Decorating Ideas

The boys finally get their bunk beds next week, so all my ideas and planning will finally come together. Maybe now I can move onto our room. Even though we have the house on the market, I figure a makeover won't hurt and if we can't sell (the market seems to have died down here) well I'll get to enjoy my efforts for longer :)

So here's what I'm starting with.....

Pretty blank canvas really. See that wall colour?? I don't know the name of it but it's beige I guess...It's everywhere! The walls, the architraves, the skirting boards, the cornices even the ceiling! Except for the odd "feature" wall which is painted a cool grey/brown colour. blergh. The "feature" wall in our room is opposite the wall that the bed is on... weird. Anyhow, I plan to paint out the current feature wall to match the others while painting the skirtings, cornices and architraves a nice bright white. I'll leave the ceilings for now I think :S

I'll be keeping the side tables, baskets and lamps. They are the start of the makeover. The bed of course will stay but I'm planning a headboard, most likely an upholstered headboard, but no matter the type it'll be white and minimalist, not huge and no fancy shapes. Something like this.....

Sorry I don't remember where this pic came from, if you do please let me know and I will provide the link :)

Now I'm after a bit of advice as to what other colour to incorporate. I'm not keen on just having neutrals, I'd really love to add some colour. Initially I thought a rich deep red, but Mr Mess was worried it was too strong. He suggested green but I only like lighter greens and I think I'd like to have a deep colour. So at the moment we're thinking a tealy blue....

I can either paint the wall behind the bed with this and make a huge statement OR should I pick a deeper neutral shade for the wall and add the teal in small scatterings, think a graphic print above the bed head, some sort of trim around the lampshades, scatter cushions and a throw....What do you think?

Which way would you go? What do you think of our potential colour choice? Have you got any other tips or suggestions for me?

This Saturday I'm grateful for.....

1. Not having an open house this weekend. Last weekend was a dismal failure with the rain keeping everyone away :( So I'm grateful that I don't have to rush around keeping the boys from messing up the place.

2. Mr Mess working this weekend. That probably is mean because I know he'd rather be at home with us but the weekends he works gives me some extra down time to catch up on all my favourite blogs, get up to date with my own blogs and just generally potter about. The boys seem to like not having to go anywhere too, work weekends are a vege weekend here in the Mess house :)

3. Home baked goodies. Kenny's been hard at work again. Together we whipped up a batch of my MIL's 123 biscuits as well as a batch of these delicious cinnamon scrolls.

They were so yummy!

Come and tell us what you're grateful for this Saturday. Join in at Maxabella Loves.

Soul Food

When I was a little girl, my mum's side of the family would come together at my grandmother's house for dinner on friday nights. With nine of us to feed, including four hungry children, Grandma always dished up a stellar meal. The one I remember the most was her spaghetti bolognese, which was my absolute favourite.

She would use a huge stock pot to boil the tubular spaghetti in and a large heavy based pot for the sauce. She'd start early in the afternoon. I believe the original recipe was a Sicilian one which came from a friend of hers. It had the most distinctive flavour, in part due to the inclusion of carrots and celery, but also because it was Grandma's Spaghetti, non could compare.

Long after the friday night tradition waned, my mother kept Spaghetti Bol on the weekly menu, adding her own touches. It was one of the first dishes I learnt to cook and over time my methods have changed too. These days I opt for an easy version, one that's quick to make and I know the boys will eat.

It starts with sauteing a small finely dice brown onion (gotta be brown they're sweeter), diced bacon rashers and chopped mushrooms.

Then add some mince.

Cook some of this.

Add both of these. (my boys don't like chunky bits of tomato)

You end up with this......

Tummy warming, memory invoking, nourishing, comforting, soul food.

Homemade Slurpees

Slurpees are a kid's dream come true, but with all that sugar and artificial colouring, they can be a parents worst nightmare.

I came up with a homemade alternative that takes minutes to make and tastes fantastic.

Frozen fruit is what makes these homemade slurpees super icy and taste amazing. You can use any fruit you like cut into bite size pieces and frozen in a zip lock bag, or simple use the frozen berries you can find in the freezer isle in your local supermarket. Through a couple of handfuls of your frozen fruit into a blender.

Add approx. 1/2 a cup of your favourite lemonade and blitz. You may need to a little more or a little less lemonade depending on how thick you like your slurpees.

Pour it into a glass and serve :)

Add a touch of vodka or replace the lemonade with your favourite sparkling white wine for a refreshing adults only slurpee at the end (or in the middle) of a hot summers day. Just a little tip from me to you ;)

Frolicking Fun

Happy Monday! How was your weekend? Come and play Week-a-Boo with Claire at Scissors Paper Rock.

We had a great weekend filled with family and fun.

Saturday was a funny day. It was scorching in the morning, great weather to tackle Mount Washmore. Hubby was finishing some odd jobs about the place and the kids were happily playing. By lunch time it had grown dark and really windy so we hastily packed everything up, ripped the washing off the line and dashed inside as the rain started. The kids settled in to watch their latest favourite movie, Cloudy with a chance of meaballs. Great movie actually. Look how engrossed they are.

By late Saturday arvo, the rain had cleared and when my step son and his family arrived, there was an impromptu basketball game to be played.

The Boy met his match, totally underestimating his big brother.

The Dude slam dunked, with a little help from Daddy.

My husband's grandchildren are the same age as The Dude, Miss A is 6 months older and Mr K is 7 months younger, so they always have a great time when they get together. We tried to take them all to the beach after tea, but not 10 mins after arriving, the rain started :(

Sunday saw the end of Mt Washmore and the yard work all done and dusted. My amazing husband pulled out all the horrible lillies that had started to infiltrate the garden beds again. We decided we're going to try and propagate the aggies in the autumn and see if we can get enough to adorn the front garden with them.

Sunday night after tea, we took the boys down to the beach to frollick in the sunshine, perfect way to end the week.

Hope you have a great week!!

Queensland

My heart breaks for my hometown. While I know that SE Queensland is not the only area in the state affected by flooding, it certainly has brought home just what devastation these floods bring.

Photo Credit

My family are all safe thankfully. My mum works in the CBD and was sent home on Tuesday morning. She hasn't been back to work yet as the call centre where she works is still closed, no doubt without power too. My sister too was sent home from her work place on the west side of Brisbane. She opted to stay at home yesterday as well, which was a good thing because the Centenary Highway was cut anyway. My dad lives on a property west of Beaudesert. While he's fine as they are up on a hill, he may be unable to get out of the town for the next few days.

Watching the rolling coverage on channel seven, I've seen some heartbreaking footage. The enormous wall of water that hit Toowoomba this week was really unfathomable. We sat and stared at the tv, unable to process the enormity of what was unfolding. Seeing the footage of the aftermath in the last 24 hours, makes you feel helpless. There will be so much work that needs to be done across all of the flood ravaged regions in the coming months and there really is only so much that monetary donations can do. The physical clean up will be grueling and I hope that the Queensland spirit shines through and everyone bands together.

Photo Credit

This woman, Anna Bligh, has astounded me over the last few days. She has done an amazing job in what must be an incredibly difficult time both as the premier and personally. I wish I could articulate my thoughts about Premier Bligh, but I think I'll quote Jessica Rudd;

"Then I saw Premier Anna Bligh and I just knew it was going to be all right. As soon as she came onscreen my pulse slowed, my breathing steadied and my tummy unknotted. 

I think it was in her manner—the no-bull way she looked, that calm stare an impossible cocktail of warm compassion and hardcore determination"

Jessica has written an amazing post for Mama Mia about the Queensland premier.

Jessica's own father, former PM Kevin Rudd has also been on the ground in his Brisbane electorate. He spoke to Channel 7 yesterday which had me tearing up. Then I saw the video below, linked via the Mama Mia website. I take my hat off to him, he is an extraordinary man.

My thoughts and heart go out to every single person who has been affected by the Queensland floods. The devastation must feel insurmountable right now, but you will prevail.

Local Brisbanites, I have heard that many people are delivering donated goods to the evacuation centres which is amazing. I have also heard that the centres seem to plenty of clothing but are in need of items such as nappies and other personal items, soap, toothbrushes, toothpaste etc. If you are near a centre and can spare some of those things please donate.

5 sleeps to go!

This weekend seems to have been the calm before the storm. Hubby has worked this weekend and it’s been pouring with rain on and off so the boys and I had a very quiet end to the week indeed.

Brock came down with Chicken Pox on the 9th . Thankfully he only had a mild case and was able to for the last day this past Wednesday. He had a great day, he handed out Christmas cards and candy canes to all his class mates. He proudly presented his teacher with a package of homemade rocky road that he helped make. Jack also got in on the action and gave Miss G a bottle of champers to say thanks for putting up with him this year lol. Brock said they played lots of games, had a party at lunch time and even got a present each from the teacher at the end of the day. He came home with all his Christmas artwork as well as a package of shortbread and a Christmas bon bon that they decorated and Miss G filled with goodies. Neither the shortbread nor the bon bon made it home :)

I got my first Etsy sale this weekend. Little Cherry Tree is up and running. I’m having a little giveaway to celebrate my first Etsy sale, so head over there to enter.

With 5 sleeps to go until Christmas, I would have to be the most disorganised mumma this festive season. I haven’t done a spot of gift shopping yet! Tomorrow is the day, Hubby has the day off so we’re going to tackle it together. I’ve got some mini stockings to finish off today before the kids and I get started on our baking and our shopping list for tomorrow.

One more thing before I go, check out the awesome Christmas lights display across the road from us!

It's two houses side by side. They do an awesome job every year and despite the lights being vandalised 3 times in the last month the owners still keep doing it for the local kids. It's a bit hard to see the lights before 9pm here because of the late sunsets, but the lights stay on till 11:30pm and there has been car lods of people coming by to see the magical sight that it is.

Hope you had a great weekend! Enjoy the lead up to Christmas!

Today I’m playing along with Claire @ Scissors Paper Rock and Chantelle @ Fat Mum Slim.

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We had another fairly quiet weekend at our house, but I do have photos to share.

As I said in my previous post, Friday was International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Rememberance Day. We lit our little candle and remembered with love, not just our little angel, but all the angel babies in heaven.

Jack and I also spent some extra time at bath time, blowing some bubbles for all the angel babies in heaven. He's such a perceptive child and stayed close to me whilst the candle was burning, as if he knew I needed extra love.

As I said the rest of the weekend was pretty quiet, we didn't venture away from home at all. So I took advantage of the spare time and relatively fine weather and spent some time out in the garden taking lots of photos.

Jack had a great time watering our latest addtition to the garden, an apricot tree that my mother in law gave us.

I hope you had a good weekend, why not check out what everyone else has been up to this weekend. Head over to Scissors, Paper Rock and Fat Mum Slim to play along too.



Blossoming

You may remember this post I wrote about waiting for our cherry blossom to flower. Well kids, as I reported on Monday our little tree is really blossoming. It fills my heart with joy to see each little bud unfold and burst in to frilly pink loveliness.

This shot shows the progression of the bloom. Simply stunning.

Wordless Wednesday : Suburban Sunset

More over at Faith, hope and a whole lotta love.

A quiet weekend

Between Hubby working all weekend and yet another cold finding it's way in, we've had a rather quiet weekend here. The flowers on my cherry blossom are really starting to bloom and I'm looking forward to sharing some pictures in the next few days but for now, check out Claire and Chantelle's blogs for more interesting weekends than mine.

Photo from here.

A weekend in the sunshine

This weekend was absolutely magnificent. The sun shone brightly each day, it was warm without being hot and we got to spend the whole weekend together, all three days!

Friday, we enjoyed the company of some wonderful friends. The kids all had a great time playing inside and out. Everything from video game to football, you name it, they played it. They were all completely exhausted by the end of the day.

On Saturday we started working on our vegie patch. Hubby had already spent a couple of days preparing the patch, but we still needed to buy some timber edging, mulch and of course our vegies. By Sunday afternoon we'd finally finished. We planted carrots, beans, peas, strawberries, raspberries, basil, parsley, thyme, oregano and chives. We've still got to plant the potatoes and some broccoli if we can manage to find some. We need to add some chicken wire to help keep the neighbourhood cats out and some pinwheels to keep the birds away from the fruit.

After working hard in the garden all weekend, the boys played some backyard cricket and totem tennis.

To top off a great weekend and to celebrate the start of daylight savings, we went for a walk along the beach. It was a beautiful end to our weekend.

What did you do this weekend? Come and play along with Claire and Telle too.