New look Menu Plan

As requested by my lovely readers I've decided to restart sharing my menu plans.

The benefits of menu planning are huge which are here if you'd like to have a read.

Our plan for this week.

Thursday ~ Seafood Marinara
Friday ~ Pork Chilli Con Carne with Rice
Saturday ~ Osso Bucco and Mash
Sunday ~ Bulgogi BBQ Beef (new vac packed beef I found at Woolies)
Monday ~ Moroccan Tomato Chicken
Tuesday ~ Pumpkin Soup with Chicken Dumplings
Wednesday ~ Lamb Chops with Mexican Layered Salad

This weeks menu was practically taken care of thanks to some super specials I found while shopping last week.  Like the Bulgogi Beef was $3.91!  Bargain.

It's been said that some of my plans look too complex etc but seriously I can be a lazy cook and it really is simple cooking. 

Now to this new look. Each week I'm welcoming other bloggers to link their menu plans, feel free to link in the comments here or on my Facebook page

x Bec

Bags, bags, bags

Oh where to store bags when you have limited space?  School bags in particular. We live in an old house - not old as in vintage/interesting.  Old as in built in the late 60's.  That leaves us with not much storage, a very small entrance and small rooms.

Now that Miss M has started kindy (holding back the tears still ~ me that is) we needed somewhere to store her bags, one school and one library.  So the hunt was on.  In her room?  No, not much available space in there as it's only around 3m x 4m. 

I found the perfect space, a space previously unused and probably would never have..until now. I just had to convince hubby to let me do it!

I searched Pinterest (of course!) for ideas and inspiration. 

Oh if we just had more room, I could go crazy with these ideas.

But alas we dont.  So where is the best space I found?  Right behind the front door.  Not on the door itself but the wall behind the door opening. 

 

I ordered some mdf words from MDF Magic which less than $10 each including postage.  I chose the font I wanted and the thickness (I went for a thin profile as they weren't to hold weight, just look nice!). 

I decided to paint them with chalkboard paint and that way I could pretty them up with coloured chalk polkadots, flowers whatever.

And the end result?  I am so happy with it, it's not big but it works for us.  Now to finish updating the rest of the Family Command Centre.

My first Bloggers event

From the time I started Because Everything Counts I have been a little envious of my Eastern states Sisters who got to attend fabulous Blogger events, meet other bloggers and even more so when goodie bags were included.  So I was super excited to receive an invitation to my first event from Blogs and PR for a WA bloggers meet and greet.

As we live a few hours from the event location hubby and I decided to make a weekend of it, child free and with a little shopping for good measure.  If that didn't make me nervous enough (it was our first time leaving Miss M), the idea of walking into a room and meeting a group of ladies who I've either followed their blog or meeting others for the first time was enough to make me a bundle of nerves.  It felt like the first day of school. I am actually a shy person to begin with.

What eventuated was a lovely few hours of chatting, getting to know each other and our blogs.  Each one of us were asked to stand in the front of the group ~ nerves in overdrive ~ and introduce ourselves, our blog and choose from a lucky dip.  My lucky dip was a Mothers Corn Kids Soup Bowl, yep that's right, it's made from corn.  Very cool.

Thanks to the wonderful Yvette from Little Bento Blog and Annaleis from Teapots and Tractors for organising the meet and greet.  Thanks too to the fabulous bloggers who shared their stories.  For the full list of those who attended head to my facebook page and check out the Blog Rolls.

A final thanks too to the amazing sponsors who contributed so generously to our goodie bags

2kool4skool
Kambrook
KiddiKutter
ImogensAngels
Suz E Bee candles
Sunraysia Australia
Missy and Moo
Name Your Dummy
Kidsberry Store

and to The Wembley Hotel for hosting us.

Why were we lucky to receive goodie bags? Well the idea of Blogs and PR is to connect bloggers with brands. I'll be writing reviews of the items I received or sharing the brands pages. I also look forward to working with more brands. The direction of the blog may change a little in that there will be advertising in the future.  But I can promise you the reviews will be written with honesty and the blog won't become just a billboard.

I'm so glad I overcame my first day nerves.

x Bec

Review ~ Funky Elephant

When I received an email from the lovely people at Funky Elephant I was super excited as Matilda loves to craft.

What arrived in the mail was a gorgeous box addressed to Matilda, I popped it to one side and got on with getting her ready for Kindy and well life got in the way.  So when I set aside some time to open the 'trunk' I wish I had done it sooner.

It's fantastic!

This particular trunk came with everything to make three activities.  Inside the lid are the instructions on what you need for each activity (all included in the trunk), a step by step guide, some general info ~ this one talked about role play.  It also had a cute little rhyme.

 

 

 

 

I laid out the protective sheet so we could get our craft on. Matilda loved everything about the trunk, she loved that it was addressed to her, that she could unpack it and could lay out all the items she needed based on the picture on the instruction card.

 

 

The finished product ~ for today that is...

 



 

What I loved about the trunk is that it's something we can go back to, these two little people are just a small sample of what we can do with what's inside the trunk.  The play can last days or even weeks. 

 

As hubby suggested, Funky Elephant trunks are perfect for time poor parents who can't travel from shop to craft shop gathering supplies.  Just subscribe and forget about it until the trunks start arriving and then get crafting. 

They're fab too for Grandparents who are looking for the perfect gift that's not another soft toy!

Now, for all the details;

The trunks are tailor-made for 3 to 7 year olds. 

They work on a subscription basis, from 2 months to 12 month subscriptions.  And they have a siblings option where they add extra materials to a trunk. 

Funky Elephant Trunks are available online

 

I'll definitely be adding this to the Christmas/Birthday wishlists.

 

 

I was not offered nor accepted money for this review.  The honest opinions are my own.

 

 

Miss M's Fourth Birthday

A few weeks ago my gorgeous girl turned 4.  She loves fairies so we I decided on a Woodland Fairy theme. So a hunting I would go (pardon the pun) for goodies to fit the theme.

Pinterest of course was a source of inspiration and I searched page after page.  Here's what I came up with and am so so happy with how it all turned out.  As promised too I'm sharing where I sourced the goodies and how much they were.

I found these little fairy books at my local Red Dot store for $1 each so I popped those aside and amazingly enough I found the bags online some time later and they fitted perfectly.  The bags were around $1 each also.  I bought the stamp locally and it was ideal for the theme.

When the girls arrived they had their faces painted by Fairy Jo, she did an amazing job, there were unicorns, rainbows, fairies and puppies.



Rather than a lolly bag each little guest got to choose a fairy dress to wear on the day and take home to keep. 

A little wand cookie decorating was planned.  My poor table had it's own layer of icing in the end.  The wands were stamped with each fairy guests initial. 

A little pink milk.  The bottles are the Santa Vitorrio nectar bottles from Woolies.  These were on special for 6 for $4.

  

The bunnies are from Bed, Bath and Table which are also our Easter Bunnies.  The bowls are from Kmart for $2. The large mushroom is from Crazy Clarkes for $2.95.  The timber 'box' is from a musical instrument set.  The faux grass was free from my Mother in Law.

The girls loved the little Rosy Jelly pots.  The timber spoons were on clearance from the same store as the calico bags.  The little white house was half price from Thingz $7.95.

The cake was the only thing that didn't turn out as I'd hoped.  I had wanted a four tier ombre cake.  But things didn't go to plan so a two tier it was and we won't go into the icing catastrophe.  The girls loved it and that's all that matters.

So happy with the overall look.

Enjoying a little cake outside.  I cannot believe my gorgeous girl is 4.

I love Christmas!

I love Christmas, I love the decorating, the glitter and glitz (but no tinsel).  I love seeing my children's faces on Christmas morning.  I don't love my face waking up to them though after wrapping presents all night (but that's another story)

So here is a little decorating in our home.  I won't even apologise for it being pic heavy. 

I love Christmas x

Thank goodness I have this buffet.  We don't have a lot of walls in the living room ( two sliding doors + window = no real walls)

 

We have an angel for anyone no longer with us. 

 

 

 

We also add a new decoration each year.  This tin Santa is from our Bali trip.  'Joy' was last years.

 

 

 

Our Christmas Countdown corner.

 

 

 

A little dining table love

 

 

 

Miss Matilda's room.

 

 

And finally...our tree.  This year I went with just red decorations, I usually have a mix of red and gold but never with tinsel.  I use gold or red ball garlands.  Love!

 



 

 I should have gone with more lights..oh well, there's always next year.

xx Bec

 

 

 

 

 

Gran's 90th & a Dessert Buffet

Hubby's Gran turned 90 recently which is a pretty amazing milestone and one we definitely wanted to make a big deal of.

We hosted a family bbq at our home and as Gran is a bit of a collector of things, namely tea cups we chose a high tea themed dessert buffet.  The centrepiece of which was a stunning cake made locally which had amazing detail right down to the fondant teacup. 

Gran recently gave me some stunning heirlooms, lace doilies which belonged to her Mother and Grandmother and I decided to use these as bunting.

As Gran's eyesight isn't the best at the moment, I described some of the details to her including her wedding photo and she loved the teacup which she got to see up close after the cake cutting. 

She had a lovely night surrounded with love.

Some photos of the day.