The Merriest Part Of Christmas...

Is licking off the beater!!!

Today it's Christmas Eve and we are having a great day! How is your day? Are you all ready for Christmas?

We have been prepping all week! The girls and I made Sugar cookies and decorated them.

Addi liked eating them :)

We made 3 batches of caramel corn (because Matt and I ate one batch one night while we watched a movie)

One of our sugar cookies got stuck on the cookie rack..."aaaaah, help!"

Here are the beauties:

Do you think Santa will like them?


Rhubarb Cream Cake:

We threw a BIG party last night and had about 25 people over to celebrate! Destiny was ready to PAR-TAY!

We set up a little drink/cutlery station:

Caramel corn as party favors:

Cheese Plate:

Fruit:

A man and his GRILL! {BFF}

Dusty was such a good dog...she "welcomed" everyone at the door and even got a few "treats" out of the deal!

Addi: notice her pony tail!

Destiny with Cheezel Glasses :)

Happy Addi

Addi put Destiny's skirt on her head

We had a blast! Sorry there are no pictures of our guests, but I forgot to ask them if I could post pictures of them on the blog...sigh...next time!

I will most likely be missing in action for the next few days as we celebrate! I hope your Christmas is lovely and spent with the people who are extra special to you!

Love to all of my friends and family in the states! We miss you all! Hugs from Australia!

Enjoy Today!

I better get crack-a-lackin'!

I saw that video on facebook and really liked it! Hope you all did too!

Good morning! We slept in {again}! It feels so good just to cuddle up next to the people you love and get a few extra winks of sleep!

Today is party planning day! We are having a big Christmas party tomorrow night! So far we have about 25 confirmed guests! yay!

This is what's on the menu:

Starters:

cheese plate with Gouda, aged smoked cheddar and sweet chili cheese with nuts, assorted crackers, strawberries, figs and dark chocolate.

chips for the kiddos!

Mains:

It's a BBQ, folks. Matt will be using his new grill to cook some bbq chicken, steaks, chicken and beef satay and my favorite: peppers, onions, Mandarin oranges, pineapple kabobs! so yum!

Sides:

Various salads, including my {no mayo} potato salad (thanks cousin lili for the recipe!!!) Veggie and Fruit trays

Dessert:

Rhubarb Cream Cake, Molasses Cookies, Cut-out sugar cookies, and various Christmas goodies that other people are bringing!

Take-Home Favor:

Caramel Corn!

Drinks:

Sun Tea, Hot tea, Water, Wine or Beer

Sounds good huh? Well, if you find yourself in the area, please pop in!

I better get Crack-a-lackin' if I'm going to accomplish all of this today!

Enjoy today!

Who has the spirit?

Hey Every one!

Are you all in the Christmas Spirit? Are the stockings hung? Can you smell Christmas in the air? Have you been dreaming of a white Christmas? I know I have!!!

This year I have had so much fun sharing my favorite songs and Christmas shows with my sweet girls. The have enjoyed them too. Some of our favorites are: Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer and Frosty the Snowman. Each night before bed, we watch a little bit of a classic Christmas movie. Last night was Charlie Brown. {what a cute little Christmas tree!}

To be honest with you...it has been really difficult for me to get in the "spirit" this year. I'm feeling a bit like:

This guy {bahumbug}...or maybe more like:

This guy! {with a heart full of unwashed socks and a soul full of gunk!}

All joking aside...it's difficult to celebrate with out all of the people I usually celebrate with. I so dearly miss my North Dakota family...baking the goodies by mom's side, gathering at the Christmas Eve church service, feasting on "the usual, but delicious" food, playing games and lounging around with the family after we have eaten.

I miss my fun Washington family...all the lovely little ones running around, the incredible feast, and so much laughter surrounding the table.

Matt has asked me over and over what I plan to make for Christmas dinner and I keep thinking to myself..."nothing"...can we just not eat? Can we just forget about it? Maybe we could just sleep through the whole day! Having our "first" Christmas away from the family makes me realize how FAR away we really are.

Those are just my inner most feelings. On the outside, I plan to celebrate in a royal way. The house is over flowing with decorations, the Christmas tree is OVERLY decorated and the gifts are piled as high as the tree, I baked my first batch of cookies this morning and I have a few more batches to prepare in time for the Christmas party we are hosting on Thursday. And the very best part is....IT'S SUMMER! (though in a small way, I miss the snow!)

I hope this holiday season find you happy, healthy and celebrating with the ones you love the most!

Enjoy today!

**the pictures in this blog are not mine, I found them all on google images.

Magical Botanical

Good morning, blog world!

How was your weekend? or maybe How is it wrapping up? Our weekend was a magical one. For the most part we were wonderfully lazy. Sweaters were worn, along with sweat pants. Tea was consumed more frequently that usual and we watched countless movies. I even beat a game on the Internet and I'm SO not a gamer! haha!

We did take some time out on Sunday morning to enjoy a trip to the Botanical Garden here in Canberra. It was fantastic! We signed up for a program for people who are new to Canberra. They give you tickets to attend different events. We were able to attend a "walk through the gardens". The event started with a brief introduction of the guides and then we went off with one other couple and their son. They were from the UK. Our guide's name was Rose; I thought that was appropriate for a garden tour. :)

This is where it all started. It was such a beautiful morning too!

The girls were ready for the tour.

Destiny by one of the water falls.

Addi and Matt strolling along.

After our walk through the gardens, they had morning tea. It was so yummy! There is a restaurant on the premises and they served mini muffins, pastries, cookies, and my favorite....SHORT BREAD! It was so lovely!

We met some really nice people and we are really looking forward to our next event!

After our tour, we drove up to the Telstra tower. Addi fell asleep on the drive so we took turns jumping out of the car and having a look. You can see this tower from ALL over Canberra. It's so unique and special looking. Some one told us there is a restaurant in there, but if any of you know for sure...pass on the correct info to us! It reminds me a bit of the space needle in Seattle!

Here is the lovely city in which we now reside! beautiful isn't it! I bet it makes you want to come visit *wink wink*

On Saturday we checked out the farmer's market near our house. It was AMAZING! They had EVERYTHING a girl could dream of! Above are our goodies: eggs, rhubarb, blueberries, broccoli, corn on the cob, some fancy Greek desert (none of us liked it...boo!), flowers, chocolate chip muffins and a rum ball (yuck...Matt liked it!)

A close up of the muffin (of my dreams)! It was SO good!

Yes, I play with my food...I made it look like a face :) blueberries, carrot and meat pie! yum!

At the garden I learned a new Aussie phrase so here is our Aussie word o' the day: Hard Yakka = Hard work (defined for the very tough Yakka wood that they would work with)

Hope you guys don't have any hard yakka going on today! Here I am hard at it, like always :)

Enjoy today!

Not the full quid

Happy Friday to all of you in the States :)

It's Saturday here and so far we are just sleeping in. I'm hoping to hit up the farmers market in a bit and maybe do a 5K run around Lake Burley Griffin! It's kind of fun to have NO plans set in stone. Tomorrow we are lucky enough to get a guided tour of the Botanic Gardens and have a picnic lunch with a group of other people who are "new the Canberra". Should be awesome!

Yesterday was a great day! The girls and I made a gingerbread house! It's a sticky, gooey mess, but we had so much fun!

The house before we decorated it...Addi is already interested in the lollies.

Addi ate and Destiny decorated...

So pretty! ** notice: we are doing this in our back yard! How awesome is it to make a gingerbread house on a sunshiny day in your back yard!

The finished house! It's no masterpiece, but we love it! It was fun to use up the candy the girls had left from Halloween and to buy candy unique to Australia for some of it!

Bread success! 100% whole wheat bread that isn't rock hard and does not taste like yeast! hooray! It's a keeper!

On another adventure at the park we found ourselves being bossed around by the momma black swan. We just came to say "hi", but she didn't want us any where near her baby!

So cute!

I found an article about our old hometown, Bremerton, WA. I thought it was interesting, maybe you will too!

Visit this website to enjoy the article:

http://pugetsoundblogs.com/roadwarrior/2010/12/16/behind-the-17-hour-closure-of-wheaton-way/

Aussie word o' the day (we'll knock the "q"s out of the way today!) Quid, make a = earn a living i.e. Are you making a quid?

Quid, not the full = low IQ.

{historical note: 'quid' is slang for a pound. 1 pound became $2 when Australia converted to decimal currency.}

Hope you have a happy start to your weekend!

Enjoy today!

Hark the Herald!

Angels sing!! That's what it sounded like at Commonwealth park the other night when we attended a Caroling event. We had so much fun listening to the youth choir and live band! It was a pretty informal event that was held outside at a beautiful park. We packed a picnic and blanket and sat on the grass listening to Christmas Carols. The collected money to be donated to "bosom buddies" an organization for Breast Cancer!

It doesn't seem like Christmas though. Who would have thought we would be sitting in our tank tops and listening to the choir sing, "jingle bells"!!?!

Addi, so happy to be with daddy and to have a lollie!

here's a video of the girls dancing!

This was the PERFECT event for Destiny. She could run around and dance and have fun! She loved every second of it!

The sunset wasn't too shabby either!

Another picture of the choir. We sat way in the back so the girls could run around and enjoy it!

Nothing says Christmas like carolling by candlelight!

Addi and me on our walk back to the car.

Destiny (and her curly fro) hanging on for dear life as we walked over a bridge!

Another Wednesday = another box of fruits and veggies...this week's special:

Beets the size of my brain :) YUM!

I guess this can be our Aussie word o' the day: beet root = beets

Here they call beets; beet roots and they serve them sliced on hamburgers!

Well, I have a gingerbread house in the works, bread dough rising, peanut butter made and laundry almost ready to hang on the line and Christmas gifts to wrap!...to say "I'm busy" is an understatement :)

Addi got her first piece of mail yesterday! A letter from Auntie Lili in Washington! She was thrilled to tear up the envelope! She loved the special attention!

I'm off! Hope you all have a fabulous day!

Enjoy today!