So This Was Christmas 2013..

I can hardly believe that Christmas was nearly 1 whole week ago and tomorrow it will be New Years Eve!  Time flies and I find it rather depressing because Christmastime is one time of the year that I wish could go forever!  I love everything about Christmas, even the crazy crowds at the shopping centres and the extra 2kg (give or take) piled on by eating all those wonderful Christmassy foods! (thankfully most of which have now been eaten from our fridge, with the exception of Hubby's Birthday pav from yesterday which I plan on eating a final piece for dessert this evening!) 

 

Christmas was a little different this year because all the kids got to stay home for the entire day.  Usually my three step kid's only spend 1/2 the day here or there til 1pm or from 1pm (depending on whose turn it is) but next year they will be spending the entire Christmas with their Mother in New Zealand so we got to have them home for the entire day this year.  It was nice, because we didn't have to rush from place to place, the kids got to see the whole family and still had plenty of time to actually play with the gifts they were given.  Next year will be odd without them, but I'm sure we'll cross that bridge when we get to it!

 

Aside from that little difference everything else was tradition as usual.. We kicked off Christmas with a lovely dinner on Christmas Eve with all the trimmings such as roast pork and beef, Christmas ham and prawns.  We took the kids out to look at the Christmas lights (which we looked at quite a few times this year, due to Mr 2's addiction to Christmas Light looking!)  Sprinkled reindeer food on the front lawn, hung our stockings, placed our Santa sacks and left out milk & cookies for Santa (the cookies tasted like lemon washing up liquid, they were not nice and I'm surprised that Santa ate every last crumb!) 

 



 

Christmas Eve Dinner



One of our many light looking adventures



Christmas morning the kids were up at a reasonable hour, Mr 8 creeping in at 5:45 to wake me.  The kids wait until everyone is awake to open their gifts, but know they can tuck into their stockings before that.. So there was a lot of chocolate rustling and woopie cushioning before Mr 2 woke up at 7:30 (I don't think the kids could have waited much longer!) And then they got into their pressies, as per usual far too many but a lot of happy little faces and squeals of delight make the morning all worthwhile (despite the empty bank account!)

 

 

Christmas Morning is never dull in our home!

The rest of the day was spent with my family which was lovely, we don't get to spend enough time together, so Christmas is always a time I look forward to because my family always get together and enjoy the day, like we haven't really been apart.  Christmas is great for that. 

 

So it brings us now to December 30 & our decorations are all still up and our house is still well lit outside (because Mr 2 doesn't want us to take any lights or deco's down as yet) and I guess I really should start taking them down little by little, but I'll make a start on that after New Years. 

 

So I know it's late and I'm closer to New Years than Christmas, but I'd like to wish all of my Blog readers a very Merry Christmas, I hope however, you spent the day it was lovely and special xoxo

 

 

Wordless Wednesday 27th November 2013 ~ Christmas Books

                                           

We've had the Christmas books out & about for a week or so now {although they really never go away} but I sorted through the book boxes & found them out & popped them into a basket for the kids to easily access. My basket is missing its decoration {thanks to Mr 2} but you get the idea. The kids all get a new Christmas book each on Dec 1st along with their Christmas Tshirt, Advent Calendar & an ornament for the tree. 

I also borrowed out some Christmas books from the library this year too that the older kids can enjoy as I found our collection was a little younger. Last year the older kids had Christmas chapter books but I had no luck in finding different titles this year. 

                           

                                                3 of these I've had since I was little. 

                                          

                                       Picked this material book up at a market earlier in the year. 

                                            

                 Our pop up book has seen better days & the jolly postman is missing a few activities. 

                                           

                                 

                                                           Some Australian Christmas Titles. 

                              

                                                                     Love Little People :) 

                             

                                                                  Books from the Library

 

 

Linking up with Trish from My Little Drummer Boys

&

Karly from Three in Three

 

for Wordless Wednesday!

Wordless Wednesday ~ 13th November 2013

 

 

This year I fell in love time & time again, with these beautiful, furry little cuties. I'd never had much experience with puppies  until this year when Mum & Dad's dogs ALL had Pups {thanks to a neighboring dog, hiding out on their property} 

Thankfully we have been able to find beautiful homes for each of them & with only 12 left to find homes for {they're not quite 8 weeks yet} Mum will soon have a life again as she has dedicated every waking minute to raising these little guys. 

These pups, we gave each and every one of them a nickname & loved them so much I hope they are loved just as much in their new homes. 

Christmas Crazy!

 

I'm distracted, and will be until the 26th December, you see I am addicted to Christmas & lately I can think of nothing but Christmas.. Christmas Day, Christmas Presents, Christmas Food, Christmas Lights.. You name it, I'm thinking about it.. Geez I even briefly thought of entertaining Hubby's crazy idea of a Mrs Claus outfit, very briefly & not very likely.. {Sorry Hubby} 

I must admit I was a little 'Already?!' When I saw the first Christmas tree back in September, but by October I was itching to start my Christmas shopping & started buying things to put away for both December 1st & Christmas Eve/Day itself. I made a pact with myself that I wouldn't venture into the speciality Christmas stores or the Myer Trim shop (my weakness) until November 1st & I'm doing pretty good because its now the 12th November & I still haven't visited! 

I love popping things away early though, that way you are guaranteed that you don't miss out. I have already bought the Advent Calendars (including the Lego City Advent Calendar) The Christmas T-Shirts, some books, ornaments & deco items and have tucked them away securely (mainly to stop me prodding them daily)  Last year I had all of my Christmas presents purchased by the end of October & I found it such a weight off my mind, rather than running around till the last second (As I did the year before when I found myself at Chermside at 3am in the morning shopping madly!) 

Some of the items I've squirrelled away; 

 

                    Hubby's Christmas Tshirt.

       Lego City Advent Calendar for Mr 8 & Mr 10.

Elf on the Shelf for some Elfish Antics.

       Night Before Christmas, Little People for Mr 2.

What I'm hoping I buy today; 

And the list goes on... (It really is endless) 

At this rate, I plan on being finished by the end of November ( I didn't do as many toy sale lay by's this year) which still gives me early December to wrap (another thing that Hubby & I no longer want to do on Christmas Eve!) & just ENJOY Christmas with the kids. I still go to the shops at Christmastime (too often really) because I love the atmosphere at Christmas, it's just so nice with the lights on & music playing.. Aside from the odd ba-humbug, people even seem happier at Christmas. 

And This is the first Christmas that the kids will be home all day (next year my 3 Stepkids won't be here for Christmas so instead of halving Christmas, we get 1 each) so I'm sure there will be lots of excitement in the lead up to Christmas & a very crazy Christmas morning ! Definitely looking forward to it as its quite hard/rushed to cram Christmas Day into 1/2 a day ~ particularly when visiting family etc. 

Iv also just started The Organised Housewife's 'Organise Yourself a Merry Little Christmas' challenge. It started last week (I started yesterday) so I'm madly catching up! You can see my progress on Instagram & after iv finally completed the first week ill pop up a post here :) 

Oh well best get back to it.. Have a lovely day, humour me, comment & reassure me that I'm not the only one whose caught Christmas Crazy! 

Wordless Wednesday 30th October 2013 {Halloween}

Up until a few years ago, Halloween wasn't something I acknowledged.  I always made sure I had lollies in the house for Trick-or-Treater's {who never came a knocking mind you!} but aside from that it wasn't a celebration we 'got into' but a few years back, I threw up my hands & said 'why not?!' The result, a fun time each year on October 31st..  Above is a glimpse of our Halloween decorating this year.. Simple but effective for a very eager 2 year old :) 

Tomorrow we plan on watching the Nick Jnr Halloween Cartoon line up, Trick or Treating at home (the kids can trick or treat us.. Unfortunately our neighbourhood doesn't get into it) and having a little Halloween party after school. All in the name of fun of course! 

Does your family celebrate Halloween? 

Thanks for stopping by! 

Why not pop back to yesterday's post to enter my 2kool4skool.com.au giveaway :) 

Linking Up with Trish from My Little Drummer Boys for Wordless Wednesday. 

Still 2kool4skool.. A follow up review from www.2kool4skool.com.au

A little under a year ago, I was approached by a local up and coming company who sought to put the 'cool' back into school.   Kathy and her team from 2kool4skool.com.au launched their fantastic online store that was filled to the brim with funky stationary products promising to 'rock your pencil case'  right down to the uber kool pencil case that you could fit all the goodies in.  With kids who regularly harassed me for Smiggle products I was more than a little excited to have a look see at their product range and happily road tested some of their products for back to school 2013. 

For those of you that didn't get to read the review, feel free to catch up here; http://www.severalkindsofcrazy.blogspot.com.au/2013/01/heading-back-to-school-with.html

Fast forward 11 months and I was happy to accept a follow up review to let you guys know how I found their products throughout the past year & if they were holding up. 

I am happy to report that I have so far been impressed with the products I was given for the review and the additional products that I purchased from 2Kool4Skool.com.au.  

One of the BEST products that I cannot recommend highly enough is the 2kool4skool book covers.. Available in exercise, A4 & Scrapbook size, they were an absolute winner for back to school 2013.  One year, no word of a lie I covered 120 books for the kids & at the end of it, I wished for such a product... Kathy made that wish come true! Not only was book covering 'effortless' I was proud of the books I sent in to school with the kids & still to this day I am proud when I see their books at school or when they come home, because they are still so neat & tidy. Check out my Stepdaughter's Music book and my Son's Homework Book (my personal fave design ~ peace).  These are two books that travel back & forth weekly & they still look fab! Imagine how shiny the ones that sit in their desks still look, top notch! The spines are still in great condition and with no rips or tears in the PVC I could easily reuse these next year if I wished.

The kids said the covers were great because their books were easily recognisable & lots of their friends commented on the cool designs and searched for the ice-block (the built in game on every cover). 

Their pencil cases withstood the test of time, albeit a zipper tag has fallen off, but that's not bad going for an item that's used daily.  When they bought them home over the last school holidays, I did a quick inventory of their supplies, gave the case a wipe over with a chux (so handy they are all PVC) and refilled them ready for 4th term (a red pencil & red felt pen are a necessity for term 4!) 

Their pencils, erasers & sharpeners were all well loved or pinched by the end of term 2, they were just that popular. Mr 8 often complained of his funky smart phone sharpener going walkabout & would always find it on a neighbouring desk.. He stopped taking his gym boot pencil case to school a few weeks into term 1 because he was getting too many girls stopping by his desk to check out his kool stuff, too much female attention.. I'm sure he won't be complaining about that in a few years.. 

I didn't complain though because I scored that pencil case for my teaching bag, where it gets tons of positive comments & stores all of the cool products I snaffled for myself including my favourite scented pens (strawberry is divine) and a stock of the double ended scented markers (yes I like smelly stuff ~ who doesn't!?) And with scents like Choc Chip Cookie & even Pizza, you won't be able to stop sniffing your pencil case.. {warning might result in odd looks LOL} 

I was absolutely devastated when our school announced that they were supplying the books for 2014 & along with that, slip covers for the books... How bummed was I?! Thankfully the school is allowing us to cover the kids books as I wasn't going to miss out on the exciting new range of covers that 2kool4skool has released for back to school 2014.  No way! And I highly doubt with our Principals taste that his covers will be half as cool.. :) 

So with all that in mind, I'd happily shop & continue to shop www.2kool4skool.com.au the staff are lovely, they still have a great presence on social media such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter & Pinterest & really, who doesn't want to make back to school shopping easier... Pop over to their website & start checking them out.. You will not be disappointed & have many hours to gain NOT covering books!

 

You can find 2Kool4Skool here or follow them on Facebook to find out about all their cool upcoming products & stationary lines for cool stocking fillers and back to school 2014 here!  

For those that want to try out a fantastic pencil case from www.2kool4skool.com.au enter my giveaway below as I have 5 fab pencil cases to give away to my lucky readers. *Please note those that don't have Facebook, please just leave a blog post comment to enter :) 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Linking up with Jess from 'Essentially Jess' for IBOT. 

 

Recipe of the Week ~ Mixed Berry, Cream Cheese & White Chocolate Jaffles

I came across this recipe last week in the November edition of the free Coles Magazine & the beauty of this recipe is, if you can make a toasted sandwich, you can make these!!!

To buy all of the ingredients for the recipe wasn't terribly cost effective,  infact the ingredients were about $15/$20

 However, if you have some of the ingredients already its a bonus (I didn't!) but depending on how many you make, you will have lots of leftovers. As I only made these for my Hubby & I (4 Jaffles) we had plenty of leftover Cream Cheese, Berries & White Chocolate melts... Seconds!  

As I said, super easy recipe; 

Ingredients;

A loaf of white bread

Cream Cheese

Frozen Mixed Berries 

White Chocolate Melts 

Butter

Icing Sugar & Maple Syrup to serve (optional) 

* I used the Coles brand cream cheese & frozen mixed berries as outlined in their magazine but any brand would work fine. 

You will need to cook them on; 

Either a sandwich press or a frying pan. 

* I used a 4 sandwich, sandwich press. 

Start by buttering as many pieces of bread as you will need to make the desired amount of sandwiches. 

Turn the bread, buttered side down & spread cream cheese onto the bread. Place the defrosted/softened berries onto the cream cheese and sprinkle with white chocolate melts. 

Spread the top slice of bread with cream cheese & place it buttered side up onto the sandwich. You are now ready to place it into the Sandwich press. Cook until it is golden, remove, cut & dust with icing sugar to serve.. You may want a drizzle of maple syrup as well but as I had neither in my pantry, the sandwich still tasted fantastic without the icing sugar or maple syrup! 

These were a fantastic alternative to our usual Sunday cooked breakkie of Bacon & Eggs but would also make a yummy dessert as well. 

Try them out, you sure wont be disappointed!