Sunday Snapshot – Family festive fun

This week for Sunday Snapshot, I am going to share pictures of my family enjoying the pumpkin carving party that I organised… with help from Kirsten and Susie. We ended up having close to 40 people in our front yard, and I think everyone had a great time. There was a lot of awesome food which included macaroni salad, pumpkin rolls, oreo spiders, oreo truffles (OMG yum!), sausage rolls and some really great cupcakes. (My Italian chicken slow cooker dish and bread rolls were hit considering how fast they were snapped up!).

From my point of view, it was mostly controlled insanity – with the exception of my husband disappearing for an hour in search of dry ice o_O. People enjoyed the crafts, didn’t seem to mind I lost half the carving implements for a while and only found the patterns at the last minute. It was a good time – and one that we will repeat next year.

So, with that said, I give you my “little” family enjoying the festivities. Happy Halloween!

Chocolate googly eyes!!

In action... looking for pumpkin carving tools and feeding a baby... multi-tasking rules!

Sean carving pumpkins with Naomi, Samantha and some of Samantha's friends... and why yes, yes Sean is dressed like a peice of pizza

Everyone loves pizza!!!

"Ewwwwww Mummy! It feels gross!"

Dancing to "Thriller"... Gabby was more interested in nomming her thumb...

Leia has lived in this dance costume for the better part of a week... she LOVES it.

Crafting - paper cup spiders, rainbow scratch bats, cats and pumpkins, foam pumpkins, cats and spiders... awesome!!

And finally…. since I know you were all wondering about Hannah…

She spent the entire party drinking way too much juice, eating chocolate (since it was obviously all for her) and playing in the dirt. Way to go building that immune system my lovely!!

Food Fight Friday – Oreo Spiders!!

I was in two minds over what to post this week for FFF… after all I baked bread, cookies, a really banging chicken pot pie and truely awesome roast chicken with scalloped potatoes. However, when Kirsten and I started making these, I couldn’t help but fall in love with their cuteness.

They were so easy too – microwave your oreos for 10 to 15 seconds, remove the top and lay in your pre-cut (by you) twizzlers, put the top back on and use decorating gel for their eyes. Voila! Spider! I do have to comment that you have to use the pull apart twizzlers, or it won’t work. Anyways, these were a lot of fun and the kids sure did love them at our pumpkin carving party yesterday.

Happy Halloween everyone!!

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Monday’s Music Moves Me – It’s Lion King kinda day….

As the weeks led up to Halloween, my husband and I have been scouring our brains for fun and interesting songs to download for our halloween pumpkin carving party this weekend. Since downloading The Lion Sleeps Tonight by The Tokens, I’ve been playing it almost constantly… so much so, that my 2.5 year old is now awesome at the long drawn out “Weeeeeeeeee we a win a wima way’s”. Anyways, I digress. Here are my offerings this week, as I slowly get back into the blogging groove.

First up, is Timon and Pumbaa singing the song – my children have been driving me nuts this weekend with repeated demands for The Lion King… so now you all get to enjoy it to

And, since I think it’s a rule that there have to be the song with lyrics somewhere, here is the full version of the song, with the lyrics.

And finally, since you can’t do a post about The Lion King music with out including “Hula!”, I present Timon and Pumbaa

Happy Monday!!!

The time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things….

And maybe make a blog post or two?

Who knew that having five children and a full time nursing student husband would make blogging near on impossible? Ah, now is not the time to whine, no… now is the time to try and NOT eat all the chocolate I’ve been nomming on this last stressful month. And chocolate chip cookies… and snickerdoodles… and… well all the other sugar treats I’ve baked and eaten.

Life = stress, so it’s better to get on with it and make a plan to deal with it.

This being said, I’ve decided to get back into blogging by joining with Kirsten over from Gone Banana’s to create Snapshot Sunday. And today, this is my offering:

Sisterly love and smiles

Silent Sunday

Mad skills… mad mad skills!

Hannah has talent!

Wordless Wednesday

Insanity… It’s the only answer!

Tomorrow is going to be insane. Certifiably. And this time, chocolate may not save me.

Schedule for Wednesday,  September 7th 2011

Get up at about 6am…though probably earlier. If you are wondering… It ended up being 3am.
Sort out uniforms for Samantha and Naomi.
Make lunches for Samantha and Naomi.
Make sure Samantha and Naomi have their homework in their backpacks. Stuff happens around here and the night pixies might move it overnight
Get five small people washed, dressed, hair dressed, shoes on and ready.
Get myself ready.
Get five small people out the front door, to deliver Samantha to school BEFORE 8am.
Go to the park for 30 minutes weather permitting.
Drop Leia off at school.
Hurry up and wait to drop Naomi off at school.
Come home.
Eat breakfast.
Do chores, including making bread.
Pack up Hannah and Gabrielle and go and get Leia from school by midday.
Come home.
Eat lunch.
More chores.
Make dinner. (Chicken and rice bake if you are interested!)
At 2.30p get Leia, Hannah and Gabrielle into the car and go and pick up Samantha – not forgetting that Sam is bringing home a friend this evening.
Hurry up and rush to get to Naomi’s school, then wait for at least 30 minutes.
Get Naomi and come home.
Help Naomi do her homework (draw a picture of her teacher and count the stairs)
Finish and eat dinner.
Get Samantha to clean the dishes.
Pack up everyone and drop them off at their respective Awana meeting. (Samantha, friend, Naomi and Leia)
Come home, finish up the kitchen and pull out meat to defrost of the next day.
Hope that somewhere in here Hubby gets home from the hospital so I don’t have to most likely wake up Gabrielle and maybe Hannah to go pick up the older girls from Awana. (First day of his final semester of nursing clinical training – he’ll be gone by 5.30a today)
Pick up the girls from Awana, minus the friend who is being picked up by her mother.
Come home.
Make sure all the folders and signed agendas are in the appropriate back pack.
Put who ever is still awake to bed.
Collapse on the couch in what I hope will be a monumental chocolate fix.

And this is going to be the norm for Wednesday for the forseeable future…. Don’t even get me started on Mondays. Oh, and jammed in there is sitting down about 8 to 10 times a day to breastfeed my little chubber. Wow…. I need chocolate just THINKING about tomorrow.

Children are made of awesome!

Sometimes children say things like: “Wow Mummy, I didn’t realise you were so old!” or they play with your flabby arms because, well according to them, it feels funny and is kinda squishy. You really feel the love there The days come along like today… It starts off deceptively well. Children get organised, their lunches are packed… Hair is done (for now) and their backpacks are by the door. We then leave in a great rush. Dropping Leia off at school Sean comments that the car is handling funny – never mind that I’d been commenting on that for oh… 2 weeks?

So we leave to take Naomi to school and the car starts acting up more. We stop and read the OBD II codes… Nothing different than usual there. Since we were close to a Goodyear Gemini, we dragged the van over to them, leaving it in their care and taking the three left over monsters to a newly opened breakfast joint – to irritate the old people Both Naomi and Hannah insisted on choc chip pancakes and neither ate much of them. My food was awesome though, and Gabrielle stayed asleep. We later went back to the mechanic, and I must say I was very depressed by the bill to fix my stoopid van. I was being a bad karma grumpy pants all the way home too. Until…

Sean was trying to distract Hannah from me, by chasing her. He had picked her up and was spinning her around in the kitchen, when she suddenly let out a loud cry of “Mummy!” He said yes, and  asked her “Where Mummy?” She pointed to the Marilyn Monroe magnet on the fridge and said “Dat’s my Mummy!” I smiled and sniffled, my baby thinks I am as beautiful as Marilyn Monroe… I’ll take that! So you see, children really are made of awesome, and that’s really what I needed to hear today!

It’s a day every parent waits for…

And I am not talking about that all hallowed day when I won’t have to change anyone’s diapers.

Finally, at 5.54am this morning, I was awoken with some very sloppy kisses, a huge hug and these words: “I lub boo!” *melts* It’s my most anticipated moment. I can wait for the first steps, rolling and tasting first foods, but I impatiently wait to here those words from the moment the little person in question starts talking. Hearing “I Lub you” so early in the morning, makes up for the fact that it is so early in the morning, and I spent half the night either putting the child in question back into bed, or night feeding her baby sister. It even makes up for the fact that she took off her diaper off not 5 minutes ago and peed on the carpet. o_O

So in response to your early morning affection Hannah, I love you too… With everything that I am, and I always will.