HapPy birTHdaY HannAH!

On Saturday we celebrated Hannah's 9th birthday! What a weekend of festivities it was. Saturday morning was filled with the love of family over some scrummy brunch and Sunday was pumping with the energy of children as Hannah had her dear friends came and celebrated by making their own pizza's for tea and decorating cupcakes for the birthday cake! Thankyou to each one of you that shared in this special time with us, blessed Hannah with gorgeous, thoughtful gifts and showed your love! We had such a fabulous time I wanted to share these moments from it all.









Smiles The Torrents's :)

backyard vegies

Each year I LOVE to put in a vegie garden. There really is nothing that compares to you going out to the backyard and picking some home-grown goodness. Yesterday when we were out and I was fixing some of the HUGELY grown tomato plants after all the rain I showed Zeke some little bugs.

I told him that when I was little that I used to touch their fluffy "bum" and they flick away, so for me, I've always called them...
FLICK BUM'S
funny hey, it does sound a little silly now that I'm a grown woman but Zeke LOVED IT!!! (of course he did, it's the perfect name!!)

Hannah and Soph soon got in the mix of it and they all happily flicked these little "flick bum's" away off the plants!! SO much fun!!!!
(even for me too!! he he)
Question: Does anyone actually know the real name of these little bugs??
Must do some Googling to find out!!
Do you have a bug that has a Family given name??? Love to hear what it is??!!

I can't wait to cook up these babies into some very scrummy RELISH! YUM YUM!!! Slowly but surely they're getting there!!

Smiles The Torrents's

Your chance to win something wonderful...

I can't even begin to tell you how warm and fuzzy I feel each time a read a post from the very wonderful and completely inspiring Ginny from "Small Things" There's something about her pictures and her writing and well, I love to visit!! So on this morning's visit I came across this...

picture from Small Things

This delightful little doll has been handmade and we, You, Me and other readers have the chance to win it!!! So jump on over and leave a comment, grab some inspiration for your schooling week or just simple sit and smile and her little girls and the wonder Ginny captures in her amazing photo's!
Do have a fabulous Monday,
Smiles The Torrents's :)

Ride 'em Cowboy {dress ups}

the card I made for the party
(click HERE to see more of my love of stamping)

On the weekend we attended a very special party for George's 2nd birthday. IT was a fancy dress party and you guessed it, the children went as Cowgirls and boys! It was soooo much fun and I had to show you their costumes!!

Sophia loves her pony and is always happy to have a photo taken, I love her choice of Dasiy Duke shorts!

Hannah looked very much the part of a real cowgirl!! I love the curly hair that she let me do!! Hannah is never really one to have her hair done so when I get to it's a real treat!

Ezekiel looks fabulous, especially with his idea of having a "3 day growth!!" He came up to me and said
"Mummy can you please get me your black makeup pencil and do the beard thing that my Lego cowboy has?" I said
"You mean the 3 day growth?" of which with a huge smile he said "YES!"

Little Esther was a little more tricky to photograph but we managed with the amazing ideas that Zeke had! He suggested to get the camera ready and he'd drop the hat on Esther's head and then at that exact moment I'd take the pic! Well after a few try's we DID IT!!! (note the hand about to go up and take the hat off!! he he!!)

The games at the party were the sack race and toss the gumboot. My children actually won them both, Hannah the sack race and Zeke the gumboot toss!


It was really such a wonderful day and a very well organized party! Thanks Kenzie's!!!
Smiles The Torrents's

deep within the pages

I can't even begin to tell you how wonderful this sight is!!!!! It brings the biggest smile to my face!!
As mentioned before I have never been a huge reader, never been called a book worm, never got that caught up in a story that I ignored all around me....... still there's hope for my precious children to be ALL THESE and more!!!

It's raining outside and they are waiting for some friends to arrive later this morning so to fill in time they started reading!!!

Hannah is reading The Little Mermaid, Sophia - Yertle the Turtle and Zeke - Zac Power. I had to take these photo's and show you right away!! Esther meanwhile is sleeping and I'm here about to start some card making!
What a glorious way to spend a rainy day!
Smiles The Torrents's

Yarn along - my first ever!

One of the wonderful blogs that I've found in my search for fellow homeschooling mum's is that of the very lovely Ginny over at Small Things. She has on her blog a little fun post "yarn along" and wants to know what you're knitting/reading and asked for people to join in!! Well amazingly enough with the holidays and life more relaxed I'm actually doing both!! Yes both! (for those of you who know me, you will know that I rarely EVER read!! Only children's books but that about does it!!) The other week my beautiful friend Andrea taught me how to crochet Rick Rack and so I'm working on mastering that so I may add them to my cards!!!

The book I'm reading is The 5 Love Languages by Gary Chapman. I've never actually read it but heard all about it and know some of the 5 but would like to know more on how I can show my amazing, fabulous, super husband just how much I really love him and have his love tank filled to overflowing!!!

So if you too are knitting something or reading a great book then pop on over to Small things and add your link!
Smiles The Torrents's

p.s I didn't realize that I missed the link time!! OPPS! oh well will try again next time :)

{holiday} park fun

Hello!! How are your holiday's going? Children happy and enjoying the break in routine OR bored and wandering around not knowing what to do??
My precious ones are doing a bit of both actually! I've said many a time
"we can do some schoolwork" but they'd rather be bored than that! he he!
So the other day we went to the local City park with our wonderful friends Phillip, Vanessa and their 2 little ones Emma and Luke. They live in QLD and this was the last catch up before going home. We had a super awesome time



This is one of the first times that Esther has really been able to join in on the slide fun and the others sure LOVED helping her in that!

How cute is that smile!! (and not just my spunky husbands either! he he!)

Hannah and Ness (Mrs Jordan) had quite a few games of noughts and crosses

At City Park there is this little train like Thomas and you can tour around the whole park. It's soooo much fun (even for us adults) and on this ride the children had an absolute ball. From when it took off they would all call out
"Hello! Hello!" and wave madly. Now in my family I've been told that I'm quite a loud person (I got that off my mum) and so you can only imagine how loud my precious treasures actually were!! Ness and I couldn't stop laughing!!! Not at them but just at the situation and how happy they were and how when called out Hello to and waved at even the most seemingly unhappy person walking by turns and smiles and waves too!! Little Emma was quietly saying in a whisper
"Bye, see you later!" the complete opposite of my rowdy bunch!!! It was soooo delightful! Even the train driver after wards said
"I had the advantage, I'm deaf in one ear and in the other I just turned off my hearing aid!!!" So funny! What a memory.

After saying goodbye to the Jordan's the children played a game of chess and then it was time to go. It was such a wonderful way to spend time together!

Smiles from The Torrents's.

yummy summertime treats

We picked these the other day!
I love our raspberry patch, all thanks to our super Nanny who helped us get it started! Next year we will have a BUMPER crop, there's been sooo much growth this year with all the rain.

Hope your day is filled with sunshine and yummy summertime treats!

Fun with Tadpoles

Over the last few months this spring/summer the children have had the most wonderful time watching and learning about tadpoles and Frogs! We were blessed to be given eggs (frog's spawn) from the fabulous Harding family. We first of all had them in a small plastic container, then moved them into our old sand pit! They loved the new space and each morning the children would check on their growth and feed them!

draining out the water and catching the tadpoles/frogs as they come

Of course the time came when we needed to return them to their home.

here is a close up of a tiny frog, still with his tail but all of his new legs!

Have you ever seen baby frogs or watched them grow?? There is sooo much to learn and so much fun to be had!

our new Blog

Hi my name is Hannah I'm the oldest here I am 8 years old my little brother is 7 I'm 1 year older then him. he loves LEGO!! And i love pollys and my littler sister loves my baby sister lots !!
FROM HANNAH !!!