In the garden

We had a lovely quiet weekend at home - mum and Mike came over for dinner on Saturday night. We went to their house last weekend for dinner and were spoilt with a 3 course meal (prawn cocktails, roast chicken & veges and homemade pav & fresh fruit salad) - so I decided to cook up a storm and prepare a 3 course meal too! Entree was creamy garlic prawns and rice for the girls and marinated lamb ribs (Craig cooked on the BBQ) for the boys, main was roast pork (cooked on the BBQ) and rustic garlic roasted vegetables and dessert was self saucing butterscotch pudding & cream - delicious :)

In between rain showers - I also managed to do some gardening. The recent rain has got the fruit trees, vege gardens and flowers blooming! Various veges are still growing in the garden, but I'm researching what veges I need to start planting soon.


Looks like we are going to have another bumper crop of mandarins again this year!! The orange tree looks like it's going to have a lot more fruit compared to last year - yay!


I have lots of my favourite flower growing in the gardens - gerberas! The colour of these ones is amazing (I have not edited this picture - I took a photo on my iPhone and my camera and they both came up the same vibrant colouring)!!

Layouts

I have had a few productive scrap days lately :) Last Friday night I went to a midnight crop at my LSS with the girls and then some more scrapping on Wednesday! I have finished these 4 LO and have one more to finish.

Gone fishing!

Yesterday the weather was perfect, so we packed the fishing gear and crab pots and headed out fishing for the day! We went back to Riverview - where we went on Easter Sunday. We did some fishing, put the crab pots in and went for a cruise up the river to have a look around - it was a fantastic day!! How gorgeous was the scenery?!?!


Not much luck fishing again - lots of bites and only 3 undersized fish, I managed to catch a decent sized stingray though LOL




We were a lot more sucessful with the crab pots - we got about 14 crabs and were able to keep 3!! Mum cooked them up last night and I had one for dinner tonight (Craig doesn't eat crabs - so I didn't have to share he he)- delicious!!

April Swaps - Embellishments

This month's embellishment swaps at Simply Crafty was journalling. Lots of different and wonderful ideas again this month!

April Swaps - Cards

This month's card swap at Simply Crafty was baby cards! It is always exciting to see the beautiful & different card everyone creates :) We were spoilt for choice this month - there were baby boy, baby girl or neutral cards and some people made half a batch of boy / girl cards and we got to choose what ones we would like for our stash!!

Danielle's card


Cassie's card


Amanda's card


Linda's card


Sandra's card


Tanya's card

Thrifty Thursday

Last Friday mum and I spent the morning visiting a few op shops - I think mum is my lucky charm cause I found some fabulous bargains!!

I brought 2 more books $3 & $2 and a jar of buttons (you can never have too many buttons right?!? LOL) for $1.50.


A gorgeous dress for $4.


A polar fleece vest for $4 - it won't be long till I'll be wearing this :)


A Tupperware container (I have a few of these vintage containers in yellow and green and they are the best!!) for $4.50 and new crochet handtowel for $1.


And my most exciting find....some pasties makers! I have been searching for some since I made the meat & vege pasties at Christmas. I found the large one in the homewares section and grabbed it very quickly, then found the other 2 in the set and they were only 50c each - score!!!

Reading

As usual I'm reading faster than I am blogging about the books LOL Kylie lent me these two books - I admit I would not have picked these books, but I thought they were both great reads!

This book kept me in suspense till the very end - the main character has 3 wedding proposals, but no-one (including the 3 prospective grooms) know who she is going to marry. It centres around the bride to be and also tells the stories of her grown up children too. A surprising and enjoyable read!


I wasn't sure about this book - I read the back cover but didn't think I would like it, once I started reading it I couldn't put it down though!! It was like a grown up version of "Honey I Shrunk The Kids" with a scientific theme. The story was fabulous with lots of twists & turns -


I brought this book a few weeks ago - it's book 1 in a series. The story about a teenage witch was enjoyable, but I don't think I will buy the rest of the series.

Swaps

Wow - another busy weekend has zoomed by!! Friday night we went to dinner for Donna's birthday - a great night chatting with friends and a lovely meal :)

Saturday morning I opened the front door and found a compost bin sitting there! I had asked mum to keep an eye out at garage sales and she managed to pick one up for $5!! I have set it up in the backyard and started adding to it :)


Saturday I baked a batch up of lemon cupcakes for Simply Crafty. Sunday was Simply Crafty - between finishing my swaps, chatting and forgetting my paper bag I didn't get much scrapping done - oops! This month's swaps were - embellishment swap - journal tags


Cards - baby. For the baby card I made a CAS version of the card from here.

Thrifty Thursday

I had to pop into town yesterday, so thought I would check out a few more op shops and I was lucky to find a few more treasures :)

The first exciting find was this vintage herbs & spices cabinet (approx 40cm long and 15cm high) for $2.50 - it just needs a bit of a clean up!


I love the cute drawers - it will be great to put on my scrap desk to store little bits & pieces!


] also got this metal box for $2.00 - the handle is broken and it has a few scratches, but it is the perfect size to store 12x12 papers or cardstock!


And some more books at a bargain price of 50c each! The Atlas is for scrapping / cardmaking, the vintage knitting / crochet book has some cute crochet toy patterns that I can't wait to make and another novel.


I'm linking this week's op shop finds to Her Library Adventures.

Easter

I hope everyone had a relaxing and chocolate filled Easter :) After all the excitement of taking the kids to the Seaworld & Australia Zoo it was nice to have a few quiet days at home. We watched movies, did some gardening, I finished reading another book, did some home renos and spent the day fishing with mum on Sunday - a wonderful 4 days!! We had lots of fun fishing - caught 3 baby stingrays, 3 mud crabs and a heap of fish - unfortunately all undersized so our esky came home empty :(

School Holidays - Part 2

We were up early for another adventure - we spent the day at Australia Zoo! We got to see all the different shows / feedings and catch the shuttle bus all around the zoo to see all the animals.


The kids got to feed the elephants - very exciting!


We saw the snake, bird and crocodile shows in the Croceseum


Lots of excitement to see the giraffes and zebras in the new African section


The kids were brave enough to sit on the giant croc!


After 2 big days the kids slept nearly all the way home - bliss!! LOL

School Holidays - Part 1

I've had such fun these Easter school holidays!! With the kids visiting, mum and I decided to take them on a trip last Tuesday to a surprise location.....Seaworld!! Poor uncle Craig had to stay home and work :( We were up at 4am and heading to the Gold Coast - the kids slept for a few hours (woo hoo!), then lots of singing and travel games to keep them amused! We kept the location a secret till just before we got there and the kids saw the signs - they were so excited!!

We took them to all the shows, had a splash in the water park, went on some rides, rode around on the Monorail and looked at all the animals!


So many fun things to see and do - some of the favourites were the dolphins


Wathcing the polar bear antics


Laughing at the penguins


We decided to stay overnight and head to Australia Zoo, so we drove through peak hour traffic (yes we are crazy LOL) to Landsborough. After dinner and showers, we all crashed into bed just after 8pm! LOL Will share pics of Australia Zoo tomorrow :)

Mother's Day card

Last Sunday I went to a Stampin' Up! party at Tanya's - we made this gorgeous Mother's Day card and a sweet bookmark. I was also lucky enough to win a pot of Wild Wasabi (green) embossing powder - yay!

Thrifty Thursday

I went to the dentist last week - after a few horrible / painful experiences I had been naughty and not been for a few years. I was terrified to go, but knew putting it off would just make things worse. I bit the bullet and made the appointment and I am pleased to say the whole experience was virtually painless!! I am even going to go back and get a bit of cosmetic work done. After my appointment I decided to spend the rest of the morning wandering around and look at the op shops (something I have been waiting to do for months)! I found some wonderful goodies....

I brought this top for $8 - I don't usually wear green, but it was so soft and floaty that I couldn't resist :)


A few packets of buttons for less than $1.50


A book for $5 - I just finished reading this book and loved it!! The story is about 5 women's lives and revolves around a knitting shop - definitely recommend it :)