Things I'm Loving

Like Paisley Jade says ....

I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something that you can be thankful for... no matter how simple it is.

I am totally loving ....

Spring Flowers .. both indoors and out!



Shorts and Sandal wearing weather



Ice Cream eating weather



Fun outings with Family (more on this day next post)



Linking up with Paisley Jade

Cultural Day

Today at Abbey's Kindergarten they had a 'Cultural' Day. The teachers asked the children to dress up in an outfit that represented their culture as well as to bring in some food that represented their culture too for a shared lunch at Kindergarten. I had a think and asked around and decided that since I thought NZ was going to get quite a bit of representation I would focus on Abbey's American half.

My Mum is the best for sewing up costumes at a moments notice (LOVE my Mum!!) So we found a pattern and some fabric and turned little Miss Abbey into an American Cheerleader!



We watched a few YouTube videos of cheerleading before going to Kindergarten this morning just so Abbey knew what she was supposed to do. We were watching them flip and throw each other up in the air etc and Abbey says, with her eyes as wide as saucers, "I can't do that Mum!"

I made Mini American Hot dogs as our food and we had such a great time at Kindergarten! I totally regret not getting a photo of them because they were a HUGE hit with the kids! I think I will definitely make them again for the next party we have.

Abbey Really enjoyed having me there, showing me all the things she could do around the playground!



The Kindergarten had a raffle for a few Prizes for fundraising and WOW!!! We won the First Prize!! Totally unexpected and awesome surprise!! And what a fantastic prize too!! I can't wait to get the new books into the library at our new place!



I have said it before, and I'll say it again I absolutely LOVE Abbey's Kindergarten!! Thanks so much to all her teachers for hosting another awesome family event!

Surrounded By Boxes!

This is what I am surrounded with .....



Many many of these .....



I am excited, I can't wait to get to UNPACK. Packing is incredibly frustrating! I really don't enjoy it. But to think that this will be the last time I pack up and the last time I move house for a long time (or ever!) just makes me smile. I have moved A LOT!

Jase and I lived in 9 different houses together. I sure was hoping that we would be making this leap into home ownership together but sadly it isn't to be. Moving into this house is in a way a little bitter sweet. I think about him constantly. He was an awesome packer and organiser. He would have had things sorted and arranged without hesitation. I miss him so much and it still hurts so much but Jase is always with us as long as we keep his memories alive he will always be in our hearts and in our home!

But!! I still can't wait to get into that house and start making it our home!!

I {Heart} Whangarei

It's been a while since I did one of these posts! (See HERE and HERE) Winter seems to make me wanna stay inside by the heater!! I wonder why hehehe!! But Spring is just around the corner and the last few days the sun has been shining and totally lifting my spirits!

Yesterday Mum, Dad the Kids and I all drove out to Tutukaka. We went to Pacific Bay which was my 2nd home when I was growing up. This was the bay where we had our boat moored and I learnt to swim in this bay! It's an awesome little swimming beach because the water is lovely and calm. Although the main beach is stony you can walk around the rocks to a little white sandy beach. This beach has so many awesome memories for me and my family! The kids had a real blast running up and down the beach, looking for shells, throwing stones in the water and even going for a little paddle. We even found a HUGE fallen tree to climb on and some swings! It was a really awesome day out and certainly blew away a lot of my cobwebs!



Here is my list of places still to visit ... here's hoping the weather stays as stunning as this and we can cross a few more places off the list soon!

* Mount Parihaka - we have been here a few times but I haven't got many photos, gotta get the photos!!
* Abbey Caves
* Ocean Beach
* Sandy Bay
* Whale Bay
* The Quarry
* Ruakaka Beach
* The Whangarei Falls (with Riley for photos!)
* The Quarry Gardens (same as above!)
* Town Basin (again been but want more photos)
* Heritage Park
* The Observatory
* Hikurangi Lime Rocks
* Ruakaka Refinery Visitors Centre
* Waipu
* Clapham Clocks
* Riverside Reserve
* Laurie Hall Park
* Limestone Island
* Captain Percy River Cruise

How many places have you been in your home town?

Kiwi Mummy Bloggers

Yesterday morning I got up incredibly early for a Saturday to get ready for what turned out to be a FANTASTIC day of fun and friends at an awesome Kiwi Mummy Bloggers lunch in Auckland.

I started off early to pick up Paisley Jade and Jacksta-B so we could meet up with Kiwi at Heart at her place. My outside temperature told me it was 2C and there was certainly a lot of frost! But the day turned out to be a stunner and certainly gave us fantastic weather to drive with!

PaisleyJade doing what she does best!

We stopped in Albany for a quick loo & coffee break, it was also good to let the kids stretch their legs (and for Riley to get his tantrums out!)

Then we carried on and arrived at The Mediterranean

Photo taken by one of my kiddies!

Bloggers started arriving and it was like meeting up with old friends! Everyone pulled out their cameras .. we are all bloggers!!!

And we got our hugs and chats and getting to know each other going!

Catalina's Cottage, Babble & Snaps & Kiwi At Heart

The restaurant was AMAZING! The had a wonderful waitress look after the kids like they were celebrities and I hardly had a peep from them! Riley & Abbey thoroughly enjoyed the attention and food and drinks and free rein of the entire restaurant!

Then the food arrived! Oh My Goodness!! I was incredibly sad when I had finished mine as it was delicious!!

I didn't hear anyone say the food wasn't devine!!

We had laughs, and more photos, name tag sharing and even prizes!! Then we all went our separate ways and us Whangarei ladies headed back home.
Thanks to ALL the amazing Ladies who I met and chatted with and had so much fun with!! What an awesome day! Times like that certainly make me incredibly happy that I decided to become a blogger!!

Crafting up a Storm! A Pinterest Storm!

I have mentioned my addiction to Pinterest. So so many lovely things to look at. I have been busy making rather than pinning which I have LOVED!! I am sooo excited to be in my new house (which I own!!) in a couple weeks so I haven't been able to craft as much as I want. And today I started packing up my craft room *sob sob* So over the next little while I will have to pause my crafting until I get moved and re-setup. But I have sooo many plans when I get into the house! I have upholstering, painting, gardening, and sooo much more planned! I can't wait! But in the meantime I have managed to get a few things made which were inspired by Pinterest.

*Pin #1 Fancy Frames*

Inspired by THIS PIN I bought these frames from the Op Shop for $3 each.


The pictures were just paper copies which were kinda tricky to get off!! But I stripped all the paper off and cleaned it up, then I gave them a few coats of spray paint and added my own photos and this is what they look like now ....


I can not wait to find a home for them on the wall in the new house!! I am sooo stoked with how awesome they turned out!

*Pin #2 Fancy Lampshade*

This was actually inspired by a lamp at Abbey's Kindergarten (sadly I don't have a photo of that one) But I also have one pinned HERE

So over 300 buttons later, several lengths of wire, a fat lip and sore fingers I produced this .....


The more I look at this photo the more I think that the buttons don't match the orange of the base hmmm might have to fix that soon!!

Also I received a gorgeous Scrap Pack from Better Scrapbooking that I have been working away at .. mmm loving this paper!!


I can't show you the stuff I have been working on with this pack yet but watch out for it soon!

You may have noticed I have been orangefying a little bit .. watch out for a new Orangefying my world tab up the top after I move!

Grown Up Things

Funny how when you are a teenager and you think about when you are in your 30's you think things will be so much different to the reality. I certainly never ever expected to be living the life I am. I don't feel all grown up. I certainly don't feel like I know everything, which as a teenager I thought I would! But I feel like I have finally entered the world of grown ups and I have bought myself a house!! I move at the beginning of September so am at the moment surrounded by boxes, bubble wrap and packing tape! So here is a teensy tour of my new house which I can finally call home!







None of the furniture in the photos is mine. Although they are leaving a piano in the house for me! I am so looking forward to making a house my own. Every single house Jase and I rented we would discuss what we would do if it was ours. Now I can do that! And of course it will be orangefied!! I have some ideas of what I want to do already but I have promised myself (and my Mum!!) that I will do nothing until we've lived there for a few months. I am really looking forward to blogging about the things I do in my house as well as all the cool things I make (mostly inspired from pinterest!!) to decorate my house as well!

Yay for grown up things!

Things I'm Loving

I wholeheartedly believe that no matter what is happening in your life, there is always something that you can be thankful for... no matter how simple it is.

This week is a hard week for me to feel thankful. For some reason I am having a tough week, and I also have friends around having a tough week too, which is why I am determined to do this post today, to make me think carefully about what I am thankful about.

I am still camera-less so I will 'steal' some pictures to add to my post!

I am Thankful for my BEAUTIFUL children.


nawwwww look how little they used to be!

I am thankful that I know without a doubt that my husband loved me with his entire being


nawwwwww what a cute couple!

I am thankful for My Mum



I am thankful for Music I haven't listened to in ages and it making me smile when I rediscover it.



I am thankful for:
*FANTASTIC friends to go op shopping with
*Finding AWESOME bargains while op shopping
*Pinterest for AMAZING ideas
*Trade Me for more AWESOME bargains (camera on it's way to me as I type)

Linking Up with Paisley Jade

30 Day Mum Challenge

I am struggling to be a Mum. It's hard for me to admit that. Ever since Jase died I have been struggling terribly with his loss. I have had to try to learn to live without my Love and best friend. Jason was a fantastic Dad. We worked really well together as a parenting team. We had strengths and weaknesses in different areas and I think we were good parents. I am really struggling dealing with the loss of Jason, and becoming a solo parent. I am hurting very badly and so are my children. I struggle with the day to day chores and at times am so overwhelmed with my own grief I forget that the children are grieving too. This has resulted in me becoming short tempered, un-attentive, lethargic, and un-responsive to my children and it pains me so bad to know that I can not be the Mum I used to be. I used to love playing with my children, now it seems like a chore. My children used to make me laugh and smile, now they make me shout and growl. Tears are streaming down my face as I write this because I absolutely HATE the Mum I am turning into. I NEED to change for my children. I NEED to be there for them, they NEED me more than ever. The last few weeks I have been trying so very hard to turn myself around to be the Mum my kids deserve. Tonight my friend Taryn pinned this onto Pinterest


When I have finished writing up this blog post I am going to go and print this out and attach it to my bedroom mirror. I am going to do each and every one of these things this month, try to blog about it (it will be easier when I get a new camera!) and I am going to try to enjoy my children again. They are my biggest reason for living, for carrying on, for not falling into that dark abyss I am balancing on the edge of. They are my light, I just need to turn it on.

I will start by giving both of my children a kiss as I tuck them in when I go to bed.

I love you Riley
I love you Abbey
alwaysforeverandeternity xxxxx

Addicted to Pinterest

I am totally addicted! There are the most amazing ideas on there! I also have lots of friends who are as addicted as me (well maybe not quite as addicted, not all of them anyway!!) A few of us were talking about how cool it would be to get together once a month and actually MAKE a lot of the stuff we have 'pinned' instead of just drooling over it!! So I started a group on FaceBook and we are hopefully going to motivate each other to make lots of amazing stuff!

Alisa is challenging herself to make more of her pins you can check her out over HERE

And I will also be updating when I make my pins here too!! So who's up for a Pinspiration Challenge!???!!??!



Come Join us on FaceBook at Pinterest Junkies!