Yoga Party Decorations

Earlier this week I showed you the quick and inexpensive birthday invitations that I made earlier this month for my daughter's Yoga Party/ You can find the instructions here.  So today I'm going to show you the other things that I made for the party. For months I'd listened to Mackenna talk about what she wanted for her party and all she really wanted was the girls to come and fun with her while they did some yoga, played in the playground and eat some party food. So I tried to make the decorations, cake and favours reflect the playful, happy and chilled theme that she wanted.

I decided a minimalistic approach would work well for her party as it would allow her to spend time playing, laughing and eating which meant that I could also interact with the other parents. We had planned on doing a few different pink and purple decorations, however the park we used can get really busy so the few things I'd purchased from the discount store didn't get used due to it been really windy. 

When we arrived the first thing I did was cover two tables with coloured plastic table clothes because the tables never get cleaned. I also didn't want to have any of the kids get sick because they'd touched the dirty tables. Luckily I'd bought a roll of stick tape with me so when the wind started blowing the table clothes off, I was able to wrap the table like a present and this ensured that everything stayed in place. 

As you can see from the picture above I kept the food quite healthy to work in with the yoga theme. The first thing that I made for the girls to tie in with the birthday invitations were water bottle labels. I made the labels in PicMonkey and then I printed them off at the local copy shop. After cutting them to size (I used the same measurements as the water bottle labels) I used a felt pen to colour-in the yoga ladies outfit, I then used clear contact to cover each label before attaching it to the bottle.

Mackenna had requested cupcakes for her birthday so I made her red velvet ones with chocolate icing just for something different. I made the Too easy chocolate cake from my thermomix Everyday Cookbook with a few changes to suit our party. Mackenna had picked out some cute purple polka dot cupcake cases so I made some cute cupcake toppers that would tie the theme together with the yoga. I used the same elements I'd used for the party invitations and the drink bottle labels. Each child was given the coloured cupcake topper that matched their invitation and water bottle.

The last thing that I made were the gift bags that we gave to each girl when they were leaving. Usually these bags are filled with sugary treats and toys that don't last very long. I thought that because Mackenna had a Princess theme for her Yoga class, I decided to include lots of princess things as well as a few stationery items.

I'm glad that I put all my effort into making these few things for Mackenna's birthday party. At the end of the party every little girl came up to me and thanked me for their water bottles and gift bags. I'm so glad that I went with the colour theme mixed in with the princesses because I think that was something the girls weren't expecting. Overall, it was a great party and I got to talk to a few mums and put a mum to a child's name. I also kept costs down with all the decorations and food. This meant we could take Mackenna out for a special dinner on her birthday which is something we've never done before.

Megan

Christmas Ornament Exchange

Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in two Christmas Ornament Exchanges and boy did I have fun organising my ornaments. The first exchange was been ran by Kelly, Kristi and Claire and I was really excited to get started on my ornament.

I spent a bit of time thinking about what I could do especially as I had a $5 budget and I wanted something that would last a while and that wouldn't break while been mailed especially as it was going all the way to Canada. I knew a little bit about my exchange partner Elizabeth especially as we'd emailed each other a few times prior to getting started.

I hope Elizabeth likes what I've done for her and that it goes well with her other decorations. Thanks you to the hosts for organising this exchange.

Now for the second exchange I signed up through Amy at One Artsy Mama to participate again with her ornament exchange. I did Amy's exchange last year and although I had a few issues with the posting due to our posties taking holiday's over the Christmas holiday period my ornaments arrived in early January. This year I'm hoping that Geri from Mount Vernon likes what I did for her.

Geri told me that she had eleven trees so I felt pretty safe when getting her an ornament however the one thing I wanted to do was give her something Australian for her International Tree but unfortunately we don't have Christmasy (is that even a word)  Australia Ornaments. So here is what I created for Geri.

Geri told me that she loved PINK and as soon as I saw these I knew what I had to do. This is the same pink spray paint that I painted my pantry storage containers last month. I also sprayed a bit of the paint onto the string so that if the reindeer hung down from the tree a bit you'd also get to see the pint.

So what do you think? I'm really happy with both my ornaments and I hope my exchange partners like what I've done for them. Now here's hoping that they both arrive in time to make it on the Christmas Tree this year especially as I know the postal service is working overtime at this time of the year.

Megan

Mortgage Payments Start Now.....

Sorry that I haven't written anything for a while. I've been a little busy preparing my Year 2 book report. I've also been running around re-organising our tile selection as we needed an additional 22 square metres which they couldn't get for us and arranging delivery of said tiles. I booked the concrete for the driveway, booked the tilers in and booked the carpet layers in. None of this can happen until AGL connect the gas line to the house. We contacted them at the beginning of last month and we are still waiting. Now after making all of the arrangements for the last stage of our house we are waiting for AGL to get their contractors to come to our house and connect up the gas to our house. I can then cook a meal or heat the water so that we can have a warm showers.

So after all that the kids and I met up with the building supervisor, he installed the microwave, gave me all the manuals to everything in the house and then he handed over the keys. The kids were really excited, Mr Opoes was interstate and I was thankful that it was finally ours, now all the hard work starts. There is still more work to do and with Caelan and Mackenna finishing school on the 22nd June I've got a lot to do in such a small amount of time. So if AGL's subcontractors can pull their fingers out we might get into this house by CHRISTMAS.

 

Megan

Mother's Day Cupcakes

 God could not be everywhere and therefore he made mothers.

I have been invited to attend a special Mother's Day morning tea today at Mackenna's kindy. Each mother who is coming had to nominate what it was we'd bring. I decided to make cupcakes because they are relatively easy to make and I had a simple way to decorate them. I'd purchased some sour peach hearts that I was going to stick into the baby pink frosting.

So I won't give you the recipe that I used because I'm sure you all have your favourite chocolate cake recipe. I was going to use a vanilla cake recipe but I decided at the last minute to change my mind. I thought I'd just show you a few pictures of what I'll be taking to kindy this morning. I've kept two of them back so that Mr Opoes doesn't miss out, if there are any left over over I know that Caelan, Mackenna and Viveca will fight over who gets to eat one of these lovely little cakes. I hope you all have a wonderful Mother's Day on Sunday.

Megan

Easy Sausage Rolls

I'd pulled out some chicken sausages and some turkey mince from the freezer earlier today and I had no idea of what I'd be doing with either one of them. I did have nine hours to research the internet in the hope of finding something that everyone would eat but Quinlan didn't have his usual sleeps. I didn't get time to find a recipe, shop for the ingredients and then do the prep work prior to Mr Opoes coming home.

So what I decided on making was a traditional sausage roll using the turkey mince, capsicum, broccoli, parsley and basil. For the children I made sausage rolls using the chicken sausages, egg wash and puff pastry. These sausage rolls would be great as finger food for a birthday party, they would be good to take on a picnic or you could even pack them in your children's lunchboxes. With Caelan and Mackenna going off to school and kindy today these sausage rolls are a great alternative to ham sandwiches.

I didn't have any time to take photographs but the instructions are really easy to follow so you should be able to get the idea of what I'm talking about when you see the end result.

Easy Sausage Rolls

9 chicken sausages

2 sheets puff pastry

1 egg, beaten

2 tablespoons water

Instructions

1. Pre-heat the oven to 210°C or 200°C if you have a fan forced oven.

2. Place a piece of baking paper on the baking tray and lightly grease.

3. Take the puff pastry out of the packet and sit it down on the bench to defrost a little.

4. Cut the sausages in half and set aside.

5. Take the puff pastry and cut it into 9 even sized squares.

6. Place your sausage on the pastry at a 45 degree angle.

7. Wet the edges of your pastry with a little bit of water.

8. Roll the pastry over the sausage and placed it onto the baking tray.

9. Cook for 20-25 minutes or until lightly browned. Cool for 5 minutes before serving with chips and sauce.

The best thing about dinner was that they all ate it, they asked for seconds and they all requested that I make these again. Thank you for the brilliant idea Lord, its been ages since I've had them all liking the same meal. The other good thing about this meal is that you can use any flavoured sausage and the children will probably eat them. My children don't like to eat pork, lamb or turkey so next time I'll be using pork or lamb inside the pastry. In summer I'll serve these with a lovely garden salad.

Megan