What I see...

Pinterest Inspired Month - Day 2

 

Today was "get organised" in our house with inspiration coming from here - http://www.crystalwilkerson.com/2011/12 and little visual inspiration...

So, for our organising, I created three folders (more to come once I go back to officeworks) with titles stuck down the sides of big A4 leaver folders such as "Bills 2012", "School 2012" and "Mummy Stuff 2012" Inside I have placed monthly cardboard dividers so we can find things more efficiently.

I also decked out a promotional diary my husband got given through work - think it had concrete and tile adds in or something along those lines, and covered the front and inside cover with patterned paper and photos.

 

I nick named it "the Book" as "if it's not in the book - it's not happening": )

On each birthday I have added a photo of the birthday person.

In keeping with tradition, I have coloured coded our family again - it is the same system and colours we use for the big calenders, toothbrushes, cups etc - easy to see at a glance who has something on when you see their colour on the board ; )

Pinterest Inspired Month!

I have made January "Pinterest Inspired Month" here in our house as January seems to be a quiet (as much as it can be with five kids) month. For those that haven't discovered Pinterest go here....Pinterest and is an online virtual pinboard - that you can store all your favourite finds on - from recipes, scrapbook layouts, home ideas etc - and once you click on the photo it will take you directly to site you found it. It is a fantastic idea.

So this month I am creating a project a day from inspiration I have found on pinterest. Crafting projects, recipes, organisation ideas, kids craft etc.

So day one: Inspiration was this -

and was found here - holiday list.

AND here is MY take on it -

I used the new summer fancy pants range to decorate the inside of the frame, adding recent photos I had taken of the kids, then once it was inside the glass, I adhered buttons and gemstones to the glass before using a whiteboard marker to write the list (that the kids had decided on) I plan to take off the holiday title after the school holidays and have a "Weekend Fun Checklist" during the school terms.

It now hangs at the end of hall for everyone see and pick our daily activities from - makes me happy ; )

Happy Pinning folks : )

Happy 2012!!!

From our family to yours - have a fantastic 2012.

goodness...life gets busy with a tribe of five!

Back again! At long last!

Well, life just gets busier and busier when you have a heap of kids!

We are all well, healthy and happy. 

So a quick update so I can come back later tonight with a party share...

  Me - back photographing again, scrapping heaps and running our church playgroup, really feel God's hand on my shoulder right now and know He has many plans for me. 
 
Will - just finished renovating a local OOSH building and working super hard to provide for our family, recently updated his car to a big 7 seater and he just loves it. Soccer just finished and he and Lauren made it to the finals but got knocked out in a thrilling twenty minute overtime. 

Loz - We are so proud of how Lauren is progressing at school, her half yearly report was awesome and she earned $80 (a dollar for every mark over 60), she loved playing soccer with the church team this year and her Dad and her knee held out till that very last game when a guy on the opposing team kicked it when she had the ball : ( - It healed quickly though, she has been enjoying a teen bible study group and recently went away to bible camp with her lovely friends. Lauren had a terrible loss recently too - a close male friend committed suicide - he was only 15, the funeral was a beautiful tribute to him and gave our girl a chance to say goodbye. She is almost 16 and has a very sensible, mature outlook on life.

Tbird - things are improving with Tbird, she has made some great new friends, is working hard on behaving and has joined girls brigade with her sisters. She is twelve now and is maturing to a beautiful young lady. Her laugh is infectious and she can make baby Quin crack the biggest of smiles.

   

 

Milly - loving school and her friends, eager to help others and shows true compassion, her creative side continues to bloom and we are often told how creative   and artistic she is - she is loving girls brigade and wants to be a vet when she grows up.

 

   the divine Miss M - our wild girl, loving kindy and all it has to offer, ever the popular one, it seems like there is party invite in her bag every week! the boys gravitate toward hers (uh-oh!) and she has many friends, she loves girls brigade too. Can be a little TOO cuddly with Quin ; ) and is SO six - she has the biggest blue eyes I have ever seen. 

 

 

 
...and the boy, our gorgeous, bouncing baby boy, growing like a weed, two teeth popped through last week without us even knowing, no tears, no screaming, no all-nighters, just "Poof" and there they were! He is the happiest little guy, and giggles constantly, a joy to all who meet him, trying desperately to sit up, and wants to do what his big sisters are doing - already four and half months and just adored by his sisters.

So that's us in a nutshell right now. The house is loud and crazy most of the time, we seem to always have extra kids hanging out, there are fights and screaming matches and tug-o-wars, but there is so much love and togetherness - we always wanted a house full of kids and our house is definitely "kid-filled" - just the way we like it!!

 

Enough said...

God has blessed me in so many ways, but none more so than with these five precious, gorgeous kids that make my life loud, busy, crazy and fun - not for second would I trade even one moment of being with them, as they grow into amazing people.

Hope you are having a great day!

back soonish JEN xo

too tired to think of a title....

ha ha! yep! tired! Not from our little guy keeping us up, but from life in general, and a bad case of "too much to think about to sleep" - the little guy is practically sleeping through most nights now and the most wonderful hubby and daddy in the world gets up when he does wake.

Just popping in the share a few pics while I am working on changes to my blog before I begin to bombard you all with a pile of creating and parties that have been occurring in our house the past few months.

Quinny at 3 weeks - so stinkin' adorable!!!

Oh! those totally adorable, kissable, sensational lips!!

Five weeks and SUPER alert!

Supporting their team - just before friday night footy on the telly - we start em' young in our house ; )

and Quinny last week - 8 weeks old and just about the happiest and most content baby boy around!

Stay tuned for big changes in the coming days - loads to share ; )

 

Oh! I am SO in love....

...With every little inch of this precious little guy - every noise or squeak, every expression - I think I had forgotten just how wonderful newborns are!!!

...and with each and every day I am growing more in love with him!

Life is GOOD!!!!!!

Introducing.......

Quinton Thomas Hall

Born Monday 9th May 2011 at 7pm

Weighing 8lb 7oz, Measuring 55cm long

Well, where do I begin?? A couple of months back I guess!

At 28 weeks I began getting high blood pressure, and Bub's head engaged, so I was put on rest and told to be prepared as I wouldn't go past 38 weeks - so rest I did, I sat, and sat, and sat! and my blood pressure continued to be high, normal, high, normal, I began being tested for preeclampsia regularly, my feet and legs began to swell, and swell and swell till to the only shoes I could squish on my poor puffy feet were a men's size 12 that my girls happily named "Mum's surfboards". After four weeks and a couple of ultrasounds, bub had decided to turn around and pulled himself up and sideways, and so I was no longer on rest, then a couple of weeks later he engaged again, and pulled himself out again - and I began to be sent to "day stay" in the pre-natal ward at the hospital so we could both be monitored.

38 weeks came and went, and then 39 and 40, where I begged to be induced, 41 weeks arrived and finally they agreed to induce me 11 days overdue and SUPER over being pregnant! I went into to hospital Sunday afternoon to have a balloon placed in my uterus to help me dilate to have induction the next day, in most cases the balloon works and most women go into natural labour - not me! 6am Monday morning we arrived at the hospital only to find out the balloon had not worked and the junior Doctor wanted to insert another and send me home - I burst into tears and maybe said a few things that aren't quite lady like, but an hour later a senior Doctor arrived to rescue me and was able to break my waters and things began to progress.

At 10am they gave me an epidural (zero pain thresh-hold here!) and then started the drip to regulate my contractions - and I blissed out and sat back and actually enjoyed the day. Hubby sat playing my Ipad, my student doctor that had been with us for a couple of months (a study for uni) read a book and I sat chatting on face-book ; )

Around 5.30pm I began feeling contractions and my fears set in and I cried, and begged my hubby to stop the pain, I told the midwives I couldn't do etc etc, they got a bit worried around 6pm when bubs heart rate dropped, at 6.40 I knew I needed to push, I told my hubby to be quiet "I know what I am doing" and for the next ten contractions I pushed in silence and at 7pm our precious perfect SON was born - rosy pink (apart from his hands and feet that were "over cooked") and after two small squawks he looked around in wide-eyed amazement. The midwives and doctors left and he latched on for a 25 minute feed straight away!

He was born with dark hair (that we think will lighten) blue/grey eyes, a button nose and the most perfect rosebud lips - just like his sisters. At 1am he fell into a deep sleep and slept till 11am the next day.

The girls arrived next morning and were smitten - the Divine Miss M was maybe a little TOO smitten - she poked him in the eye and when we asked her why, she replied "I wanted to see what colour his eyes are!"

I stayed in hospital till Thursday, and after three nights of no sleep, I decided to go home. Unfortunately I was rushed back in the early hours of Saturday morning with high blood pressure and tightening of my chest - loads of tests later, it appears I did in fact get preeclampsia - AFTER having him! Further tests also showed a partial collapsed lung that the doctors think happened before he was born.

I have been home now since Tuesday night and am slowly recovering - starting to feel like myself again, and getting my family back into a routine - Man of the house has been awesome - taking two weeks off work to be by my side and helping with Quin, his parents also stepped in and took on all four girls and kept them in their routine and got them to school etc.

Little Quinton - my little bean - he is AMAZING!!!!! He is such a good baby, very content and happy - he has pretty much put himself (and us) into a three to four hourly routine - he doesn't care what form of food comes his way (during some of the tests I wasn't allowed to hold him as I had radiation medicine to see my lungs - so I had to formula feed) he will take the breast, expressed or formula - as long as it's ready when he wakes, he will take it!! When he sleeps, he gets this massive smile on his face - like he is dreaming about something wonderful, he is very alert and checks everything out - I am so over the moon in love with him!!!!
Back soonish with a zillion more pictures of our little man! xoxoxo

...A Little BLUE Baby Shower...

WOW! I am back so soon ; )

Today I want to share with you some photos from my recent baby shower! It was so fun designing with blue green and white!! My new favourite colour combo I think!

Decorations were easy - I got my husband to hang some line across our dining room walls and then simply pegged some of my favourite baby outfits along it with old fashion wooden pegs - this was above the food table - we loved it so much -it's actually still hanging with all cute little clothes (we all sorta love looking at them).

 

 

 

I got my mum to make fabric bunting for the baby's room - so she made an extra strand and we hung it by our back door between bunches of balloons in our theme colours.

Below the bunting was our games table and more cute little clothes from a line (picked up at Shindigs party suppliers) I also placed the few layouts I have done of the baby's ultrasounds around the room as part of the decorations too - you can see one on the bench to the right.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was a nappy cake my mum made me full of cute baby items - we probably had forgotten we need with a newborn - right now it is sitting on the baby's bench in his room - looking very cute!

  Below is one of the games we played - "Guess two ingredients" - where I had wrapped paper over the labels and guests had to either smell or taste the each jar of food and try and guess TWO ingredients - winners were mainly friends that has very small ones or grandparents that had their grand kiddies alot ; )

You can also see the little label cards I made here - these were just done in a print program - printed onto white card and then adhered to folded cardstock in my theme colours.

Another game was the guess the jelly beans - jelly beans in a baby's bottle.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I love this time of year - with Easter just a couple of week away - there are all sorts of cute baskets around - this one was from a cheapy shop and had thank you gifts for my guests inside - clear plastic boxes with baby blue ribbons and pretend nappy pins on top (purchased from Shindigs party suppliers) and filled with Green tea bath salt with a tag I punched from a 2" scalloped punch stating "From Jen's shower to yours"

 

I printed off a few blank little label cards too and placed them in a bowl for the guests to write a wish for the baby - these will go next to photos I took of each guest to go in the baby's album. I backed the cards with patterned paper that is going to be used in the album.

 

As the baby shower was held at 3pm, the food was mainly dessert and finger foods - spread across a big table set against the back wall of my dining room with layouts as directions and candy jars filled with blue wrapped easter eggs (called them baby boy choccies) and green spearmint leaves (matched the colour scheme).

I went a bit overboard with those label cards hey?! I had made them for most of the food so that everyone knew what they were eating!

 

 

Well, I had the best intentions to make "cake-pops" (ala Bakerella) unfortunately when I used mud-cake and added the frosting it was far too soggy to work! I think with mud-cake you don't need anything else - lesson learned - good to know before the princess party we are planning for the divine Miss M in July! So with a bowl full of melted white chocolate - I dunked a punnet of strawberries in and sprinkled a blue/green mix of sprinkles over the top - they were rather tasty and super cute to look at! (even with the wrong label!!)

 

 

 

 

 

 

My favourite shower food were these mini muffins I made - Triple Chocolate and also banana - presented in tiny nappies - that I folded from white napkins and held together with nappy pins - they were so cute and my girls loved taking the left overs to school the next day too ; )

 

 

 

After trying macaroons at a recent wedding I was in love! So when a voucher came up for sale on Cudo's - I jumped at the chance to purchase some for the baby shower - there were six different flavours including strawberry, coffee, lemon, chocolate etc - very fancy - and delicious!

 

And finally the cake - a group of my playmates mummy friends and I go to a local cafe (Euro-bar at Hamilton) once a month and many of us order the "concord cake" every time because it is just SO good - so I contacted Snows Patisserie to see if they could make me one - although they don't sell them to the public anymore, the lady was super nice and got the chef to do one for me anyway!!! Concord cake is a chocolate mousse cake covered rolls of chocolate meringue!!

 

 

 

 

To tie in with my theme - I drew little tiny baby clothes onto white card and coloured them with watercolours in the theme colours - then hung them from kitchen twine with tiny wooden pegs attached to two skewers - simply placed these into to top of cake and it looked perfect!!! (I can totally see that tiny clothes line on a scrapbook page very soon)!!

I am so blessed to have wonderful supportive friends who came to help celebrate the baby that will very soon be here - I received some lovely gifts for the baby and had a beautiful afternoon of good company and yummy food!!!

Back soon with more fun!

JEN xo

 

 

Getting My Act Together!!

Poor, sad neglected blog - I have tried to post so many times over the past four months, but with puffy feet, renos and lots to do - life got in the way!

Too much to update, too much going on, so here is super quick run down as I dot my i's and cross my t's before our little man enters the world in the next couple of weeks!  

Big changes with our gaggle of girls this year with the soon arrive of this little gorgeous guy.....


Our big girl Lauren changed schools to a private school to repeat year nine and get a better education than what she was getting at her old school - she is SO happy and is doing SO well - has been the best decision we have ever made with her - so good in fact that Tbird is soon to follow and the small ones will join them next year.

Lauren is also playing soccer WITH man of the house this year - for our church team and is so looking forward to spending quality time with William.

  Tbird has had some ups and downs this year - struggling with the concept of bub, and sharing a room again with her bigger sister. She decided she did not want to go back to dance this year - the pressure was too much for her and wanted a break to do "normal stuff" (her words) with her friends - so we are delving into the world of netball for the first time ever - I know! Dancer - netball - knees - not a good mix - but she is happier for it. We have offered other dance studios, cheer leading, drama etc but right now she is happy not doing any - so we will see how things are at the end of the year and hopefully she will embrace her amazing dance talent and go back next year as she starts high school.

Our Milly girl is repeating year one this year - she was the youngest in her class last year and struggled with bullies etc - this year is proving to be her best yet - she is top of her class, loving school (hasn't once cried before school not wanting to go so far!) and getting lots of awards and all her spelling words right every week - another great decision!!!

Can you believe it - the divine Miss M began big school this year - KINDERGARTEN and is proving to be the most embracing of education of all - she LOVES school, she LOVES her teacher, and is going extremely well.

 
We are so proud of them all, there are lots of changes happening in our house with the arrival of baby Hall - all the girls have changed rooms, we have extended and painted and got new carpet for culled the junk - we are all set for bub to arrive. This is the nursery - so nice to have room that doesn't have one single ounce of pink in it ; )

Other things - I am scrapping a little, can't sit for long with puffy feet - so I have cut my scrapping time right back. I am still running my Tuesday playgroup for our church and love my beautiful families and our mornings together - we had four bubs born last week and with mine to come - we are going to have a great time fussing over them all. 

Our small ones have joined "Girls Brigade" at Church too - a lot like girl guides and they just love it - a good activity that they can both do with friends that they go to sunday school with and will probably be with next year at the new school.

Man of the house is working hard (as always) providing for his family, Cricket umpiring has finished up and the soccer has began so he is working AND playing hard! ; )

We have had some parties too - but as you all know, I LOVE party planning so will share each party in a separate post in the coming days (unless I go into labour)

thank you for those that still check in and leave comments - I will be blogging a whole bunch again shortly with this new little love in my life to share with you all!

 

xoxo JEN