Our excellent adventures!

Foxy and little Miss with their rocket ship!

So I've been a little quiet lately and I've been extremely busy between being a mum, wife, student and a lazy bum I've found that I've been occupied with many different things. So this morning I decided to do some fun things with my beautiful little girl before she gets to the 'I'm too old to do that' phase..

We received a parcel this morning and since our business probably won't ever use the box the stock came in I decided to let her have it to imagine something fun! I told her look here's a boat for you thinking yea that sounds good until she turned around and said "no mummy it's a rocket ship!" So we spent the morning waiting for the plumber by making a cardboard box rocket ship!

Once it was made I went about some quick chores that needed to be done before I sit down to write my assignment up for one of my classes. She loved the makeshift rocket ship so much!

Once the plumber arrived I was advised that they needed to turn the power off to the entire house causing me to stop my assignment writing on the computer to trying to work out something for us to do whilst we were technology free... What better idea than to make rose Apple bite! So we chopped the apples and got them ready for the microwave.

Surprisingly enough they were ready to go when the plumber told us that everything should be fixed now! So into the microwave went the apples!

All little miss wanted to do though was lick her fingers because of how delicious those apples were once they were ready for the pastry!

So they were layered onto our pastry with cinnamon sprinkled on them. We then cut strips as we went with our pizza cutter, folded the pastry over and proceeded to roll them out!

 

And then voila we had our roses!

So while they're in the oven I am back to my assignment and she is busy watching some Disney junior before we start to get ready for dance classes!

Some Delicious Rose Apple Bites!

Our crazy birthday weekend and miss Liah's frozen themed party!

It has been some time since miss C's birthday party but I still wanted to post this about our crazy weekend of parties and a few ideas for those considering letting their children have a frozen themed party. Most of the blogs I've found that give hints and tips about frozen themed parties are all professionally done. Well I'm here to show you how we did ours on a fairly tight budget!

So to begin with we purchased the decorations you see hanging from our carport most we hung across our line and we made extra lengths of string going from each end of the under cover area to place a few extra decorations around. These are pretty simple to find and they don't cost a fortune I use birthday in a box for most of my items they have large catering pieces that include plates cutlery and even decorations for a half decent cost! Yes they're US but they ship to Australia and it's great when you have places like birthday in a box for when you can't find what you are looking for in the store!

It's really easy to find what you're looking for in regards to decorations when you know how to use google. Be exact when using Google you don't have to be brief I search entire sentences on occasions and am able to find things extremely easily!

If you've read my previous post, then you know I had issues with a company that isn't to be named and had to find a replacement at the last minute! Well check out my replacement which ended up being a whopping double the size of the original I had booked!

The kids had so much fun on the jumping castle they didn't want to play any games to win prizes!!

We had such an amazing time and all the parents and kids had a ball!

There were a few things that we had, to make the day stand out for everyone as most of my friends and family know I sew and I sew a lot! So instead of paying heaps towards banners and lolly bags I made our own! So miss C's birthday started as though you were attending the princesses coronation! We adorned the walk way with banners from the movie which I am proud to say we sewed, dyed and printed ourselves! This is something I've been wanting to do for so long! And am willing to offer sewing services for parties to anyone who is interested!

Yes there were more than just two of these adorning our walkway! I also made lolly bags out of canvas for the kids to take home and reuse! It's a great way to teach your kids about recycling and reusing items and the feedback I got from all of the mums who attended and received the bag was that their kids love it and refuse to leave it alone they take it to dance class and even to the shops as their "shopping bags"! Which is the exact reason why we made them! -cue appreciation to my friend Peter for the help in making so many of these!-

Aren't they gorgeous?! We made so many of these and we made them in the purple/blue and green!

So not only did we have all of the above but we even went a step further by getting a "Snow" machine! This was definitely a hit with the kids they wouldn't move away at any point the entire time it was on!

And I know what you're all asking but "What about the cake Laura?". Well I got my inspiration from many things. To begin with google (my best friend honestly). I found a whole pile of castle cakes ranging from frozen themed ones to just simple castles in general. As you've guessed it Miss Liah wanted the frozen castle. So with google at hand I also sought after other ideas of how to approach this, and inspiration hit when I saw an ad on facebook (yes an ad on facebook, I know how annoying right?) it was for the disney cakes magazine/book. After purchasing it I came up with the incredible!! Well I think it was pretty incredible let me know what you think...

Everyone loved the cake three tiers of deliciousness and it was pretty much all gone for once! Which is a miracle usually there's not enough food and too much cake left over!! Well that's what it's like for me anyway.

And as the title states it was a crazy weekend beginning with Liah's Birthday! We had two more parties to go to the day after as well as a 21st birthday party the night before!! And here is the craziness of the rest of the weekend surrounding Liah's day!

So the 21st was good fun we danced and everyone else drank as I was designated driver... The main images I have on hand are from when the ST**PPER came and did an awkward dance with the birthday girl and her mum? So I'll move on to the kids parties the day after Liah's party.

So we started out on Sunday morning getting ready for one of Liah's friends parties, Miss R.

She had a McDonald's party which was exactly what I wanted to do last year and it was nice to have somewhere catered too it would have made my life 100% easier. Let's cross our fingers for a McDonald's party this year!

Afterwards well right after Miss R's party finished we rushed over to Miss S's. Where we actually played proper games and won some awesome prizes! Check out the images below for Miss S's frozen themed party! Ohh and by the way all three of these kids parties were Frozen themed YAY! *not*

Finally this is up I can stop stressing every time I read a blog hehe

Camera Obscura Fun

So as most know I have returned to full time studies n the form of a diploma in Visual Arts!

Last week in my photography class we spoke about a Camera Obscura aka a Pin hole camera and it intrigued me more so than anything else last week. However what intrigued me the most was the fact that you can do this to any room in your house as long as it has a window and is able to be removed of all light!

With this in mind I was on a mission I wanted to see this myself and work out how this works for myself! So what did we do on the weekend??? You guessed it made a camera obscura in my house specifically mine and hubby's bedroom.

So we set to work getting the supplies we needed;

• Gaf tape
• Thick garbage bags
• Scissors
• DSLR camera
• And a sunny day!

So little miss and I set up my room with the thick garbage bags and taping everything off as we went. Once the entire window was covered (please note that if you have more than one window in your seal-able room you must cover this one completely also) we closed the door and blocked out as much light as we could from the door and looked for leaks of light coming through the plastic and rightfully patched them up with the gaf tape.

 Once this was done we chose the spot for our pin hole or in our "camera" our 1cm wide hole in our plastic and cut out the so called hole. I did note that we didn't actually have a perfect circle for our hole which suited us but if you are a perfectionist please feel free to cut this out in your own way.

Now that the window is covered and our "pinhole" created we closed the door, killed the lights and put towels/blankets to get rid of the light from below the door and waited.
At first it was really intense and Liah and I were feeling the pressure of our creation worrying that it won't work. After a few moments of our eyes adjusting though, the outside world started to adjust to our walls only upside down! Which is exactly how the Camera Obscura works! If we happened to have a 'lens' it would be clearer.

This is where your DSLR camera comes in set that baby up on a tripod or if you can't find your tripod like myself find a shelf, table or some form of hard surface in which your camera will not move and set your settings to a long exposure adjusting the other settings as you see fit to capture the image you are wanting and photograph the hell out of this magic!

I do need to warn everyone though, I was expecting perfectly clear images on my walls with amazing colours etc however to the naked eye you will just make out the shadows and anything that is extremely light in colour outside ie you will see that white car parked on the street or that white fence across the road. Also DO NOT hesitate to go up closer to get a better look it may help you see everything clearer.

 
After a while we didn't want to leave the room we watched the birds fly from the trees to the electricity lines and the cars drive past it was short lived though as our tummies started grumbling signalling that we had spent over 3 hours in my bedroom rejoicing at our creation!

For those who think their kids are too young, Liah is 4 years old, I'd say 3 and under wouldn't really sit there for it unless you have a miracle child who is obsessed with new discoveries!

Let me know what you guys think! I'd love to hear that someone else has done this after reading my blog and if you do feel the itch to do this please, please, please send me links to pics, blogs etc and in saying that if you have any problems recreating this please feel free to message me on my facebook business page Liah's Toy Box.

♥ Lor ♪♫♪

Birthday Celebrations 2014

 So it was Miss C's Birthday this past week and we celebrated with a Frozen Themed Birthday Party for her. Was it a surprise that she chose frozen as a theme? Nope she's obsessed as is every other child I know of! We had such big plans and most of them came through! With that said let me tell you what happened!

We had so much planned as usual I ordered most of my decorations online, as I do every year, to save us the hassle of trying to find what I was after and not succeeding. We organised a frozen jumping castle and fairy floss, we sorted a small number of games and had a few extra tricks up our sleeves for the kids!

Decorations as usual is always the easiest things to work out, jumping castles on the other hand for a September birthday party is another thing though so we had the Castle organised months in advance.

So it would come as a shock to me to get a phone call at 6pm on a Friday afternoon the day before Miss C's birthday party and being told that the jumping castle I had booked was "damaged" that day. Ok with this in mind I have two things to say....

1. Who would hire a jumping castle on a Friday for a party when we know most parents work their butts off during the week and have no way of getting their child to a party. And,
2. What type of company am I dealing with if they couldn't even organise a replacement castle for me prior to calling me?!

To say I was furious is an understatement. Not only did I have my sister's 21st birthday to get to in 30 minutes I now had to find a replacement castle for my daughter's birthday party as I had only two games organised relying heavily on the castle to keep them entertained! I spent the next two hours (never hearing from the company with my so called 'damaged' castle after I had asked for a replacement) I ended up calling a multitude of companies with jumping castle's all in the hopes that someone would have SOMETHING for her party!

I spoke with one large company I usually hire from and they had nothing however they were able to provide me with quite a few other vendors who may be able to help me. I was informed by every single company that I called, about this problem occurring constantly in the jumping castle industry and most of them are called at least once a week with this happening. And the main reason behind it is not that the castle is damaged as it takes a LOT to damage one, it is because another customer has wanted the very castle you've booked and has offered more money to have it delivered to them instead. Now how is this fair for the parents who are diligent and hire in advance and the multitude of children who have had their hopes up for this castle for their party only to have their happiness crushed by money hungry pop up companies!

After being on the phone, not ready for my sister's 21st, and running around like a nut we found someone who had a Disney princess castle available! We were worried whether it would fit in our backyard but in the end Bethanie's Jumping Castles saved the day! Coming to the rescue and managing to fit the castle perfectly into our yard! Here's a link to my life savers webpage so if you are in Sydney Australia you know who you need to be calling for a castle!

http://www.bethaniesjumpingcastles.com.au

I don't know what I would have done if it wasn't for Bethanie's Jumping Castle's and honestly I recommend that everyone wanting to hire Jumping Castle's to do their research. Call these people and if you can't find a phone number move on. Even if they're offering amazing prices, chances are they're not worth the saving as you end up losing your deposit with them and you end up wasting your time, time that you could be spending with family or spent making things for the party coming soon. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the chance of losing a crucial part of your child's party and the stress it causes trying to find a replacement.

I hope this blog entry finds it's way to many mum's and dad's and helps in regards to this issue. If this has happened to you in the past please feel free to comment or message me about you're experiences!

I'll do up another post real soon with all of the ideas and tricks that we had for the party real soon!

♥ Lor ♪♫♪

A little rant...

I'm over it. It's been driving me mad and now this, this is the last straw. Every time I have my m.i.l over without me home she cleans my entire house even if it was already tidy! Sounds great doesn't it? Well no. You know those old bottles of water you save so you can refill them freeze them or fill them to take out with you? You know the ones that you have out aside to refill when you have a chance and they're not in the way at all... Yea those... She threw every single one in the bin and took it out TO the bin!

Not only that but I couldn't find where she decided to move my shoes! Please it's my house I have the shoes away hidden away from anyone visiting but she had to move them nonetheless...

Argh!! To top it off I have no clue where my daughters shoes are either... Nor do I know where she moved everything in the kitchen... For all I know she's swapped the cupboards around...

Why guys, why do m.i.l's do this she knows its my house she knows I have everything placed specifically she knows that I've asked her not to clean my house when I'm not home and move things to where she thinks they're better to go to...

I'm just so over it... Everything seems to have gotten me down at the moment and I don't know how to get out of it.. I just wanna scream my lungs out at anyone and everyone but what will that achieve..

Wishing I could be more positive right now but it's feeling impossible... =(