My Birthday Giveaway

In recent years every time my birthday rolls around I'm more excited than ever. As you know I work as a nurse.A lot of my job is helping people get well and out the door to live their lives, but part of my job is helping people deal with death. I find that every time I comfort a family who have just watched their loved one breathe their last breath, I am faced with my own mortality and how much each day is a blessing. I choose to celebrate my birthday as a great day to be blessed with another year. I use it as a day to look around at my family and friends and be thankful that I get to share my life with them.

{Whoa...Google knows its my birthday!}

With that in mind I decided it was a good reason to gather my favourite long time friends and have a fancy dinner out at a swankie restaurant.  I have known each of these ladies for over ten years. We've laughed together and cried together. They've cooked me dinners when I have had a newborn and have always had a listening ear and are just a fab bunch of gals. I tried really hard to get them act more lady like at our fine dining experience but you can't take the Northland out of them.
We had a great pre-birthday night out with loads of laughs and the most delicious food in Whangarei at A'Deco with Top NZ Chef Brenton Low. Super Yum!

That's us "posh fake laughing"

{My dessert}

~Giveaway~

And since its my birthday...I've decided to do a giveaway...just because...

So these are a few of my favourite things at the moment.

• Loving the coffee from  Northland roasting company “Max Coffee”. Roasted in Kerikeri. Gets me going in the mornings.

• Still loving the Fudge farm! Today I have for you their delicious Russian Fudge sauce and some of their Bailey’s Fudge...

• I'm currently enjoying the Joyce Meyer book “the Confident Mom” as an ibook which only hit the shelves this year. As usual she is super relatable and it is a great read.

• And you must check out my friend Emily’s website for her range of handmade Goats milk soap. This stuff lathers so nicely with a range of smells. She also has products for people with sensitive skin. Today I'm giving you a Goats milk Soap with Ginger & Lemongrass Essential Oils. 

The Nitty Gritty!

All you need to do is be a follower of my blog and fill in this sentence in the comment section below to be in to win....that's all!


PI_K      MEEE____EEEEEEEE!!

Make sure I can Email you if you win. Competition closes in a week....on Good Friday 18th April 2014.

"May the odds be ever in your favour"...ha ha couldn't resist! Good luck! NZ and Australian bloggers only sorry.

holiday catch up

Hiya!
I thought it was about time to catch you up on the haps around here in my favourite format..bullet point style!

• We celebrated Miss Joys Birthday the week before Christmas with a bowling and laser maze party. Oh the pain of hearing the balls bounce on the floor! 

• One of the joys of parenting is watching how your kids interact when they around their friends and peers. Their personalities come out and its like you are on safari and are watching a lion cub in its own environment somewhere in Africa. There was one friend who was apprehensive about trying bowling. They patiently tried to encourage her to try it when ever it was her turn. She declined. They just made light of the situation by cheering her up, until finally when it was one of the last turns she surprised us all by having a turn. Watching this lovely group of friends about 6 in all made my little heart happy. All friends since year one or two displaying beautiful personality traits that I'm happy for my daughter to be around. No cattiness that is synonymous for this age group, just a bunch of sweeties. May it stay this way, even when the hormones kick in!  

• I was pretty happy with how my cake turned out.The ladies at the bowling place were pretty stoked with it too! It was a pretty cool cake to make...I printed out a template from the computer of a blown up ten pin and cut it out of a rectangle banana cake. The icing was just lemon flavoured butter icing whipped up for ages to get a white colour for the pin colour. 

{ten pin bowling cake}

• Christmas celebrations began on the Christmas Eve in my parents back yard. 

{I didn't realize I bought so many book presents!}

• After stuffing our selves with a selection of cooked glazed ham and veges....I brought out my contribution which was a Baked White chocolate and berry Cheese cake. Oh my! this was so good...and we had no trouble finishing off the left overs a couple of days later. I HAVE to  make it again some time soon! I got the idea for the design on top from where else but Pinterest here at this link.  So yum!

• The next day we spent Christmas day at Hubsters parents place. We started eating early with croissants for breakfast followed by present opening and then proceeded on to a gourmet lunch. I forgot to take my camera with me but got a couple of pics on my phone.

{Grandma dressed the kids as elves!}

{Gourmet Christmas lunch....
Salmon ceviche, roasted duck breast with cherry compote, Individual tiramisu and port, crackers and cheeses} 

•  I made the tiramisu and it turned out so much nicer than I had hoped. Quite light and fluffy. There was a general consensus that most of us hate soggy desserts like trifle...so the challenge to was so not let it get too soggy. Those lady fingers had a one second dip in the coffee! And I only prepped it a couple of hours before it was due. So yum.

2 for 2 for Christmas desserts this year! 

{mwah}

• The eating continued on boxing day! My bothers came over to my place for a BBQ and stuffed lamb.

• This blog post makes it sound like I have done a lot of eating! Well you would be right! The eating continued the week after Christmas when my MIL and FIL invited us to stay with them at a book a bach place on the Tutukaka coast. The house had a little pool at the back which kept the kids occupied all week. So blessed to be able to be out at coast. I had to drive back in to town  couple of  the days including New years day...which made for very little celebrations for new years eve...again! I really hope to be dancing next new years eve! 

• With all this holiday eating..I'll be going on a diet! The walking will have to start again. AND the hubster gave me a juicer for christmas so Ill have to get on that bandwagon! 

• For a lot of the last part of the year I have struggled with a sore shoulder. I have just lived with the pain.. hoping it would go away, but it hasn't. I can barely brush my hair,  get stuck in tight clothes and wake up in searing pain after I have moved it wrong somehow in my sleep. SO I finally went and saw my GP...a "rotator cuff injury". Darn it. I need it to get better. Its been getting sore at work...so that is sucking.  

• Reading. I bought a couple of  NZ authored e-books that were on special on my phone (just $4!). Jay Jay Feeny's "Misconception". An honest account of their troubles with fertility and their quest to have a family, with a little of her life story too. And currently reading her other half's book "The bucket list of an idiot" by Dominic Harvey. Laugh out loud funny. 

• Hope all is well in your neck of the woods. I think I am finally up to date with all my favourite blogs on the reading list. Once all the "noise" has died down around here later on this month and normality resumes...and I can hear myself think...I may have something a little more inspiring and insightful to say! Until then...enjoy your holiday...while I countdown the days until school begins...which for the record is...10 days! Wait 10 days??? is that it? Yeah!

*Amendment!! I had another look at the calendar! I think I'm the one who needs to go back to school! I have recounted the days...I was a whole week off! Its seventeen days....17 days!

Oh gosh...what I'm I going to do with this lot for that many days! I'm sure we will all think of something!

Life in bullet points.

• Its been a while since the last bullet points post. 

Doing dishes in PJS

• Schools back! These holidays went way too fast. Now the older two are at a nice age where they can mostly entertain themselves...it doesn't seem so stressful. I just added a smattering of fun stuff...intermingled with "if you haven't tidied your room and done your chores...then we cant do tomorrows fun stuff", the house stayed fairly orderly. There was however twice as much laundry!

• Last Saturday after I slept off my super busy night shift, my darling hubster came home and announced we were going out for a surprise dinner. All of the kids were away with both sets of grand parents and it was just the two of us. Eek! He did not give away where we were going at all! This control freak is not a big fan of surprises...but this one was kind of fun. We ended up at a newly opened restaurant 20 minutes out of town called Outboards Resturant. The menu sounded quite delicious... and I really wanted to try about three of the entrees. I opted for one, a poached salmon Tian. Whats a Tian you ask? I didn't know either so I googled it at the table on my smart phone...and then decided it looked yum. Yay for technology. A nice little place, would definitely recommend it. 

Salmon and Shrimp "Tian" with avacodo and micro greens

• I'm doing a new challenge,  a movie challenge. I am trying to make my way through the greatest movies of all time, as rated on IMDB. I like movies...but I'm trying to get out of the usual ROMCOM, comedy and action/genres. Hubster doesn't see how this is a "challenge", but it is for me. I don't generally enjoy fantasy...made up worlds with new creatures and place names. It all gets a bit much for my little brain, so I am trying to get out of my comfort zone and try new stuff. I also as a rule hate watching anything made before 1990! So the first movie I watched was a black and white movie called "Casablanca"...I finally watched the classic line "here's looking at you kid".  So for the last month I haven't even been near the new release section of the DVD store...and these movies are $1 on a Monday. Good cheap entertainment. 

• Here's the list of the top twenty of all time. Have you seen many of them? I'm avoiding the R18s and if my local DVD stores don't have them I wont see some of the older ones. Turns out I have seen most of them. I got to the Star Wars one and decided to watch it all from Episode 1.  

IMDb Charts

Rank	Rating	Title	Votes
1.	9.2	The Shawshank Redemption (1994)	1,009,339
2.	9.2	The Godfather (1972)	712,529
3.	9.0	The Godfather: Part II (1974)	461,084
4.	8.9	Pulp Fiction (1994)	783,229
5.	8.9	The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966)	304,307
6.	8.9	The Dark Knight (2008)	984,506
7.	8.9	12 Angry Men (1957)	247,823
8.	8.9	Schindler's List (1993)	514,363
9.	8.8	The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King(2003)	717,958
10.	8.8	Fight Club (1999)	766,939
11.	8.8	Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back(1980)	491,032
12.	8.8	The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring(2001)	742,130
13.	8.8	One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975)	420,244
14.	8.7	Inception (2010)	794,869
15.	8.7	Goodfellas (1990)	438,220
16.	8.7	Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977)	552,242
17.	8.7	Seven Samurai (1954)	153,738
18.	8.7	Forrest Gump (1994)	666,713
19.	8.7	The Matrix (1999)	725,450
20.	8.7	The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002)	644,289

• I hung out with these lovely bloggers in the holidays. Good times.  

• My kids are all germ free for the first time in MONTHS. It been a long while of snot noses...especially the little guy. I was starting to call him the runt of the litter.

• After a lazy last term of no after school activities I have re-started swimming lessons. They cost a fortune..but I have a pipe dream of one of my kids being a triathlete...I'm thinking maybe Joe could. That boy can run... And the littlest fella master Zak is going to start kiddie Gymnastics....surely one of my kids could make me proud by representing NZ in something!

• MY lovely MIL celebrated her birthday last weekend. We went out for pizza and champagne...

• How exciting is the whole royal baby thing!? I know some people are over it already...but this is big. The boy will be the future KING. I was hoping for it to be a girl. The Queen had recently changed the law so that gender was not a factor when deciding who was in line for the throne which was a great movement towards gender equality. Obviously the Queen decided...being a lady never stopped her from being a great head of the Monarch. Very cool Queen indeed. 

• READING:  "the Happiness Project" My first bought i-book Im reading on my phone. I'm a little bored with it..but I'm going to finish reading because I paid for it. 

• LISTENING TO: Kim Walker-Smith and Skyla Smiths new CD "HOME". Very folksy.

• FRETTING about the new home insurance changes. 

• I was thinking of starting a new regular feature on my blog called FOOD FRIDAY. So watch this space on Friday...if I could work out a linky party...I would...

• EEEK Spring is around the corner! 

June catch up

Well I had better catch you up on the highlights of June since I missed ya'll.

Zak Zak celebrated his 3rd birthday. Yuss! We are officially out of the terrible twos range. I said this to someone and said they can go on to the troublesome threes?! Well I'm rejecting that notion. I'm hoping for less tantys and more cuteness thanks. 

This birthday was especially cute. He was actually aware of what a birthday was and was really looking forward to it, singing himself happy birthday for days.  He's a bit Mickey Mouse mad so I baked a cake that he would love. It was my second fondant attempt..and it went a lot smoother that the last one. Using a bit of icing sugar to help with the rolling helped a lot. It was a layered chocolate cake with chocolate butter icing. Quite tasty. 

The sequels of excited delight were so cute as he opened his presents from his grandparents and us. A nice little family party.

Mickey Mouse cake. Chocolate layer cake with Red and black fondant icing

In other news we bought a new car. Finally. We have had the same car for 9 years. While it was fairly reliable it was time for an upgrade.
While we were in Auckland buying our car we decided to take the kids to Motat. I had never been, usually choosing the Zoo instead since they live down the same street. We were lucky enough to be there on the last day of special exhibit in the main exhibition area. It was a hands on motion and movement type thing.
After exploring Motat for a while we hopped on the tram (included in the price of the ticket) and it took us all the way past the Zoo and to the Aviation Display Hall. We had no idea this was included in the pass. What a cool place. Generally we all had a good day and would recommend it.
I'm loving the age that the older two are at when it comes to taking them to new places to learn and explore.

motat

olden day class rooms

Walk way of mirrors

Zak Zak holding on to his ticket on the tram. 

One of the giant plane at the Aviation Museum 

Me and my love.

Also in June we celebrated our wedding anniversary. 12 years we have now been married. Yay us! Our wedding day seems like such a loooong time ago!
 I would have loved a weekend away but getting three kids taken care of is a mission so we settled for an afternoon of golf and a fancy dinner out at one of our favourite restaurants and then a movie.

We were both really out of practice and lost a few balls.  I managed to score one par...the rest were bogeys! But it was nice to get out in the fresh air. 

This meal here is actually a dessert! Its called a "kiwi fish n chip". The "fish" is actually a pineapple fritter. The "chips" are shortbread. It has a little banana milkshake and a caramel Sundae. Super fun dessert to eat!

Other things:

• I did about half the things on my  to do list. Perhaps Im better at having a "TO DON'T" list since it was fairly easy to abstain from FB. 
• I read the "Great Gatsby"...I know!...me...reading a novel! Its been a few years!
• I bought us both an older model iphone that was on special at Vodafone. 
• I knitted a scarf.
• I hired a treadmill for a couple of months to get back into running. I am thinking of signing up for a race...just a short one. But I'm scared my knees are going to play up. I should just harden up and do it. 
• Miss Joy and Joe both did really well in their cross country, both coming first in their years. I was such a proud mumma. Maybe I should go running with them! 
• I finally got around to putting their school certificates and class photos in some sort of scrapbook. They spent ages looking through it.
• Zak zak has increased his hours at Playschool to three mornings a week since turning three. So far my dreams of having the house all to myself have not happened as at least one kid has been home sick  instead. 
• While I was on my break I thought I would try an organize my time a bit better like a little time table of sorts...I do it at work, why cant I do it at home? I'll let you know how that goes. 

That about sums up my June.
I have caught up on my favourite bloggers and its good to back in Blogland with you gals.
I missed you!

Pinata Party

 Well it’s been a week of back to reality. Did anyone else feel a come down after our bloggers weekend away?  After looking forward to it for four months...it was suddenly over.

And so I had a quiet week, Mr Zak zak was a little under the weather...so we chilled at home. 

I have been trying out my camera...mostly indoor shots because its finally started to rain in these here parts. I still haven't read the instructions yet. But I will!

 My first "foodie shot"

This is what you call a lazy cottage pie. My kids don't really like mashed potato...they must be the only kids on earth who don't! Seriously! So I just scallop layer the potatoes on top with a large sprinkling of cheese all over...bake until the potatoes are cooked and Viola. Dinner is served. Great for using left over mince. The picture is a before....there is no after....too many hungry tummies. But you get the idea. 

 Friday Fun-day.

And because it was too rainy to take my flash camera out we went clothes and shoe shopping for Friday fun-day instead. After an ice cream of course.

Posers!

Joe's Birthday....The do's and don'ts  

 I felt so terrible because it was actually Joe's birthday the day we flew back from Christchurch, and he really wanted a "friends party". He had a little something on the day with hubsta and his grand parents...but I had promised him a little party. The trouble was trying to come up with a theme for it. He isn't really into just one thing. So I finally decided on a pinata party after seeing a cool pinata cake on pintrest. It was only eight days past his birthday! Oops.

Getting stuff sorted the night before....but a little distracted

How NOT to do a pinata cake. 

Do not use a bundt cake pan. Use a deep dish pan like the instructions stated from here

 My dear hubsta reckons it looks like one of things people use to play the winter sport Curling! 

Not quite right! But tasted great.

Chocolate Pinata cake with "Skittles" 

Don't pick a date were you are the only responsible adult around with all these kids to your self.

Do enlist the help of a miss bossy pants to help run the games so mummy can take pictures and manage the overtired two year old too. 

Do make sure the house looks like a crepe paper monster had thrown up all over the place half and hour before the kids are ready to arrive. 

Do expect to help the fellow six/seven year old with the craft project

It was supposed to be their own home made pinata. And I had envisioned the each kid might like to bash their boxes at the end of the day...But they were so proud of it. So they put their lollies in and took them home. 

Great fun.  

Do introduce the kids to the 80's game sensation....TWISTER! 

It went with the colourful theme.

These guys were so agile...hardly any of them fell over!

DO make sure no one gets hit in the head with the cricket bat, especially the responsible grown up!

Happy Birthday Little Man !

birthday eve.

Holy Moly... I am shattered. Like the tiredest I have been in a long time. I am currently in sleep deficit from night shifts. The poor kids have woken to find a grumpy mummy...again. Nothing like kids waking early from the day light saving change to really ruin ones morning. I have had my morning coffee....but I think a couple more might be in order. On a side note...I got to work in our ICU last night. This was a major fear conquering exercise. Sick people...like... really sick people are not really my forte. I like  patients to be ...not sick! Thankfully I was well supported and left feeling like I did a good job.

I really need to get a good night sleep in before PJ and I start our girls weekend/bloggers conference in Christchurch at precisely 5.30am on Friday morning We will be trying to make our flight from Auckland before rush hour traffic. I'm so excited and nervous at the same time. The control freak comes out in me at times like these. Usually I try and remain calm and stress free...but going to new places with new people worries me.
Top 7 worries at the moment.
1) That the accommodation that I have organised falls through or is not up to girls weekend standards.
2) That I will experience my first earth quake...and worst case scenario ...die in my sleep because the ceiling caves in from said earth quake.
3) That I will snore, sleep walk, or sleep talk or sleep eat. I think I only do one of these things in real life.
4) That Paisley Jade will break my bed again.
5) That I will forget to pack some essential item like shoes or my cell phone.
6) That my pajamas won't be warm enough in my bed and all the other girls who have bought "onesies" will be like..."haha...see...you should have bought one!" Check out PJ post on this.
7) That I'm leaving hubby with three kids for the whole weekend. I better make sure the cupboards are stocked and the washing is clean.

And today  its my Birthday Eve. I have a hair appointment booked for tomorrow so I can look fab for this weekend...and I might just cook the family my favourite meal...Roasted pork belly. Perhaps a nice dinner might take the sting out of the fact that hubby is obligingly getting me a new DSLR camera for my  birthday. I'd really like to get better with my photography skills. Do they do a Dummy's guide to photography? If they do...I need one. One thing about blogging is the appreciation of peoples clever photography skills. I have been chatting while playing Words with friends to a blog buddy who is a talented photographer. He reckoned I should go for a Nikon. Eek. I think this will be this years birthday present... and my Christmas present...and next years birthday present too aye...hubsta?

And just a reminder that I will be drawing a name out of the hat for my awesome giveaway tomorrow... April 11th! So make sure you head over there if you haven't already...and answer the very tricky question in the comments section!