F is for

Football, and not just any football but Rugby League Football.

My oldest son has just started highschool this year and will be 13 in April. He is a sports nut, he will even watch lawn bowls on tv if there is no other sport on. My boys are very active and play a variety of sports including - Rugby League, Touch Football, Taekwondo, Nippers (surf lifesaving) and little athletics it keeps me very busy.

My oldest son is very talented (as you may be able to see by all of his trophies), his favorite sport though is his Rugby League and he has always had the dream of one day playing for the Brisbane Broncos. Hopefully this dream will come true for him, he certainly has the talent and the heart for it, and this year he has been selected in the Rugby League Excellence program at school. Anyway so when it came time to decorate his bedroom there was only one subject "Brisbane Broncos".


Cheers,

Mackie has been tagged

Deb and beautiful Ben @ http://posted-from-home.blogspot.com/ has tagged Mackie with a 5 meme.

Mackie although very much part of our family is an outside only dog, he is a border collie x sheppard, he is 10years old but still acts like a puppy. He always surprises the vet with how fit he is for his age and we don't even have to walk him (we live on an acre which he is always running around.) Unfortunately he can only see out of one eye, he lost the other in a fight with a ride on mower, (another bad habit). So here are his answers -

5 Favourite Songs

1. Food glorious food - "Oliver"


2. Animal Crackers - Shirley Temple


3. Eat It - Weird Al Yankovic


4. Hot Potato, Hot Potato - The Wiggles


5. Scenes from an Italian restaurant - Billy Joel

5 Favourite Toys

1. Any old plastic pots or soft drink bottles.
   
2. Treat ball, a round ball with holes that he pushes around the yard and food falls out.


3. Any birds in the garden.
   
4. Any grasshoppers.
   
5. Anything left around the yard by mistake.

5 Things you love to eat

1. Meat
2. Bread
3. Fruit - anything Phil from next door throws over the fence for him.
4. Vegies
5. Dairy and anything else not included in the above.

5 Favourite Activities

1. Sun baking, even on the hottest days.
   
2. Umpiring cricket.


3. Chasing birds, it's his yard not theirs.


4. Hanging out with the family.


5. Rounding up anyone or anything, especially first thing in the morning.

5 Bad Habits

1. Drooling while waiting for food.


2. Hidding from loud noises, the only time he is allowed inside, he hides in the bottom of the pantry.


3. Wanting to sit on everyones lap, he can't sit next to you has to sit on top of you!


4. Looking sadly at everyone through the screen door while they are eating.
   
5. Forgetting that when people hand you food there is a hand attached.

Thanks Deb that was fun, now for the hard part. I have only been blogging for a little while and have still yet to get to know people better, the only people that I know of that have pets are

Deb @ http://chantillycottage.blogspot.com/ with handsome Harry

Jessica @ http://davidjessicamccash.blogspot.com/ and her little cutie Bichon.

Gail @ http://gailmccormack.blogspot.com/ and her helper Guss.

Cheers Linda

Even more A to Z

E is for Elvis Presley. My husband has aways been a really big Elvis fan, so when we got together the fascination spread to me. Not only did I like the music but do you know how much Elvis memorabilia there is! Luckily when the kids and the house came along I no longer had the time or money to spend on the memorabilia so there is only one cupboard full and a couple of pieces here and there. When the kids were little we had lots of Elvis prints on the walls ( they have now slowly been replaced by photos of the kids), the boys use to point at them and say "Daddy!" and I use to say "I wish" (well Paul did have Elvis sideburns and his hair is the same colour). The picture above is of our front entrance way this is the first thing you see when you walk into our house, is it any wonder people call it the Elvis house?

In this cupboard there are plates, coins, stamps, a beerstyne that we picked up on our honeymoon, a watch, numberplate, belt buckles etc, I think you get the idea.

The above is the gold record that I bought for Paul for his 21st birthday, he was so surprised he had no idea what it was.

Next I would like to thank all the lovely ladies who have been leaving lovely comments on my blog. I still get really excited everytime I see a new one (I know I'm sad and need to get a life, but I am having soo much fun).

Thank you also to Deb http://chantillycottage.blogspot.com/ for the help with the link to the signature although I got a bit lost at step 3 copy the code so I'm not to sure if it will work, and hopefully the above link works too, something else I have just learnt.

Also thank you to Gail http://gailmccormack.blogspot.com/ for all of your kind words.

Oh and Happy Australia Day, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, oi, oi, oi.

Cheers

Linda

Bummer it didn't work I will have to keep trying, at least I got the links right!

D is for -

Dolls house. One of the things I am trying so hard to change about myself is trying to finish what I have started. I'm sure that many of you can relate from what I have been reading about everyone in blogland. I have a really bad habit of never finishing a project when it gets to hard or too boring (a wall that I built 4 years ago is still not properly finished, more on this later).

The dolls house is a project I had started before Christmas but it got a bit hectic around here on the lead up to Christmas, so once the boys go back to school I can finish it yeah. It probably would of been a lot easier to paint the pieces before a put the house together, but being as impatient as I am I now have to paint in all the tiny hard to reach areas, great! When it is finished I will have to post another photo.

My middle son had a friend stay over the other night and when we went and did some shopping the boys bought me two bunches of roses the friend bought the orange and my son bought me this pink bunch, how lucky am I.

Cheers Linda

(p.s. can anyone tell me how to do a signature at the bottom of the post, I have seen it on some posts and it looks great).

More A to Z

C is for chandeliers. I love glitter, beads, flowers, anything shiny and all things girly. A couple of years ago I decided to change the style of our home from traditional country (burgundy and dark green) to more a french country/shabby chic. So the second thing I had to change (first was a lot of paint) were the light fittings, the problem was trying to find what I wanted in the stores, (we sometimes seem to be a couple of years behind all the new trends up here). There were lovely adverts for shops down in Sydney and Melbourne that had exactly what I wanted but not to many places up in our neck of the woods. So when I happened to finally find what I was looking for in Beacon Lighting I nearly jumped for joy. I know that they are not vintage and there are probably millions of the same lights throughout the country but I love them and the price was great too.
The above light was originally for the kitchen but after the electrician installed it I realized that I had a problem. My husband is 6ft tall and I have only standard height ceilings, see my problem. So I had three chooses -

1. To find a chandelier that didn't hang down so far (I had a hard enough time finding them in the first place).
2. To have the roof of the house lifted, but that would of been way to expensive.
3. To find a shorter husband (hey well it wasn't a problem for me or the kids even the electrician could fit under the light)

So after much debate I decided to find a shorter husband (only joking they are too hard to train) I managed to find the below light which doesn't hang down as far. Although my husband is forever hitting the chandeliers whenever he takes his shirt off, I don't know why he is forever taking his shirt off under them.

Matching family room light below.

The light in the formal lounge room.

My personal favourite chandelier is not up at the moment, it was in the formal dinning room which we are currently renovating.

Enjoy

Cheers Linda

The A to Z of my home

B is for Bone China. I have a house full of boys even the dog is a male. I would love to decorate the whole house in shabby chic style but it would not reflect the family who lives here. So I have had to incorporate a few different styles together to make it work. That is fine though because I can't make up my mind which I really like the best Shabby chic, Vintage, French Country or Cottage. My china cabinet though is definately shabby chic.

I put these flower lights that I bought off EBay up for christmas but I couldn't bare to take them down they are so pretty I think I will keep them up all year round.
A lot of the pieces that I have were given to me by my mother in law when she moved out of her house and into a unit. The above set was my husbands grandmothers I love the colour.

I found these plates in a secound hand store in Woodford, a quaint little country town not too far from here. The boys and I like to go out there and have devenshire tea and visit Elvis Parsley.

The photos didn't come out as good as what I was hoping for the lighting in the old dinning room is not the best at the moment for we are sometime this year going to renovate the room. We no longer need the formal dinning room it was never used because we always eat out in our more casual eating area, we weren't to sure thought what to do with this room. We have now made up our minds to convert it into a craft area and prep room for the kitchen. Hopefuly we will get around to building that later this year.
Cheers,
LInda

The A to Z of my home

I was wondering what was the best way to show you all my home without showing you everything at once so I came up with this idea the other day. I will show you a bit at a time starting with the letter A.

A is for Army. My three sons' bedrooms all have a different theme, I won't tell you what the other two are yet you will have to wait and see. My middle son has just turned 11 last week and has always been very drawn to all things military (he also looks good in a slouch hat). We had to hand paint all the army fatigue on the walls so it took a bit of time to do but we love the final result. My boys never used the hanging space in their built in cupboards so we took the doors off and put in some down lights, in this room we have put the bed in there.

He has lots of models and memorabilia to much to show it all. Even the fish tank has had the army treatment. The poster we found in a second hand shop he was so excited when we found it.

Cheers Linda

The land of extremes

They often call Australia the land of extremes and lately we have definitely been living up to that name. On Sunday the boys had nippers (surf lifesaving) at Caloundra and it was hot, we all got sunburnt even after applying our 30+ sunscreen twice.

Today it is raining and miserable again yet apparently we are still in a drought and still have our water restrictions in place. Only 4 minutes in the shower per person per day, no hose watering on the garden buckets only and only at certain times on certain days etc etc.Well I thought I might brave the rain and slosh in the garden and get some photos for you all to enjoy.
Hope you like them

Cheers
Linda

Woken to the sound of birds

I think that there is nothing better in the morning then to be woken to the sound of birds.

However in our house the sound of birds doesn't just come from the garden but also from the sunny rumpus room.

The boys and I bought this large aviary a few months ago and we have enjoyed it every moment since. The birds all seem to have their own personality and it is interesting to watch the interaction between them all.

So the boys wanted to take some photos of the birds to share (I now know what they mean about never work with children and animals) so here they are.......................................

Chip and Dale Quail

Jess and Snowy (girls)

Sunny and Romeo (the boys)

I hope that you like the photos

Cheers

Linda and feathered friends

Caution Learner Driver

I have been fiddling a bit with this blog I am only new to this and learning things as I go along.


I am happy with some of the layout (need to start taking more photos) I love the photo in the title it was taken at Australia Zoo when we were there in November. If you have not been to Australia Zoo you must go and see the Elephant and Tiger displays they are incredible.


That's all for now

Linda

New Years Resolutions

I though that maybe if I shout my resolution list out loud (to everyone in blog land) I might actually attempt to start and finish my list. So here it is -

1. To declutter my house. I try to keep it reasonably clear on the outside but its in the draws and cupboards where the mess is hidden. (please tell me that I am not the only one who throws the mess into a cupboard when friends are coming over)

2. To be more organized. I am a list person I write a list for everything as if by writing it down on paper will magically get it done. The problem is the lists are normally never done.

3. To lose weight. I think that this is one that most people put on their list isn't it? The problem is the weight situation is starting to get out of control and since my husband has just lost 20kg and is looking good maybe I had better do something about my weight.

That's the list lets hope that I actually get this one done.

Wish me luck

Linda