Wordless Wednesday - My Boys

Heartwarming/Heartbreaking

My Sweet Boy
Manny's latest obsession is finding Starbaby's photo album, and flicking through it. He exclaims every time he sees his face, and then kisses it loudly. We are teaching him to say Star's name and he has shortened it to the cutest nickname and he just says his name over and over and kisses his face in the photos. It warms my heart so much but breaks it at the same time.


I often have tears rolling down my face as he caresses the photos and kisses them. I never thought I could feel such deep emotions from a simple act of a 1 year old, but there you go. He never ceases to amaze me.

roller skates and houses and pay rises...oh my!

Hello once again my pretties.

Once again I attempted Iron Commenter status and once again fell woefully short. Can you please all stop having such interesting blogs? I get caught up reading each and every one and never make it through the whole list. I am going to continue to wade through them all over the next few weeks though, who says ICLW can only last one week?

Those of you I did manage to visit, I hope you made your way over here too and I hope to see you again soon!

Well on the home front, Monster is living up to his nickname at the moment and being a mixture of completely adorable and completely infuriating. He is scary smart (too much like his brother...uh oh) and is constantly trying to figure out how things work. He responds to instructions really well and talks in full sentences. Now we just need to get him to speak in English (or Spanish) so that we can understand him ;)

Latest discoveries include how to turn the TV on and off, adjust the volume and change channel (why he loves channel 6? no idea. ps. there is no channel 6, it's just snow....).

He adores my roller skates and when he isnt trying to climb into them, he is pushing them across the floor making zoom zoom noises. It took him all of about 30 seconds to locate my new (on loan for now) skates and get into them and try to skate across the floor!

Speaking of skating...I managed to get out on Saturday for 3. whole. hours. ALONE *gasp* something I havent managed in almost a year and a half! It was fabulous, except I ended up with my lil buddy (a friend of Monster's from playgroup) attached to me for a lot of the time so I felt like I was still parenting! He is the same age as my Starbaby and also the cutest 2 year old around, so I love spending time with him.

It was good to be back on skates (albeit briefly, as we are in fact gearing up for IVF #2). I only took one somewhat heavy fall which has resulted in a rather pretty 2 toned bruise :)

Other than that my weekend was fairly non eventful - just a lot of moving furniture and emptying out the house we just sold. This now means of course that our double garage is FULL to the ceiling with furniture and boxes of STUFF to sort through and get rid of. Looks like a massive garage sale is in my future *le sigh* I hate garage sales. Love going to them, hate holding them.

No news on the baby front as yet, I am on BCP until 2nd July, then we wait for Lou's CD1 when we commence the fabulousness of shots and various pills and potions. Depending on when her cycle starts, she could well be in surgery on her birthday! Poor darling. Oh well, at least we will be in a fun city, perhaps we can make a small vacation of it, stay in a nicer hotel, order room service with our pretend non existent money ;)

In happy news (and it is very welcome as we are facing another $11k IVF payment soon) I believe I am finally, after 4 years on a wage freeze, getting a payrise! They have told me my pay is increasing but are torturing me by not telling me how much until we receive our official contracts. Please cross your fingers for a decent rise...if it's only a few dollars I will cry!

May the Fourth

May the Fourth be with you ;)

The Puppy Party - part one

The Table:

We had puppy paw prints leading up the driveway, through the entrance and up the stairs to the party. This was great as it meant we did not have to run downstairs to open the door every time someone arrived...they all followed the paw prints!


The banner I made - ignore the "blank" ones - I removed his real name (clearly his real name is not Monster! *gasp* SCANDAL!!)

You can see my Martha Stewart efforts paid off with my pompom there - I have a tutorial on how I made them coming up in a few days - they were very easy!


The Great Wall of Monster. Birth to his First Birthday - my favourite photos. This was a real hit with our guests who spent a lot of time oohing and ahhing over the cuteness that is Monster!


Every table at every party needs fresh flowers. These are from our backyard...very handy...and in the co-ordinating party colours!! And a thankyou in a frame. My favourite part of the decorations.


One of my favourite creations! I printed out the design, my partner laminated it and put double sided adhesive on the front and we stuck the design on the back of clear plastic plates. So simple but SO effective. Will definitely be doing this from now on for all my parties!



A standard at all my parties are dips with pita chips. Simply take a pita bread, and use a cookie cutter to cut shapes out. Stick into the oven at a moderate temperature for about 6 minutes. So tasty and so much healthier than fried potato chips! I have cookie cutters for all occasions...its one thing I spend my money on when deciding on a theme...co-ordinating cookie cutters! I have quite a collection now!


One of the small tables on our roof deck with some dress ups for the kids. I also had home made playdough (in a co-ordinating colour of course!!) and musical instruments for the kids and adults to play with.
Party bags and favours. I designed and made all of the co-ordinating stationery items - the party hats, the blowers/horns, the water bottle labels, the gift bags etc. using the puppy paper I posted earlier. The bubbles had stickers of easter pictures on them...it was easy to make stickers out of my designs to go over the top! I do wish I had managed to find a set of all green bubble tubes...so it matched ;)


These were the favours we gave out to everyone who attended (only the kids got gift bags). They were very well received and SO SIMPLE to make! I actually plan on posting this recipe later in the week, it is a traditional family recipe (from the german side of my family) for honey biscuits. They are divine. I've been having one with my morning cup of tea every day this week!


And of course...the BIRTHDAY CAKE! Isn't it a hoot? I've tried so many times to make fancy shaped cakes for all sorts of occasions and they never turn out the way they look in my head. This one came out perfectly and was so incredibly simple. Everyone thought it was fantastic and laughed a lot too. Monster loved picking the cocoa bombs off the top and eating them!



Last but not least...these are the favours I made for each child at 3am the night before the party! They each got to adopt a puppy, I made adoption certificates and got them to sign them and name their puppy. This is what I meant when I said NEVER AGAIN! But they were so darn adorable that it was worth it!


More photos to come later in the week of more party goodness...and the recipe and a few craft tutes too. Oh and stay tuned for my massive IVF rant...yeah good times over here!

man the party stations!

It has been a very, very long week!

To sum it up - the little Monster got sick Monday night, which meant I had to take Tues and Wed off work. Good timing, no? Lots of time at home to do party stuff, right? HA! Not so much. He was stuck to me like a koala in a cyclone. There was no putting him down for anything. So not too much was actually achieved during my days at home.

Then Friday my mother was taking both boys overnight so we could prepare the house and all the party decorations etc...and on her way home she rings me "do you think Monster could have whooping cough?" I googled it while she was on the phone, and despite the fact that he has been immunised against it, I was instantly convinced that's what he had. I threw my hands in the air and wanted to cry. "All for nothing!" I raged. "All those 2am nights getting party stuff organised and I'm going to have to cancel! Our interstate visitors are coming for nothing!"
So I downed tools and declared the party OFF. Sat down and ate chinese while watching Transformers instead.

Took Monster to the Drs on Saturday morning, where the Dr laughed at me and told me "dont be silly thats not whooping cough. He will be fine for his party!"

Cue me returning home screaming "Man the party stations! All hands on deck!" and trying to make up for the 16 hours of sulking I had done instead of preparation.

I was up until roughly 3am on Saturday night...then as I was going to bed Monster woke up crying and kept me awake most of the rest of the night.

Sunday morning was panic stations. There were cupcakes to be made, a birthday cake to be made, and cut, and decorated, 2 dozen quiche to be made, food to be put out, more pom poms to be made, party hats and party bags to be put together, balloons to be blown, kennel to be cleaned, etc etc ad nauseum.

And then..........80% of people didnt show up.

And I was so exhausted and out of it that I barely remember any of it. All in all, disappointing and enough for me to declare "NO MORE PARTIES" last night.

But let's be serious. I adore parties. Most of the fun, for me, is in the planning.
The whole no-one turning up thing though...I could definitely do without :(



party photos, crafts and how-to tutorials to come tomorrow :)

One Whole Year of Monsterish Goodness

It is so hard to believe, but my ickle baby Monster is officially one year old today. To be honest with you, I was never sure we would even make it this far. The pure terror of losing him has faded, but we still check on him four or five times a night.

He is such a funny little rabbit. He smiles constantly and can light up a room.

It is impossible to be cross at him, as he endeavours to make you laugh constantly.

He is obsessed with animals, in particular dogs and birds. If he sees one his eyes widen, and he points while shrieking "ooh ooh OOH".

He thinks his eldest brother is hi-larious (oh dear) and has a curious fascination with anything that was his star-brothers (decorations, toys, outfits, photos).

He adores sushi. I gave it to him once (as a joke) and he wouldn't give it back!

He is now walking more than crawling and can say "Mama" but no one is sure he even knows he is doing it!

For his birthday he had a morning tea complete with dog bone shaped cakes, lemon crisps and arrowroot biscuits. He had special birthday sushi for lunch and a trip to the markets and walk at the beach.

His big party is still to come in a few weeks time.

Happy Birthday
Little Monster

We love you so much.


Imge Used Copyright Hallmark Coutts Canada 10 B 181-6

Decisions, decisions

I am in Dilemma City at present.

I am planning my Monster Baby's first birthday bash and...well...I keep changing my mind on theme. Parties are a BIG. DEAL. in this house and the theme is the most important thing to decide. Once that's done it's easy. I've been hemming and hawing for WEEKS now and have been told invitations must. be. done. today.

Problem is...I'm still undecided on theme!

So help me out, dear internets.


OPTION A - Puppy Dogs. MB is crazy mad in love with dogs. He stands at the window and squeals while banging his hands on the glass whenever someone walks one past our house. Even books with pictures of dogs make him squeal.

OPTION B - Little Monsters. This is a no brainer...he is my little monster, and I've come across the cutest graphics to use and adorable party favours.

I keep going from one to the other, back to the first one, changing my mind...it's driving me nuts! What do you think?

Houston...we have a STEP!

My Monster Baby is growing up too fast :o(

We officially have a walker. He took two steps this afternoon and I can see he will pick it up fast and be off and racing.


Why couldn't he stay ^^ this little forever??

My little booger is growing up! *sob*