Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

We hope that you've had a wonderful Christmas day and that the warmth 

and love of Jesus touches your heart and gives you peace! 

Enjoy the last few days of the year, see you soon!

Smiles The Torrents'

(our family camping trip at Penguin, we just got back yesterday!)

Sapphire at 10 weeks

Our precious little jewel is growing! She is filled with sooo much joy and happiness! We've come to the amazingly adorable stage of smiling and "coo-ing" which we all LOVE and try and take it in turns having our special "bed time" with her!

What a delight babies are! We are soooo blessed to have her in our family!
Hope that this next 5 sleeps sees you blessed, happy and enjoying the little things in life as you prepare for the wonder of Christmas!

Smiles The Torrents'

Esther's 3rd birthday

So my little girl is now 3! Where has that time gone?? Oh how sweet and wonderful she is, and what a delightful time we had celebrating her life!
Here are some pics from the lead up and the day......

 The cake batter ready to go

 Stamping our DIY party hats, instructions found HERE (so easy!)

 

 The hat is complete and we have a very happy birthday girl! YAY!

 

All the yummy "rainbow" food and my cake topper!

 

Happy Birthday Lily Petal, we love you!!

Smiles The Torrents'

Rainbow party ideas

With my beautiful Esther Lily's 3rd birthday just around the corner I thought it would be fun to do a rainbow theme! (I love to work with a theme!!)
I've been looking on-line for some inspiration and this is what I've found...

 Great game idea HERE

  Amazingly easy decorations HERE

  Fun little sweet treat HERE

 OH I'd love these cutie cloud cake pops!! HERE

A healthy option HERE

What do you like best??? I'll be back soon to show the invites I made....

Until then,

Smiles The Torrents'

...one month later

Our little Sapphire is now 4 weeks old! Oh how we all love her sooooooo!

Smiles The Torrents'

Yarn Along... Itty bitty bunny

I always think to myself it would be wonderful to join in on the Yarn along over at Small Things, but before I know it the linky is expired and my knitting hasn't made it!
Of course I haven't actually taken a picture of the book I'm reading, but I am reading one in the wee hours of each morning whilst my Sapphire happily eats away!!
Firstly the knitting..... inspired from THIS SITE and a gift I made just the other week for my sweet friend who was turning 6! She loves things little so I put together this set for her.

Now for the book! A total MUST for any Mum with a "tween" I'm really getting a lot out of it and would certainly recommend it to YOU! Six Ways to keep the "little" in your Girl

Well that's it from me today, nice to have a spare moment to pop on in!!
Hugs and smiles
The Torrents'

Introducing our newest family member

Sapphire Elizabeth Torrents

born 

Thursday 11th October 2012

at 7.05pm

7lb 2oz

49cm long

Precious baby girl 

7 days old today

Smiles The Torrents'

Nine Today!

It's Ezekiel's 9th birthday today!! 

We've had the best day of celebrating,playing,eating yummy things 

and catching up with special people!

We love you sooo very much Ezekiel, 

what a blessing you are in our lives! 

God bless this new stage in life treasure boy!! 

We are sooo proud of the young man you are!

Smiles The Torrents'

Woodland Nursery complete!

It's now complete, the total make-over in our bedroom is finished and now awaiting our baby to arrive!
Here is the before (sooooo embarrassing actually...hadn't tidied up for awhile knowing we were taking everything out.... well that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!! he he!!)

 And now the after....

I'm soooo happy with how it's all come together!! A few last minute decorator items I got today (sweet little bunny and wood candle holder) and I'm now feeling like my nest is feathered!!
If you saw my last post you would have noticed some of my favourite things I found on-line. Here are some of those ideas that inspired me....

Alphabet picture. Made with the Tiny Woods paper from Kaisercraft and chipboard letters from Stampin' Up!

Mushroom bookend. Made with felt and a pattern I made myself which I stuck to an old elephant bookend that had fallen apart. Love this!!

Assorted toys to love. Rabbit from my wonderful Paper Doll ladies, owl I found today and Hedgehog my fabbo hubbie picked out on our anniversary last weekend!

Lamp. Bought a plain white lamp from Bunning's yesterday and made the little critters from felt HERE and glued them on. Used my stamping ink to make a soft sky and grass look. Love how this turned out too!!

Of course I'd love a fabulous cushion for my feeding chair, some groovy sheets for the cot and some board books for the shelf but these things can wait...... for now I'm happy to relax and wait for the next stage in our family!
Smiles The Torrents'

Woodland Theme Nursery

It's a matter of days now till our little one arrives (well I hope!) and I've been busy decorating (well at least "researching" lovely decorations!!) for the nursery. For the first time EVER our baby will be in our room, so we've done a total makeover to the back wall of our bedroom to fit in all the necessary "baby must haves" to make it work.
Last week at my last Paper Doll stamp club for the year, the wonderful and amazing ladies of the group held me a mini Baby shower!! It was soooo thoughtful and special and very touching!! I was given a beautiful selection of baby goodies (including a new bag for me!!) and a gorgeous Woodland Themed Bunting!!

 It was made from THIS paper from Kaisercraft

Well it's got my mind racing with other ideas of what I can do to tie this wonderful theme altogether!!!

I LOVE WORKING WITH A THEME!!!! YAY!!

Here are some of the inspiring goodies I've found in the last few days that I wanted to share with you!!

 Simple, stunning ABC picture HERE

 So, so, SOOO cute Mushroom bookend HERE

Adorable Mushroom rattle HERE

 Amazing wooden critters to play with HERE

A fun game for the older children (at least till the baby can join in!) HERE

 Something wonderful to look at while I'm changing nappies

HERE

sweet little toy to love HERE

Ohhh can you see what I mean!?! Sooo many fabulous things to buy and make and get inspired with!!!

What do you like the most??? I think my all time fav is the bookend, there is a whole range to love!! GORGEOUS!!

I'll hopefully be back soon (then again.... be nice to have this little one...) and share what I've made for our nursery thanks to these great pictures!!

Smiles The Torrents'

Spring Unit study

With the wonderful arrival of Spring (and the soon to be arrival of our baby) I wanted to have some fun with this term and  the season that is upon us...... SPRING!! yay!
I ended up in the vegie garden on Wednesday weeding and prepping it ready for planting.

BEFORE:

AFTER...

 parsley and garlic chives still going

It felt sooo good to have it done and ready! YAY!!

 I transplanted the Rhubarb and Borax herb from the main bed to the tyres just outside the garden, they have lots more room there and the flowers that will attract the bees will be wonderful!!

I've also been searching on Google for HEAPS of ideas on what we can do for this Unit Study.
Each year we have a Spring/Summer vegie garden. (the sun is too low for our spot to grow vegies in the Winter!) I do know however that having a baby could make things just a little bit busier than usual and I might not get it planted, or worse look after it very well once our vegie seedlings are in!! So that's where the basis of our next unit study came from..... The children can do it!!
They will pick their own vegies they wish to grow
Journal about them in a notebook each week, taking pictures or drawing them
Learn about seeds (science)
Sketch plants in the garden (art)
Write about their favourite vegies or fruit ( do a poem)
Graph about growth (maths)
Record weather patterns, when it rained and was sunny (science)
Write down when we needed to water
WEED when they start to pop up again
Tender and look after the garden!!
I'm super excited about the variety of things we can do with this subject, including lapbooks and crafts (always a winner for the smaller girls!)
Here are just a FEW links that I found helpful.....

Spring lesson plans and ideas (not all can be printed) HERE
SPRING ACTIVITIES including puzzles, crafts and colour pages HERE, HERE, HERE
HERE, and HERE,
Pre-school Spring IDEAS, including lists of everything HERE
Pre-school Spring Songs and Poems HERE
Garden Lapbook HERE
Sprout Lapbook HERE 
Strawberry Lapbook HERE
Spring Labbook ideas HERE 

So with this and also a weather study (post to come) I think our term will be a lot of fun!!
Smiles The Torrents' 

Not long to go now.....

In less than 9 days (officially) we will be expecting our fifth little gift from God! We are sooooo excited!! What makes it even more special is that I'm pregnant at the same time as my lovely sister who is expecting her first!! I can't believe how wonderful it is to see her "glowing" and know that I too am in the same place!
Of course we don't really know when this precious bundle will arrive, all our other children have been late, anything between 2-11 days!!
On Monday Sarah and I had a quick photo shoot, thanks to her hubbie behind the lens and this is one of the pic's!!

 

I'll certainly keep you updated and look forward to sharing our wonderful news with you sometime soon....ish!!

Smiles The Torrents'

Medieval Craft, the Four All's.

Over the last few weeks the children and I have been enjoying doing some Medieval themed craft. This particular idea I got out of a book called Knights and Castles, 50 hands on activities, which you can buy HERE.
This project was to make the "FOUR ALL'S" of the middle ages. Each of the children chose what theme/scene that they wanted to do and we went from there. Here they are...

 The CHURCH: Hannah did this room, complete with stained glass windows, 

a communion cup and pews. I love the detail to the backs of the pews!

The PEASANT: Sophia's handiwork is here, I love the little nest she put in the tree 

and the wagon and straw that we picked from the bush behind us.

 The KINGS & QUEENS: Ezekiel went with this room, he did all the checkered floor 

and the chose the tapestry design for the castle walls. I helped him with the thrones.

 

The KNIGHTS: This room was mostly left up to me, Esther did help paint it and 

Zeke made the little Punch art Knights and weapons (very clever!!) 

I found the pictures of the shields and swords from the net and stuck them on the wall.

All in all (he he) I think the children really loved doing this! Not sure where it will go when we've finished but it looks great with the rest of our Medieval study things for now!

Smiles The Torrents'

How wonderful to imagine...

I think it's pretty amazing just what our precious treasures can "imagine" in their play time. It always makes me soOooo happy to see them interacting and playing all together and of course having the best fun in doing so!

This particular day they had set up a camp fire and were toasting some marshmallows!!! CUTE!! The thought that goes into only choosing the yellow, red and wood looking blocks, then taking apart my mop handle and poking it into the whole on the random circle blocks..... it makes me so proud, so warm and so in love with these gifts from God!
Hope you are enjoying a wonderful weekend and precious moments with your treasured ones!
Smiles The Torrents'

Queen For a Day

With this term being FULL to overflowing with Kings and Queens, I suggested to our Home Ed group that we have a day learning about the Queen! I wasn't actually at the planning meeting and soon found out that the other mum's loved my idea and thought it would be super cool to have the "queen" for an interview! ALong with the children dressing up and some fun royal related crafts. 

Well guess who they thought would make the perfect "queen"??? Yes that's right.... ME!!!
It was rather fun, though dressing up as the Queen pregnant, knowing that in real life she is actually 85 did feel rather strange!!! My sister helped me out heaps with the outfit, in fact every thing other than my shoes and blouse were hers, thanks Sarah!!
Alison asked me lots of interesting questions and some interactive ones involving the children too. Like what other countries are included in the Commonwealth? How should you greet the Queen? How many thrones does the Queen have?
Then at the end there was a question time for those children who wanted to know more!
Did you know that the Queen actually does more than ONE outing a day, every day of the year!!! I'm pleased to have just had the few hours!! he he

 

 

Smiles The Torrents'