Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Grace's 8th Birthday Party - The Art

Grace wanted to have an art birthday party this year.  There's a lovely art studio for kids near us and Jane, who runs it, is amazing!  Grace got to choose the "theme" which was rainbows and zebras (of course!)  Jane said that was a new one for her, but she loved the originality! ;)  The kids had a great time painting and made gorgeous canvas paintings to take home.  My only regret...I forgot to get a picture of them all holding their finished artwork!! :(  Grrrr.....  oh, well.
 Getting some preliminary instructions and tips

 ready to paint!
 Lilli, Brielle, Olivia, Grace
 Savannah, Jesse, Tayla, Tavania
 Stephanie and Ava
Flat Tatum got to join us at the party, too!
 drying his artwork

 the finished product!
Great zebra, Lance!

Happy 8th Birthday, Grace!!

April 13, 2012, our little Grace turned 8!!!!  I can't believe she's 8 already - STRESS!!  She's growing up WAY too fast on us!  She's an amazing, beautiful, smart, caring, kind, sweet girl who loves Jesus with all her heart!  What more could a mom and dad ask for?!  We're so proud of her and can't wait to see what God has in store for her life.  A tradition that we do for our kid's birthdays is put streamers (in the colors of their birthday theme) on the kitchen table and set their presents from us at their spot, so it's special for them when they wake up on their birthday.  This year, Grace had an art party with a rainbow theme.  So fun to see their faces when they come down for breakfast!

 We also let them choose whatever they want to eat for their birthday dinner.  If they want me to make something or go out to a favorite restaurant, it's up to them.  Grace, of course, chose Outback Steakhouse!!!  Ha!!  Yes, they actually have one here in Australia (which I thought was quite ironic and hilarious) and our kids LOVE it!!  How hilarious is THAT??!!  Of all the places....what can I say? They love the ribs! :)
 After that, we came home and she opened her presents.  Legos were her "big" gift this year - she's really into the "Friends" sets.
 inspecting the gifts while wearing two more of her gifts
 A great day for our birthday girl - party pics to come!
 Her party with her friends was on a different day, so I took some pre-pictures of her cake.  It wasn't a hard cake to do, but took FOREVER to make!  I made all the different colors of the rainbow for each layer and then frosted them together.  It was a homemade buttercream frosting and tasted delicious!  I can't say it enough, but I have the HIGHEST amount of respect for those who have their own cake business!!  WOW!  It would NOT be worth all the money in the world for me to do this.  My kids are lucky they get this once a year....still more than willing to hire it done, though!  Not my forte! ;)

 The almost finished product - frosted, but the final product is yet to come....
I also made her rainbow jello - again, not hard, just LOTS of planning ahead!  You have to let each layer set before pouring the next one on.  I had to count HOURS back, to make sure it would be done in time for the party! ;)

Sunday, October 14, 2012

Sydney Royal Easter Show

Ok, so the final bit of Easter that we celebrated was at the Sydney Royal Easter Show!  Actually, it really has nothing to do with Easter at all, but think Iowa State Fair!  That's pretty much what it reminded me of - which, of course, I LOVED!  Bear with me this post....these pictures are very random and not that great.  I had my old phone (which was super crappy and took really bad pictures) and there were a TON of people, so I was just trying to quickly capture a few things here and there for us to remember/explain to others! ;)  The show runs for about 10 days and we ended up going on one of the Saturdays.  It was a beautiful day and we had a great time just soaking it all in!!
 I took this picture mainly for my brother, Paul, who loves to fish.  It was pretty funny....this guy was actually doing a fishing demonstration and you could see through the glass what was happening "underwater".  I thought he would get a kick out of it!
 Too funny - they call cotton candy "fairy floss" here in Australia!! :)
 They have buildings such as the "varied industries building" and the buildings that house all the different gardening, cake decorating, sewing, etc., etc., etc., ....they were fun to walk through - Australian style!

 There were different displays that were judged to represent certain areas of Australia.  They were very detailed and impressive!!

 There were TONS of cakes on display and boy were they impressive!!  There were many different categories and we all really enjoyed admiring all of them.  Yes, the parrot was made out of fondant - you HAVE to be an artist to pull that off!!

 Ok - so one of the most fascinating things that we experienced and had never seen before was the "Showbags"!!  I took a picture of the board that "explained" the history of them, so you could read more about it.  There was a HUGE building with tons of booths set up from all kinds of companies and kid's themes/characters, etc. that kids love, too.  They were also located all over the fair, but this was the main building for them.  They have these "Bags" that you can buy with all kinds of goodies in them for a discount and it's essentially advertising for that company, etc.  Josh and I got a bag from the Honey stand which included about 10 different flavors of honey, honey butter, honey popcorn, etc. for a super good price.  We let each of the kids pick one out as well.  Grace chose the Fashion Barbie bag and Lance chose Scooby Doo!  Each stand displays what is all included in your bag as well, so you know exactly what you're getting.  People were buying TONS of them!!!  A little crazy, but to each their own!  I thought, "Wow!  America should pick up on this at their state fairs, etc.... - what a great way for companies to make some money!!"  It was quite an experience!



 Just a quick snapshot from inside the building
 Standing outside with our showbags! (Oh, and it's best to buy your bag(s) at the end of the day, so you don't have to carry them around with you!! ;)
 We also walked through all the barns...we saw rabbits, cows, horses, sheep, chickens, etc.  There was a cute hands on area as well for kids where they had it set up and you could walk through the process of planting the wheat.....all the way through to making your own bread.  It was SUPER cute!!

 feeding the cow - ahhh....my city slickers!! ;)
All in all, we had a great day and even hit some rides and "fair food" before heading home to bed.  Can't wait for next year! :)

Thursday, October 11, 2012

HE IS RISEN!!!!

HE IS RISEN!!!!!  HE IS RISEN INDEED!!!  What a wonderful time of year!  Never forget what God has done for you!  We love you, Jesus!!
Looks like the Easter bunny made it, too!  Lots of goodies already in their Easter baskets!!
Grace made this for her door

 All ready to hunt for those eggs!!  (Poor Grace, she would KILL me if she knew I had posted this with her hair all wild!!)
 A success!
 All ready for church - lookin' spiffy!! (Hair much tamer, now!)  ;)


being silly

Easter dinner

We had our babysitter, Sarah, her boyfriend, Dan, and their friend, Brennan over for Easter dinner (technically it was Sat. night, but we celebrated Easter!) ;)  The kids LOVE Sarah, Dan, and Brennan and they are really great with our kids, too.  They all 3 attend Hillsong College.  Sarah is from Tennessee, Dan is from South Africa, and Brennan is from Seattle.  We thought it would be nice for our "college student" friends to have a home cooked meal and a little "taste" of home while away from their families!  Great times!!
 I thought it was kind of funny to use "sunflowers" for Easter, but technically Easter is in the Fall here!!  All of our holidays are backwards with the weather we're used to - very strange sometimes!!
 Having fun with the kids.....they wanted to try and "lift" up Dan!
 Brennan adds a hand!!  (What you'll do for kids....) ;)

Easter 2012 - Dying Easter eggs!

Of course you still have to dye eggs for Easter!  Our kids always love that tradition and we weren't going to stop doing it while here in Australia!  As you can see, we are dying brown eggs.  Well, you won't find a single white egg here in Australia (we haven't found one yet anyway!)  At first we were really confused and wondered where all the white eggs were!!  We KNOW you can buy brown eggs, but just never have.  Anyway, no biggie, just different!  The plus side, is they make the colors REALLY beautiful and vibrant!  Maybe we'll carry on this tradition forever!! ;)  Lots of fun!


 Before....
 After!