House Plans

Well, we finally got a house plan that we like!

We are actually thrilled with it. It's smaller than we are used to, but that's ok, we'll just have to force ourselves to get rid of quite a lot of junk and have some garage sales I think.

We've organised it with a guest bathroom/bathroom downstairs, so that once the children have all left home - a long way off yet though - we have the option of getting in a boarder or overseas student.

Great things that we love about the house:

* The indoor/outdoor area and the covered porch by the pool.
* The large, open pantry area
* The guest room
* The internal laundry. I've never had an internal laundry, but I quite like the thought of it being close-by. It's amazing how much time I spend in the laundry.

Upstairs:
* The large storage areas
* the little hallway between the bedrooms
* the void so you can look over the edge to the downstairs foyer.

 When we first received the elevations this week, I was so nervous to see what it looked like on the outside. I'm ok with it - not thrilled, although I think my husband and my kids have out-voted me. This is what the house will look like from the street:

 And here is the 3-D version:

 

It kind of is reminiscent of a '70's house to me, which I don't like, really. But we are on a budget, and gables and shutters and french windows are expensive, so I'm trying to be realistic about it all. 

There are certainly things about the look of the house on the outside that I don't like. But I recognise that these are first world issues, and I am very, very grateful to be getting brand new house at all. But it kind of grates on my aesthetic nerves a leetle bit. Let me know what you think.

I do not like corner windows. At all. I think they will have to go. And I hate the way New Zealand architects put the windows right up to the top of the wall - as they have done on this secondstory window on the left.

But I do love the plan for the inside, so maybe I will focus all my attentions on that. What do you think? What would you do?

Winners

I can't believe it's a whole week since I last posted. It has been such a busy week for me, but this morning I drew the winners of the Baker's Delight vouchers.
#1, 4 and 5

So congratulations to:

BettyL

Michelle

Catherine

I will contact you about getting these to you soon!

Enjoy!

Baker's Delight Giveaway

This is a sponsored post.

To be frank, Baker's Delight is one of my favourite foodie shops. I just love that fresh bread aroma when you walk into their bakery. And one of my little secrets, when I'm especially busy and have to go somewhere and take some baking is to quickly duck in and grab something yummy to take.

But you cannot beat their Hot Cross Buns. I have tried - several years in a row - when I was going through my self-sufficiency stage, to make my own Hot Cross Buns, and the results were not pretty. It usually took me all day to make the dough and the results simply weren't worth the effort. Have you ever heard of Hot Cross FlatBread? No, I didn't think so.
Now, I know this is probably due to my sadly-lacking baking skills, because I have friends who seem to churn them out like a pro. But I can't. I can't make gravy and I can't make hot cross buns! That's just the simple truth.

So when Baker's Delight asked our family to review some of their buns and host a giveaway, I jumped at the chance.
They really are the closest thing you will get to homemade. Better even, because you haven't had to slave over the oven. The kids love them, and they have lots of fruit in them. The chocolate buns were a huge hit with the children - just because anything with chocolate is, and it's a unique take on the traditional bun.

I am giving away three $10 vouchers to Baker's Delight, so if you want to be part of the fruity yumminess, leave your name in the comment section.

Miss Alice Learns To Swim

Once a week I go down to the kindy to watch Alice swim. It's such fun time.
They use the school pool and I love walking through the school with the kindy teachers and the other mums holding hands, like a train, with all the kids, as we walk to the pool.

I think it's Alice's favourite part of the week. She loves the water! And they have one-on-one teaching time with the teachers. I love these kindy teachers. They are so wonderful, and they love Alice. She has settled in so well to her new kindy. Every morning when she arrives she calls out a cheerful 'hello' to them as she comes in, and they always recognize her and call her by name and tell her that they're glad to see her. And it's genuine too, and I think she knows that instinctively and she's so happy there.

But anyway, back to the swimming lesson. It's so fun walking with the group down to the pool. Here is Alice in her sun hat as we get ready to go.

 

 Time to get in.

 This week she was learning to swim with Mrs. Lees (no relation). She thinks it's so fun that a kindy teacher has her same last name.

Learning to blow bubbles.

Rides on the fast train.

In the pool with everyone.

Only a few more weeks left for swimming, before we say goodbye to the pool for the winter season. I'm so glad I get to enjoy this time with her. It's so much fun.

The Minefield of School Lunches

This is a sponsored post.

When the children first started at school, I really enjoyed making their lunches every night.
But now, with four lunchboxes to get organised, the novelty of that has slowly worn off in my desperation to find food that is interesting, healthy, nourishing and will actually get eaten.

My stand-by are ham sandwiches, and if the pantry is really empty then it's vegemite sandwiches. The kindergarten that Alice is going to this year insist on healthy food. And they check. At her last kindy they were more relaxed about it, but the kindy food police are most definitely on the warpath and I did get told off for putting a tiny little easter egg into Alice's lunchbox the first week she was there.

So, no more little lolly treats for Alice.
So it's ham sandwiches, fruit, fruit and more fruit, homebaking is allowed (what a relief), and I do manage to get away with a little packet of bagel bites.
But this week I have discovered a little treat for her - and actually all the kids - that is healthy and that they love and I don't get slapped over the hand for!

The school where the older children go, doesn't actually mind what I put in the lunchboxes. To the extent that my children tend to share their lunches out with friends who don't bring enough food. I do have a tendency to overload their lunchboxes. I figure that they are using up all kinds of energy in their day at school, not to mention all the physical activity and that they walk home most days. So I like to think that they've got enough food to keep them going through the day. I was really surprised to hear from my son that he gives away some of his food, because some of friends only have an apple and a jam sandwich to eat all day. These are boys who are at a crucial growing stage in their early teens, and I was truly shocked.

I was asked to review a product by Mother Earth. Their fabulous Fruit Sticks which come in little packets perfect for the lunchboxes.
Now, to be honest, my kids are normally not fans of muesli bars or fruit sticks like this, so I was interested to try these out and see if the kids liked them. The two we tested were Apricot and Chocolate and Raspberry.

I told them that they had to give me their honest opinion. Even if they hated them.
I tried one myself, and they are really delicious. The kids loved them and asked for a second one straight away. I put the boxes back in the pantry, but a few minutes later what do I find, but Miss Alice sneaking her hand into one of them.  So I put them higher up on the shelf!

So, if you are looking for something yummy and nutricious, and that kindy will approve of, the Mother Earth fruit sticks are great! And they're priced well too. There are 8 bars in a box for $3.49 (Countdown), and that will last me two school days - if I keep the boxes high enough where little fingers can't get into them. It just helps that I have something different to add to the variety of their lunchboxes.

Made in New Zealand too.

One Little Cloud

When I was small, my parents bought a lovely set of illustrated books for children that were being sold by a door-to-door salesman. They were Illustrated Bible Stories for children, and just lately I've been thinking alot about one of the stories in there. The pictures have stayed with me in my memory.

Picture source here.

The story of Elijah, in a period of great drought sending his servant to see if there were any clouds in the sky. How he prayed and prayed and on the seventh time the servant came back and said, "there ariseth a little cloud out of the sea, like a man's hand." I Kings 18:43.

I see the picture in my child's Bible of the servant standing on a cliff looking out over the ocean and seeing a tiny, hand-shaped cloud in the blue, blue sky.

I've been thinking of that Bible story alot lately, because I have found myself, like the servant, searching the sky for the tiniest sign of a cloud. For some sign that the heat is coming to an end.
I love Summer, and I've loved that this summer has been so hot and warm - which is lovely when you are on holiday at the beach and can swim in the ocean everyday and sit in the relief that comes from trade winds blowing off the sea, but when you live in town, with no air-conditioning and the trees and the grass are dying, and the flowers are wilting, and your dog drinks his bowl of water faster than you've ever seen him do before, when the children don't get to sleep until around 9pm every night and that's only with the help of a fan running all night, and when the farmers are crying out for rain.... that is when I find myself praying for rain too.

And I find myself searching the sky for rain.

Nope. No clouds. No rain coming in the North.

Nope, no clouds and no rain coming from the south, either.

And no clouds, or sign or rain in the east or west either. Just the hot, hot sun beating down on us.

It is so hot, and even though today is the first day of Autumn there is no sign of let-up in the heat and the intense, day-after-day scorching of the earth.

And so I go out and look hopefully up into the sky for the smallest sign of rain.