Our Elf on the Shelf....

Okay so I know this is a little late, & that I should have posted throughout December
about our Elf on the Shelf.
But I was so busy planning ideas for Elf's visit I forgot to post about it all but I guess it's
better late than never!
So since joining Pinterest I had seen lots of pins for Elf ideas, when I looked into these a
little more I realised it was an awesome way to encourage good behaviour in the lead
up to Christmas.
Such a tool is always welcome when you have a child, so I discussed the idea with Jason &
we decided to buy an Elf for Rhyley.

In Australia they don't sell Elf on the Shelf in stores so I jumped on Ebay & ordered one!
When he finally arrived we planned that our Elf would arrive the day Rhyley got back
from camp which meant that we would have to come up with a whole month's worth of
Elf of the Shelf ideas.

Here are our photos of our Elf - Bumble aka SuperElf!

 Day 1 - Bumble arrived with his special book

Day 2 - Bumble was found climbing the kitchen blind

 Day 3 - Here he is in the light shade

 Day 4 - Shootin' some hoops!

 Day 5 - CANDY DIVING!!!!

 

Day 6 - Bumble left a little note for Rhyley

Day 7 - Stuck in the cookie jar!

 

 Day 8 - It's been a loooong day!

 Day 9 - Hangin' with dinosaurs!

Day 10 - Oh my what have you done!

 

Day 11 - Bumble left this..... 

 ....he painted a red nose on Rhyley 

& stuck stickers on him hehe...

 Day 12 - Bumble decided to make breakfast a 

Smoothie for Rhyley & some odd candy 
& tabasco concoction

 Day 13 - Bumble made Marshmallow Poppers 
for Rhyley with detailed instructions

 Day 14 - I wonder what is in the egg?!

 Day 15 - Daredevil Bumble!

Day 16 - Hanging from the ceiling fan 

on a Nerf Vortex Howler

Day 17 - Roasting marshmallows

Day 18 - Check himself out in a skirt?!?!

Day 19 - Hanging in the shower with a 

water pistol

Day 20 - Skateboarding on the windowsill

(Last day at home before going on 

holiday with Rhyley)

Day 21 - Making a snowman in 

Aunty Mel's freezer

Day 22 - All tied up after trying 

to pinch Aunty Mel's earrings

Day 23 - At Grandma's with Rhyley's 

breakfast cereal

Day 24 - First day at Nanny & Poppy's

looking in the pot plant for frogs!

Day 25 - Pretending the shell is a sleigh

Day 26 - Chillin' under the Christmas tree

Day 27 - Fishing with the gnomes in the 

frog pond

Day 28 - Checking out where Australia 

is on the globe

Day 29 - Supporting the WRONG footy team!

Day 30 - Hiding in Nanny's doll cupboard

Day 31 - Helping out feeding the dogs!

We had so much fun with Bumble visiting & we can't wait until he comes to visit this Christmas!
So that is our month with Bumble aka SuperElf our Elf on the Shelf.

Until next time,

Baking, Peanut Butter & Movies

Seriously does it get any better?

My answer....NO! 

So since it's school holidays here, it's that time of year where you have to find things that are quick & easy to entertain the kids so they don't spend the whole holidays playing X-Box, Playstation or any other video game.

This week we decided we would do a little bit of baking.

What did we bake? 

Cookies!, of course because they are quick & easy so after raiding the cupboards to see what we could possibly make into cookies I found we had quiet a bit of peanut butter in the cupboard. 

I found this recipe & decided to make a few changes to it, namely the addition of Nutella!

Here's my recipe.

Peanut Butter Cookies

Ingredients

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup melted butter
3/4 cup crunchy peanut butter
1/2 cup Nutella
1 egg
1 and 1/2 cups self-raising flour
1 teaspoon vanilla

Method

1. Preheat oven to 160°C and line a cookie sheet with baking paper
2. Combine sugars in a bowl.
3. Melt butter in a saucepan, add peanut butter, nutella and vanilla.
4. Add melted butter mix and lightly beaten egg. Mix well.
5. Gradually add sifted flour, mix until combined.
6. Place teasppons of mixture onto tray and flatten with a fork.
7. Bake for 12-15 minutes or 20 minutes for a crunchier cookie.

These were so good & amazingly there are some left! YUM!

Because Rhyley had been so well behaved this week we decided to take him to see the advance screening of The Muppets!
It was awesome, we all loved it, Jason & I enjoyed the trip down memory lane & we especially loved the song Man or Muppet - I seriously had tears of laughter when Big Bang Theory's Jim Parsons came on the screen - he played "human" Walter perfectly!
Check out the clip for the song below:

We also went to see Happy Feet Two in 3D.
It was good not quiet as good as the first one but still enjoyable.
I liked that the environmental message wasn't shoved in your face this time but it was still there but definitely more subtle this time around.
I liked P!NK as Gloria - though it wasn't the same as Brittany Murphy's version of Gloria.
P!NK's Gloria was less sassy & more the Mumma penguin she'd become compared to the sassy, looking for love Gloria portrayed by Brittany Murphy even Mumble was more reserved & less daring compared to the first film.
I loved the songs in the film though, especially the beautiful song Gloria sings Bridge of Light it's such a touching song that pulled at the heart strings.
Check it out below:

Both movies were good & definitely worth seeing so if you are looking for something to do with your kids these holidays why not head to the movies for a treat & catch one of these films.

Until next time,

New Year, New Family

Happy New Year everyone! 

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas spent with friends and family. 

We had a great Christmas away visiting our family in Brisbane and Ballina. 

The only drawback to visiting family so far away is the traveling 13 hours there, hopefully next year our family will come to Mackay to spend Christmas with us if not we will just have quiet one by ourselves!

I think we'll leave all that to a little later to worry about (though being prepared isn't a bad thing,right?!?).

So as I said we spent so time down in Brisbane/Ballina over Christmas. It was great seeing everyone as I haven't seen most of my family for about 12 months. Our nephew Coop has grown SO much since we saw him in May, my brother has shrunk (he's lost about 21kg), and though the rest of family are the same there have been other changes.

My uncle's God-daughter gave birth to a healthy baby boy on Christmas day.

This is such a blessing as she was told she would never have children because of health complications she has had in the past & I am SO happy for her & I know she is going to be a wonderful Mum!

While we were away one of the most annoying thing I kept hearing was "Why don't you ask your brother about his eating plan" or "ask how your brother lost all that weight", now don't get me wrong I am very happy my brother has decided to lose weight for himself the fact is that we have always been complete opposites, in all honesty if you looked at our family at any stage of us growing up you would assume he wasn't my brother simply because he was always this skinny weed of a kid while the rest of us were fatty, fat fatties!
This is no stretch of the imagination I can assure you.
The point of me bringing up this little tangent is NOT because I am jealous or anything but the fact is that the last thing you want to be reminded of when visiting family is that you are the fat one & your brother is the skinny one ((again) 'cause last Christmas he was certainly headed toward fatville).

Even before we went away I had been thinking a lot about our family's health because
we are by no measure skinny people & while I certainly don't believe you have to be a size 8 to be happy & healthy, I do think it is  high time that our family got healthier & a little slimmer.

So after a heap of research into different eating plans, weighing up pros/cons, if we can all eat the same foods & get results & how it will work into our lifestyle without having to cook 3 separate meals for each member of the family & discussing it with Jason we have decided to start Weight Watchers.
Why?, well it's because of the easy of it, no counting calories, knowing that you have X points each day/week, it allows us all to eat the same food & you can have a little treat & not feel like you are breaking your diet! 
Next week I am off to my first meeting at Weight Watchers & I am excited! 
Excited to start the new year on the right foot & heading towards a healthier family, so if you like join us on our ride to a happier, healthier family. 
I am sure at times it will be a bumpy road but I hope if I use this blog to log our journey we will get there.

I will still be posting my latest scrapbook pages & crafts I've done but this year I'll also be posting recipes we've made & lots more!

So here is my first official layout for 2012:
I made this layout of the boys playing on the slip 'n' slide over Christmas using Miss Mint's Sunkissed Summer (seriously LOVE the splashes in this kit) & Letters and Lessons by Sara Gleeson
 

  Credits can be found here

Until next time

A Little Birdie Has Come to Nest

On Tuesday I was letting our dogs out for the day when I noticed this bird's nest hanging from the "clothesline" we have hanging under our back veranda.

There was no bird in the nest so I decided to have a peek inside and what did I spy?, a tiny little egg!

The tiny egg inside the nest

I was curious to find out what sort of bird had built this strange looking nest so I of course jumped on to the computer to Google what new life we will be seeing in the New Year.

After a little while I found what I was looking for and discovered we had a little family of Olive-Backed Sunbirds (commonly known as Yellow Bellied Sunbirds).

 Olive-Backed Sunbird Nest

I have been keeping an eye on the Mumma bird and she has been sitting on her precious little egg all day long. Can't wait until Rhyley is home after Christmas to see the nest with the Mumma bird in it and wait for the egg to hatch and watch the Mumma and Pappa bird raise there little baby in the New Year!

 Mumma Sunbird sitting in her nest

So today I was actually in the mood to do a little scrapbooking!  

Here are the layouts and with these two layouts I have achieved my goal of 52 layouts for the year!!

YAY!!! GO ME!! 

This layout is for the December Pimp My Page Challenge at Peppermint Creative (head over there to grab the freebie template) 

Credits are here

This layout I made using Grow With Love: Kids Edition by Sara Gleason & Crystal Livesay, Valorie Wibben's Platform 9 and 3/4 and Miss Mint's awesome new freebie kit Movie Night  

Credits here

Well I really must finish up got lots to do tomorrow before our trip away!

Until next time,

Only 7 More Sleeps

Yep that's right!
There are just 7 more sleeps until Christmas!
So excited for Christmas to get here!

I have done all our Christmas shopping I just need to wrap everything up.
Last night I made a Cheat's Fruitcake seriously it was the easiest cake I have ever made.
It only contains three ingredients! Yes you read that right, just three ingredients!
The ingredients are:

1 kg dried mixed fruit
600 ml chocolate milk
2 cups self-raising flour

(For the method check it out the recipe here )
I used Ice Break Iced Coffee in place of the chocolate milk, I added glace cherries (my favourite) to the fruit & I added 1/4 cup of Bundaberg Rum.
Luckily there was enough mixture left to make a tin can cake so we could try it before taking it down to Ballina for Christmas! This cake taste SO good, though I might try it with the chocolate milk next time to see if it changes the flavour.

I seriously can't wait to go away for Christmas cause I get to snuggle my little man who is currently away visiting Nanny & Poppy after visiting with Grandma for a few days before.
He had a great time with Grandma & got to see Aunty Melinda, Phil & all the cousins which was great! Now he is busy helping in Nanny & Poppy's Christmas shop & playing with Coop!

So here are the last of the layouts I have done so far:

Credits are here

This layout was made for Minty Mixed Bag Challenge at Peppermint Creative using Sunkissed Summer

Here are the credits 

Credits are here

Here's another Minty Mixed Bag Challenge layout using Chill Factor, Dear Santa, & Jolly Gingerbread from Peppermint Creative (all perfect for scraping those Christmas photos) & Grow With Love Holiday Edition by Sara Gleason and Crystal Livesay

 Here are the credits

Credits are here

Here's a layout for the August Pimp My Page Challenge at Peppermint Creative I did of Rhyley's trip to Ekka this year with Grandma I made this layout using Pinwheel Bubbles Kit

Get the credits here

Another Minty Mixed Bag Challenge layout with Miss Mint's Artsy Fartsy Kit

Credits here

Credits here

Here are the credits

And to wrap up this post I will share with you two hybrid projects I made.

I haven't had time to get this one printed yet but I plan to in the New Year

Check the credits

Here's a little Christmas Wall Art I made using Commercial Vectors by the super talented Tay Silver at Peppermint Creative. You can grab a freebie product here!

Credits here

Well that's it for now I am off to bed 

Until next time,

What A Month

Hey there.
Well Christmas is almost upon us. It seems like only yesterday we were celebrating Christmas, 2011 has really flown by.
So we have been really busy this month with school (seriously this term has been hectic), being of holidays, preparing for Christmas, organising our holiday.
This term at school Rhyley went on his first school camp, this was his first trip away from home that wasn't to a relative's house! They went to Action Challenge and he had an awesome time his favourite part was the giant swing they used there and hopefully we will get some photos from school in the new year. After camp they had 2 performances to attend, swimming lessons, end of year break up party (which was a trip to the cinema to see Puss In Boots, swimming and pizza for lunch), &their Christmas Concert and Party!
We have also been busy decorating and baking for the holidays, we decorated our Christmas tree & welcomed our cheeky Elf on the Shelf to our family- his name is Bumble aka SuperElf but I will write more about him and his antics in another post (Yes! he deserves a post all to himself!)
Rhyley & I made Gingerbread Heads for his classmates this year.
They were so cute & were a BIG hit with all the kids & parents too.

I definitely need to work on my icing skills and maybe I will have to practice a little more & (of course by making more cookies) but first I will need to by some decorating goodies on the web since they're harder to find here.
I got the idea for these Gingerbread Heads from Bakerella's website (I swapped Molasses for Golden Syrup that's why mine are lighter).

I packaged two of them up in a bag with a topper I made using Dear Santa & Jolly Gingerbread Elements from Peppermint Creative & Cookies for Santa by Kate Hadfield

Close up of the topper

We also made Rhyley's teacher Mrs Dyson a Crayon Art Monogram and these adorable Apple Containers which we filled with Mini Toblerones!

I got the idea for the "apples" here.
I made the apples out of recycled 600ml soft drink bottles & added a few "tweeks" by adding a piece of bottle to make a lip to place the lid on top. 

Anyway onto sharing with you some more layouts I have completed:

Layouts from July:
The Frosted Fun Elements & Papers where perfect for scrapping these photos of Rhyley first ice-skating attempt :)

Credits are right here

 

Credits are here


Check the credits

Well this post is alot longer than I expected so I will wrap it up for now.

Until next time