7 Days..

We have 7 days until our Cowboy starts Prep (school). He is very very excited! I'm very glad he is getting so excited about it. He has had a mixed bag of emotions over it the last few months. The actual first day, may be a different story. Grandma is coming to stay though and will look after Blue Eyes whilst I take him. As we've had over the years some separation anxiety for both boys. I really don't know how long I'll be at school with him the first day, so Grandma's help will be excellent!



Cowboy after getting his uniforms last week.. Super Duper Happy!!




I Finally got around to making some more Washing Gel, Lemon Eucalyptus, our clothes will smell great!


We've heard from a couple of people about a shop in Bundaberg called Nanna's Pantry. So we went to check it out yesterday.. It has now become my fave shop.






Both pictures are from Nanna's Pantry, they have all sugars, flours, dried fruit, lentils, beans the list goes on some standard and some organic. They make some of their own products i got us some of their peanut butter. They also have teas and coffee seeds/pods what ever they are called and will grind them too. A whole room of lollies as well, chocolate, nut mixes. We shall shop there often i think.




My New book, I've been told by Ben his dad wants to read this when I'm done, i better get reading then! Don't think I'll have any trouble he's a pretty interesting guy.




We went kayaking, fishing and prawning yesterday, for about 3 hours. Was excellent, I caught a baby shovel nose shark. Ben caught 2 baby bream and a heap of prawns in his cast net. Which turned into our dinner, Best prawns I've ever had! He is the best hunter gather and cook!!

Next weekend we have Ben's work Christmas weekend. So will sure to have some photo's to share! :-) xx

Researching.

First of all i'd like to say that blogger will not let me comment on any blogs including my own.. Thankyou blogger, hopefully it sorts itself out soon!

On other news, we've been yet again here there and everywhere. Ben is currently exploring a new job. With his dad a little north from our current location. So a move would be on the cards.

We have both been doing copious amounts of research on the topic, our brains are almost ready to explode!!

Hope all is well with everyone else in blog land! Will update you all when i've been updated haha!

Where have we been.

Have we been busy?!



Ben purchased a new motor for the rotisserie. Mmmmm Roast pork cooked over an open fire.



Cowboy has his first loose tooth. Bottom front your left. He is very EXCITED!!



I've experimented with some scrubs, and have some goodies on there way for more experimenting ;-)



We cleaned out our back gardens and mulched them, and now our Iris's are starting to bloom. I've counted so far 26 buds making their way up to our beautiful winter sunshine.



Poor Nigel went to fishie heaven. Our last round of very cold temps was the deal breaker. RIP Nigel.



Meet our new Gold fish, The white molly is Cowboys and his name is Nemo. Blue eyes is the fantail and his name is Faster.. Interesting, both are as silly as each other.



I purchased a new chair for people to relax in whilst i give them a Mani or a pedi, The boys love it too!



Today is Cowboys Birthday. Big number 5!! We had a small party in the park with yummy ice cream cake. And he received a big load of awesome gifts. One very happy 5 year old! Hope everything is good for everyone else in blog land!
We are off to look at a kindy for cowboy to attend a couple of days a week tomorrow. He is super excited about going to a "school" me not so much. But it will be good for both the boys. And i hope cause far LESS fighting between the 2. And prepare Cowboy for school next year.. Crikey!!

The Tribe.

This will be the first and last time we fill the car up with more children than adults.. Enjoy it granny! It will not becoming a common occurance! hahaha





The 5 boys have been playing really well, we've only had 1 major blue and that was between brothers. A few age issues, but they all re-unite to play again.

GOD They EAT alot!! They are constantly playing so they need alot of feul to top them up.. I had to make piklets this morning as i was running out of other food items that would fill their tums up!




Took them all of 5 minutes to down a double batch of piklets and a cup each of milo.. Mum and Dad (to the 3 boys) are on their way back to pick them up. Although their youngest told me this morning that he was staying another 2 nights and wanted the Ben10 bed to sleep in tonight. I informed him he was going home today. His respone 'Oh' and walked off.. lol I think he is enjoying the trampoline a little too much!

anywho off the check the tribe and get some thinks done before i work tomorrow. Hope you've all had a good weekend. I'll be in bed early tonight ;-)

An extra 3!

See the extra 3 handsome devils in this photo (this was taken camping by the way).




We have them for a 2 night sleep over this weekend. Mum and Dad need to go on a special trip to see family. 5 boys in our house for over 48 hours... What did i get myself in for!! hahaha No Kidding, these boys play pretty darn good together. So i think it we will be fine. If all else fails, Winter has hit us, so they can always sleep outside with bruce! ;-)

Very Excited!

I was hoping i would get this book before the long weekend, but it arrived this morning..



Still i am very very excited to have this in my possession. Now i have a book i can look at any time to answer some of my questions!! I got this off eBay for something like $20 including postage as it is second hand. But there is seriously nothing wrong with it. So happy with my purchase.

I am hopeful that this will give me more of an insight into what essential oils are used or can be used for and how to use them. So i can (fingers crossed) implement them into my small business venture.. Very small may i add. Starting small and see what happens where it goes with Mani's and pedi's etc.

I've already read almost 50 pages, finding it hard to put down and do other things that need to be done. But I'm just SO interested in it.. Something that i rarely find, so am very happy about that! :-)

Invention Night

Sunday night is Invention Night for us..

This week we had a yummy aquaponic grown Bok Choy to use,





And we also had some Red Claw in the freezer. SO Ben took charge and cooked us an amazing stir fry!




Doesn't look much, but the flavour was amazing! We will be fighting over the leftovers at lunch time.. And it will be hard to top last nights dinner tonight, but ben is thinking of making some ravioli, from scratch of course. Best way to be made and eaten!!

Thankyou BLOGGER!

SO Blogger let me load photo's today, BUT not before not letting me sign into my blogger account.. What the?! I had to reset my password, even though i knew my password. Blogger wouldn't accept it, saying it was incorrect.. Incorrect my bum blogger! Start playing nicely for everyone!!


OK so here are some of our photo's, ben took more than me, his phone battery lasted longer than mine.. Will try get some of his loaded and put up on the weekend.





The view from my camp chair at our fire! LOVE IT!





The boys loved the prospect of going out each morning and seeing where the brumby tracks where, we even found some dingo tracks along the beach each morning as well. The brumbys have sort of taken over Rainbow Beach, walking where ever they want really.. 3 have taken up residence near the camp site we stayed at. You could hear there noises early in the morning. They didn't come too close to our camp ( I was worried they'd get caught up in some of our ropes) and we saw them but didn't get to close to them either, just a quick look from a distance then walked off for more adventures down the beach.




The beach





Blue Eyes being Blue Eyes!





This is our Nephew, he just insisted on me taking a photo of him pretending to surf on this bit of drift wood!!

Off to work for me today, it was a very cold day here yesterday, Boys are still sick. Cowboy getting better. Blue Eyes getting worse. Had a temperature last night, so need to watch him carefully today (well my mum has to anyway!) His cough doesn't sound good, but he doesn't cough very often so, hopefully a nice sunny day (like its shapeing up to be) will do him good!

Catch you all soon :-)

We Are Home!

I was going to give you a quick snap shot of our camping trip But Blogger is being a pain and doesn't want to post my photo's! :-(.

We did however have a wonderful time. No rain, a few clouds. They kept it warmer over night though. A lot of Sunshine and adventures! Cowboy has a little cold though, but on our last days, he and blue eyes kept repeating that they LOVE camping! We had friends come visit and enjoy the fun with us! What more can you ask for..

Oh I know, someone to unpack everything for me and do all the washing... PLEASE!!

Fingers crossed blogger plays along tomorrow and i can post some photo's :-)

Hope you all had a great weekend!

Birthday!

Yesterday was my Mummy's Birthday.




This is my Mum with Kookie, her local 'friend' who she feeds pretty much on a daily basis! He is getting so attached/tame that he lets mum feed him out of her hand and sometimes just flys in and lands on her to tell mum he is hungry. Well we think it's a he, although some time ago Kookie was taking the meat back to a nest (hollow in a neighbours tree) so we aren't really sure, haven't seen any babies either.


The boys and i went over to my Bro and Sil house for dinner and some cake! yum! I had my fingers crossed big time that Aus Post was going to deliver my Mum's Prez yesterday. But they failed to do that. It was sent platinum express on Monday, and platinum is guaranteed next day delivery.. Not in our region it's not.. Anyway It is very much worth the wait. I came across a wonderful lady on Facebook who has a page called the Crystal Griffin, who stamps sterling silver pendants with what you want on them and adds all sorts of bling to them!

I got mum the family tree! Love it!



Can't wait to get myself one! It comes with a sterling sliver chain as well. My photo just doesn't do it justice!

Tomorrow we are off camping for 6 days! YAY!! I've been busy packing the last few days and organising everything for us to leave early tomorrow morning! Not sure if we are taking the computer, so i may or may not do a post between tomorrow and next Tuesday. But i hope you all have a great weekend. I will take a heap of photo's and do a post on our arrival home!

Easy As?!

As If!! I'm not as creative with 'Names' as i am other things.. So when i thought to myself the other day, I might start thinking of a name to call my lil natural nail venture thingo... (can i use that?!? cause i got nothing much else..) You wouldn't believe the lists and lists and lists i went through with choosing names for our boys.. Ben hasn't said much. Mainly cause he knows how much i will keep thinking and changing my lists lol. The only thing he has said is 'naturally nailed by Cass' lol hmmmm not sure!


What is REALLY easy though, is a cordial recipe my MIL gave me! OMG! Easiest thing ever.. We haven't tested the end result yet, but it smells pretty damn fine!




Forgot to take a 'before' shot, so he is a 'in the midst of mixing' shot with stuff everywhere lol.




Finished product. Orange cordial and lemon and lime cordial. Still have heaps of limes (thank you to Linda the lime lady from the show) and lotsa lemons on our lotsa lemons tree. So will be making more in due course. We don't drink alot of cordial during winter so we will have it for the warmer months. Providing it keeps that long.





These didn't turn out as good as they should have. Didn't quite have enough sour cream for them, so just a little dry.. But the choc fudgeee goodness was still there! yum!

I'm off to work tomorrow, 10am until sometime in the afternoon.... Then on Saturday we are off to Hervey Bay to use Ben's dinner voucher and pick up the battery he won at the fishing comp. We will be staying the night. And we will get a full day up there so might have a look in BCF (Boating Fishing and Camping) shop!! One of our all time Fav's!!

WHoops forgot to mention, the AWESOME win by the Mighty Maroons last night in Origin!! YAHOO!!! I'll leave you on the Awesome note! Bens not impressed he backs the Blues! hehehehehehe :-)

Finders Keepers!

Still haven't had a chance to sit down and work out what I've done to the blog or layout etc.. Will get there eventually!

I went to our local OP shops today, to see what they had in the way of bowls. For me to use for my Mani's and Pedi's. Here they are.









The biggest one i was wanting to use for Pedi's but don't think it will be big enough. Still it only cost me $3. So it will get used somewhere around the house!
The oil burner only cost me .50c!! I Couldn't pass that up, not when i spent $12 buying my other one at the supermarket.. .50c for an additional one to use around the house PERFECT! The smaller bowl, i think is perfect for Mani's, Not too deep that it takes too much water, not to small in diameter that my hands and clients hand doesn't fit properly. And with pretty butterfly's on it, lovely.

Hope your all having a good week, I don't work again until Friday, Yay! More time for thinking and planning. oh and playing with the boys and housework!! Housework only if i really really have to lol!! ;-)

What am I doing?!?

Sometimes I really don't have a clue of what I am doing... Like the new background?? I do, but don't know how to get rid of all the mumbo jumbo of the layout text under my header picture?!?!?! If any of you know how please tell me.. Otherwise I'm going to have to sweet talk Ben into his help ;-)

Anyway, I have so many things I want to share about what changes we are slowly making to our lives. Food, Products etc.
What I want write about today is the allergies I get. Well they haven't been playing up since I've stopped using a majority of household cleaning products and beauty products. How awesome! I realised the other day, I can't really remember when my last bad allergy eye/headache was. Loving it!

So that also got me to thinking about my course i completed ( Nail Technician) Well that would need me to use alot of chemicals.. And i don't want to feel lowsy making people feel good. And don't want to be taking a pill everyday to stop the feeling, when i can do something naturally.

My good friend of mine told me the other day to go get a nice book and jot down all my ideas. As I've been jotting them down on scrap paper and loosing them. So i got myself a wonderful 100% recycled material book which is also made with Elephant poo. How cool! So I've been busy with my idea's. I've had them for a while and now is the time to start doing something about them or it will be another year before i have done anything.

I'm drawing some inspiration from the below books.





2 i got myself the aromatherapy books my MIL got for me! They are all awesome. Giving me SO many more idea's!

So my first initial plan is to make my own and use all natural/organic/fair trade products utensils etc for Manicure's and Pedicure's. Obviously this will not work for doing acrylic nails on people. So at this stage that service is put to the way side. But i feel alot of people are looking to go towards the natural way of thinking/life/living. I know we sure are. And really the minimal essential oils/natural ingredients i have that I've been playing with, makes my skin feel just as good if not even better than the chemical filled products on the market. I will also find a way to produce extras for sales.

One of the big eye openers recently for me was when i was going to put Vick's on the boys when they had their first Winter colds.. After starting to do our research on other things, I'd thought I'd refresh myself with its ingredients. Petroleum first ingredient, Do i really want to be putting this into their skin. I haven't used it since. And am going to purchase some natural products to make a homemade rub to use on them. Our weather is still here there and everywhere, so no colds have crept up again YET! lol SO gotta get my bum into gear!

Wow what a lot of rambling from me today! We are back off to the 'Show' tonight for the fireworks. It rained last night, so we need to take the umbrella and poncho's for the boys lol. Hope my rambling didn't confuse you all and it made some sort of sense, sometimes i don't understand it, but that is where my head is at! Have a great day everyone :-)

A photo Granny Wouldn't show!

This is how our shopping day's usually end up. (sorry Granny, had to take a photo and share)




You know when you think to yourself, i wish i had a camera so i could take a photo of you and show you just how silly you get sometimes child!! Well i had my phone handy and took a shot. Didn't go down well. But i now have this to show him. lol Am i mean mum? or just a mum who doesn't want my son crying yelling and stamping his feet at me through the shops?

Our shopping trip went all downhill, when a man (very very nasty rude words inserted here) needed to get to the front of the checkout line at our local Aldi store. Instead of saying excuse me. He pushed cowboy into our trolley to get through. Usually i don't say anything. But WTF you do not push my child, and especially INTO a trolley. I looked at the man and said, you could say EXCUSE ME you know!! He looked away and walked off... GRUMBLE. My boys know manners and if you ask them to move nicely they understand and will move. That set the mood for the rest of the shopping trip. So it's not hard to understand the above picture, i sort of felt like doing that as well!


This weekend is our local show. Ben gets to work there for his work. Showing off their meat! lol Our good friend the chocolate maker hehe is also there. Ben got us some season passes. So today we are off to look at everything during the day, Tomorrow night we will go and look at all the lights and fireworks. As long as it doesn't rain.. It rains this week every year. and makes the show one big slosh hole! Might put the gumboots on the boys for the night excursion!

anywho off to do my jobs before our adventure! Have a great day all :-)

My Helper

All it takes is a couple of private words with their daddy, and the boys will do whatever he wants them to. For Cowboys it's doing more things on his own. Shoes, socks getting dressed by himself etc. Blue eyes however, wants to do the washing up for me...








He does such a great job, Does get water everywhere, but hey it's only water!

We are off to do our shopping today, not sure how it will go, blue eyes is a little disgruntled this morning.

Have a great day everyone :-)

Our Saturday Night Camp Dinner.

Saturday we borrowed my parents camp oven to do some yummy cooking.




Fire on it's way.





Chook and hard vegies ready.




Mmmmmmmm Chook done, soft vegies boiling away in the billy above the fire. Our whole dinner was cooked on the fire. Dinner cooked this way really warms the heart and soul! Wish we had more time to cook this way.

After dinner we cooked some marshmellows over the fire.



One happy lil cowboy, Loved his toasted marshmellows.




One happy lil Blue Eyes just happy to eat the normal marshmellow off the end of the toasting stick!

Hope you all had a great weekend. Ours was awesome! Family time, home time LOVE!

Around the house/gardens

We have been having beautiful Autumn weather this week. Clear blue skies, warm sun, cool dry wind, and cold nights. Perfect!

In a few weeks time we are going camping, and need some wood for our fire as it will be very chilly!



So Ben went and got some wood from the timber mill Pa works at. Enough? and only $15!


Our gardens and aquaponics are powering along. Ben has started his new setup for his aquaponics. Will take some photo's of it this week to show you. But for now some of our vegies.




Never really had alot of luck with squash, but this time the weather must be perfect for them. So happy!




The lotsa lemon tree has lots of lemons this year and all bigger and healthier looking the last year.




We have about ummm 40 or more garlic growing strong... We love our garlic!




The Chilli tree in the old aquaponics just wont stop producing. I love how much it is growing but we don't use that much chilli to use them all!! I picked about 50 last week, and yesterday i picked another 60, with alot more still on the tree growing. It is a rating number 5 chilli, but seems to be a little hotter than 5. I think due to being grown in the aquaponics.




Finally our beans, we have 3 of this particular bean growing in 3 different spots, 2 in gardens and 1 in the old aquaponics. Can't remember the name of the bean. I think Scarlet something. But it is yum and growing so well.

It is Saturday, Job day :( Housework is not so fun, but i don't have alot to do, as having yesterday off i did some then as well. So will be able to help ben doing garden stuff (definitely more fun). And this afternoon will be putting a chook in the camp oven to roast for dinner! YUM! LOVE The weekends. Ben is out mowing right now, the job he dislikes the most. But he has an onlooker today, Mr Blue Eyes seems to have fallen deeper in love with his daddy over the last couple of weeks, and is watching him from every angle point possible (high up on the veranda or back landing, far enough away from the noisy scary mower) to watch HIS daddy!!

Hope you all have a great weekend planed :-)

Work days over WOOO!!!!

Both work days are over and done with this week. I do enjoy working, but LOVE being at home with my boys, Enjoying them grow. (as i type this cowboy just walked past in his gumboots, backpack and toy water gun, to go on an adventure! Love it!)

Not much happened besides work the past two days. Working in the cooler months is not as much fun for me. When i get home it is dark. I love the cool weather, but also do like the longer days in summer. I can get more done at home after work. This morning i got the washing off the line that i put out on Tuesday morning :-S Frustrating much!

Anywho, i thought i would share the boys all time favourite dinner! It's a never fail dinner winner! lol



Carbonara, Yum! On a good night they eat 3 bowls full of this. So glad i finally found something they will eat no matter how they are feeling!

Hope your all having a great week, I'm off do to some more jobs! :-)

Yesterday was a very dreary day. Light rain almost all day. Not fun playing weather. So we spent the day inside.. Going crazy!! The boys spent most of their time 'camping' or 'fighting the baddies' and hiding out in their bedroom, which by the end of the day looked like a cyclone hit it! lol. Luckily they were good for me and helped me pack it up before dinner!!

We also made some yummy choc chip pikelets..




They are yummo, so yum in fact the boys ate all except 5. In total there would have been about 20 of them!

Today is shaping up to be a sunny one.. I'm off to work for awhile today. The boys will be off to Nanny's house. And more than likely going camping around her yard. They love this camping thing. Good thing we can take them camping for real and in a couple of weeks time!

Have a good day :-)

My 3 Precious Boys

These 3 boys, made my Mother's Day Wonderful! Some walking, exploring, a big lunch, (a couple of wines for mummy)Cowboy checking on me while we are walking, making sure i was OK! And he also kept telling me 'Mummy you can do whatever you want you know cause its Mothers Day'. I've got one sweet bunch of boys right here. And i LOVE them to bits!


We set out for a drive (after a yummy breaky from Ben) up into the mountains south of us. We were aiming for Kondalilla Falls. But didn't quite know where they were.. We went through maleny first, popped in to see our friend at her market stall there. Went exploring up the main street, alot of shops i would like to go back and look at without little boys just wanting to go to the lolly shop we passed! Kept driving for awhile and managed to find the signs. So we found out it is right next to Lake Baroon.




Some exploring was had at the day use area first. We had a look at the spillway. Water is always fun for the boys. Especially when it is shooting down the spillway like a waterfall.




The entrance for the falls are just below the Lake. So we started off before lunch for a walk. Little did we know until we started it was a VERY long walk. Something Ben and i could handle quite easily, but for 2 little boys who had already some exploring that morning.. Well lets just say it would not end well. So we decided to go to one of the smaller lookouts that is only a couple of K's in and Not 10km's!




This is at Narrows Lookout. Just as exciting for us, as we all have never really seen huge falls, we had fun at this one! We found our way back to the car after exploring. Had only one mini fight from the boys and a little whinging from Blue eyes. It was lunch time. Yummy steak burgers a beer for daddy and a wine for mummy! We then set off home to visit our Mummy's! Wonderful! The weather was perfect. Couldn't have asked for anything better on Mother's Day! I sure as hell aren't letting these 3 boys go anytime soon!

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother's Day as well xoxox :-)