3 week milestone

Today marks exactly 3 weeks that we have been living in our new town. The weather has been gorgeous, there are lots of parks and new places to see and explore but I feel tired. Riding this emotional roller coaster is exhausting! ha ha (Perhaps its more about a teething toddler, who is adjusting to his new environment and likes to cry for his Mum right through the night) 

But hey... we have survived and I am proud to say, with only one 'melt-down day' in the mix.

We had a week here and then school holidays started so its nice to not have to start organising Stella and having deadlines straight away, although she is desperate to start school. We don't know where our permanent housing will be yet, which is making enrolling in a school quite difficult but by early next week we 'should' have it sorted.

We have joined a playgroup and attended 2 sessions so far, its nice to go and have adult conversation and meet new people. And I am lucky enough to have one friend who moved here a few years ago and we have met at the park a few times. These things have contributed greatly to my sanity. 

My husband is loving his new job, which is fantastic, we couldn't ask for more than that and over time I know things will get easier. 

I am just desperate for a permanent house, all our furniture, kids toys and possessions but that could be up to 4 months away yet! I have never been one for living a minimal lifestyle and as you all have realised, I love photographs and prints , and like to have them all around me!

Soon..... I keep telling myself , soon.

Anyway.... here are some pics of the last few weeks , exploring our new town.

My loves, watching a ship going out and the chopper going out to a new one. The port here is so busy, the kids are loving it!

We have been loving checking out all the awesome parks around. The weather has been warm (shorts and shirt) and by the end of the day the kids are knackered from playing hard. Perfect!

This park is around the corner from our house. Its nice to just walk around and play whenever we want /need to.

Little Angus thinks he is a monkey and is NOT afraid of anything at the moment!! 

Park with a view, overlooking the ocean. The kids call this the "dizzy park" because everything seems to make them dizzy.

Oh o. First park casualty. Soft fall is great for cushioned landing, not great for faces. 

                                     This park has a view overlooking the port and the ships.

And we have had a disaster or 2 since being here swell. Max found his Dad's small clippers (that he uses on his face) and decided to give them a try!!! 

And then he tried them out on his little brother but was luckily caught in the act before it progressed past a small spot on Angus. ( All while in Dads care of course, thank goodness not in mine!)

Everything is close enough that we can walk or scooter and occasionally the kids walk nicely! ha

We have changed the bedroom configuration around since moving too. The boys share a room and the girls share. Splitting the twins up was a big decision as they have never slept separately but it really isn't an issue. As a result though, the boys are growing closer everyday. So cute!

We have enjoyed finding gorgeous little things around the town, the kids especially love these veranda type things that line the main street, and cast a gorgeous shadow on the ground below.

The first weekend we were here , we caught the night markets. A mix of great food and entertainment and some cool stalls of local handmade goodies. I am looking forward to the next one , as they are every 2 months in winter.

Entertaining the kids for 3 weeks has been rather ...... testing. Especially when all they have is one packing box of toys for the 4 of them, no outside play toys and no craft supplies.

We can't live at the park all the time, unfortunately, but they have been making do and still smiling :)

Playing hairdressers

Playdough and plant creations

And occasionally the odd toy or 2 has been confiscated. Worse punishment for them if its a favourite.  Barbie struck it lucky this day!

And the best part? That my husband finishes work by 4 in the afternoon. That the weather is still warm enough, in the middle of winter, to enjoy a play and dinner at the park.

                                  That the view when cooking said dinner , looks like this ;

                         And whats the best best thing? That we still have each other. Our family.

P.S- The mojo is slowing starting to come back. Its not that I don't have a desire to write, because I do, but we are in limbo at the moment, and there is only so much park and play one can see, am I right?

HOWEVER!! Stay tuned, because tomorrow I have a cool giveaway starting x

A new start ....

Its been too quiet around these traps of late, for that I apologise, and I will make a BIG effort to keep things updated regularly from now on. Promise!
You may be seeing some new things on Bizzy Dayz, new places, new houses, new adventures. And this is the main reason that I have been so absent.

You see, over the last few months , my husband and I , have been making some rather big , life changing decisions. All which have been consuming every space inch of my heart, and head. Even blogging, which has always been a safe haven and retreat for me, didn't even get a look in.

We decided to move. Not just houses, not just suburbs, but towns. And a town over 1300 km from where we lived. Where I grew up, and everything that I have ever known.
Why? I know its the question on every ones lips. And believe me, if I had a $1 for every time someone as asked me that over the last few weeks, I would be rich, and probably wouldn't have had to move here in the first place! ha
The answer? Why the root of all evil of course!! MONEY!
We saw an opportunity, my husband applied, and he got the job!! A fantastic job, with an amazing company, working less hours, for a fair amount more money , and he is still home every night to tuck our children into bed and kiss me goodnight. What more could we ask for?
This is a life changing decision for us.
We have set a plan of 5-6 years (although everyone guarantees us we will be here for longer) and in that time, we can make such a difference to our finances that we can be more secure, for the rest of our lives. I may even get to be a stay at home Mum until I choose to return to work. Not because I have to return to work.
I get to have the liberty in doing so, that my Mother just didn't have, and regrets everyday of her life.

It hasn't been easy. Actually, it would have to be THE hardest thing I have ever done in my life.
Pack all our worldly possessions into boxes, load our lives onto a truck and then have to say 'goodbye' to my friends and family.
Leave the house that I really did love, in a beautiful suburb. The very house that we bought all 4 of our beautiful babies home to. To move to a place that I had only visited the one time ( on a site visit to check out everything before we made our decision), a place that I knew next to no one. Hell I don't even know how to get around or where I am going!! A concept that is so new to me , its not funny.
But one of the hardest things has been taking our 4 kids away from everything they have ever known. From 2 sets of Grandparents that they love and adore. Stella away from her school that she loved and her best friend that she loved more. The kids away from spending weekends at my parents block, riding around on 4 wheelers. From their Aunty and Uncle, and 4 awesome cousins. From everything they love. Taking the kids away from that has been THE hardest thing for me. I can cope fine. Adults know and adjust, children do not. One child, yeah no worries. 2 kids, would be hard. But 4 kids..... thats devastating. But thankfully they are still happy and smiling. Thats all that matters.

But after all of the emotion, all of the drama, all of the tears. We are here. We are loving everything so far. The weather is glorious (but do NOT ask me that in summer!!) , the facilities are fantastic and my husband is loving his job so far.

It has only been 10 days. I know I am still in the honeymoon period and I do desperately miss my family already but with care packages arriving, and the glorious world wide web, we have been able to still chat, face to face and that seems to be tying the emotions over so far.

The worst part? We are in short term housing. A fully furnished (and luckily very nice) house but its for anywhere up to 5 months. Five long months without all our gorgeous furniture. All the kids toys (we have a small amount here), all our linen and rugs, all of my cooking and kitchen ware and without our very comfortable bed!!
But its only for a short while, and we are making do with what we have. The kids haven't missed their toys yet, as there are so many wonderful parks around that we have been going everyday, sometimes fitting in up to 3 parks.

And we are together. We are a family and we are together. Everyday.
A short term pain for long term gain, and soon, this place will feel like home. Well that is what I keep telling myself anyway.
So, stay tuned for more moving adventures. Discovering new places, organising and decorating a new house (when its finally available ) albeit a company rental house, enjoying our new way of life.
Something new and different for everyone. Especially for us.
Its our new start. And as much as I am emotional and sad at times, I am happy, healthy and excited! x

Some pics of our moving process x

The Icecream Party - Details.....

Ohhh I'm here!! Just!!

Finally... I have some details about the cute little Ice cream Party that we held to celebrate Max and Lacey's 3rd birthdays.

As I have previously mentioned, this party was thrown together at short notice but I still had time to organise a few cute touches.

Firstly, I found a free printable pack on the wonderful world wide web, and the colour scheme was just what I was looking for. Being a unisex party, I wanted to keep the colours light but still related to the theme. Best of all? Its a free printable!! You can find more details HERE

Seeing as though pack contained some cute flags for making a bunting , I got my lovely husband to cute 2 pieces of pipe (that stood inside the holes of bricks) and strung the 2 'YUM' buntings above the table. Quick and easy but effective all the same. (And it was free as we already had the pipe)

The printable pack contains lots of tags for the toppings, cupcake toppers, signs etc, and as fate would have it, I had started to collect little bits and pieces and they all fit the colour scheme well.
The ice cream bowls (front left of photo below) are from a local discount store for $2.50 and come with little ice cream sticks. The Serviettes are from IKEA and the plates were bought for Angus' party and didn't arrive in time so I re purposed them.

The cute hanging 'Icecream cones' were made using cheap pom poms (Red Dot are now stocking a pack for $3 for 2) and some brown card stock rolled into a cone and secured with double sided tape.

The gorgeous stands on either side of the table displayed the different toppings available for ice-cream. These are actually Herb planters from Bunnings that I bought on sale for $13 (they came with 4 little wooden pots too) They are foldable, are easy to store and perfect for what I wanted.
The little aqua bowls (my favourite colour at the moment) I bought at the Reject shop a while ago and held crushed oreos, but the other toppings were- Raspberry lollies, chopped nuts, chocolate sprinkles, sprinkles and then strawberry and chocolate topping ( seen in the pics wrapped with some yellow patterned paper to conceal an ugly label)

I attempted to bake cupcakes in Ice cream cones for the first time and it was a success (thanks to all who gave advice on my facebook page).
I simply filled the cones to the top of the small base section and baked for the appropriate amount of time. Iced to look like Sundaes, there were a real hit and super cute too!!
In hindsight, the cones did go a tad soft for my liking , these would definitely be better baked fresh the day you are going to use them, but time is never on my side for Parties so they were just fine the way they were!

The cute Ice cream bowls and spoons on the bottom shelf of the Toppings stands came in a 2 pack of pink and blue, and I bought them from Red Dot also (got to love a cheap shop!). I have received a lot of queries regarding those, and to be honest , I don't think too much when organising a party. I knew last year that I wanted to do an Ice cream theme this year , so I just start to keep a look out for things I like and these were one of those purchases.

The lolly bags were simple white bags from Spotlight for just a few dollars (seen above) but I ran a strip of Washi Tape through the middle and it tizzied them up enough to look cute.


The food was kept simple, as the guest list was too. Immediate family and the twins Godmother and her children, but we had : cupcakes, Oreo Pops, Fruit kebabs, dip tray with vegetables, vanilla custard in small cups , sausage rolls, party pies and of course, ice cream sundaes!!

I LOVED throwing and decorating this party. It was simple, Super duper CHEAP and the kids had an absolute ball creating their own sundaes with toppings that were a bit special (considering our kids don't have ice cream at home ever!)

Lately I have been receiving emails asking advice on throwing childrens parties, and I am definitely NO expert, but I do have one main piece of advice that helps me no end!

Set your theme in advance, and I am talking WELL WELL in advance. 

Like I said, I knew last year that I wanted to do an Ice cream party, so as I saw things in the shops, I bought them. As I was looking on Pinterest etc, I would store that idea to my memory bank. It makes the whole organising experience easier, less stressful not to mention cheaper. When you are buying a few things every few weeks for just $3, it doesn't hurt the bank balance too much. I am not one to get on a website and make an order of a few hundred dollars. To be honest, I couldn't think of anything worse. Plus, making decorations yourself, scouting the net for free things to use, its all part of the fun!!

I am sorry this took so long to write, I have just not had the headspace for much at the moment. 

BIG changes are happening here!! I'll keep you posted x

Ice Cream Party

Last weekend we held a wee little party for Max and Lacey's 3rd Birthday!!

It was quite a rushed party really, with the time and date/day only sent with 5 days to go , but seeing as though I had already picked the theme some months back and started to collect bits and pieces, the prep wasn't too hard!!

We kept the guests to a bare minimum, my sister and her family (4 kids) and my cousin and her 3 kids and my parents (in laws were away). Having a small number of guests was fantastic, as I have held quite a few parties in the past that have got well out of hand in the guest department and it makes the party less enjoyable for everyone. As far as Max and Lacey were concerned, their were kids, lolly bags and cake. That makes for a pretty good party in a 3 year old eyes!

But obviously in my opinion, with more time, I probably could have pulled together a few things a bit better, but I happy with the way the party looked/ran with minimal effort involved.

Anyway, I thought I could share with you some pics, them them speak for themselves and then do an info post to follow tomorrow. So if you have anything in particular you would like to know about, just shoot me an email or message of Facebook or comment on this post.

So without further ado, Max and Lacey's Ice cream Party.

(Please excuse the lighting in the table pics, the party was held under our patio. Very practical but it doesn't make for the best backdrop and certainly doesn't do the camera and lens any favours. But you have to choose practicality over looks sometimes, just sometimes.

There is always one child that doesn't like tot play the game and join in on the group photo. (and a 5 year old that likes to smile with her 'fake' smile!

The kids all LOVED creating their own ice cream sundaes, choosing the sauces and toppings is a real novelty (especially for our kids who don't get ice cream very often, if ever)

Stay tuned for more info x