Interesting few weeks.....

I know I haven't updated my blog in what feels like forever... but there is good reason for it I promise!

So two weeks ago I was getting everything set up for my mom coming down to visit, when she leaves me an offline message on facebook telling me she had something important to tell me. I was thinking something had changed with her flight details but something was niggling at me telling me it was worse than that.... and then she told me my uncle had passed away.

My Uncle Jr. was a good man, we had our differences just like every family but still he was my uncle and I loved him...  I remember Thanksgivings and Christmases at my Mamaw's house where Uncle Jr would be the one to carve the turkey or ham since he was the oldest.... and he always used to get a smack or shouted at because he would eat more of it than he served.... and he always wanted to use his fingers to serve it instead of a fork which my mamaw hated.... I remember him putting me on this big branch on a tree in front of my mamaw's house and pretending like he was going to leave me there because I couldn't get down by myself.... and I remember him coming down to my house to target practice with my daddy, and I got to be the one to put the targets up and take them down, as well as I got to watch and sometimes help them load their guns.... good times..... Now he's up in heaven with my daddy, as well as mamaw and papaw to keep him company and I know he's watching over us... just like they are.

My mom came down on Wednesday afternoon and we spend the week going shopping and making fruit salad as well as working on the kitchen, its coming along very nicely now the cabinets are all up almost and all thats really left is the countertops and tiles.... hopefully it wont take much longer to finish I cant wait until its all done!

Today I went to the doctor.... and he said he thinks I MAY have Endometriosis..... which is a scary thought, and I have an ultra sound scheduled for tomorrow morning to check it out, so please avid readers keep your fingers crossed for me that I dont have this thing!

Bushfire season already....

So this week has been a bit hectic... bush fires are popping up everywhere around us, and we are right at the back of a big reserve.

Since its just coming out of winter everything is still dead, the temperatures have gotten over 35 pretty much all week, idiot 11 year olds are out there purposefully setting fires to get attention, people are losing their homes..... and we are all just praying it rains soon..

 And no... none of these have filters on them. These were taken out the front of my house from a fire at Eastern Creek, which is literally just about 10 minutes up the road from us.




It is a very scary time and now there is talk of a "Mega fire"... a 300k wall of fire headed towards the western suburbs from the Blue Mountains.... this actually worried Lewy, so now we have an emergency bag packed by our front door, with all our important documents and photos as well as things for the dogs.... cant forget my fur babies in a crisis!

Not wanting to freak any one out too much we have also done some more work on our kitchen! We have almost painted all the walls, got everything sanded down and ready to go, all we have left now is the counters, tiles, and top cabinets to go.

Today I cleaned the ceiling in the kitchen so we can paint it white again. I was dripping sweat by the end of it all, but I cleaned it to the best of my abilities you would think it had never seen a good cleaning before though... I did almost fall off the ladder so I have decided to never do it again while no one is home with me.

While I was cleaning I made some brownies!
preheat your oven to 180C
1. melt 16 tablespoons of butter in a dish, stir in 1 cup icing sugar and 1 cup brown sugar and stir until smooth.
2. Add 4 eggs, one at a time stirring after each one until the mixture is smooth and glossy.
3. Sift in 3/4 cup of cocoa powder, and 2 cups of plain flour and mix very well.
4. add 1 teaspoon of vanilla essence and stir well.
5. line a deep tray with baking paper and pour in mixture.
6. bake for 30 minutes checking to make sure it is cooked through by inserting a toothpick or wooden skewer into the center and it comes out clean. (If it is not clean leave to cook for 10 minutes longer)
7. Leave to cool completely in the dish before removing.
8. cut into small squares and dust with cocoa powder before serving.

Just a tip though, make sure and use plain flour for the whole thing, I used half self raising flour because I ran out of plain and it came out more like a cake than brownies..... still tasty but more spongey.

I hope you have all had a good week, and to all my Aussie readers please be safe with all these fires, have a plan in case of emergency! And please dont forget your animals!!!!

2 Birthdays and a Wedding!

Well the past two weeks have been a big struggle for me, so much stuff to do, so little space to do it all in...

First we had my birthday, during which I had to work,but there has been a blog about that and how my wonderful man made me a lovely dinner ^_^

Second we had Lewy's birthday, he is now officially an old man..... he can no longer call me a cougar XD We had to start making things for his birthday on the Thursday because he took Friday off...

The stuff for all our cakes

Bella helped me out by making cupcakes

my cake stuck to the tin =( I couldn't fill it with cherries any more and had to come up with a new plan

Bella icing her cupcakes

the finished cake... minus the candles

the poor fridge everything had to be shoved in the veggie crisper to make room for the cakes!

Friday morning Lewy gets a healthy breakfast of scrambled eggs. pancakes, bacon, toast with Vegemite, sliced apple, and freshly squeezed orange juice! (I made it myself)

While I worked away in the kitchen getting his surprise dinner ready he played on the PlayStation with Aaron... I told him to pull a face for the camera and this is what I got.

because the kitchen isn't finished yet we don't have a dining room set up, we had to make do with a faux table made out of a desk set up in the lounge room...

quick selfie so you can see how I looked XD

Lewy's cake with the candles on it, all lit up and ready to go!

Bella's pretty cupcakes, I wanted her picture with them but she wouldn't take one for me =(

Birthday Boy blowing out his candles

cutting the cake

quick kiss to mum

finally its over and we can relax in bed with some movies and leftover cake!

There weren't many pictures that got taken unfortunately, no one really wanted to be in them, and I was running around like a spastic trying to make sure everything ran smoothly, it is really hard to try and serve seven people dinner when you don't have a table, or proper bowls (because half of them decided to go missing at the last minute) But Lewy said he had a great night, he did figure out my surprise though so boo on him.... and unfortunately I did run out of time to finish my extra special present.... so it has now turned into an anniversary present since that's in the middle of November. That should give me adequate time to finish it off properly.

Saturday came around quick as anything, the day before our friends got married. We had a barbeque at their house, which almost didn't happen because we thought the barbeque was broken. We drank a little bit, and then the girls headed off to Rhi's mums house. We watched old family movies, and wedding themed movies, I got stuck in a fold out bed, we drank way to much.... but we had fun. Next thing I know its Sunday morning! We're up and ready to go, we made a quick stop by Woolworths (in my pjs!) to grab some fresh fruit for breakfast, the cashier, being nice to us at 7:30am, wondered why we were out so early and Rhi casually mentioned she was getting married today.... I think the cashier was more excited than she was at that point! We headed back to their house to check on the boys and grab a quick shower. Then it was back to Deb's (Rhi's mum) to get our hair and make up done, it looked awesome! Mimosas with our fresh fruit while everyone was teased and braided and pinned, then brushed and blushed.... and finally everything was loaded up into the car and we were on our way to Panorama House to put on our dresses, take some quick photos and then head down the isle. It was a lovely ceremony, even if the rings got left in the room... good thing it was only a quick walk away! We took some really good pictures with the photographer which I cannot wait to see, and then back to the reception, where I got white girl wasted, and we partied the night away! It was a really good day, at around midnight we all piled on the drunk bus that took us back to our hotel, Lewy de-bobbypinned my head and I had a shower, we weren't really tired when we got to our room, but as soon as he turned the lights out I was snoring my head off....  Monday morning came around and we went down to have the after wedding breakfast, where they had a nice little sign up that wasn't even spelled right. My head was pounding, everything felt spinny..... my hair was deflated, I seriously felt like a flat bunny. After breakfast We packed up our things, said a quick good bye and headed home where we spent the rest of the day in bed, too sore and sick to move.

It's now Wednesday and my legs are almost still too sore to walk on. I get the lovely task of having to go into work today as well.

Me getting the party started

The boys and their bbq

Isabella playing hairdresser with my head

Mimosas for breakfast

my hair and make up done

on our way to panorama house

quick selfie with the view we had at panorama house

quick selfie in my bridesmaid dress

then my phone died.... right in the middle of the speeches at the reception! So there were no more photos from me until the morning after at the hotel...

Reservation for breakfast.... btw her last name was spelled "Wragg"

relaxing in the hotel room after breakfast for a while

the view from dan and rhi's balcony

The newlyweds!

The Big 2 - 6 you guys!

So yesterday I turned 26! Yay for me!!!! This has been a pretty good week so far, I'm pretty happy with it. On Monday, I got serious with the big project I'm working on for Lewy's birthday which is now in 8 days, somehow I do not think I will finish it in time... Tuesday I cleaned up my house and spoke to my mom, did more work on the project...

Wednesday I woke up at 5AM to Lewy jumping on me saying "Wake up birthday girl!!" and then he snuggled me for about 10 minutes before he had to leave for work. I had to work myself but it was all ok, all of my kiddies wished me a happy birthday and one of them even brought me a present! Then Jessie started going around singing to me but he was saying I was 30 and he was singing REALLY loud.... I came home from work at about 7:45pm and opened up the door to Lewy he gave me a big hug and stuck my birthday tiara on my head. He had also cooked me a very VERY lovely dinner, and then he took some pictures with me and we got a little silly.

Today, Thursday I am getting to start my online course Introduction To Anthropology, I have already earned my first point for the class! Hopefully in 12 weeks time I can write a new blog telling you all that I didn't give up and I actually passed it!

Tomorrow I'm not sure whats going to happen, but I know on Saturday we will head down to Dan and Rhiannon's house literally a week before their wedding which will be next Sunday... so we can celebrate our birthdays with them.

Next week will be a little bit hetic for us, so you may not get a new entry from me until after the wedding, since we will be so far away from a computer until Monday night when we get home, but next week is also my super sexy hubby's birthday and ooooooo boy do I have some ideas! My mom has helped me come up with the idea for his cake all the way from Kentucky, and I have asked his mom and dad to come down as well, as a surprise for him. I will be making pumpkin soup with veal tortalini for his birthday dinner, as well as breakfast in bed for him, since it is a long weekend he has the Friday of his birthday off work (the lucky duck!)

I'll leave you all with some birthday snaps I took last night while I get back to working on this project of mine so It will at least be attempted by next week!

(also if some one could please explain to me why my google is not wanting to work that would be great... I can access it perfectly from my phone, but if I try to search for images/ open my email/ add photos to my blog it just refuses to work and I have to do everything from my phone! It's getting annoying now!!)

Chocolate from one of my kiddies at work!

Me in my tiara and Lewy blowing a party blower

I said lets try to take a good one

He's looking like he has no idea whats happening

Copped a party blower to the face

Let's do some funny faces!

This is what I get for trying to take photos.... EATEN!!!

Before I went to work I was in my tiara!

Finally we got a good one lolz

             

The Day from Hades....

Well they say that bad things come in threes.... and usually I get the awesome luck of having all three things happen to me on the same day...

This was one of those weeks where everything happened.

There were a few good things that happened this week dont get me wrong, but lets face it, it's very hard to be in a happy cheerful mood when you have something happen right after you wake up in the morning...

Monday I got an early birthday present from my wonderful man, I've been a bit whingy lately about being bored and how he has video games to play all the time while I have to sit by myself and watch tv in another room... so he got me three months of world of warcraft time! I have been a busy little bee on there as well my blood elf warlock has gone up almost 6 levels just this week alone (yes I am a wow nerd and I embrace it!)

Tuesday I got invited out for coffee with Lewy's mum, aunties, and grandma. This was when the day went straight to Hades in a hand basket.... I woke up late, and got on my computer to play half an hour of WOW before I had to leave to meet them for coffee, somehow my computer became infected with a virus that had disguised its self as an antivirus protector, which then told me all of my files were infected and wouldnt let me run my actual scanner nor open any programs that would allow me to scan my computer or open firefox to find out how to get rid of the thing... I ended up having to call Lewy while he was at work, we came up with a plan but because I was no going to be late to coffee since my 1/2 hour had turned into almost an hour and a half trying to fix my computer I had to leave the scanner going until we came back home that night...
So I got dressed up a little bit fancy, I was having a bad day after all so I put on a nice dress, some tights, my boots, did my hair and jewelry.... put on my big sunnies, got in my car and drove off hoping that something would go right on the way there and turn my day around. It didn't, it just got worse, I hit every single red light that was in existence, got stuck behind a learner driver on a road where the speed limit was 80, and they would only do 40 and I could not over take them... Then I got there half an hour early after all that, and had to sit in the parking lot and wait for some one else to get there because I didn't want to look like an idiot sitting by myself.
Finally I got up and went inside, everyone showed up about 10 minutes after I got there, we had some cakes and coffees, Lewy's mum did some shopping, and she had hurt herself so she couldn't carry much, so I helped her out, then we all went back to her house for a little bit. She was making tripe for dinner, and OMG the way she makes it is soooooo nice! She cut the tripe up into little pieces, it kind of put me off because cutting it up sounds like you are trying to cut up some sort of squishy wet plastic, if you don't know what it is then believe me you don't really want to know if you plan on trying it, but it is worth eating because it tastes really good. She put in some sweet potatoes and normal potatoes as well and made it like a stew. I spent 90% of my time helping her cut stuff up and peeling things, because lets face it I am an AWESOME daughter in law.
Lewy stopped in on his way home from work because we were staying for dinner, his dad was running a little bit late so he messed around with his brothers and his sister, and stole his brother's hat. I told him he looked like a Nonno (Italian for grandpa) wearing it, but it did look pretty good. He thought he looked more Scottish so he spent the rest of the night talking with a Scottish accent... and darn it he pulled it off!
I'm not sure where but he found a deck of cards and wanted to play 21 so we sat at the dining room table and played cards around the plates and cups, no matter what he ever says to you I am better at cards than him, I can shuffle better than him, and I have a better poker face than him.... he will try and tell you differently but it is all a lie!
I managed to convince him to take some pictures with me though, I surprised him with a big kiss and got it on camera, the picture looks like his eyes are about to fall out of his head!

After dinner we decided to head back home, we had to check on my computer and make sure it was ok, and on the way home I had a guy trying to speed behind me, riding my butt even though I was doing over the limit, he flashed his lights and even beeped at me but never actually tried to over take me, stupid man. The computer ended up being fine, as you can tell because I'm writing this post. But now I have learned to scan everything.

On Wednesday I had to work, and I got lucky because this week was water safety week, next week is the beginning of school holidays so I guess half my kids will be going away and I will have a pretty easy birthday.

On Thursday Lewy got a $50 gift card from his boss as a thank you for trying to fix their internet, he has been running around like mad trying to get it fixed for them but apparently there was a huge problem and now they have to re-cable the whole street! He came home and told me all about it, and how he got a new video game.... I'll let you guess which one he got, its all the rage right now.... yup you got it! GTA 5!

Today I'm home preparing for tomorrow, still trying to find my blond wig which has gone missing... I guess Alice will have to be a brunette tomorrow. Got my outfit ready and waiting, even got my cheshire cat to take with me.

Tomorrow will be the High Tea, the wedding is not too far away, I'm getting pretty excited about it now! I just hope I will be able to take lots of pictures!

I'm still trying to work on my birthday present for my bubby... I dont have much time left to finish it, and with all these distractions I think I will be cutting it very close.... So I think for now I need to turn this darn distraction off and go work on it!

I hope your week has turned out better than mine did!

XxX ~Rah Rah


(PS. Sorry about the small pictures! For some strange reason my computer does not want to add photos to this post, so I have had to copy/paste them and then I'm not allowed to resize them!)