Things I'm Loving 16.11.12

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

Ra Ra for royalty
I made a very last minute decision to whip down to the waterfront (a 2 minute walk from work) to see if I could catch a glimpse of Prince Charles and Camilla on their whistle stop tour of Wellington on Wednesday. SO glad I did! Yes, it does look like he is pointing at me in this picture although I think he was actually pointing out a cafe behind me, I'm gonna pretend it was at me okay!

Had to laugh at Mark's reaction when I sent him the picture too.

Mark was also very stoked to see them too (separately to me a little earlier at the other end of the waterfront) . He reckons he last saw Prince Charles in real life when he was about 3 or 4, and I last saw Prince Charles when he and Princess Diana toured and our whole school went to Ellerslie Racecourse to see them when I was 10, so today was a cool moment indeed.

And I was loving the wonderful day that Welly put on - thank goodness - it was the best day in over a week!

This is the air I breathe!

Edamame
I've just recently discovered the amazingness of edamame. They are otherwise known as a Japanese soy bean and packed full of goodness too. Do I have any other edamame lovers out there?!

You can buy a bag of frozen edamame and zap them in the microwave for a couple of minutes just like frozen peas. Mylo was eating them by the dozen the other night when he tried them for the first time!

VW combi van lego
If you can ignore the ridiculous price tag for a minute, I just loved the look of this cool Lego set in Moore Wilsons the other day. It would totally fit in with our Punch Buggy loving family!

I Adore
Welly has a new store for the sweet tooth! It's called I Adore and is a Japanese style confectionery outlet. The biggest attraction (I think) is the 6 flavours of self-serve frozen yoghurt, followed by an entire counter of toppings, syrups, lollies, wafer sticks that you can add to your bowl and pay by the 100g when you're finished with your amazing creation.

Also on the menu is iced tea, hot tea, bubble tea as well as traditional savoury style Japanese food like salted plums etc. It's a veritable feast for the eyes! My sister-in-law Kim has already put an order in to visit here at New Years when her and my bro Nic come to Welly!

When GF (good food) goes bad
Wraps are a favourite meal of ours. But the gluten-free wraps are a bit like eating cardboard and I can really only stomach them if Mark fries them up a little first. The other night he was out watching the Phoenix and had prepared all the inner bits and bobs for us to have wraps, but it was only upon pulling the GF wraps out of the cupboard that I had a Tui's ad moment. I'm eating gluten-free tonight.....yeah right!

Starting them young
One of our favourite things to do when the university quietens down for the holidays or exams is to go and spot the tuatara in their exhibit and run around on the overbridge (without trying making too much of a nuisance of ourselves of course!). It really is a simple few minutes of free fun that never fails to entertain these two munchkins.

I must admit I was somewhat tempted to do a runner when they were perched on top of these posts....for a minute or so anyway, ha ha!

Universal motherhood truths

I'm pretty sure I've been on the receiving end of each and every one of these, bless their little cotton socks!

Are there any that look particularly familiar to you?!! The last one happens to me all.the.time!

And that my friends is a pretty long list of loving for the week, now I can't wait to see yours!

Here's how you can join in this week:

Link up below with your blog post telling us what you're loving, and grab the Things I'm Loving button below for your post too. Don't forget to share the love by visiting all the other lovelies who have joined in - the linky is open till same time next week!

Go Bananas {Games for kids this Christmas}

I'm taking a wee leaf out of Miriam's blog with some of the great game reviews she's shared with us recently, I thought I might add a few of our favourites into the mix, thinking it could spark some Christmas gift ideas for a few of you out there.

This is a great game for kids who can recognise numbers and colours, it's a little bit of a mash-up of Snap and Uno all rolled into one.

The game is for 2-5 players and does say age 6+ but I've been playing it with Mylo (age 3) and he already gets it!

Go Bananas
The game is made up of 3 potential combinations of  'Snap' to win cards off the other players.

Go Bananas
When you spot a red monkey card and a blue monkey card showing the same number of monkeys on top of two different piles, say "Go Bananas!" and slap the piles. The winner collects both piles of cards and puts them at the bottom of their own pile.

Gotcha Gator
If a Gotcha Gator card appears at the same time as either a red or blue monkey of the same number, slap both piles and yell "Gotcha Gator" and collect both piles of cards and add to your pile. The Wild Gotcha Gator card takes any monkey card, regardless of colour.

Splat!
This is when you match a rotten banana with a fresh banana. Slap the piles and yell "Splat!". These two piles of cards are put aside (out of play) and collect one card from every player's pile.

If you become overexcited and slap a pile by mistake or forget to say the right words when you slap, you lose a card., placing it face up under one of the playing piles of face-up cards in the middle area.

Winning the game
If you lose all your cards, you're out of the game. Whoever ends up with all the cards wins.

Go Bananas and have a great time!

MNM's Make: Fizzy Bath Bombs

Who would have thought that you hold the power to create the lush sensation of a fizzy bath bomb to relax and unwind in a glorious hot tub in the palm of your hands? Who would have known that you can lovingly craft this gloriously luxurious feeling from just a few simple household ingredients. Well you can!

Here's how:

Dry ingredients
1 cup baking soda
1/2 cup corn flour
1/2 cup citric acid
1/3 cup wholegrain oats (optional)

Sift the baking soda, corn flour and citric acid into a bowl.

Grind up 1/3 cup of wholegrain oats in the food processor and add to the dry ingredients if you want to make lovely flecks in your bath bomb.

Wet ingredients
2 1/2 tablespoons oil (I used sweet almond oil but any light oil like sunflower oil would work too) - bought from a health store
1-2 tsp essential oil (I used sweet orange, but any scent lemon, lavender, eucalyptus etc would be lovely)
3/4 tablespoon water
1/4 tsp borax (optional as this is difficult to find in NZ - the only place I found it was on Trade Me and I had to buy a kg for $10 although it can be used for many other household uses - see here)
Witch hazel - bought from the chemist
Food colouring (optional - I kept mine naturally coloured so didn't put any in)

Whisk all of the wet ingredients together in a bowl.

Very, very slowly drizzle the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. The mixture may start to fizz a little and if it does slow down and blend in with a spoon. Once all the wet ingredients have been drizzled into the dry, get your hands in there and scrunch the mixture thoroughly with your hands.

Tip (or spray) a tiny amount of witch hazel into the mixture (only 1/4 tsp at a time, I used 1/2 a tsp in total).

You know you have the right consistency, if when pressed together in your hand, it molds and sticks together, but is easily broken apart as well.

Take whatever you want to use as a mold - I just used one of the kids' stacking cups (approx 1/4 cup) and if you want to, sprinkle a few wholegrain oats in the bottom of the cup.

Pack the mixture very tightly into the molds - even better if you can find a tamper to pack it down with - our coffee tamper just happened to fit the cup perfectly .

Once the mixture is firmly in the mold, tip it upside down and gently bang it against your hand until it loosens and comes out.

Place on a plate or tray and leave to dry out overnight before you pick them up, by this time they will be rock hard.

There are so many fun combinations of different scents you could try with these.  

Hope you have as much fun making these as I have!

What a rush of blood to the heart!

Wow.

Still coming down from the high that was the past 24 hours. And nursing a slightly sore head after a couple more red wines than I would normally drink of an evening. But oh so worth it.

I flew up to Auckland bright and early, leaving a gorgeous day in the Capital behind me and an equally lovely day in the City of Sails ahead of me.

It started with a trip to the French markets with my oldest friend in the world Andrea (and her sweet little 9-month old Mia). I can't believe the markets are on each weekend, there's such an array of amazing fresh produce.

Then it was home to chill out on the beanbags at their house overlooking Grey Lynn Park for an hour or so before my special lunch date with the lovely Sammy.

I love this girl. I love her faith, her beauty (inside and out) and the fact that she's a working mum like me, and I just know she 'gets' the unique and different challenges this brings to raising a godly family the best you can. We talked about all kinds of things, and even floated the idea of a proper organised bloggy get together in Christchurch mid-next year....who's in?!

After this lovely interlude eating some yummy fare at Savour and Devour, I chilled out back at Andrea's for the afternoon, enjoying some precious cuddles with little Miss Mia, although still plenty happy to be able to hand her back afterwards...ha ha!

Then after a couple of glasses of refreshing Rose,  it was into town to grab a bite of dinner at Tyler St Garage on the waterfront before catching one of the free buses down to the concert at Mt Smart Stadium.

We arrived with plenty of time to spare, and I was intrigued to see how the 47,000 (that's how many people were there!) wristbands handed out as entered were going to be used during the show.

Coldplay came out with a hiss and a roar, with fireworks, confetti cannons and all of a sudden the entire stadium was bathed in pulsating light from the wristbands. Sadly mine didn't actually work (and neither did Andrew's, Andrea's partner) but to be honest, it didn't lessen the enjoyment factor at all.

The sea of light from the pulsating wristbands

This was one heck of a show, with good old favourites like Yellow, Speed of Sound and Clocks being cranked out alongside a couple of favourites from their last album Lovers in Japan and Viva La Vida (which was by far the most popular song of the night I'd say - not a single person left sitting in their seats for that one!). From their most recent album they played about 5 songs including my favourites Princess in China, Paradise, and ending the show with a bang with Every Teardrop Is a Waterfall.

An amazing spectacle, and a memory that I'll carry around with me for a long time to come.

The only sour note of an otherwise perfect evening was the terrible logistics afterwards in forcing all 47,000 of us back out through 2 tiny gates which meant it took nearly an hour just to get out of the stadium. Then the cues for buses and trains (which were free) were simply staggering. I, with my ever active bladder, was contemplating having to jump behind a bush to relieve myself at one point there, and was becoming more uncomfortable by the minute. I was glad when we made the decision to ditch the queue and walked up to the main road to fortuitously flag a cab down. My bladder was very relieved to get home about 15 minutes later I tell you!

There was just enough time for baked eggs for breakfast (whipped up by Andrew) before I headed back to the airport for the flight home.

It was lovely to have 24 hours out of the daily routine and some time just on my own, whilst at home Daddy did more than enough to win a Husband/Father of the year award managing to do the grocery shopping, take the boys out for brunch, run around with Mylo at football (where he apparently scored a cracking goal in his new football kit), hoovered the house, took the boys out to Porirua pool and on the waterslides, picked up one of Noah's friends for a playdate, cleaned both the bathrooms, and enjoyed takeaway pizza with the boys for dinner. Whew, I'm tired just after typing all that! You truly are my hero, honey!

Rooo-neeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Here a couple of my favourite moments from the concert last night...check out the fireworks and the sea of wristbands all lit up....so flippin cool!


And please excuse my somewhat exuberant, slightly out-of-tune singing in the background!

Things I'm Loving 9.11.12

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

Mylo Xyloto...I'm all over you!
Tomorrow morning, I'm heading up to Auckland to see Coldplay's Mylo Xyloto concert. I still can't believe they named part of their album after my little guy and it's even spelled right...crazy. The song I'm most looking forward to hearing is this one....Paradise. There will be goosebumps.


And just as exciting is the opportunity to spend some time hanging out with my oldest friend in the world, and  there might even be time for a catch up with a lovely bloggy friend too! Squee!

A Pintastic Christmas
I am all over Pinterest this year. It has provided me with SO many great ideas for Christmas gifts. I don't want to totally give the show away but here are a few of the things on my prezzy-making craft list this year.

Interview with a certain CA
You might recognise a certain face in the most recent newsletter on the NZ Institute of Chartered Accountants SmartMove webpage. Yup, it's yours truly.

It was an honour to be asked to contribute and quite out of the blue I might add. You can go and read the whole interview here.

Downton Abbey
When has TV ever been so good? I don't know exactly what it is that makes this show so darn amazing, but it is. I wish there were more than 8 episodes each season though. I could watch it all day!

Mornings like these
Despite the fact I get up at 5.30am 5 times a week, starting my day that early isn't what I would choose given the choice, but I do it because a) it's the only chance I really have to fit exercise into my day, b) it's a great time to myself to listen to sermon podcasts and connect with God, and c) some mornings the city is simply mesmerizing. Mornings like these.

Short and sweet this week, but I have one cracking weekend to go and get ready for. I hope you lovelies all have a fantastic and exciting weekend planned ahead too!

Here's how you can join in this week:

Link up below with your blog post telling us what you're loving, and grab the Things I'm Loving button below for your post too. Don't forget to share the love by visiting all the other lovelies who have joined in - the linky is open till same time next week!