Thursday 30 June 2011

Embracing The Cam-er-ah!

First of all I just really wanted to say that you should get your bums over to the Embrace The Camera bloghop (our favorite bloghop) its a fun little community which get photos with their kids, family and friends every Thursday. I ove it because I am forever behind the camera catching milestones and it gives my kids some great photos of us together!

So this one of Jiedyn and I was the first photo taken on our brand new Cam-er-ah!




Comments please?
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Monday 20 June 2011

Our First Family Fable



Aunty Kristal, Jeanette, Janae & Hiram came to stay for the weekend not long after I birthed Nevaeh. It was a special time as they welcomed their baby cousin and niece into our family. Cuddles, kisses and lots of long silent stares were exchanged before Nevaeh had to sleep again. Aunty Kristal got all clucky and your cousin Janai just couldn't stop herself for sneak peeks as Nevaeh lay rested in her bassinet. That whole weekend wherever Nevaeh was Janai was!






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Monday 13 June 2011

85 Facts About the Queen



Early years

1. The Queen was born at 2.40am on 21 April 1926 at 17 Bruton Street in Mayfair, London

2. She was the first child of The Duke and Duchess of York, who later became King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

3. At the time she stood third in line of succession to the throne after Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII), and her father, The Duke of York. But it was not expected that her father would become King, or that she would become Queen

4. The Princess was christened Elizabeth Alexandra Mary in the private chapel at Buckingham Palace. She was named after her mother, while her two middle names are those of her paternal great-grandmother, Queen Alexandra, and paterna grandmother, Queen Mary.

5. The Princess's early years were spent at 145 Piccadilly, the London house taken by her parents shortly after her birth, and at White Lodge in Richmond Park

6. When she was six years old, her parents took over Royal Lodge in Windsor Great Park as their own country home

7. Princess Elizabeth was educated at home with Princess Margaret, her younger sister.

8. She received tuition from her father, as well as sessions with Henry Marten, the Vice-Provost of Eton. She was also nstructed in religion by the Archbishop of Canterbury

9. Princess Elizabeth also learned French from a number of French and Belgian governesses. It is a skill which has stood The Queen in good stead, as she often has cause to use it when speaking to ambassadors and heads of state from French-speaking countries, and when visiting French-speaking areas of Canada

10. Princess Elizabeth enrolled as a Girl Guide when she was eleven, and later became a Sea Ranger.

11. In 1940, at the height of the Blitz, the young Princesses were moved for their safety to Windsor Castle, where they spent most of the war years

A Royal romance

12. The Queen is the first British monarch to have celebrated a Diamond Wedding Anniversary.

13.Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip first met when they attended the wedding of Prince Philip's cousin, Princess Marina of Greece to The Duke of Kent, who was an uncle of Princess Elizabeth, in 1934.

14.The engagement between Princess Elizabeth and Lieutenant Philip Mountbatten RN was announced on the 9th July, 1947. Prince Philip was born Prince Philip of Greece and Denmark. He joined the Royal Navy in 1939 and after the war, in February 1947, became a naturalised British subject. Prince Philip was required to choose a surname in order to continue his career in the Royal Navy, and adopted Mountbatten, the name of his mother's British relatives. He was created "Duke of Edinburgh" by King George VI on marriage.

15.The platinum and diamond engagement ring was made by the jewellers, Philip Antrobus Ltd, using diamonds from a tiara belonging to Prince Philip's mother

16 .Prince Philip had two stag parties the night before the wedding - the first at the Dorchester to which the press were invited and the second with his closest friends at the Belfry Club

17.The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh were married in Westminster Abbey on the 20th November, 1947 at 11.30am with 2000 invited guests.

18..The eight bridesmaids were: HRH The Princess Margaret, HRH Princess Alexandra of Kent, Lady Caroline Montagu-Douglas- Scott, Lady Mary Cambridge, Lady Elizabeth Lambart, The Hon. Pamela Mountbatten, The Hon. Margaret Elphinstone, The Hon Diana Bowes-Lyon.

19.There were two pages: HRH Prince William of Gloucester (aged 5) and HRH Prince Michael of Kent (aged 5)

20.The Queen's wedding dress was designed by Sir Norman Hartnell. Norman Hartnell submitted designs for the dress in August 1947.

21.The fabric for the dress was woven at Winterthur Silks Limited, Dunfermline, in the Canmore factory, using silk that had come from Chinese silkworms at Lullingstone Castle.

22..The Queen's Bridal Veil was made of tulle and held by a tiara of diamonds. This tiara (which can also be worn as a necklace) was made for Queen Mary in 1919. It is made from re-used diamonds taken from a necklace/tiara purchased by Queen Victoria from Collingwood and Co and a wedding present for Queen Mary in 1893. In August, 1936, Queen Mary gave the tiara to Queen Elizabeth from whom it was borrowed by Princess Elizabeth for her wedding in 1947.

23.The grave of the Unknown Warrior was the only stone that was not covered by the special carpet in the Abbey. The day after the wedding, Princess Elizabeth followed a Royal tradition started by her mother, of sending her wedding bouquet back to the Abbey to be laid on this grave.

24.The bride's wedding ring was made from a nugget of Welsh gold which came from the Clogau St David's mine near Dolgellau.

25..Around 10,000 telegrams of congratulations were received at Buckingham Palace and the Royal couple received over 2,500 wedding presents from well-wishers around the world.

26..As well as jewellery from their close relatives, including the King and Queen, the couple received many useful items for the kitchen and home, including salt cellars from the Queen, a bookcase from Queen Mary, and a picnic case from Princess Margaret.

27.The "wedding breakfast" (lunch) was held after the marriage ceremony at Westminster Abbey in the Ball Supper-room at Buckingham Palace. The menu was Filet de Sole Mountbatten, Perdreau en Casserole, Bombe Glacee Princess Elizabeth.

28.The couple departed Waterloo station with the Princess's corgi, Susan, for their honeymoon

29.The newlyweds spent their wedding night at Broadlands in Hampshire, home of Prince Philip's uncle Earl Mountbatten. The second part of the honeymoon was spent at Birkhall on the Balmoral Estate.

30.Early in 1948 the couple leased their first marital home, Windlesham Moor, in Surrey, near Windsor Castle, where they stayed until they moved to Clarence House on 4th July 1949.

31.After marrying Princess Elizabeth, The Duke of Edinburgh continued his naval career, reaching the rank of Lieutenant- Commander in command of the frigate HMS Magpie.

32.Although he was The Queen's husband, The Duke of Edinburgh was not crowned or anointed at the Coronation ceremony in 1953. He was the first subject to pay Homage to Her Majesty, and kiss the newly crowned Queen by stating "I, Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, do become your liege man of life and limb, and of earthly worship; and faith and truth I will bear unto you, to live and die, against all manner of folks. So help me God."

33.Prince Philip has accompanied The Queen on all her Commonwealth tours and State visits, as well as on public engagements in all parts of the UK. The first of these was the Coronation tour of the Commonwealth from November 1953 to May 1954, when the couple visited Bermuda, Jamaica, Panama, Fiji, Tonga, New Zealand, Australia, Cocos Islands, Ceylon, Aden Uganda, Libya, Malta and Gibraltar, travelling a distance of 43,618 miles

34. The Coronation took place in Westminster Abbey on 2 June 1953. It was a solemn ceremony conducted by Dr Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury

35. The Coronation was followed by drives through every part of London, a review of the fleet at Spithead, and visits to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales.

36.The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh have four children: Prince Charles, The Prince of Wales (b. 1948), Princess Anne, The Princess Royal (b. 1950), Prince Andrew, The Duke of York (b. 1960), and Prince Edward, The Earl of Wessex (b. 1964).

37.With the birth of Prince Andrew in 1960, The Queen became the first reigning Sovereign to give birth to a child since Queen Victoria, whose youngest child, Princess Beatrice, was born in 1857.

38.The Queen and The Duke of Edinburgh have eight grandchildren - Peter Phillips (b. 1977), Zara Phillips (b. 1981) Prince William (b. 1982), Prince Harry (b. 1984), Princess Beatrice (b. 1988), Princess Eugenie (b. 1990), Lady Louise Windsor (b. 2003) and James, Viscount Severns (b. 2007) She has one great-grandchild Savannah (b. 2011)

Queen's speeches

39. The Queen has delivered a Christmas message every year except in 1969, when she decided the royals had been on TV enough after an unprecedented family documentary. Her greeting took the form of a written address. 40. In her 1991 message, the Queen silenced rumours of abdication as she pledged to continue to serve

41. The Queen issued a writ against The Sun newspaper after it published the full text of her 1992 broadcast two days before transmission. She later accepted an apology and a £200,000 donation to charity

42. The Queen's grandfather, King George V, delivered the first royal Christmas broadcast live on the radio from Sandringham n 1932.

43. George V was at first unsure about using the relatively untried medium of the wireless, but eventually agreed.

44. There was no Christmas broadcast in 1936 or 1938, and it was the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 that firmly established the tradition

45. Last year the Queen delivered her address from Hampton Court Palace - the first time the historic building had been used

46 The speech is written by the Queen and each has a strong religious framework, reflects current issues and often draws on her own experiences.

Interest and hobbies

48. An animal lover since childhood, The Queen takes a keen and highly knowledgeable interest in horses. As an owner and breeder of thoroughbreds, she often visits other race meetings to watch her horses run, and also frequently attends equestrian events.

49. She attends the Derby at Epsom, one of the classic flat races in Britain, and the Summer Race Meeting at Ascot, which has been a Royal occasion since 1911.

50. The Queen's horses won races at Royal Ascot on a number of occasions. There was a notable double on 18 June 1954 when Landau won the Rous Memorial Stakes and a stallion called Aureole won the Hardwicke Stakes, and in 1957 The Queen had four winners during Ascot week

51. Other interests include walking in the countryside and working her Labradors, which were bred at Sandringham

52. A lesser known interest is Scottish country dancing. Each year during her stay at Balmoral Castle, The Queen gives dances known as Gillies' Balls, for neighbours, estate and Castle staff and members of the local community.

53. The Queen is the only person in Britain who can drive without a licence or a registration number on her car. And she doesn't have a passport.

54. The Queen is patron to more than 600 charities.

55. To formally greet the Queen men should perform a neck bow (from the head only) whilst women do a small curtsy. On presentation to The Queen, the correct formal address is 'Your Majesty' and subsequently 'Ma'am'

Fashion

56. Norman Hartnell, who first worked for the then Princess Elizabeth in the 1940s, produced many of the finest evening dresses in Her Majesty’s wardrobe. His signature style of the 1940s and 1950s was full-skirted dresses in sumptuous silks and duchesse satins

57. Hardy Amies began designing clothes for The Queen in the early 1950s and established his name with the deceptive simplicity of his accomplished tailoring. The portraits by Cecil Beaton released to mark Her Majesty’s birthday in 1969 the are amongst the most memorable designs by Hardy Amies

58. n the 1970s The Queen awarded her patronage to Ian Thomas, who was an assistant designer to Norman Hartnell before setting up his own salon. Thomas’s flowing chiffon dresses from the 1970s reflect the relaxed style of the decade. Maureen Rose of the same house continued to design for Her Majesty after Ian’s death until the late 80’s

59. Between 1988 and 1996, Her Majesty’s dresses were designed by John Anderson. His business partner Karl Ludwig Rehse took over the mantle after his death in 1988 and the Queen still wears his designs today

60. Stewart Parvin, the youngest of Her Majesty’s designers, trained at Edinburgh College of Art. He began to design for The Queen in 2000 and continues to do so.

61. Angela Kelly is Personal Assistant and Senior Dresser to The Queen. Her role includes designing for The Queen, which she has done since 2002. Angela and her team try and use both old and new fabrics when designing. Some of the material they ncorporate has been given to Her Majesty many years ago, some dates from when she was Princess Elizabeth.

Birthdays

62. The Queen celebrates two birthdays each year: her actual birthday on 21 April and her official birthday on a Saturday in June.

63. The Queen usually spends her actual birthday privately, but the occasion is marked publicly by gun salutes in centra London at midday: a 41 gun salute in Hyde Park, a 21 gun salute in Windsor Great Park and a 62 gun salute at the Tower of London

64. In 2006, Her Majesty celebrated her 80th Birthday in 2006 with a walkabout in the streets outside of Windsor Castle to meet well-wishers

65. On her official birthday, Her Majesty is joined by other members of the Royal Family at the spectacular Trooping the Colour parade which moves between Buckingham Palace, The Mall and Horseguards’ Parade.

And the rest...

66. Queen Elizabeth II is the fortieth monarch since William the Conqueror.

67. She has visited Australia 15 times, Canada 23 times, Jamaica six times and New Zealand ten times

68. She has sent around 100,000 telegrams to centenarians in the UK and the Commonwealth

69. The Queen has launched 23 ships and met five astronauts at Buckingham Palace

70. She first flew in an aeroplane in July 1945

71. She is the only British monarch in history properly trained to change a spark plug

72. On VE Day she and her sister slipped into the crowd to celebrate

73. She collected clothing coupons for her wedding dress

74. The Queen has a bank account at Coutts & Co. There is a Coutts cash-dispensing machine in Buckingham Palace

75. The Queen celebrated her Golden Jubilee in 2002, including visiting 70 cities and towns around the UK

76. Tony Blair was the first prime minister to be born during her reign, which has already seen nine prime ministers

77. The Queen has sat through 91 state banquets and posed for 139 official portraits

78. Technically The Queen still owns the sturgeons, whales and dolphins in the waters around the UK which are recognised as'Fishes Royal'. She also owns all wild 'mute' swans living in open water.

79. The Queen introduced a new breed of dog known as the "dorgi", when one of the corgis mated with a dachshund named Pipkin

80. The Queen is the first British monarch to see three of her children divorce

81. She demoted a footman for feeding her corgis whisky

82. The Queen has nine Royal thrones - One at the House of Lords, two at Westminster Abbey, and six in the throne room at Buckingham Palace

83. She is a Patron of the Royal Pigeon Racing Association. One of the Queen's birds is called Sandringham Lightning.

84. There have been six Archbishops of Canterbury during the Queen's reign

85. The Queen is 5ft 4 inches or 160cm tall.

Source: The Telegraph
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Royal-tea



Today we did have a very royal day!

We started our day off with a very royal bubble bath..

Then came our royal breakfast of vegemite toast..

After breakfast we had a royal photoshoot. With hair and make up (otherwise known as lip gloss) the kids got a mini royal makeover. Nevaeh dressed in a fine white dress while Jie looked very smart in his collared shirt.

And then had a royal lunch of homemade scones with jam and whipped cream.. mmm.. yum!

Then later we had a royal tea party (that took me more time polishing our old tea set than actually drinking tea). Jiedyn poured us each a cup of warm tea from a very snazzy teapot which we slurped and sipped together. See the picture above.

After our tea, while Nevaeh was napping.. I went to check out the photos I had taken today.. only to find them all gone..

So all I have of our whole day of royal celebrations are memories and one edited photo of Nevaeh dressed up on my facebook wall..
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Their High Tech World





So who has fallen victim to the tech monster? Brought your toddlers/kids a DS, a playstation, a wii, an Xbox etc..

Me! My son in his short 5 years on this earth has has a digimon, a tamagotchi, a gameboy, a DSi, two playstation2's, two computers in his room and an mp3 player!

Jiedyn now has none of those things. But he does still have over 300 movies (both DVD's and videos). My son is a movie buff. He loves all things action but at the same time is a sucker for The Care Bears and Dora. Now that he and Nevaeh share a room there is no DVD player for their TV. I wanted their room to be a place of play, of chatter and of imagination. We have started having 'no tv days' around here and I can see how much of sitting in front of the tv has impacted Jiedyns life. He is looking for something to amuse him instead of making up pretend play. Its sad to see parents allowing their children to become so caught up with our high tech world like I did for so long.. I plan to bring back mud pies, chalk on the footpaths, crawling around like cats & dogs and rolling down hills! I'm going to show my kids how we did things "back in my day".
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Saturday 11 June 2011

Free Fallin'

While Nevaeh had her afternoon sleep,someone else did too..




I wanna free fall, out into nothin
Gonna leave this, world for awhile

And I'm free, free fallin'
Yeah I'm free, free fallin'
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Friday 10 June 2011

Scrapbooking Challenge 2011


I have been a member of Ingeborg's Scrapbooking Competition blog now for five months. Each month she posts up a black and white sketch which we then scrap up, photograph and email to her. She posts up our layouts in the order of date received, numbers them then at the begining of the next month a random gernerator picks the number of the winning layout!

Since being a member I have had more motivation to scrap and am learning so much from her site! If you like scrapbooking, you should join in..











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Thursday 9 June 2011

Thursday Night: Before Bed


Tonight while the kids were in bed I decided to pull out the pop corn, a scary movie (Paranormal Activity 2) and a bottle of vanilla coke. After almost talking myself out of it (because I totally scared myself with the first one ending up sleeping in Jiedyns bed that night) I managed to press play, pig out and only jump once. I have to say, it wasn't as scary as the first one. No need to hop into Jie's bed tonight, or even sleep with the lamp on I think I might grab my book, as I'm wide awake now, and get some reading done! Tell me, did you get scared when you saw it?
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Wednesday Afternoon: A Certificate




Not just a certificate, but the first certificate to enter our house! Jiedyn was super proud to show me and it now has its place.. smack bang in the middle of our fridge! The certificate says that Jiedyn did a great Job participating in the annual fun run! Each child had attempted to complete five laps of an obstacle course set up during their class time. When I asked Jie if he ran the whole five laps and he replied "Nah, just eight!" What a laugh.. Great first achievment Jie!
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Sunny Tuesday Morning: Breakfast




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Tuesday 7 June 2011

Tuesday Night: Lunchbox Makeover




On Tuesday night while the kids were in bed and I was watching Australias Got Talent I was thinking of ideas on how to get Jiedyn excited to go back to pre-school. He hadn't been in a little under two months because of issues with his father and was feeling a little nervous. I decided to makeover his lunchbox with chuggington, dinosours, smiley, stars and christmas stickers. Wednesday morning he was super excited to go to preschool to show it to his friends and teachers. His nerves were long gone as he hung up his bag and went staight in forgetting to give me a kiss.. A job well done Mum!
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Sunday 5 June 2011

Cold Sunday: Sleeping

Honestly I couldn't think of a better way to spend a cold and windy Sunday afternoon than the way the kids did..





The kids slept for three hours today, I guess their Poppy must have worn them out over the weekend. I heard that while the boys were at the footy yesterday afternoon Jie kicked 55 goals! He's going to play for the Tigers he told me! Nevaeh and I spent the day singing nursery rhymes, cooking roast beef and eating starburst lollies. The roast was sensational.. I'll know to cook more next time!
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Wednesday 1 June 2011

Playing Possums


Last week we discovered we had a family of Pigmy Possums living in our roof! For those of you who don't know what they are here is a quick YouTube video link..

 Watch "Mountain Pygmy-possum" on YouTube

So for about a month now we have heard little pitter-patters on our roof. Sometimes during the day but mainly at night. Jiedyn refused to sleep in my bed because these little but loud friends would wake and scare him with they're scratching on the roof. At first I thought they were mice, because of their squeaking but when we saw one out of the kitchen window only centremeters away from our breakfast table jumping through our tree, there was no denying that we indeed shared our house with these furry fellas.
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