Christmas Eve {only one more sleep}

We have had a wonderful Christmas Eve and with only one more sleep I wanted to say to you all that we pray that you have a very meaningful, love filled, happy and peaceful Christmas and a very blessed and wonderful New Year 2015!

 Esther opening the 24th Advent box today

 Allan and I at our family Christmas meal this evening

(gotta love those bon bon party hats!!)

 Sapphire putting out her Christmas stocking tonight with great enthusiasm

(note that everyone else has done theirs and is back to watching the tv!)

With many hugs and lots of excited smiles ready to celebrate Jesus' birthday!! YAY!

 The Torrents'

Sunday afternoon

With the delightful sunshine today the girls made the most of it and enjoyed some slid n'sliding!

I LOVE how Sophia is our fun, crazy, adventure child!! She is ALWAYS keen to join in on the water play with her little sisters, it's such a blessing to see. There is sooo much fun to be had on a Summer, Sunny, Sunday afternoon,
Smiles The Torrents'

Christmas gift ideas for children

I'm not sure about you but the Christmas season sure did sneak up on me very quickly this year!! So much so that my hubbie and I were left with a bit of a panic!! What will we get for our treasures???
We LOVE to get gifts that encourage imagination and ones that are friendly for ALL ages too, as there is a lot of sharing in our home!
So here are just some of the wonderful things we have found....

 

Love wooden toys, this one is adorable!

 

 OH to have a teepee.... HERE

 

Beautiful silks for playing HERE

History learning with these wonderful

chapter books HERE

 

Lego is a popular choice for boys,

Zeke LOVES this one 

 

My girls love DOLLS

FUn for everyone HERE

 

Popular book series with my tweens HERE 

Well that's some of the things that my children would love, of course there are some others but I can't put them all here as they like to read the family blog!! hee hee!

Hope your Christmas gift shopping is going wonderfully, I'm sure having LOADS of fun with it all this year especially with the beauty of Internet shopping... YAY!

Smiles The Torrents'

Little Red Riding Hood Party

Esther has just turned 5 and all she wanted was to have a Little Red Riding Hood party! SWEET!! It was really all about the cape for her, so totally understand that!! SO with the Gorge as the backdrop and some little friends to celebrate with her the party was a wonderful success!!

 We even had the Wood-cutter and Granny come too

(Daddy and Mummy!! 

The Wolf was already taken care of!! hee he)

I found THIS picture of a cake topper and so became my design of the cake. We gave out THESE in the party bags and played some fun games...

 

What's the time Mr Wolf

Flower Hunt and

Pin the basket on Little Red!

What a fabulous theme it was! Happy 5th Birthday dear, sweet, wonderful Esther Lilly Petal! Oh how we love you!!!
Smiles The Torrents'

Little Red riding Hood {Punch art} birthday invitations

It's only 2 more sleeps till Esther's 5th birthday and she and I have been busy making her invitations ready for her Red Riding Hood Party!! We found THIS punch art Little Red and made our own design, then Esther drew in all the faces and this is what the invites looked like....

 

 

She was soooo delighted with them, as was I! Can't wait to make her Riding Hood cape (perhaps like THIS) on Wednesday! You'll be sure to see the party here in the coming week, can't wait to see it all come together!! YAY for birthdays!!
Smiles The Torrents'

Bathroom reno on a budget {part 1}

I'm not sure that too much book work has been done this last week to ten days but I do know that the children have learned about plaster, studs, frames, plumbing and what is involved in renovating a bathroom!

Zeke and Hannah really loved destroying the walls in preparation that's for sure!!
Smiles The Torrents'

Tea Party Thursday with Panda Bear cupcakes

 

 

We have just been looking at some Chinese history in the last few weeks and so to finish it off we decided to have some yummy Panda bear cupcakes for our Tea Party Thursday!!
Sophia LOVED doing these, though I did hear her say a few times..... "Ohhhh I sooo don't want to do anymore"..... closely followed by "this is sooo fun Mummy!!"
I found THIS picture and THIS one so we used them as a guide for our own little Panda bears.

  Here are Sophia's little Panda's!!

 

 I made these coconut ones, Hannah had to eat this one 

as she said it was the cutest!!

 

Everyone enjoyed them over some fun Panda poems and a nice cuppa-tea!
Smiles The Torrents'

Wonderful World Wednesday - Caterpillars

While out with my daughter Hannah at Brady's Lookout, just down the Tamar River we found this funny little caterpillar! He was certainly very curious but also very clever!!

When I moved the rock he was on to get a closer look he totally FROZE! He did nothing, not one single movement AT ALL!! Hannah announced
"He's playing dead Mummy, look he's playing dead!" Sure enough he was as it took over 1minute for him to get started in moving again. We tried it once more and he did the exact same thing again! Sooo funny and sooo completely wonderful how this little guy deals with the world around him!

 

I've looked around the net and think that perhaps he is a Lymantrid Caterpillar which is actually the caterpillar for a moth! Interesting, what do you think??
Smiles The Torrents'

Wonderful World Wednesday-Tamar Island

It's Wednesday... which means another Wonderful world focus! We went on a field trip to the Wet Lands (Tamar Island, Launceston) and saw some AMAZING things in nature while enjoying a walk together in the sunshine!!

Like snakes.... this one is a tiger snake 

(we also saw a copperhead snake!)

Signets (baby swans!)

Groovy seed heads..... while in flower and then after they have dried!

Any thought to what they are called???

Pretty purple flowers

Oh and My beautiful treasures having LOADS of FUN!!

We soooo love our nature study and especially our field trips!! I can't wait to show you more of the discoveries we've found with you soon!
Smiles The Torrents'

Planting Tomatoes

It's officially past Show Day here in Tassie!! Why do you ask?? Well that's when you can be safe (from frost) to plant your tomatoes!! It's taken a little longer than I'd like but yesterday the girls and I planted 4 different tomato varieties which we buy each year from a lovely "older man" that sells them from his backyard!

 

Esther was the main drive for getting them in NOW but Sophia was keen to help also! Beautiful Sapphire was soooo interested in it all, digging and shaking the dirt in containers and then lastly encouraging the plants to grow.....

I heard her say, (after me telling her she can't pull them out and that we had to wait for them to grow) ... squatting down near it.... "Ready... Steady... GO!!"
Perhaps she thought the little red tomatoes were going to appear right then and there!!!

You gotta love a 2 year old's way of thinking!! Anyway they are in! YAY! Now all we need is some other yummy veggies to get growing, perhaps beetroot and peas and lettuce!A trip to the nursery is soon in order.
Smiles The Torrents'