tapping into my long dormant creative side.

Oh my what an awesome thing the internet is.. The possibilities are endless and I find myself saying to everything 'just google it!!". haha..
At present I have fallen upon some oh so awesome craft and frugal blogs and websites. LOVING IT!!! There is so many great ideas out there and i am so thankful for those that share them to help others on the journey of living better and smarter.
As a child I was very creative even though my textiles teacher didnt agree. I just wanted to see the finished product too fast which caused me to have to unpick every sewing item multiple times. I really enjoyed sewing as a child and I didn't let that lovely old lady to deter me: I knew that I was creative and that I enjoyed it.
I was top of my class in 2 and 3 unit art at school and loved (still do) photography. I would call myself an amateur photographer but I think I have a natural talent (even if noone else does).
The point I am trying to make is that even if noone else thinks you are the BEST at something doesn't mean that it isn't for you and if you enjoy doing something then DO IT!
I have just completed a HANDBAG of all things and I think it looks awesome (and it hasn't fallen to pieces yet so that's a plus). I even got some compliments about it. The next projects over the christmas break are a skirt, a dress, some shorts for our boys and some baby items for all these babies that my family and friends are having. I can't wait cause I know that in it all I will enjoy it and find some peace.
Another reason why  my creative side has been dormant is due to having 4 babies in quick succession! It was beyond even thought to even think about doing anything during those early days for me. I was swamped in living and non sleep patterns. haha... Oh and let's not mention the children's assistance in the creative side of things by pressing the foot like a racing car pedal or painting only to get paint everywhere BAR the canvas or paper, or scrapbooking pieces ALL OVER the house! Those were the days! I miss those days but am also excited that now the boys are bigger  I can enjoy doing these things and the boys can watch in awe as I zoom along on my machine and make masterpieces at every turn.
So be encouraged! If you used to enjoy something when you were younger there is no time like the present to pick it up again in some shape or form and start enjoying being creative again!
Loving it!

A NEW DAY~! DAYBOOK!

Well I am thankful for new days.... Every day is a new day. PHEW!!!
I am thankful for all things NEW.....
OUTSIDE MY WINDOW: Well outside my window these days I am able to watch our boys play freely and be boys. How I enjoy watching our boys grow and change and develop into their own little characters.. It makes me remember what a HUGE responsibility it is to be privledged with children. Each day I am thankful for watching our boys out in the yard, because there was a time when we thought we would never see any children in our backyard. Thank the Lord for healing because without Him I wouldn't be a mummy (my dream job since I was 5). So today again I watch in amazement our boys whom we are blessed to have in our lives play in the backyard!!
I AM THANKFUL FOR: I always have to think about this one as I usually start the thankful part in the one above; always jumping the gun... haha... Well what could I not be thankful for should be the name of this one.. OK OK I will answer the question.... I am thankful for YUMMMMMYYYY fruit and the blender that blends them for my yummy breakfast smoothie each day this week. I am feeling so much more energy and feeling better in my body. So yeah... Thankyou to all the wonderful ladies in our facebook group (healthy ways for life) that inspire me and encourage me to keep going on this healthy journey. You are an inspiration!!
I AM THINKING ABOUT: Christmas for some weird reason. I know it is close enough to think about it, but I think I am mainly thinking about it cause I love spending time with my extended family and am hoping I can do so with at least a few of them at christmas. Christmas isn't christmas without FAMILY! It's about LOVE and without family where is the LOVE... Hmmm....
LEARNING ALL THE TIME: learning new things about God every day and all that is possible in His loving presence.. LEARNING TO LOVE is hard but fun. Also learning about patience. That's a long slow journey that one. I love a quote that says "patience isn't about how you long you wait, but about your attitude while you wait!" Love it.
FROM THE KITCHEN: There is the sound of NO DINNER COOKING.. haha.. Yep it's 6:17pm and I haven't made dinner. I am thinking I may be on strike. I really can't be bothered tonight. I think I may call a come as ya are, eat what ya find night! Sounds fun.
I AM CREATING: lots of cd's. I am catching up on my itunes library that I have not sorted out since before we left the house in Adelaide 4 months ago. Yep it's overdue.
I AM WORKING ON: having some ME time tonight. Wish me luck!
I AM GOING: somewhere fun next week hopefully still!!
I AM HOPING: that I get to still go to that fun place next week still... (Andy's job pending.)
I AM READING: as usual a million books on the hop! The makers diet by jordan rubin, smith wigglesworth, the bible, saint augustine, beautiful one, the school of seers, sid roth.... told ya too many...
I AM PRAYING FOR: brave Jeremiah's healing, brave William's healing, Sue, Noah and lots of things....
I AM HEARING: Andy scrounging through the enormous pile of lego that he is diligently working from to recreate all the boys lego things. Gee he loves those kids, cause that is a labour of LOVE!

AROUND THE HOUSE:   There is peace and quiet. Boys watching a movie and Andy doing lego! BLISS!

ONE OF MY FAVOURITE THINGS: The storms we are getting lately. Have so missed the east side storms that I grew up with. Very fun to see them roll in, in all their glory; thunder clapping and lightning shining! Oh and the sound of the frogs croaking in the gutters at night. I could get used to this.

A FEW PLANS FOR THE REST OF THE WEEK: enjoying my little families company, going to Glory Love (can't forget this week), and going to Isaac's 5th bday party with the Genges (loving being closer to you guys).

FAVOURITE PICTURE FOR THE WEEK: 

This week my cousin found our extended family after 30 years of us all looking for each
other. It was quite an exciting day! This is the photo he sent me of him and I as
kids. What a blast from the past. I didn't even recognise myself. Welcome home
Yusuf. We are so happy to have you and your family as part of the Hoare
family again. xxxxx

learning to eat better...

well this week I am trying to adjust our eating habits and teach my kids that being healthy is good.. We aren't a huge junk food regularly family. We do the lolly at the shops most times we go but we don't have them in the cupboards and we don't have fizzy as a norm. we even cut out cordial which was fun but now the boys are used to and happy to drink water and the littlest LOVES milk. I got onto a book that was called  additive alert www.additivealert.com.au and it was very interesting to see how much junk goes into our processed foods these days. After initially reading the book i felt like each day I was poisoning my kids with each mouthful but as i adjusted our eating habits, I noticed a huge change in behaviour, concentration (remember we are homeschoolers) and allergies. Our eldest son for two years running in springtime has had a big case of urticaria (hives). The first year to the point that they thought that he was having an anaphylactic reaction. It was very scary to say the least. This lead to him being put on phenergan, and other associated medicines and even ventolins and spacers ( our family does NOT have a family history of asthma). I wasn't happy to keep travelling down that road (especially since it had come out of nowhere), so I started looking at alternatives and adjusted our eating habits. We have not had urticaria this year and we plan to not have it again! We also have a son that has had a constant bumpy pimply rash on his tummy for a very long time. It isn't itchy but I have always wondered about it's origin. We have changed our shampoo for the boys to organic care ( which is quite cheap and has NO petro chemicals in them etc) and have changed our soap to goats milk soap. It seems to be lessening it and we will hopefully see an improvement over time.
So what next.... After changing some of our eating habits to lessen the amount of chemicals we were putting into our bodies (there is no wonder there is so much sickness and diesease out there these days) we have started on a journey of limiting our sugar intake and cooking more homecooked stuff. I was always big on home cooked and once you alot cooking  into your life and choose that it is helping your family you find that it adds in easily. I cook lots in bulk and freeze which helps on the timewise situation. I am wondering if anyone knows of any good alternatives to sugar to add into the cooking of cakes, etc instead of using sugar?? email me or comment if you do.
I am in the process of buying a juicer so that the kids can help get healthy and we can have yummy HEALTHY things to have instead of junk all the time.. Cannot wait! I am also going on a unsugar kick that consists of me lessening my sugar intake. I am guilty of having 2 sugars (raw sugar as it is better for you than white) in each cup of tea and because I am a busy homeschooling mum (and out of being lazy at times) I survive on many cups of tea each day. This I am going to rectify too!!! Wish me luck (scared much...).
There are plenty of websites out there and facebook has awesome fan pages you can like. We love the healthy families for God page on facebook, stay at home mum page is good too and the heal thyself one on facebook is good for info too (these are all facebook pages) .
So as we journey along this road I shall try to keep you up to date with all the info I find and hopefully you will send me info that you have that would be helpful. Here's to a healthier family!!! CHEERS!!

Settled at home......

We are finally settled at our new home in Brisbane. We have been flat out sorting through stuff and after not seeing anything for 3 months it was rather weird to see it all again, and especially after living minimally for those three months to see so much STUFF! We got a lovely house and have all settled back into our cushy, non camper beds very quickly. We are enjoying finally feeling at home once again and look forward to the new adventure ahead.
Today I am in denial though as our youngest little man is turning 3 tomorrow. I am googling digger cakes, as he is digger obsessed. I am trying to enjoy it but the thought of my baby turning the big THREE is something I am not very excited about. You see the older they get, the closer it is to them wanting to leave home and be big boys who leave and get married and have their own babies.  I am excited about the prospect of eventually  having 4 daughters in law and LOTS of grandkids but I am an eternal mama and would have had millions of kids if I had my way but it wasn't to be. I guess you could say I approach it with mixed feelings as it means that my baby is growing up which in turn means that they are all growing up and want to keep them little for as long as possible cause they don't stay long for very long... My eldest when he was smaller always told me that  "I will NEVER grow up mummy, I wanna stay a kid forever." I always tell him he is naughty cause he didn't keep his promise (joking...). The other day after months of forcing Callum (nearly aged 3 son) to kiss me and say I love you mummy ( I literally had to pretend to cry to get him to kiss me...) he came up to me and said "mummy kiss, i love you mummy!" non prompted and right then I knew that my baby had finally moved on up into the not so little baby boy stage!!
 So i guess you will have to excuse me for the boohoooing and the reminising but hey we all have to appreciate what we have some days..... (or all days....).  So here is my appreciation of my babies that are growing too quickly before my eyes.............I am soooo privledged to be you mummy and I love this life we live! You have taught me so much already and for that alone I am so thankful. Hamie boo, Ducky, Sammo and CalCal I  love you! XXXX . BOOHOO!!! xxxxx

Oh how they are growing into great Men very quickly...

our cute little Jacky boy

Our sensitive little Hamish

our precious little Callum

our family is complete........

Cally loves his daddy.

our adorable little Sammy J

cute as a baby button Callum a few weeks old...

our Cally growing up and exploring

our baby Jack Pat

the cutest Hamish reindeer ever.

our laughing boy Callum

three little peas in a pod awaiting their last brother to join them for fun!

what a good looking Callum christmas tree.

our beautiful Hamish: my first days as a mummy, I just stared at him in wonder.

the curious Sammy

Callum: you grew too fast.

adorable Sammy

Cally was such a cute baby man

our beautiful Sammy baby!

All things Hay and beyond!!!!

Good morning... We are doing the catch up on Hay NSW today.. In all honesty we have been to Hay about 12 times including the last visit now and have stayed in the Hay top tourist park caravan park the same amount of times bar one. I say bar one because one timeat the start of our travels 4 years ago we thought we would try the big 4 there and after that decided that the top tourist park one was better overall. They are lovely hosts there and we are on first name basis with them and we recommend their caravan park to all we meet, so I thought we needed to do a shout out to them...... HI!!!!
Anyways...... We have stayed in Hay 12 times now, mainly because it is the main route from Adelaide to central west NSW (home) and each year we ventured it at least once, so we are used to HAY!! We, however, had never stayed long eough to play tourist in Hay, so on the way across the other week we decided to do just that.....
It sounds boring but it was very relaxing and Hay has alot of interesting things to do and see... Hay is the port of call for the only POW camp in NSW in the war times. Hay was apparently an  ideal location as it was flat and far away from all other places. To think that we had a POW camp in NSW was amazing and scary. The worst part was that the POW's weren't there because they were bad but because they were outcasts and people in the war era were afraid of different. That to me is horrific!! We went to the POW train that brought them to Hay which has heaps of info about them and also went to the Hay Gaol that was a great jail full to the brim of history and museum artifacts. Our Sam especially loved the fact you were IN a jail and that the walls were all bricked around you and they had watchtowers in each corner....
To see the three sets of barbed wire fences in a photo of the POW camp was very frightening and it gave you a real sense that they were there for good. They even made their own money to barter with. They had a special name "the Dunera Boys" as it was the boat The Dunera that brought them to Sydney ( while being told they were going elsewhere....) and then they were shipped by train overnight to Hay, at the end they were eventually shipped by train after years to Victoria to the POW camp there.
One man had a claim to fame there of breaking out of the gaol from the pow camp. Only man ever to be able to do it and itt was proven years later that it was possible.
Hay has so much heritage, it is a great place to take the kids to visit. There is also Shear Outback, which is a shearer's hall of fame and all things shearing explored. We are aiming to go there on the way back through again!!!
Both the Hay Gaol and the Hay Intermitent Camp  were a very small price to pay to enter and we all enjoyed them immensely and suggest you visit them if you are near Hay.

They had their own legal tender... That's amazing!

very cool..

imagine being locked in there, just cause you are Asian or Italian or German..........

Hay Railway Station done up.

Their stamp.

The Gaol with the watchtower

From Hay we journeyed on to Adelaide where Andy had gotten some work for a few weeks. We are back at the Christies Beach Caravan park. Feels a bit weird to be back here again but nice too.... The day after we got here was my birthday and we weren't ready for a bday.... haha..... Andy and the boys did well at short notice and got me a card, a present, flowers  and a cake! Good job! Since being back we have frequented HARVEST CAFE at Morphett Vale, caught up with lovely "old" friends, seen whales swimming by in the ocean, Sam learnt to ride with no trainer wheels, been to Savers ( of course....) and done some school work ( of course: again....)... We love seeing Adelaide again, but this time as a tourist. The old windy City even turned on the wind and storms for us.. Just like old times!!! GRRRRR! We shall be in Adelaide for a week and a bit more and then we shall trek back across the Hay Plains to NSW and then UPPPPPP UPPPP UPPPPP to sunny QLD where she will welcome us home with open arms!! We may have one or two more on the road posts in us probably and then I might even continue it when we are settled (since you all love my ramblings so much....). Till we chat again. See you somewhere out in the Son..... xxxxxxx

As soon as we get into SA the weather goes bleak! Typical.

Hamish was in charge of photography!

happy birthday camper style....

They love multi player DS...

Sam learnt to ride with no trainer wheels...

Me and my Ducky!

The Explorers, looking more like harpooners...

Goofing off.....

best of friends...

mud play at the caravan park (shhh).

what a good bowl for mud!

Cally and dirt = FUN!

loving the legs....

mummy whale pops her head out of the water to see if it's safe..

water show...

The silly whale watchers in boats boxed the poor things in.

Hiiiii How do I get out of here??

how close can ya get...

safe and free again..