we headed up to Skippy park to set up, the drizzle and showers started.

I was getting quite a bit upset because I felt for my little girl so much.  She so desperately wanted a party.

The food was laid out, people turned up, and the rain started to ease.  The kids were able to leave the shelter and play which was a huge relief.

We even had 3 visitors come and see what all the fuss was about.

 

The kangaroos were pretty exciting for the kids as some of them lined up at the fence and watched them bound off.  It is called Skippy Park for a reason.

 

Little Miss R was able to hop on her new bike and do some laps of the bike track.

Then of course it was cake time.  An absolutely delicious vanilla sponge with real cream.  Delicious!

I think I'll have to do a few laps around the track on my bike now just to feel better about eating a nice huge chunk of cake!

Enjoy your weekend.

xx Susan

Six

The presents are wrapped and waiting on the coffee table in the lounge room.

Well before 6am my little girl is up with much excitement to open her presents.

There are pancakes for breakfast of course.

There's also time to play with some of our new toys before school.  The hot wheels track is an absolute HIT!

More excitement abounds when we go outside and there's a nice, new, shiny bike just waiting to be ridden.

The requested banana cake is waiting for afternoon tea once she's home from school with candles to be blown out and cream cheese icing to be devoured.

Happy 6th Birthday my little treasure.

xx Mummy

Treasures

I've been doing a lot of decluttering lately and things are starting to look a bit better in my house.  Maybe I should say in the cupboards because that's where I seem to be decluttering most.

While cleaning out a cabinet in my bedroom yesterday I found a plastic bag full of treasures, including an old wooden jewellrey box that had been missing for I don't know how long.  (Years in fact!)

The below photo shows just a few of the things I found but they're the most precious to me.

 

This little hedgehog was a gift for my 24th birthday from friends in England when I was travelling there with my sister.  I had my birthday in Edinburgh and our friends had given my sister a couple of little gifts for me so that I had something to open on my birthday.

It was really sweet so this little fella reminds me of that time.

These small perfume bottles are beautifully decorated and if anyone's been to Venice then they'll probably recognise them. 

 I was given the middle clear one by my sister as a gift the first time she went to Europe and the others I bought in Venice myself when I went there about 8 years ago.  I can't believe it's been that long!

Now I'm not really a doily person but when I was living in Airlie Beach in my early 20's, my Grandma came to visit and whipped this up when I was at work one day.

I've always kept it because I was amazed that she could make some cheap thread that I'd bought to hang up Christmas cards into something like this. 

It's got a sparkly thread to it which makes it look quite pretty and it's something that always reminds me of my Grandma, especially as she's now no longer with us.

Finally there's some jewellrey which I had been missing for quite some time (obviously) and which I had been searching for lately.

The small round diamond was a gift from my daughter for my first ever Mother's day when she was a baby. 

The second necklace watch was a gift from my Uncle for my 21st birthday and I just LOVE it. 

I can't tell you how happy I am to have some of my treasures back.  I'm wearing my Mother's day necklace now, am planning to take the watch to the jewellers to get it working again and now have to clear a space on my dresser to put my other treasures.

More decluttering to come!!

It makes me wonder what else I'll find when I'm clearing out the cupboards.

Hope you all have a great day.

xx Susan

Sports day

Thursday was Sports day at Little Miss R's school.

The prep to year 3's (5-8 year olds) dressed up in their house colours of red, blue or green.

It was organised chaos and reminded me why I'm NOT and can NEVER be a teacher.

The children participated in running races.

They also did long jump, tug of war, tunnel races...

...and all manner of obstacle course things.

Little Miss R did NOT enjoy her day.  She's not very sporty and hated every minute of being there on sports day.  (Very different from the rest of the women in our family).

Having said that, when it came to one of her running races, a lovely teacher held her hand and ran with her.  She now proudly displays her ribbon for coming 3rd!

We did leave school early and came home to have our own play time which she was much happier about.

xx Susan

An indulgent night

Friday night there was a party at hubby's work for the crew that are leaving in the next week or so. 

It provided a fantastic opportunity for us to have a night away together which is so rare these days.

We shipped the kidlettes off to my parents for the night and I caught the train to the Gold Coast which was really exciting for me as I haven't been on a train in YEARS!

Master M was very excited to wave Mummy off on the train.  It was all very exciting for him especially as he was given a sticker and Thomas the Tank Engine colouring book from the staff at the station.

The train whizzed past pineapple farms and the Glasshouse Mountains.

Considering it was a 3 hour train trip (with a 20 minute wait in Brisbane to change trains), it was the perfect opportunity to indulge in some hooky time.  I could certainly not do that if I was driving myself to the coast.

Hubby picked me up from the station and gave me a tour of his work site which is close to completion and looks so amazingly different from the last time I saw it.

Then we checked into our hotel which is in the heart of Surfers Paradise and was really lovely.  It was the Watermark and we had hinterland views instead of ocean views but that was fine by me.  Any view is pretty amazing to me.

The party was held at the Advancetown Pub somewhere in those distant hills.

Another couple from hubby's work were staying in the hotel too and T is pregnant so we had a driver for the night....sweet!

The party was great but I have to say I thoroughly loved having some child free moments lazing around in my hotel waffle robe and slippers and just chilling in the room. 

Breakfast wasn't bad either as it was a huge buffet full of nearly any food known to man. 

No photos of the buffet..sorry.  I was too busy stuffing my face trying to decide what to eat.

It's back to reality and home now but it's certainly been a lovely respite for us.

Hope you all have a fantastic weekend too.

xx Susan

June 26, 2004

Seven years ago I pledged my life to this man.

Seven years, two children and plenty of ups and downs.

Here's to the last seven years my love and to many, many more in the future.

 

Happy Annviersary

Love You!

Superhero Day

Today was Superhero day at Little Miss R's school.  Now this is not the Superman, Batman, Spiderman or any of the comic book superheroes..No.  This was Queensland Superheroes in honour of Queensland Day on the 6th of June and all the Emergency services and volunteers who have been heroes over the past 6 months during the natural disasters we have experienced.

Little Miss R was very determined that she was going to dress up as a Policeman.  So that meant I needed to find a police costume so in this day of internet where else do you go but your internet search engine and images.  I found out what Queensland police wear and designed a very easy costume around that... navy blue pants, light blue shirt, navy blue hat and badges.

The badges were what I thought were going to be the hardest thing but ended up being quite easy because I copied, pasted, printed and glued the badges then used safety pins to secure them onto the shirt. 

The hat I made out of cardboard, a copy of a badge and a strip of white paper which I coloured in then glued on.  The sticky tape around the top of the hat doesn't look quite flash I know but it was all I had at the time and in the end my little girl was so proud of her costume so that's all that mattered.  In fact, I was pretty proud of my first school costume effort too.

I just hope in future they will all be this easy.

Birthday wishes

Friday 2oth May

My birthday

37 years old! Goodness, have that many years zoomed passed already?

So what did I do? Did I get spoiled, pampered, looked after?

Well not entirely.

It was a usual day in our household with darling hubby at work (leaving at 4am) and it was also a school day for Little Miss R. Master M and I spent the day together so I therefore didn't get very pampered and looked after by him.

The evening was a different matter. My birthday seemed all about food for some reason but that's ok because I'm very fond of food, good food, yummy food and sharing food. My uncle came over for dinner and so I didn't have to cook as he ordered pizza for us.

I have been really wanting Oysters Kilpatrick lately so I decided my birthday was the perfect day to treat myself. An entree of oysters, pizza for mains, then cake for dessert. Not just any cake, it has to be butterfly cakes because that's what I've been wanting rather than plain old cupcakes.

They were absolutley delicious! I also did a batch of plain cupcakes just in case the cream butterfly cakes weren't a hit and I'm glad I did because they proved perfect for putting the candles in.

Darling hubby didn't get home until it was nearly the kidlettes bedtime so he missed most of the day which was a shame but we'll make sure we spend Sunday doing something special instead I think.

All in all, it was a quiet but lovely day.