down by the river...

Now that the weather has cooled a bit, one of our favourite places to go is down to the river mouth.

I love beaches like this where there are lots of shells and stones and drift wood and big logs.  There's lots for the kids to see and explore...

like this skelelton we found.  Ruby discovered what a backbone looks like.

We also found a few too many dead cat fish washed up.  9 that we could see without walking too far...kind of put me off letting the kids go for a swim, but they were fascinating to look at.

They had fun with their shadows, loving the looooong legs !

 And Ruby spent some time writing her name in the sand.

Marlise found a big stick and played with it for ages waving it around saying "King! King!"

And finally, a photo of the 3 of us.  Looks like someones dog got in the picture too ??

Oh, and on our way back to the car, we saw a little snake on the path, eeek! OK, it was only about 20cm long, but a snake is a snake in my book.  Was kinda cool watching it wiggle its way across the sand though.

the origin of lubely...and caramel popcorn...

THIS  IS  THE  ORIGIN  OF  LUBELY...my  little movie star. 

A few people have asked me what lubely means, as in my blog title - Something lubely everyday.

About 6 months ago, Marlise, ( my  little movie star ) came up with a new word, and the new word was LUBELY.  It soon became obvious that lubely was her version of LOVELY !!!

'Lubely mummy' was a favourite phrase for a long time, but sadly she doesn't say that anymore.  My 2nd favourite was when she was slurping on a super juicey mango, then she paused and said out loud "mmmmmmmmmmmm................lubely! "  And just a couple of days ago, we were watching the Australia Day fireworks, and she used 3 words to describe what she saw ...nice...pretty...and lubely !

So there you have it, the inspiration for my blog title was my little girl, and my intention is to find "something lubely  (in) everyday".


And the 'lubely something' that we had today was caramel popcorn !!  yummy!!  Here's the recipe we used.

CARAMEL POPCORN

4-5 cups of popped corn

1 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup golden syrup

1/4 cup butter

1 tsp vanilla extract

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 cup nuts (any kind) (I used macadamia nuts)

In a large pot, combine sugar, golden syrup, butter, vanilla and salt. 

Stir over low heat until sugar has dissolved.

Increase to a medium high heat and cook without stirring for 5 mins.

Stir in baking soda and remove from heat.

Add popcorn and nuts to sugar mixture and stir well to combine.

Spread onto a tray to cool.  (We were impatient so we put it in the fridge).

Dig in everyone !!!

This stuff is seriously good,  make sure you share some with your neighbours !!

especially for you Tiare...

Isn't this the prettiest little dress! Ruby loves it (almost as much as I do!)

it's beginning to feel a lot like christmas...

Christmas Gnomes & Advent Calendars

It's the 1st of December, so today, in our house, it's going to start feeling like Christmas ! 

I dug out my trusty old advent calendar, and old it is...I made it for my twins 17 years ago - 17 years ago!  Oh my !  Thát makes me feel a bit old  he! he!  But hey, it's done it's job every year, and the kids have loved it every year.

I love my advent calendar

I had lots of fun making this all those years ago.  And I've had lots of fun trying to dream up age appropriate fun ideas of things to put inside each sock - aswell as some last minute headaches too ! 

This year I hadn't planned on putting it up - too lazy to get organized ??  Shame on me !  But then Ruby's uncle arrived a couple of days ago... he is taking her on a train in a couple of weeks to stay at her nana's until we get there for Christmas and she has been asking me every five minutes if she is going on a train in the morning (she is soooo excited - can you tell ??).  So my solution, for my sanity, was to put up the advent calendar to give her an idea of how many days it is until she goes on the train.  I made a little Christmas gnome to put in 'today's' stocking so she can see what day it is today...and every day she can move it to the next stocking.

Little Christmas peg gnome

Today is the1st of December - thankyou Christmas gnome !

...so the plan for tonight is to make a little marker with a train on the top and put that in the no. 13 stocking - that's when the train leaves, so each day she can see she is getting closer to THE DAY !!! - and she can stop asking me!

And....just seeing those little stockings hanging on the wall got me all excited about doing advent again...so luckily, we had a few lollies in the cupboard (thankyou uncle) so I snuck a couple into todays stocking, one for Ruby and one for Marlise - they were so excited it made it all worth while.  Tomorrow I will be more organized - no more lollies.

The Christmas Story

This is Mary and Joseph.  Marlise was intrigued.  This year, instead of putting out the whole nativity set, I've decided to tell the kids a little bit of the Christmas story at a time. 

Keeping it nice and simple...the story for this week is about the angel that came to Mary to tell her she was going to have a baby and his name would be Jesus.  I even stuffed some wool inside Mary's dress so she looks pregnant - the kids loved it.

Christmas Tree

Today, we decided to make a cardboard Christmas tree for Ruby to decorate. 
I'm quite pleased with my freehand tree - I expected it to be lopsided, but I was pleasantly surprised !  We made a colourful paper chain together and she stuck on bows and other shiney things and had a great time.  She's so proud of her tree.  I'll post another photo when we've finished decorating.

STOP ! Shower time...

It was stinking hot today, and so humid...only place to be is under a cold shower...

Community Christmas

Our local library put on a Christmas event for the kids this afternoon and it was awesome.  They made simple decorations to hang on the Christmas tree, sang carols and had a visit from Santa.  Was lots of fun.

Here's Ruby and Marlise hanging up their first decoration - 2 pipe cleaners, a red and a white, twisted together and hooked over on one end to make a candy cane - they looked so good !

 Ruby is making a felt Christmas pudding and glueing it on to a recycled curtain ring.  Such a neat idea !

Now it's looking like a christmas tree ! The kids were all so excited to hang their decorations up.  You can see them all here, candy canes, paper christmas trees, paper chains, christmas puddings, and there are also some wreaths.  Love it !

Marlise making her paper Christmas tree.

And now she's found a special place to hang it...  oh woops!  Just noticed it's a different colour to the one she made !! haha! how did that happen ?

When Santa came in to the room Marlise got scared and screamed out "no!"' - it was really funny - sorry my baby.  but it was all good afterwards when they gave out shortbread and red  cordial.

What are you doing to get ready fro Christmas this year?

Bechtel Family Fun Day...

We had a great time today- thanks Bechtel !  They put on a family fun day for the whole community.  Everything was free - everything !  On the way in we  each received vouchers for  free food, drinks and icecream.  For the kids there was a jumping castle and slide, camel rides, face painting, balloons and a show.  For everyone there were the big machinery displays, simulators, emergency vehicles, heaps of giveaways, and live entertainment.  We loved it all.

Audio Vixen from the X-Factor TV show sang - they were awesome !

Ruby thought the fire engine was pretty neat - even if Fireman Sam wasn't there!

I asked the policeman to take this load of offenders away - no luck...

Happy little munchkin

The kids loved the camel ride - very exciting !!

Oriana, Ruby and the christmas camel

A sticker on her face and her very own autographed football...just kicking back watching a show

Wouldn't want to be changing this tyre.

She had a little reindeer balloon made especially for her... and destroyed in within the next 10 mins...

getting a rainbow painted onto her arm

Even the big kids got balloons!  This one is a dragonfly ??

It would be awesome to drive one of these things !

Future mechanic

She wanted a cow balloon, but the clown didn't know how, so she asked for a pig...managed to destroy it within the next 10 mins...must run in the family.

Some of the Big machinery that was on display


 What did you get up to today?

soap and facials...

My eldest daughter Oriana has been with me for a couple of weeks holiday.  It's been AWESOME having her around.  My big girls are both away at uni and I miss them heaps.  Anyway, we made some goats milk soap last night.  Well, she made it, I sort of supervised -  ha!  From most of what I've read on other blogs, they recommend that you have some soap making experience with ''regular' soap before trying goats milk - it's a bit more involved.  And hey, this was my 3rd batch of soap - so I have 'some' experience - yes??  And guess what ?  Tonight we took our soap out of the mold and it looks like it worked nicely - very happy.

I'm thinking I could have cut the slices a bit thicker, like the one at the back on the left, but oh well, next time.  We used a couple of 1L milk cartons - the cardboard ones for our mold, and I kind of like the shape - they look sort of like beautifully rounded squares.

They almost look good enough to eat don't you think !  Once again, I haven't added any colour or fragrance, but I like it like that.  I like that natural smell ! 

We have been using the soap from my first batch already.  Had no choice really, we ran out of the last bar of bought soap, and I refused to buy any more so we tried some and wow!  It is so wonderful to use.  It lathers up nicely and feels like it's actually moisturising the skin - it would have to be the most luxurious soap I've ever used - and hey, it's a very basic homemade soap.  I will NEVER buy soap from the supermarket again.  If you have never made your own soap before, try it - it's not as scary as you might think !  Promise !


And while we're on the subject of bathrooms - that's where you use soap right ? - well, this is what else has been going on in our bathroom...

say cheese !

look how many teeth I've got !

and this little cranky pants is really the most adorable little girl in the world !

Love you Marlise.

Kids will be kids...

I said it was time to set the table for dinner, and she did this !

And for some reason she sat still for quite a while with the scarf over her head ??

This  koala bear loves it up in her favourite tree.

Caught ! With a mouthful of cabbage and a handful to go...

"Let your children be exposed to great minds, great ideas, everlasting truth, and those things which will build and motivate for good." - Gordon B. Hinckley