messyart

getting ready

for our first ever girly girl party in this house!

everyones helping

well....not everyone

some have it good, no?

Last minute Birthday invites

So the kids birthday parties are in 4 and 6 days respectively, and i still hadn't made the invites. The kids woke up this morning with complaints of "Muuuuuuum!  Haven't you made our INVITES yet?! MUUUUUUUM....you SAID you would make them by now! What are you doing? Why aren't they done!" Well lets see, between planning 5 birthdays in 2 weeks and an upcoming 60th and 70th and Easter lunch at my house, and running around with an IMPOSSIBLE toddler, soccer, dance, homework, dinners, lunches, grocery shopping, paying bills, fixing wardrobes that keep falling apart, breaking up constant squabbles between 4 kids and constantly picking up after EVERYBODY (because , as it seems, no one remembers how to put away shoes, clothes, their dishes after dinner, their toys or homework or anything, really)....hmmmm, nothing really kids. I've just been a bit lazy, sorry.

But really, their complaints are a bit justified, i should have made them by now. I know this. It's 6am when these complaints are being wailed at me and i realise i need to send them to school with invites. Today. In 2 hours. What to do, what to do?

First , grab a pen and the kids coloured markers.....and draw. Nothing fancy, but still has to be cute.

Now this next idea i know i've used before, and only recently at that, but who says i can't use a good idea twice. Especially when it's to different recipients?!

 Entoni's invites were a littler easier again. My friend Bec had given me this cute little notebook which i carry around with me. It's got really cute pages in it. I just tore my favourite page out and wrote the invites on that. Then i scanned it into the computer and printed in out onto heavier weight paper and then cut them out. I used more pages from the book to decorate the envelopes and Viola!

INVITATIONS ARE DONE!

And we were only 5 minutes late for school ;P

(remember, i was doing this while i was feeding/changing/dressing/entertaining a busy toddler and getting 3 kids ready for school)

 

beach time, down time

It's been a crazy busy few weeks round here so TJ and i decided to go to the beach this morning. We felt wild and reckless as we closed the door on all our chores and mess and headed staright to the ocean.

I love living this close to the beach. I love that i can walk to all my fave places to eat, my most fave coffee place, and the beach, all in a matter of minutes. I love hearing the ocean at night from my bedroom window. Looks like a bit of beach time was just what we needed!

party of 5?

Or for 5, in this case! We have 5 birthdays in 2 weeks...my mum, the Mr.,  the twins, and Lorenzo, my sisters boyfriend. So we decided to throw one big birthday dinner at my house and kill 5 birds with one stone, so to speak. Remember all the crazy amount of seafood we had here? Well dad did it again...2 HUGE boxes of seafood...prawns, crab, bugs, oysters, salmon....you name it! My sister and Robyn did all the salads and bread, my mum made hummos, my brother brought the drinks and i made the desserts. Between us , we had it nailed!

Dad and all his grandchildren (well almost all of them....one was asleep)

I love a good cheese plate...

The kids table....


Gluten free lemon curd cakes and vanilla cupcakes...
I also made lemon and custart tarts (T likes lemon, E loves custard) and caramel slice (robyns fave). Oh, and choc chip cookies for Lorenzo.

Whew....now i only have 4 more birthday parties to plan! Really?!

{sigh}

still eating on the stairs...

Until today anyway! I finally managed to clear off my kitchen table at least. Remember this mess? This is what it looks like now....

(photos taken at night)

We are having all the family over for a big birthday dinner (celebrating 5 birthdays!) in a few days, so i need to get through all of this before then. Otherwise it'll all get shoved back into the study, and then i'm back to sqaure one.

Does anyone eles do that, or is it just me? Do you pull out everything, make a bigger mess trying to sort it all out, run out of time and then end up having to shove it all back where it came from in the first place..... until round 2? 

And heres some link love (via Pinterest) inspired by my mood to organise...

• This is a clever way to store sheet sets.
• I LOVE this cleaning cupboard!
• These tins are such a good idea.
• Such a colourful way to store craft supplies.
• This is a really cute way to keep all your ideas orgainised! Must try this one.

Remember when i organised my pantry? If only all my cupboards were this organised!

 

 

Cleaning out the shed.....yet again.

So today i've been busy cleaning out my studio , the art room, the spare guest room the shed. It's this space that used to be a garage, but was converted to an office by the previous owners. When we bought this house our intention was to turn it into a guest room/ studio space to house all my creative bits and pieces. We cemented  and raised the floors, but that was as far as we got before running out of money. We still need to seal the floors, paint, fix lighting, add a sink ....

So for now, it's just a junk room The catch-all room if you will. It's where we store all the boxes we still have to unpack (yes, we are still unpacking!), and all the outdoor stuff like bikes and mowers and whipper snippers until we get our outdoor shed built. So really, its a nicer than average shed.

And this is what it looks like...

Don't you just loooove the curtains ;)

Can you see the potential there though?

Anywayyyys.... i still have most of my craft stuff in boxes and it drives my nuts when i want to make something and i have to spend time searching through all the boxes to find my supplies! By the time i've found them i'm usually hot (it's like a furnace in there) uninspired and lost my creative mojo. So on a whim i decided i NEED to clean it out! I started unpacking all the boxes and putting the contents in my dining room. Not a good idea in hindsight....

I think we'll be eating on the stairs for awhile, sorry kids...

But once i started i was determined to keep going till i got it done. I went and bought a whole stack of clear storage boxes on sale at Target, and started sorting through everything.

I have 2 really big boxes which i am filling with stuff i will never use. I plan to have a craft sale at my house, kinda like when we did this just before Xmas.

Of course, i thought i'd be done in a day. It didn't take me long to realise i needed way more than a day to finish. So it looks like this mess is here to stay for just a bit longer.... And you can wish me luck trying to tackle it with a toddler around, ugh!

Speaking of cute little toddlers, this ones been keeping me extra busy lately.

He will almost NEVER sit in his pram for me anymore, which is really fun when trying to grocery shop. 

 

He loves Cheerios (not the healthiest snack i know, but this kid is one PICKY eater!) but won't eat fruits and veggies which KILLS me! What child hates fruit? 

Any suggestions there? I'll take them!

He loves his rainboots. Wears them everywhere. Wears them in the nude even.

 

He LOVES reading. Thats awesome, love a kids that loves to read. I could do story time with him forEVER. His fave book is Winnie the Pooh. i love that too.

Well....back to cleaning!

 

Blacklist LOVE

I love me some pretty prints, and these are some pretty awesome prints.

{find here}

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I want them all. Especially the Dreamers one.

They have heaps more...and pillows too! Pillows i tell you! The awesomeness just never ends.

Check them out here.

busy busy busy

This weeks been extra busy with lots of cleaning, projcts and assignments. And the next few weeks are only going to get busier with the Mr.'s bday, the twins bday and my mums bday plus 2 more birthdays as weel ALL being celebrated in the next 2 weeks. I am throwing 4 parties in those 2 weeks, one not at home, thankfully.

Whew! I am exhausted just saying it!

Bring on the Easter holidays ....i say. Although, i'm not sure that things will be much quieter then either ;)

Heres a cute little pom pom bunting i found at Cotton On Kids which i plan to use for Tatianas Party.

And here's a cute little tutorial i did for RubyJu, if your feeling the need to be creative but need an idea! It's kinda Easter inspired, (butterflies always make me think of Easter, not sure why).

I dont really decorate my house much for easter, but i thought this year i might try and just change things up a bit. Do you decorate for Easter? If so, i'd love to know how!

So even though it's been busy, i still dont feel as if i'm getting much done. My littelest man made sure i got NOTHING done today. Punishment for putting child-locks on all his fave tupperware drawers, i think! He can no longer do this....

 So instead we took photos of ourselves playing. He really loved that!

 

(photos taken using the IncrediBooth app)

growing up

Too fast.... Way to fast!

{sigh}

Oh, it makes me sad how quickly they all grow up. This was TJ last year...

So little!

Back then he would just roll around mostly. Now he eats by himself.

He LOVES his baths! As soon as he hears the word bath, He'll run over to the bathroom and start emptying all his bath toys into the bath.

He knows where his ears and head and fingers and nose is....

He loves to watch daddy cleaning the pool, but doesnt so much like to go in it.

He's good at making messes.

He likes to read.

He likes it when i read him Winnie-the-Pooh until he falls asleep.

Right now he looks so big, but i know a year from now i'll look back on these photos and he'll look so small again. I have to constantly remind myself that at the ages of 18 months, 8 years and 10 years, they are still so small. It's what i struggle with the most as a mother, how quickly it all seems to go buy. I constantly worry that i am missing out on too much, that i'm not doing enough, that i didn't teach him enough, hold him enough, read to him enough, play with him enough. Why does it all happen so quickly? Where has the time gone? Was a the best mother i could be or was i too distracted by the wrong things?

{sigh}

He is my number 4 and i still seem to be making the same mistakes.

Will i ever get it right?

But he is loved, so loved. And amidst all my doubt as a parent, the one thing i do know for sure is that my kids, all of them, have been told each and EVERY day of thier lives, that they are LOVED.That they have NEVER been told, or made to feel otherwise. And that, (so they tell me) they have never doubted.

A walk

Today Tj and i decided to walk to the library. He has this little bike that he sits on and i push him, but he was more interested in pushing momo than having me push him.

When we got there, TJ wasnt as excited with all the books as i thought he would be. He was more excited about the stairs. He did sit and read for a few minutes.

 I love watching my house slowly become what i imagined.Theres SO MUCH to still be done, it feels like we'll be living in an incomplete house for ever. But then i get one little corner done, and it makes me happy...

(from this)

 (to this)

Heres some images (via pinterest) that have been inspiring me lately...

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{via pinterest}

Hmmm.... there seems to be an underlying theme here? Maybe i need to start decorating some walls :)

Anyone know of some cute home-style blogs?  Have any great decorating ideas you've tried? I need more inspiration!