Pizza Party

A couple Fridays ago we had a pizza party (just for girls) at my house.

I set up our outside deck with lanterns and flowers in glass jars.

got the idea from here:

I am in love with pinterest at the moment and all the beautiful ideas that everyone posts/ Its the best to help get some creative juices flowing.

Everyone bought an ingredient pre-chopped (and pre-prepared) in some jars to make the process easier.

We got to making our yummy gourmet pizzas

Once the Pizzas were cooked we went outside to eat by moonlight..

Emily made (her first) meringues. Pistachios, Almond and Plain. We filled jars up with them for a little decoration and to add to our "eaten mess" dessert of caramel cheesecake, flourless chocolate cake, pistachio icecream, ferrero rocher icecream and crunchie ice cream. (home made of course)

The fire and lanterns were lit as the sun went down to create a little warm outdoor space.

Thanks for a fun night girls!

It turns out having a pizza party was the best way to end a pretty yucky week. Thankfully Em arrived that Thursday as well to entertain us and keep our minds off the fact that it was Hunnas last day at work too. 

It almost felt like we were celebrating (in our own way) the end of his employment and shaking off the shackles as we helped each other get ready for that night.

Thankfully, Hunna had an idea and whipped across the road to another building site and scored 10 days labour from the builder over there.

It has definitely softened the blow of unemployment and kept his spirits fairly high.

Redundancy

The last few years have been a bit of a roller coaster for our little family.

I am thinking back on all of the things that happened. (one thing in particular catches my attention)

If you don't know, in the last round of signing everything off for the house last year the owners decided to re-negotiated and raise the price $5k. Its not much in the scheme of house purchases but to us, it meant no approval from the bank. No home-loan and inevitably no house. It was a devastating blow for our self-esteem. We had worked so hard and it seemed from that point on everything was spiraling downward (slowly) but surely.  

Until last week when Hunna (with only 16 months left on his apprenticeship; at a time when we finally felt like we were on the home-stretch to financial and family freedom) found out that he would be redundant within the fortnight.

We have made so many sacrifices as a family to further his education so he could become a carpenter and been disappointed in so many ways, but we never realised that the series of unfortunate events would result in a stall in the plan to get him qualified.

If I had been where I was about 6 months ago I am sure that the knowledge would have ruined me.

However the last month we have had some enormous learning experiences and in spite of my frustration I can't help but feel an overwhelming sense of relief.

If we had purchased a home the news we heard last week would have meant the decision between food on the table or a roof over our heads. We would not have been able to provide a solution to both necessities for very long at all.

Instead we are, thankfully, somewhat protected by the enormous generosity of Hunnas' parents and the support they have lent us in the last three years.

Instead we have no financial responsibilities and a home to live in until we can truly be in the place we need to be.

I have a deep gratitude for a Heavenly Father, who despite my pleading and tantrums did what he knew would be best for us in the long run.

I'm sure we will find our little bluestone cottage someday and it will be all the more sweet.

Easter Monday Maze

Monday Morning we woke up to another public holiday.. (Yay for a 4 day weekend) 

The weather was a little on the chilly side and it started raining, but we didn't let that stop us from taking a drive out to Amaze N Games

We decided to go to through the maze.

We walked and we walked 

We were all very impressed with Boys directional skills for the first 15 minutes until he got sick of being the leader and decided he would give his legs a rest and hitch a ride with Hunna. 

(Must've been channeling his inner Russian Mafia Navman)

After that finding flags wasn't as easy..

The aim of the maze is to find four flags and stamp a card when you get to it.. then at the end you get a prize if you stamped them all.

Hunna commented that he was quite proud that I had not opted for one of the emergency exit doors and/or reverted to crawling under walls (in other words cheating) to get to the flags.

For a serial game cheater it took some self control I tell you!

When we had found all four, we had to find the exit .. so we could leave, but also so we could get our prize! Bastian chose about 4 different toy cars before settling on a bouncy ball to take home.

Afterwards Hunna dropped us off and went to see Hawthorn vs Geelong with some friends (yes, he has friends!) Which I'm sure Mum will be talking to me about later as it was such a close game.

p.s: In case you were wondering Geelong won by 2. 

Since we didn't have Hunna to entertain us Boy and I decided to make cheesecake filled chocolate easter eggs from raspberri cupcakes and they were absolutely positively delicious!

I didn't have a chance to take a picture of them because they were gobbled up as soon as they were set. YUmm.. they will HAVE to be another Easter Tradition. I think this could be the next big thing.. maybe Simone will switch from caramel slice to easter eggs?

Thank goodness thats over, now to planning the Pizza Party of the Century this Friday.

Oh and also, Emaweee comes this week for our one direction concert next week.

Yeeee. x

Good Friday and Easter Sunday

Good Friday this year was hot enough to spend at the beach. 

Of course I have told you about Boy and his love of sand.

So really, we just sat on the beach towels for a while and let Hunna have the fun.(but at least we looked good ..)

After wards we tried to be good Catholics? and went for some fish, chips and a good burger (with the lot of course!)

While Cocoa had a paddle by the water front.

The burger.. yumm

Sunday after church (and naps for the under 2's and over 50's ) we had our second easter egg hunt with Boy. 

We missed our hunting friends from last year and as the day was miserable (so much for the good weather we saw on Friday) and we remembered last year that Cocoa Dog ate some of our hidden eggs with the foil still on -- we decided to have an inside hunt.

Next Stop Easter Monday.

Easter Traditions

This year I am trying to start an Easter tradition.

 I wanted the tradition to be something that would get us all involved and be great for giving away (as well as eating) hehe

We got some arrowroot biscuits. (because they're shaped like eggs)

Then we smoothed over some icing. (we cheated and got Betty Crocker, yumm..)

Some of us decorated and some of us ate..

Once we had finished I popped them in the fridge for 5 minutes to harden up.

Then we got onto part two.

I found this great template from Martha Stewart

In hind site I could've just printed it straight onto the card board - Boy has actually coloured in a few boxes as well but I didn't grab a picture of them.

 Then we filled it with a home-made egg and a couple of real ones.

Happy Easter everyone ! x