Category: Happiness

Final Fit Mums

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So hard to say goodbye today! Thanks for the memories! And toned arms! ?

Michelle and I started around the same time when our boys (Darby) were 6 months old. We’ve since had another baby each and always came back. Best boxing partner! Thanks Michelle ❤

Ben, the best trainer around. He can kid wrangle, carry babies, all while making sure we’re working hard. Thanks for everything!

I got to choose the workout today. We did a chipper in groups of three  then a boxing tabata. So awesome. (The boxing workout has been mostly rubbed it by the kids!)

You all know how much this group has meant to me – I bang on about it all the time. Keep working hard ladies. Keep having those beautiful babies. And think of me when “Boom shake the room” comes on. Love you all xxx

Jules’ baptism

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Just all the feels today! Our last official event at our place before packing week commences tomorrow.

My gorgeous little man of the moment was an absolute angel.

With the beautiful Hayley, his fairy Godmother ?

And with Gran and Grumpy and below with Ouma.

I’m honestly so exhausted and have just had the best couple of weeks.

The thought of starting to pack tomorrow kind of sucks but it has to be done. I’m glad I’ve got some wonderful memories of this time to cherish.

Happy birthday Darby

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How are you three????

I feel like all of a sudden he’s grown up. A uke was the obvious choice for a present. He loves his bittaaar.

He was a bit unwell yesterday and still recovering today. We had a belated party down at the park with Chance’s school friends and he kind of fell asleep like this.

After that party (more on that later) we headed home to continue the celebrations with some of our nearest and dearest. Which included his Minions cake!

I’m not going to lie guys. I’m pretty damn happy with my efforts on this one.

And he loved it too if course. Gosh there’s so much to say about such a little guy with such a huge personality. We just adore this kid beyond words. He is kind and generous and curious. So curious. And we encourage that wonder and joy of discovering new things as much as possible.

Darby you are a treasure. Happy birthday nugget xxxxxx

Farewell BBQ

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Even though we are not leaving for a couple more weeks (gosh that’s frighteningly soon) we had our farewell BBQ on Saturday and it went a little like this.

Quinn: “Mama, is our BBQ going to be epic?”
Me: “Yes darling. Yes it is.”

We hired a jumping castle for the 25+ kids and they had a ball! (This was early on in the piece when there were only a dozen or so kids)

And a little bit later on

There’s always a bit of a slow start to these events I find. By 1pm we had pretty much done all the chopping and preparing that we could do. We had decided to serve our much loved pulled pork with crunchy noodle salad on sliders, mini hamburgers with our homemade tasty BBQ sauce, and twice cooked lamb wraps with tzatziki and cous cous tabbouleh.

Turns out that at service time, I needed all hands on deck! Thankfully my gorgeous friends Sian, Sarah and Nadia were at the ready, with Hayles kindly refilling my Mimosas. Unfortunately the only photo of the production line I got is blurry and not great. So here’s one of me instead!

As if I did it all on my own! These girls are the absolute best if  you don’t mind me saying so.

Life will suck a little without them. Okay. A lot. Pretty much all the good times I have had over the last 2 and a bit years have involved one, more, or all of these ladies. They get me and they get my family and they love me and I’ll absolutely treasure the time I’ve had with them.

Leaving them is going to be hard.

Anyway, back to the party! The pulled pork sliders were incredible as always

And the lamb wraps were a massive hit, as were the burgers (no photo though!)

Desserts were a-plenty and a-mazing! (See what I did there?!)

Kate’s chocolate and berry cake was just the best!

The afternoon was leisurely, the evening stepped things up a notch, and fun was had into the night. We finally got to bed around 1am, happily exhausted. I would have liked more time just to sit and chat, but it’s often the way when you’re the host. Hubs outdid himself in the meat cooking department, and my crew upstairs really helped me not get too overwhelmed, and made my life a thousand times easier.

One of a few farewells coming up I’m sure. I’ll be sad to leave. That’s all.

Forgotten High Teas

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I can’t believe I never got around to blogging about the other two St Joey’s High Teas I attended. Here’s the one from the first year we were here. So gorgeous!

Last year’s one was a bit more low-key but equally lovely with the added bonus of my dear friend Sian who had just moved to Rocky a few months before.

The usual suspects came along and there was so much yummy food on offer!

As I mentioned, this year was a smaller affair, but no less lovely. And a few new faces to boot! The lovely Hayley and Sarah.

A year on and still glamorous as ever!

(Side note, I bought this dress the day before at Salvos… and it has pockets!)

I even had myself a super cute date!

I’ll miss my yearly High Tea with these ladies! Thanks for the lovely memories xx

24 to go

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So I just had a little look at how I’m going with my 250 blog posts for 2017 and so far I have written 226. When I first looked into it it said 209 and I freaked out a bit, but then I went back and saw that there were a bunch that I hadn’t tagged as 250 in 365 so that boosted the numbers a bit!

I truly do have plenty to say and share, but finding the right time and headspace to do it is tricky! I’ve smashed a few out this evening and scheduled them for the next couple of days, but it looks like it’s going to have to be at least a one-a-day affair for the rest of the year if I’m going to meet my targets.

So, you know, prepare to be photo-spammed! Ha! Starting with this one. I finally got a photo of the two of us that is half-decent!!

Except I really need to do something (SOMETHING!) with my hair! I’m loving having a bit of length but it might be time for a shorter cut. We’ll see…

I’m still recovering from our farewell BBQ on the weekend – blog post scheduled – and after leaving Fit Mums a bit early today I came home, crashed in bed and slept on and off from 9 until 1. Hubs was home and parented like a trooper, as well as cleaned up the rest of the kitchen and consolidated downstairs a little. I’m still a bit shattered but honestly the sleep did me a world of good.

The next couple of weeks are going to be amazing and brutal. Equally. I have three cakes to bake and decorate which will provide some blog fodder thankfully, my parents are coming up on Thursday for five days and Hubs’ mum is coming up for the weekend as well, for Julius’ baptism on Sunday. It’s Darby’s 3rd birthday on Thursday as well as Chance’s school friends party and then next week it will be packing stations.

On that note, I’m sleepy again so I’m off to bed. One down and 23 to go.

The food post: Cairns 2017

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The food and coffee situation on our Cairns holiday lived up to the expectations we had. And exceeded them. Here we go.

This is the K-mann’s back area set up, with cooking on coals and a pizza oven. There was am abundance of yummy nibblies and I think my kids ate their weight in pistachios while we were there.

Dessert early in the week – a date and nut slice that had chewy and crunchiness.

The worst photo of the best brisket imaginable.

This caramel slice nearly undid me

BBQ chicken wings with rice and shredded cabbage. This got messy and awesome.

Daily (hourly) coffee made with love.

Honestly there were so many good dishes for the week, and all lovingly prepared, from the delicious Vietnamese chicken baguettes that greeted us on our first night, to the (absurd) number of coffees we consumed daily, to an incredible chocolate meringue dessert very early on, to pancakes made to our individual liking on the final night.

Good food with great company and tasty wine is the best recipe.

Happy 10 years

/ Renae / 1 Comment

10 years ago, I married this man.

I could not have known then, that he would take me on such a unique and extraordinary journey. Our life is like no one else’s I know.

He makes me laugh, and has certainly made me cry. But he gets me. He’s not afraid to have the hard conversations. He’s not afraid to be completely honest with me, even if it’s hard in the short term. He knows that, no matter what, we will always find our way back.

We both know that we are in this together; for the long run, and that it may take time, but we always work things out. We are stronger for those hard times. We have been tested and we have come through.

We drive each other crazy with our quirks, but we accept the other just as they are. We know we are not everyone’s cup of tea, but we don’t need to be. He is my soy cappuccino and I am his Rum and Rooibos.

Here are 11 things after 11 years together, 10 of them married, that you may not know.

11 years together
Officially got together 26th November 2006.

10 years of marriage
Married 1st December 2007 (engaged June 2007)

9 houses
Mission House (Toowong), Newman College (Melbourne), Wangaratta (unit), Mount Beauty, Wangaratta (house), Townsville, Ingham, Mount Isa, Rockhampton.

8 car seats
In each car!

7 years as parents
The journey began with Chance on the 27th November, 2010, right before our three year wedding anniversary.

6 hospital jobs
Wangaratta (as a student), Mount Beauty (student), Townsville, Ingham, Mount Isa, Rockhampton.

5 Days of Day Camp 1999
It took for Hubs to know I was the one. It took my slightly longer but when I knew, I knew.

4 kids
Chance (27/11/10), Quinn (1/2/13), Darby (7/12/14), Julius (18/5/17)

3 different cars
Kombi, Falcon station wagon, Land cruiser. And we still have the Kombi and Cruiser!

(I’m 4 days overdue with Darby in the below photo. We went out for our anniversary dinner. He was born 6 days later!)

2 people 
Just me and him.

1 marriage
Happily Ever After.

Homeward bound

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We are having the best last day of our holiday. Yesterday was a long hard slog of driving with the first 450km done between 9am and 4.30pm then we visited friends in Ayr before hitting the road again at 7.30pm to do the last 300km to Mackay. Somehow we did that in 3 straight hours and arrived at our lovely motel at 10.30pm. The kids had been asleep for hours so we were all awake until midnight but that’s fine. Everyone slept well until nearly 7 and I put ABC for kids on while Hubs and I dozed until 8. Then it was into the pool for a while before walking a block down to the Mackay water park.

A friend had told me how great it was so I always had this planned for our last day. You guys, it was so awesome. And huge! This is only one part of it!

There was a cafe on site which I was a little skeptical about but Mama needed a coffee.

After drinking Shane’s lovely brew for the last week I wasn’t expecting much from this one but this was so fantastic! Strong and hot. Just how I like my coffee. And my man.

Sorry. Got a bit side tracked there… ❤❤❤

We planned to have brekky somewhere and the menu looked pretty good – they specialised in pancakes and had eggs Benny and even a burger for Frith so I thought why not!

Why not indeed.

Darby’s reaction when this came out was “is it my birthday!!???”

You could order 2 pancakes for $5.90 and then add whatever you want. Chance got strawberry jam and bacon. This load of bacon was $1.50.

My eggs Benny was absolutely perfect in every way. Mmmmmmm crispy bacon.

And the burger? Hubs couldn’t finish it! And it was only $12! I think he would have been able to eat it at dinner with a beer or two perhaps ☺

We got all that delicious food and two (more) coffees for under $50. Such an amazing brunch and no need for more food for the day. Coffee, yes.

If you are ever near Mackay it is well worth the visit. And it’s just off the highway so a very easy detour.

Now we’re on the final leg of our trip home and I’m feeling very content and full of goodness. There is a long to do list waiting for me at home, but for now, I have my world in the kombi, the clouds are keeping the drive cool, and the tunes are good. It’s a sweet life.

Happy birthday Chance

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My big boy turned 7 today. What a champ. Then and now. Aw my baby! ❤❤❤

I made him this fairly dodgy monster truck cake that I was almost embarrassed of, until Hubs asked me “Does Chance like it?”

He. Loved it.

We had a little party for him Friday night  over at the K-mans with his favourite dinner (hot dogs) and a piñata and pass the parcel.

(Super dodgy dark photos dammit)

Today, his actual birthday, has been spent in the kombi as we make our way back south.

How gorgeous is this kid!? He has really stepped up into big boy status since Julius came along. I really need to just let him do his thing more and try to step back because he’s got it covered. He’s learning so many new things and I’m learning so much from him at the moment and it’s hard letting go and watching from the sidelines. But he’s doing just great and it’s wonderful seeing the person he is (fast!) becoming.

His dinner request was Maccas (easily pleased!) and they are all drifting off to sleep as we do the last leg to Mackay for the night.

Good night my darling boy. You are such a gift to us all and we love you so much.