Freshly Picked Moccasin Giveaway winner announced!

I am so happy to announce the winner of our Freshly Picked moccasin giveaway! We did it old school (well sort of) and put all of your names into a Halloween bucket and BB picked out a name and didn't even eat any of them until after!

We video taped it just for your enjoyment! Take a peak at the Freshly Picked website and let me know which pair you'd like and in what size. I'm so excited that you get to try them out!!

We have so much to be thankful for this year. We met our friends The Joeys and BB absolutely loves their daughter. One of her favorite things to do is to go climbing with them (or really to climb on anything and everything now). 

HB and I even got to go climbing. I'm just going to say that I was a good spouse and took pictures...but I think HB didn't want proof that I climbed higher! Hehe.

 Its been warming up quite a bit here so BB was armed with all of the essentials; awesome sunglasses, bottle of water, milk, washcloth with an ice cube and a light blanket. Because who doesn't need their light blanket in ridiculous heat?

 We were very excited when a Costco finally opened near us. BB loves getting the samples, especially the sugary ones, and the hot dogs. Hot dog was one of the first foods she actually asked for using her signs. For a little while we couldn't pass a hot dog or a picture of one without her wanting it.

 With HB being at school early we usually have some time to kill before playgroup. We've been stopping by Queens park to have a quick play in the water and on the playground.

 It's a great place to have a little breakfast and play outside before it heats up too much.

We absolutely love our playgroups. Our Monday playgroup is run by Playgroup Queensland and they set out a bunch of different fun activities like play dough, a baby doll washing station (BB's favorite), treasure boxes, a collage station and some fun musical instruments. It's been so great to see BB learn new skills and become more interested in crafts and activities. 

We also got to spend an afternoon at an indoor play centre with our friends. BB had such a great time bouncing in the bouncy castles, and climbing all over the play equipment. In fact, she didn't want to leave and just kept bouncing and shaking her head no. It's going to be a busy day of cooking and enjoying a wonderful Thanksgiving afternoon with friends. I hope you all have a great Thanksgiving with your friends and family!

G20 fun in the sun/Giveaway

This past week has been full of fun, so much so that we forgot about swimming lessons and the market that we go to every week! We are lucky enough that we have found lots of playgroups to keep up busy throughout the week. This week she ventured into the toy boxes and found herself a giraffe tail. It's quite fitting since she absolutely loves Mr. Giraffe. She wore it the entire time we were there, and we almost ended up taking it home because I forgot she had it on.

A nice (ok, not so nice) heat wave has hit so we have been trying to avoid the heat. Between the heat and all of the fun things to do BB has been fighting sleeping all week, especially for nap time. But she couldn't fight it anymore, the second we got in the car and got our glasses on she was passed out!

Thankfully she had enough of a nap to enjoy our walk through SouthBank Parklands. I don't know if it's just because of G20 being here, but every time we walk through the park we find something new. We walked through a neat little boardwalk near the temple. 

G20 has a bunch of very important and powerful people coming to meet in Brisbane which is kind of a hassle since there are a ton of road closures, but it also means lots of improvements to SouthBank. One neat addition is the Brisbane sign, it just look so perfect with the city in the background!

We got packed up for a nice day out on the coast, and of course couldn't go without Mr. Giraffe. She's just too cool for us.

We went with a couple friends to check out Wynnum Wading Pool Park in East Brisbane. It is a neat little wading pool next to the ocean that was built during the depression to introduce some happiness, and much needed jobs. It's still a great park with the wading pool and a splash pad and playground that kept the girls entertained all afternoon. BB even started to enjoy swimming! 

It is nice that we are so close to the ocean. I'll take an hour drive over the 5ish hours we had to drive back home!

Pretty much everywhere we went was beautiful.

We took a nice stroll through the Mangroves and found a bunch of different critters including a crab, some jellyfish, a lizard and lots of spiders. Though we did have one casualty...poor paci never stood a chance.

Our friend's "The Joey's" kept us company, and little J was great at spotting critters. 

It was a beautiful little walk and nice and shaded. 

Since we were facing 39 degree C temps we decided to check out Southbank again. A nice swim in the city beach was just what we needed. Though BB is not a fan of sand, especially when it's at the bottom of the water. She did enjoy swimming and playing "ring around the rosie" in the deeper water. 

Thanks to G20 we felt very safe in the city (we actually always feel very safe here). They recruited cops from all around Australia to help patrol the city. It seemed pretty ridiculous at times when you watched them strolling around in groups of 7-10 and standing around in front of closed train stations, or even walking back to their van because they forgot their hats....at night. 

BB loves the view of the river and also loves to hog all of the bickies. 

We ended our city adventure with a nice BBQ at Kangaroo Point (a popular climbing location) with the Joey's. 

BB and J have been great friends, it's hard to imagine that in 6 months BB will be that big and talking! 

It's such a pretty spot for a BBQ, the river lines one side and the cliffs light up the other.

The girls loved having their grilled cheese sandwiches at the big table like adults. 

And couldn't get enough stories on their picnic blanket.

What better way to end the day than a climb up the mountain. BB loved it and was much better than I imagined she'd be. She did not want to stop climbing, and explaining that it's 10pm and you have to stop climbing to a 1.5 year old didn't go over so well. We'll have to go back and maybe have them show us how it's done (and maybe not wear flip flops!). 

In honor of this ridiculous heat wave I'm having my first giveaway! Along with my friends at Freshly Picked  we are giving away a pair of moccasins! Just comment with what you have been up to this weekend and on November 25th I'll randomly choose a winner. The winner will be able to choose any pair of moccasins that they want, they have so many colors to choose from great for boys and girls! And for my Australian readers, they offer international shipping and you can enter also (you'll just be responsible for the shipping cost)! 

Creative fun

The past couple weeks have been riddled with fun, creativity and illness. Which of course means the house work was put on the back burner...oops! One of the fun things we made were bird feeders. This one is just a toilet paper roll covered in honey and birdseed. BB had fun helping me sprinkle on the birdseed. 

We also made a milk carton one with holes cut in both sides and a stick to stand on. This one was mostly mommy, but BB did help fill it up. 

And lastly, half an egg carton filled with birdseed. 

She's becoming quite the excellent helper! 

Then it was time to create something for our new American friends' little girl who turned 2! She is such a fun little girl and BB has really taken a liking to her. But I was stumped on what you buy a 2 year old, so I decided to give felt food a try. 

I was quite proud of my creations. A couple apples, a bunch of grapes, a banana that you can peel, some potatoes and some carrots. I even made the basket! It wa so difficult to choose what to make, the possibilities are endless...and it's rather addicting. 

And made me want to make lots of them for BB. But where would she cook them and serve them up?! So of course first I had to make her a little kitchen. The only thing I bought was some paint (which we'll use for more fun later). We had a little shelf that all her toys were on so I just used that and a couple boxes to create an oven and a pantry/fridge. 

I painted on the burners and glued on some knobs. Voila! A kitchen is made! Now I just have to make some food to go in it...

Halloween was a huge success for us. BB made the cutest cupcake, and rocked it all day. 

Halloween is not a big thing here, there are a few people who participate but nothing like back home. So rather than find a neighborhood passing out candy we decided to go "reverse trick or treating" around to all the med students. They were all hard at work studying, but were more than willing to take a short break so BBcould hand out candy. 

 I'm pretty sure this will be the only time we will be able to hand her a bucket full of candy and convince her to give it all away. She really is a sweetheart.

But don't worry, she got her sugar fix at the birthday party. And she wore the giant backpack nearly the entire time. 

And what better way to spend an afternoon than playing at the beach and splash pad in the middle of the city! We love our Brissy friends.