my Jesus is in the house!

It's true that my faith and my Jesus are very important to me. The other day as I was browsing Etsy I came across some lovely inspirational christian quotes, which I think would be lovely to hang in any room (we have the Zephaniah Print in our lounge room). + they were so sweet I thought I just had to share in case you wanted to hang them in your room too  :) 

1.How Great Thou Art print by Printable Wisdom

2. We have this hope print by Printable Wisdom

3. Faith is by Printable Wisdom 

4. Coffee and Jesus print by Recipe for Crazy

5. Let go and Let God print by Printable Wisdom

6. Psalm 39:7 print by Printable Wisdom

7. Zephaniah 3:17 by Brim Papery

8. Calligraphy Hymn Canvas by Lettered Life Shop

roll out those lazy hazy crazy days of summer

One of our goals this summer is to enjoy all that this season has to offer - eating that fresh cold summer fruit, jumping in the pool, running around barefoot, sipping cool drinks with fancy straws and spending some lazy hazy days at the beach. Because sometimes, we just get so busy with life and sometimes, well sometimes we just forget! We are so very lucky to live close to some of the very best beaches here on the Coast and I really feel like we should take advantage of that more often. Saturday was just one of those perfect lazy hazy blissful days of summer. Cue this song and sweet memories of my grandpa playing the Nat King Cole version many times through my childhood :) It started off with a slight sleep in (mmmm) and brunch at a seaside cafe with Morgan's sister Paige (all I can say is chilli jam -wow!) and then lots of girl time shop browsing (we didn't buy anything) of some really cute and creative stores at our seaside town of Terrigal. Then home to float around in the pool and enjoy a fresh lunch outside with my in laws. That afternoon we decided to head down to Towoon Bay with snacks in hand to spend a lazy afternoon swimming eating and spending time with friends. It was perfect. Paige and I made Katie's apple, ginger and cranberry cocktail to take down with us and I also made a prawn salsa. Our friends Luke and Katty bought some super yummy imported cheese. It was simply blissful. What are some of your most favourite summer-to-dos?

Anthropology Inspired backyard games night

One of the things M and I had wanted to do last Summer was to host an outdoor dinner and board games night in the backyard, under some twinkly lights, with some of our couple friends. We had set fairy lights up in the backyard for Paige's 21st and left them up for a week hoping to do so, but that week it just rained and it was cold (in Dec!?) so we ended up just taking lights down and never got around to hosting that gathering -sad face! So we were pretty excited to host one this summer, and it was so much fun it might just have to become a yearly event! The night before our little party was also my dear friend Katty's birthday, so although it wasn't exactly labelled a 'birthday party', we did surprise her with a birthday cake, a little present on her chair, some happy birthday wishes and I made some fun feather crowns for all the girls to wear too, which were just the right amount of crazy :)

I wanted the gathering to be a little fancy (you should know by now that I never do things by halves!) but also super easy and non stressful to put together. And somehow I think we managed to accomplish both!?!? For the decorations I just used everything I already had on hand in gold and burnt orange/amber colours. The plates, cutlery and silverware were from Paige's twenty first, and the feathers and lace were actually leftover craft supplies from our wedding! The table was made by my dad and the chairs were from our dining room setting and also the chairs we used for our bridal signing table (which I found on the side of the road). The only things I bought were the white napkins (on sale from my work), some gold sequin trim to make our bohemian inspired headdresses and some fresh flowers, which kept cost down too - yay! I was inspired by this party and wanted to go with a bohemian/feather/fancy mismatched china/anthropologie look. The only crafting I did was to attach some of the feathers to the polka dot straws and napkins with a bit of glue and lace.

I tried to keep the food both fancy looking but easy too. Which was easy because I am currently 'looking after' one of mum's thermomixes (she's a consultant). It got a pretty decent workout for this party! We served cheese, bikkies, carrot + celery sticks and a yummy home made cashew and capsicum dip, This cous cous salad and this tomato, bean and feta cheese salad and chicken + halloumi and beef kebabs. I also made two pizza breads and tzatziki in the thermo too. The drink in the dispenser is actually a bottle of Lipton Peach Iced Tea with a few orange slices thrown in (you should try this, its so easy and yum!) and some friends bought along some other drinks too. For dessert I made a red velvet cake (from a packet to keep it easy, and if I'm honest cause I kinda suck at baking (hello bouncy banana cupcakes of 2012!) and some raspberry fruity dream with tea and coffee.

After dinner and dessert things got a little crazy as Bryan had bought along some sparklers and we all started taking silly photos and dancing around the yard to the music, sparklers in hand. It was one of those really great moments that you don't plan but they just happen and they are so fun! The boys captured some fun shots on our camera. We made some pretty pictures, although I'll spare you the ones the boys had way too much fun making (think toilet humour and fart bubbles) oh dear! Because well this is my blog after all and it's for pretty things only ;) After we calmed down (a bit) the board games came out and I am a little bashful to say that my competitive side may have come out in a big way (oh no!) It was so much fun to end the night with silly games, lots of laughs and just general sillyness. And I'm pretty sure it's safe to say all had a good time as we were still sitting out in the yard playing Articulate till 1:30AM!!  I'm so thankful for sweet friends who we are lucky enough to spend lovely times like this with. What a beautiful blessing friendship is!

^'Jesus' 

^Someone just really enjoyed writing his name! ;)

2014 - a year of festive garlands!

This is an idea that I've been wanting to do since the year we got married, but have never gotten around to starting. Instead of watching another year just fly by, I want to pause a little longer to enjoy each month of the year and celebrate what it brings with it - birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, the changing of seasons ... And what is more festive and celebratory than a festive garland to hang up all month long? Plus garlands are just so dang fun to make! So here you have a year of monthly banners and garlands that I will be creating and posting up a picture of each month (along with what we are celebrating/looking forward to that month). And I'd love for you to join along too if you would like. There is no theme for each month, just feel free to create whatever is inspiring to you or what you are celebrating that month and be sure to leave a comment here so I can link to you and we can all see what you are celebrating too! This month I kinda cheated and made two banners ... but they hang together so nicely :) I really wanted this months banner to say 'Happy New Year' and I had been wanting to try my hand at making tissue paper tassel garlands for awhile now so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and just make both. And tassel garlands - they are so fun to make! I can see myself getting addicted to making these little fellas! You can find lots of different tutorials on Pinterest and I found the gold/silver paper to be the easiest to make them from as the paper dosen't tear. I can see myself making many more of these garlands and I love that they easily thread onto the ribbon so I can take them off and add in different colours depending on the event. The New years banner is made from black and gold glitter card stock threaded onto black ribbon :)  

January 2014 - 'Happy New Year'
This month is pretty obvious huh, a brand new year is upon us, and the slate is all fresh and clean and shiny. 2013 was a great year for us, but it's always exciting to think of what a new year will bring. We're really praying 2014 will bring a new job for Morgan and a start to his career (he finishes his study in 6 months!!)

So here we are in January 2014. This month we are...
Celebrating: a brand sparkly new year
listening to:  Bethel Pandora playlist. non stop.
nibbling on: Ice cold berry smoothies for breakfast (in our new pink and blue mason jar cups)
M's looking forward to: Celebrating Australia Day!
K's looking forward to: Cleaning, purging and organizing the house for the new year.

Christmas twenty thirteen

We truly hope your Christmas was a merry and bright one! Before we move too quickly into the New Year, I really want to recap our Christmas as it was a really sweet one this year. We woke up at home under our twinkling Christmas Tree after our annual 'A's yearly Christmas Tree Camp Out' (something we have done every year since we got married). After our own Christmas present opening (did I mention I got the most amazing gumball knitted ottoman and a croquet set!!) and present opening with M's family we headed down to my Uncle's house in Sydney to spend the majority of the day with my mums family. It was super fun cause my cousin was out from Dubai with her kids (6, 2 and 3 months) and her sisters little one (6 months) celebrated his first Christmas too. And nothing makes Christmas more fun than excited kids and their massive piles of presents!!!

My cousin Rachel is a bit of a foodie and picked our menu for the day - complete with an email of what you were making and a link to the recipe, which was so perfect to not have to think of another thing to do and know that everything would be covered. Even more perfect might have been that I was so busy setting up the Christmas tablescape that my mum and sweet husband made my salad for me! :) My cousin's husband James (our resident family bar tender) started off the festivities with a delicious Pimms cocktails served in mason jars, with red and white paper straws of course! And I was in charge of the decorating after my cousin and Aunt came up with the theme of red and white Nordic Christmas. I seriously love the way my mums side of the family get into the whole decorating aspect of Christmas day! I had to laugh though that the decorators job never stops as we were pulled over on the side of the road on Christmas morning, in the pittering rain, with a pair of secketeers cutting pine branches off one of the pine trees on the council median strip! We had planned a lovely Christmas setup in my Uncle and Aunts new leafy backyard but were rained out and ended up having to set up on their deck - a little squishy, but it worked out all the same. Here's a snapshot of our Christmas 2013 .... Warning - this is a picture heavy post!!!

^^My Aunt reached new levels of perfection with this Pavlova Christmas tree dessert!!!!

Oh Christmas I love you! I think you should come every year!!!