It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

We have spent the past couple of days decorating our home for the festive season, which has been a lot of fun. I have decorated a little more than in previous years, but both the kids and I are loving it! Christmas comes but once a year after all.. so why not!

Each year on Dec 1'st we start by putting up our Christmas tree, I decided to buy a new tree this year as I happened to be in Target on Wednesday and they had 40% off all tree's and ornaments.  I did love our old tree, but I have always wanted a fir style tree (the ones with the bottle brush branches) so I decided to buy one at the right price! We have a tradition when putting up our tree that we have a full roast dinner, play Christmas carols and afterwards the kids watch a Christmas movie. 

Iv also decorated doorways, the mantel, the bookshelf and many other areas of our home this year, love wherever we go, we are reminded that it is Christmas!  I particularly love this metal sign that I purchased from Bed Bath N Table this year to put up in our entry.

I got the idea to put the greenery and baubles at the Christmas Shop in the Sunshine Coast Hinterland.

Loving this cute little bird from Bunnings for only $4

Added a little bit of Christmas to our table centrepiece.  

I don't believe my decorating is finished as yet and hubby is going to start on putting up our Christmas lights outside this afternoon.  Tomorrow I am going to post about our homemade Christmas crackers..

Gifts for Teachers..

It is well and truly the silly season and with the school year coming to a close, I had 4 teachers to buy for to thank them for looking after my kidlets over the past year - and what an ask that can be at times!

I like to purchase an ornament for the Teachers, last year I bought gorgeous silver angels as the kids all had female teachers. This year, I had 2 male teachers to buy for and didn't think pretty silver angels were going to be all that suitable! I did still buy pretty glittery ornaments for the 2 female teachers, pictured is Indigo's teachers gift, the word WISH, I thought this a pretty gift that could be used all year round.

I managed to pick up the gift bags in Kmart for $3 for a pack of 4 and made the tags up myself, I also added a metal gift tag that read 'Merry Christmas' also from Kmart (pack of 6 - only $2!). The other female teacher had the word 'Joy', and the two male teachers a clear glass ornament, nutcracker figure - all teamed with chocolate. 

I was watching on parade this morning and noticed the teachers arms laden with gifts from so many grateful boys and girls in their classes, it is good to see their hard work being appreciated! 

Advent calendars and putting the Christmas Tree up tomorrow! Can't wait..

Christmas Goodie Bags..

A couple of weeks ago, the kids created their own handmade christmas cards to give to their friends at school. Tonight we made goodie bags to attach these cards to and got them all finished so they can hand them out to their friends in the lead up to the christmas holidays (which is only one week away!) Im so glad we made the cards early as the weeks have gone by so quickly! 

In the goodie bags (I ended up getting this clear bag from Spotlight, I went on a looooong search for patterned bags, but couldn't find any!) we placed a Christmas pencil, candy cane and christmas stickers into the bag, tied it off with coordinating curling ribbon and attached one of the homemade tags. Im really happy with the way they have turned out and its just a little something to spread some christmas cheer to the boys friends!

My eldest two, rather than hand out goodie bags are opting to hand out candy canes - Tyler (10) was ecstatic to find Star Wars candy canes & Hayley (9) requested no peppermint ones.. (what happened to the good old days where candy canes were just white with stripes and tasted like peppermint???) We ended up with fruit flavoured ones (I must admit they were rather nice & taste-tested a few whilst doing the goodie bags tonight!) With only 1 month to go, Christmas is certainly in full swing! Next on the agenda, Christmas cards for family/friends & Teacher's gifts.. more posts to come over the next day or so!

Happy Birthday Hayley! :-)

I would like to take this opportunity to say a big Happy Birthday to my lovely Step-Daughter, Hayley! 9 today! I hope your day is filled with fun and laughter & your year is the best ever yet!  Dad and I are proud of the lengths you have gone to in the past year to continually strive forward and do your best to achieve everything your heart desires. Happy 9th Birthday from us all. 

Hayley's cupcakes I made were a real hit and I loved using my new cake display!

    Blow out the '10' candles (oops.. my error) and make a wish!

Only one 'family' birthday left this year, next on the agenda is hubby's on the 29th December.

Christmas is next on the planning agenda!

Ordered my new Project Life tonight!

I just pre-ordered my new Project Life kit for 2011. Super excited! I guess I'd better hurry up and catch up on my 2010 Project Life or i'll never fill it in time to use the new one.  Project Life has been a fun hobby of mine this year and I have enjoyed documenting our lives through a daily photograph and journal cards, although at times I have slacked off! I chose the Turquoise design for the upcoming year over the Amber design as I think it will compliment my photographs nicely and be a nice contrast to this years.

I havent taken any recent photographs of my layouts etc, but I thoroughly enjoy documenting the kids and our daily lives in the weekly entries, I think it will be an awesome reflective tool for them to look back on over the years. I think next week Ill start participating in Project Life Tuesday again! might motivate me to keep on track with it all.

Books, Books, Books!

Ever since I was a young child, I remember books and stories playing a very large part in my life. I had a passion for reading and remember being tucked into bed at night with a large pile of little golden books sitting beside my bed. It didn't matter that I had read them before, I adored the stories and to this day still tenderly remember many of them.  I still have many of the books from my childhood and the ones that were lost, I replaced from second hand stores to share the same magic with my own children. 

Tonight at bedtime I lay down and read one such book to my Son, Hansel and Gretel - he was keen to read a fairy tale as he has been learning about them at Prep and we chose this one off of our bookshelf. I remember laying in my bed at Nan and Pops place reading this very same Hansel and Gretel, Nan had bought me this book from a book exchange and I loved the illustrations that seemed to bring the book to life.

Other books I share similar feelings about are my Big Book of Christmas also bought by my Nan, I used to read it every Christmas as a child and complete the craft activities in it, unfortunately I lost this book over time and I was fortunate enough to replace it a few years ago at a second hand store. Each Christmas since, I have been able to read the stories to my children and I remember the illustrations so vividly. Coming up to Christmas, it will be taken out and a story read from it, each night.

As I got older I thoroughly enjoyed Enid Blyton books, My Mum had a collection from when she was younger and I purchased new titles to add to this collection and read them often. My favourite was the Famous Five series as I was able to 'get into' the storyline and imagine the adventures they had so clearly.  The Faraway Tree, The Wishing Chair and Mr Pinkwhistle I felt similarly about. Both my Stepdaughter and my Son have both been interested in the Enid Blyton range this year, my Stepdaughter has begun to read some of the titles I read as a child and my Son asked me to read some of the 'Bedtime Story' chapter books that Enid Blyton wrote that contained short stories.  So nice to relive those amazing stories again too. I have my eye on the Children of Cherrytree Farm next!

My Stepson who is 10 is a massive fan of reading and whilst I have never read any of the titles he enjoys, I think its wonderful - he has been through the 'Captain Underpants' and 'Zac Power' stage and is now onto the Harry Potter and Diary of a Wimpy Kid stage. Anything to encourage him to read! My Brother struggled with reading as a child and Mum would buy him every dinosaur book in the Scholastic Book Club to get him reading! I'm not sure which button to press with my youngest Stepson as he isn't really into reading as yet.. hopefully now he is reading himself, he will start to enjoy reading more. Maybe he will end up like his Father who never finished a book as a child! LOL.

We have quite a large bookshelf and the kids have a large box of books in each of their rooms as well as books on their shelves. I downsized our book collection a few weeks ago, which was something I never thought I would do but I donated 2 roller-storers worth of books to our local lifeline.. Why?  I went through our bookshelf when I shifted our room around and set aside the books that the kids had either grown out of or didn't seem that keen on from the beginning. Not books that they had ever been attached to obviously! I have still kept many, many, many books. I usually purchase new books weekly for our children and I have been lucky enough to get many wonderful books from the same Lifeline that I donated the books to, however, they don't always have a lot of children's titles available - I wanted to donate our unused books for other children to enjoy and love! This is the same reason I often give books as presents.

When I pack my teaching bag I always include 3 new books each day, if a class is being particularly unruly we come together and read as a class, sometimes it can be the only time of the day that I have every child's attention, they are mesmerized and so am I!

Reading is truly inspirational.. I might go off to bed to immerse myself in my newest Marian Keyes novel now :)

Born to Shop!

My Stepson told me the other day, that I must have been 'born to shop' and although I'd like to think I was put on this earth for something other than gracing Target hellbent on getting a bargain, he was pretty spot on.  I can't remember a time that I haven't enjoyed shopping, shopping of all kinds - I even love grocery shopping (until I reach the cash register and ponder upon how many other things I could have bought with all of that money if only we didn't need to eat!)

As a child, I looked forward to Friday afternoons as this was our shopping day. Mum and Nan would take us to the local Target/Woolworth's (before the big shopping centres started to appear) and we would get a bucket of chips, cup of cordial and Nan would buy us a $2 toy each week.  I can still vividly remember walking down the aisles and the smells of the store, some of the things we bought and events that happened when shopping such as loosing my Brother in Target (he was hiding under a round rack and Mum nearly had a coronary searching for him).  As I got older and the shopping centres got bigger, I was in awe of the atmosphere, particularly the atmosphere at Christmastime with all of the lights, crowds, decorations and music, still to this day, that is my favourite time of the year to shop!

My favourite shops by far are Op Shops - second hand stores like Lifeline etc - as a child I wouldn't have imagined walking into such shops, let alone buying and wearing things from them (snooty much).  They are wonderful outlets for home wares, clothing, books, toys and renovation items and over the years I have found many bargains and saved myself thousands of dollars - many of the items new or near new - you would never know they are second hand.  My most recent purchase was a 3.5 seat chocolate brown suede lounge, gorgeous modern design and at only $299 was a fraction of the price you would pay from a furniture retailer & the best part is, it was brand new!  

Other favourite stores I love to explore are Bed, Bath and Table, Target, Myer, Trade Secret, Pumpkin Patch, Loot & the Vast Interior & even the humble K-Mart (which has an awesome selection of fantastic home wares this year) including this gorgeous bedding, wall decal etc that I picked up the other day.

I guess my tips for finding a retail bargain are; shop often - the more you shop, the more likely it is that you will come across price reductions, only buy things you genuinely need - after all it's not a bargain if you buy it to store in the cupboard.  I don't tend to lay by as I find I get the item cheaper before the lay by expires or I change my mind about what I purchased in the first place, cancelling multiple lay by's each year can become costly.  For example one year my kids wanted those electronic interactive cubes, $59 each at Toyworld, I picked them up for $3.00 each from Target right before Christmas, guess what a lot of the kids in our family received that year!  I also picked up the I-teddy, originally $120.00 for $15.00 by playing the waiting game at Target.  Patience is luckily a virtue I have!

Another tip, after becoming an avid second hand shopper is, often if you wait, you will find the item in a second hand store.. so why buy new??  An example of this that happened to me recently was shopping for our family portraits. I went to target and bought myself a red top ($40) and my stepdaughter a white cardigan ($29) only to find a near identical red top ($2) and an identical white cardigan ($4 - WITH TAGS!) in Lifeline only 3 days later!!!! I was also able to pick up all of the Marian Keyes novels at Lifeline for $2-$3 each over time, rather than purchase the at department stores for $20+ and the other day I picked up a whole bucket of Mr Potato Head toys (including Darth Tater) for only $4 - a toy I have been resisting paying full price for, the kids now have more than they would have gotten if I'd bought new - Good things come to those who wait!  Go to garage sales and utilise eBay to your advantage also.. you'll never pay full price again..

Later this week, I am going to try out a new method of shopping for me, the world of online grocery shopping! Ill let you all know how that goes too...

Happy Bargain Shopping! :)