Life starts at THREE

I feel like Chloe has been waiting for forever to turn the big THREE. She just couldn't wait until that day and talked about it for months and months and finally last week she had that magic day and now that she has reached that amazing age, she is very proud of herself :o}
We didn't have a party this year and instead planned to go to the zoo as her special birthday outing. Being the nearly three year old she is, she changed her mind about a dozen times before the big day! In the end she asked to go to a cupcake shop to eat a cupcake. And said that she'd like a purple fairy cake. 

We took her out to this very cute little cafe called Sherbert Cafe and Bake Shop in Maylands.  It's very cute and old fashioned inside, with retro tables, New York City posters and art work and the cutest bay windows to sit in and enjoy a cupcake and coffee. We arrived at the perfect time, ordered straight away (after eyeing off all the gorgeous cakes and cupcakes and making our choice) and sat down. While we were there, the place got packed! Heaps of people waiting for cupcakes and coffees and sandwiches - you can tell it's a favourite place to visit for a lot of people!

The cupcakes are delicious. And gorgeous. And did I say delicious? We went for Vanilla with vanilla icing (I know - maybe a bit boring but there was so much choice and these were very pretty!) and it was seriously a very good vanilla cupcake, each one was polished off. 

Hubby had a coffee and said it was very good, and the kids and I shared a couple of milkshakes which were gone in about .5 seconds flat. 

Afterwards we walked around, it's a lovely area with some very cute shops to browse in.
And then we headed out to Kings Park for some running around and lots of playing the afternoon away. It was a gorgeous and chilled out day and our sweet Chloe loved every minute of it so we were happy!
The next day was her actual birthday, and she woke up to a little party table with fairy wings, purple and teal tissue paper decorations.

I didn't quite make a 'purple fairy cake' - but it was cake, and it was purple, and it had edible glitter and coloured sugar thanks to some cheeky fairies. ;o}

In our family it is tradition that the birthday girl/boy gets to choose what they'd like for dinner - and Chloe chose pancakes! So we had breakfast for dinner which the kids thought was amazingly fun. I think we'll have to do it more often :o} Who would complain about pancakes for dinner - or bacon and eggs? Yum!
Happy Third Birthday dear Chloe! You are such an amazing little girl and you make us proud everyday! We love you!
xxx

I'm dreaming of a - dream home!

Do you love dreaming about the perfect home for your family? 
We do! We are always talking about things we'd like to have in our dream house, things we'd do differently next time and what kind of location we'd love to live in. As our family grows and as our kids ages change our wants and desires change too. We built our current home too, but were limited in choice and also were not very experienced! It was the first time we had ever taken on something like that and it was daunting! 
So we love to talk about what we'd do differently next time. I'm sure that if and when we ever get to build our dream house or something close, we'll have some very different ideas to those we have now.  But it's fun anyway!
We love heading out to display villages and looking at house plans online as well as house and land packages available like these from Stockland.
So, what goes into a dream house for our family?
I grew up in Indonesia so I often lean towards a tropical, Asian style look outside and a little bit of that inside - water feature and gorgeous timber decking would probably be a must. My hubby is a bit more country cottage or ultra sleek modern. I'm pretty sure if we did build our dream we'd have to compromise a lot on the overall look of the outside so we don't end up with something Dr Seuss-ish! This is a rough house plan that we change every so often when we get another idea. Obviously the right hand 'bedroom side' of the house still needs some work, and I'd love to shove a playroom in somewhere that could be used as a hang out room with tv etc when they get too old for toys. But it's fun to tweak and change as we go, maybe one day we'll get to actually build something like it :o}

I would love a mudroom to catch all our 'stuff' when we come home - attached to the garage would mean that all our shoes, jackets, umbrellas, bags and such don't have to get dragged through the rest of the house. I'd also love a laundry off the mudroom.
I absolutely love looking at gorgeous house photos for ideas and inspiration. This is one of my favourite mudrooms and I would love to have something similar one day! Spots for bags, shoes, notices etc.

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Also stemming off the mudroom ideally for us would be a scullery and walk in pantry that leads into the kitchen. This way we come home with groceries and children and school bags and lunch boxes and shoes and socks and - you get the idea. We get out of the car and walk into the mudroom, kids hang up their bags, take off their shoes and put their socks and what ever else into the laundry. Lunch boxes get placed in the kitchen on the way to the breakfast bar / kitchen island bench where they can have a snack and do some homework.
I obviously spend most of my time thinking about how this whole area of the house will work! But we do spend so so much time in the kitchen / dining area of our homes don't we?! Currently I have a small but very useful galley style kitchen, but I would love a gorgeous corner kitchen overlooking the garden so I can watch the kids play while I prep dinner or clean up after lunch. I would love for the kids to be able to sit at the kitchen island for homework and breakfast and save the dining room for dinners and weekend brunches. This kitchen is just about exactly what I dream of.

{image}

I'd love the dining room to be just off a kitchen like this, open plan with living room near. I'd love the alfresco to have bifold doors so we can open up the living room and have a great big and open entertaining space when we want it. 
I'd also love a guest room. We don't have family around here so it is pretty important to us that we can have them stay comfortably when they are visiting. I'd love for them to have their own bathroom while they're here too! 
I would love a bath tub in the master bathroom. I don't understand why most of the new homes these days seem to leave the bath for just the kids - sometimes it's nice to have a bath without moving all the squeaky bath toys out of the way :o} 
In the kids bathroom I'd love a double vanity so I can crowd them all in for teeth brushing time! I don't want the house to be overly big - I would still have to clean it! But I would love for it to be a bit more functional with mudroom and scullery than our home is now. As well as have plenty of built in storage which our current home really lacks. 
I'd love plenty of room for the kids to play in the back yard, as well as room for veggie patches, compost bin, worm farm and a water tank! I love this sustainability guide for Stockland's Mt Aiken homes. We were given a similar brochure when we built our current house and I love that our home takes advantage of the suns' position to help keep the house cooler in summer and warmer in winter and I'd like to take that into consideration if we ever got to build our dream home, too. We currently have solar hot water but I'd love some solar panels and to be able to use recycled or rain tank water on the gardens! 
Do you like dreaming up an ideal home for your family?  What would you make sure it had? And what can you live without?  We currently have a rear access home, so our back door is our main door - I could certainly live without that in our next home! Sand EVERYWHERE!

x




Disclosure: This is brought to you in partnership with Stockland. All words and opinions are my own. The house plan is ours and not drawn to scale. The images used are credited.

sight word fun and printable sight word flashcards

Noah is LOVING sight words and we have been learning them in a few different ways that I thought I would share with you!
His teacher sends home a list for them to work on and once they're confident with that list, they get sent home with another list. So I thought I'd share with you a few of the things we do to learn the words on the lists he is given from school.
I've also included some printable sight word flash cards for you to download and print if you wish :o} They are based on the Dolch Sight Words list I found online so hopefully they are fairly common no matter where you are!
1. Sight word parking game

This has to be Noah's favourite - hands down. He loves cars, and parking them, and sight words. WIN. Take the sight words you're working on and just write them on a large piece of paper {we use A3 so I can fit quite a few words on there at a time} and use a ruler to make your parking spaces. Add a road down the middle for fun :o} brmmm brmmm!

Then give your kiddo a car or two and ask them to park their car on certain words. Mix it up by also getting them to pick a word to park on and have them say it out loud! Both recognising the word after you say it to them and them saying the word they've picked out loud are great for sight word learning.
2. Sight word matching

Matching sight words is also a great way to learn and recognise them. You could use the printable ones I made {link below} and print out two copies, one to keep as is on an a4 sheet of paper and one to cut up to match.
3. Sight word sticks

These are just a little bit fun and different. My kids love them {Chloe likes to 'read' {repeat} them out loud too when we do them!} I saw this awesome idea thanks to Lotta Magazine sometime last year and we have been using them ever since. 
4. Sight word flash cards

These were made by me so that Noah would have a set of his current sight words {his teacher assigns a list} within easy reach when ever he wanted. We bring them in the car or he just grabs them during homework time and reads them all out.  We also put them upside down {we can take them off the ring} and turn them over and he has to try and say the word real quick.  And another favourite way to use them is to neatly place them on the table and again use something fun and exciting {a car, lego man etc} to 'hop' onto the words.  Lately when practicing his writing Noah has also been taking his sight word flash card stacks out to find words he needs help spelling - so he not only has to work at reading them all to find the word he wants, but then they are also helping him to spell and write them out. I make these each time he gets a list {yes, a bit of work involved in cutting and laminating them all but it's worth it and I know they'll be used for ages - you don't need to laminate them though! Just cut them out if you prefer}

You can download our first pack of 5 pages of sight words here :o}  I hope you have fun with them, or any of the other ideas I shared here that have been working really well for us lately! :o}

I also really love this Sight Word Bingo - thank you to Sonia for sharing that awesome idea!! You can download Sonia's sight word bingo card from her blog too if you hop on over!

How do you like learning sight words at your house!?
xx

Winter Warming Pot Roast

I used to cook in a cast iron french oven pot all the time. It was over 35 years old, bright bright orange and oh so heavy. I loved cooking in it and loved that it was a little piece of my husbands history. It had belonged to his mum and she had lovingly used it for a long long time, and then she gave it to him.  I used it often and loved it. Loved the feel of it, loved how it cooked. But it was starting to see better days and after another couple of years we had to let it go. 

I had almost forgotten how much I loved having a cast iron french oven until the other day when I used this gorgeous Chausseur Cast Iron french oven to cook a beautiful pot roast for my family. I am loving this colour a lot! It is called Nordic and the photo at the kitchenware direct website doesn't do it justice, it's a gorgeous grey/blue colour! You can see all their other colours here.
There's something about cooking and enjoying a roast on the weekend with your family, isn't there? Something lovely and homely and warm. It's just what I felt like cooking for my family last Sunday and I thought it would be perfect for our Chausseur's maiden use. 
Our day was kind of like one of those fairy tale days {trust me, they are not always like this!} where we headed out to the farmers market after breakfast and enjoyed the morning buying some fresh fruit and vegetables while sipping on a hot chocolate, browsing the stalls that sold honey, flowers, potted herbs, home made jams and preserves and organic baked delights where I picked up an organic sourdough loaf I knew would be perfect with dinner.
And then in the afternoon after a lazy lunch and some outside play, I began to prepare dinner for my family by chopping all the vegetables and getting our new chasseur pot out to cook our pot roast in. 
This is a very simple recipe and it is one of my favourites {and one of my hubby's favourites, too} I love starting a meal on the stove and then being able to pop the same pot into the oven for a few hours to slowly cook away while you enjoy the rest of your afternoon. 

I have included the ingredients and full recipe in full at the bottom of the post.
I started off by prepping the beef and veggies and then melting some butter in the pot.

I then added the seasoned beef to the pot to brown on all sides.

Then I put the beef aside and added a little more butter to the pot and a couple of chopped onions to saute for a few minutes. 

And then the garlic, celery and carrot was added to the pot and cooked for 5 or so minutes. 

I then added a splash of red wine {you could do more if you like a more red wine flavour - I don't personally love the taste but I do find it misses something when I don't add this little splash}, 1/2  a cup of water and a couple of tablespoons of apple cider vinegar. 

It's already smelling pretty good here! I just let it simmer for a little until the alcohol is cooked out and the liquid has about halved.

Then I added some flavour with bay leaves {dried from our very own garden} and parsley {maybe a hint of rosemary too if you like it}

Then I added the stock as well as the browned beef roast back to the pot and let it simmer uncovered for a little while before popping the lid on.

I then placed the covered cast iron pot into my 150C preheated oven and walked away for 3 hours. 

It will braise in the liquid in the pot and become deliciously tender and flavourful. The smell was just amazing, it has been such a long time since I have cooked something that smelled so good :o}

While the roast was cooking, we played in the garden with the kids, came in and washed up, read books on the couch and then the kids moved on to colouring while hubby and I had a cup of tea. Seriously, it was a fairy tale day! Don't you love days like that? 

And who can complain about a gorgeous one pot dinner? This was ready for us after 3 hours of slowly bubbling away in the oven. 

It's not the best photo - by this time I'd lost all the lovely afternoon light since the sun is setting so early these days. But I'm not complaining! I love autumn! 

And the difference between a traditional roast and pot roasting in a cast iron french oven? Well the beef wasn't dry for starters! And there was no mess in the oven to clean up :o} But mostly the flavours are just amazing! 

You might be wondering how difficult cleaning this pot was after it had a roast bubbling away in it for hours? Can I honestly tell you it was easy breezy! Just a quick wipe with a soft sponge and some hot soapy water and it was clean. Can't beat that!

We enjoyed our roast with some gorgeous organic sourdough bread and steamed veggies. Perfect winter Sunday night meal and for me, the perfect end to a very good day.

Winter Warming Pot Roast
Ingredients: 2 Tb butter 1.5kg beef roast {we used topside} 2 onions, chopped 3 cloves of garlic, chopped 2 stalks celery, chopped 3 carrots, chopped 2 Tbs apple cider vinegar 1 splash of red wine 1/2 cup of water 2 cups of stock  {beef or veg, I used 1 heaped Tbs of home made veg concentrate mixed with 2 cups boiling water} 2 bay leaves some fresh parsley or 1-2 tsp dried parsley salt and freshly ground pepper
To cook: 1) Preheat your oven to 150 C 2) Melt 1 Tbs butter in the pot over high heat and sprinkle freshly ground pepper all over the beef 3) Brown the beef on all sides in the pan and then put aside on a plate 4) Lower the heat and add a little more butter to the pan then add the onions and saute until golden 5) Add the garlic and stir for a minute 6) Add the carrot and celery and cook for about 3-4 minutes 7) Add a splash of wine and the apple cider vinegar along with 1/2 a cup of water and simmer until the liquid reduces by about half (about 4-5 minutes). Stir often. 8) Add the stock, bay leaves and parsley to the pot and then return the beef 9) Bring to a simmer and then cover and transfer the pot into the hot oven 10) Cook for about 3 hours until beef is soft and tender 11) When ready, remove the beef from the oven and allow to rest in the post uncovered for 15 minutes before carving 12) Carve beef into slices and serve with the liquid and veggies from the pot - yummy with mashed potato or soaked up with a good sourdough bread.

The very lovely people at Kitchenware Direct also have a special Mother's Day surprise for a lovely a little delightful reader! How does a $50 voucher towards your own cast iron french oven {or anything else in their shop in fact!} sound!?  Yes?  Entering is easy - just head on over to Kitchenware Direct and browse their shop and then come back and leave a comment on this post telling me what you'd spend your $50 voucher on and why :o}
Giveaway is open to Australian residents only. Giveaway is open now (Tuesday 7 May 2013) and ends at midnight (WST) Sunday 12 May 2013. The winner will be announced on this post and on facebook on Monday 13 May 2013 and will have 5 days to claim their prize before a new winner is chosen. Voucher is sent directly from Kitchenware Direct and is not redeemable for cash.

xx



Disclosure: I received a Chasseur Cast Iron French Oven to review and keep from Kitchenware Direct. All opinions expressed are my own and shared honestly. Photos and recipe are my own.