3 days........

thats it only 3 days to go and I still have no food in the house & am yet to buy my children presents,

 Mr Sprout doesnt get paid till Christmas Eve so it will be a fight to the death over the last turkeys at Woolies, he is working all of Christmas the mines shut for no one but he was able to scrounge Christmas day off thankfully. So I am now off to make a list and practice my tackling technique....Woolies can get quite fierce in Kalgoorlie.

Help! I think I have created a Monster.....

My husband loves a beer so in my infinite wisdom I thought I would buy him a home brew kit which has sat in the laundry for the past year collecting dust, that is until we had friends over for a bbq. I know that men can be competitive so it was not a surprise that after our male guest informed us that he is an avid brewer my husband might blow the dust off the kit & try his hand at brewing., little did I know how much this would affect my life.

It all started 2 weeks ago when Mr Sprout attempted his first brew, he read the instructions on the can wrong and added twice the amount of water. Ofcourse being a man he refused to take any responsibility for his error & blamed everyone from me to the children to the dog...we obviously put him off his concentration. Nevertheless he forged on and sat watching his brew for a week until I suggested he might want to start again, this advice was only taken on board when I threw in that he didnt want to have a failure on his hands. I mean how embarrassing would that be to tell your mates? So down the sink it went & I thought that was the end of things for awhile but I was wrong.

I popped out to do a bit of shopping & came home to find husband dearest running through the house with something warm wrapped in a towel shouting 'quick get out of the way!'...seriously I thought someone had just given birth in our kitchen but it was the hot can of whateveryoucallit which needed to be added to the other beermakingstuff. I was then roped into writing down temperatures while he did something with a test tube & thermometer all the while checking & rechecking the instructions.

This should have been the end of it for me but alas he is on nightshift & likes to call me constantly to check on the temperature of his beloved brew, I am given instructions of how I am to wrap the brew in a towel if it gets too cold or to wet the towel & rewrap if it gets too hot. If I dont answer the phone because I am doing something ridiculous like bathing our children or putting them to bed I get sent text messages.

After last nights instructions I politely suggested what he could go & do with his brew, he looked a tad worried & tried to lighten the mood with a joke...something along the lines of tucking it in & giving it a kiss goodnight....it didnt go down well....needless to say I have received no instructions tonight...........yet.

Its Official I am the Grinch

Yes it's true I am the Grinch, with so much happening in the last few weeks with the shop opening, big wholesale orders to complete, designing Winter etc etc Christmas has taken the back seat. If you remember last year I was all prepared & in the spirit & had bought the most ridiculous sized turkey in the world. This year the Christmas spirit is missing and in all honesty I hadn't even noticed until last week when Mr 3 asked me a question.

We were standing in the newsagency waiting to be served when a little voice says
 'Excuse me Mummy who is that?' so I turn & look to see a 4ft tall life like Santa
Me 'Thats Santa mate'
Mr 3 'He looks nice'
Me 'Yes he is now lets go buy bananas'
Mr 3 'Okay'

This is the extent of my childrens knowledge of Christmas, was that an audible gasp I just heard?? lame I know but for the first two Christmases I got all excited & tried to explain the whole process which went right over a 1& 2 yr olds head. Now I am at the 3yr stage & I know as soon as I mention the word 'present' the explanation of the birth of Jesus will be forgotten & I will be nagged for the next 2 weeks for one.

Its been said that we all turn into our mothers at some point & I can predict the moment it will happen to me, I will be in a shop, it will be December, my children will be playing up & before I know it I'll be saying 'if you dont behave yourself Santa wont bring any presents'   AAARGGHHHHH!!!

Christmas will come to the Sprout house I am just putting it off for a week or so...........selfish? maybe but hey I am the Grinch.

Brusselsprouts Boutique is Open!

Hello! How are you today? so glad you could drop by

Would you like a glass of champagne?? maybe a biscuit for your little sprouts???

Thanks for stopping by...come back soon xx

Final Preparations

I have been very slack in blogging & I really miss it!

 BUT

 things have progressed with the shop preparations and I hope to open this week.

I am waiting on my cash register to arrive and then its all systems go.....

Eeeekkkkkk! I am a little scared........

Getting There....slowly

Slowly but surely things are coming together....

Mr Sprouts is now on holidays and has been given a rather large list which we have until Sunday to complete....

no worries ...

right?....

Things that make you go Hhhmmm......#12

Today I looked up sign writers for the new store, one of the local sign writers is called 'Awsome' signs...........are we missing a vowel??? I thought it was a typo but after visiting the store it is not.... would I trust this company to spell my sign correctly...Hhhmmmm

Look Out! A new store you say??

Yes I do say, a new store, a real life, in the flesh, bricks and mortar shop, right here in Kalgoorlie...woohoo!!
I have smashed down walls and pulled up lino and am now in the process of filling holes in the walls ready for painting.

Today I went to buy some racks and after a minor heart attack at the cost of your traditional retail shelving I came up with a brilliant solution and ended up in the gardening section of Bunnings........what you say?? Oh ye of little faith....I will reveal all soon....if it works orcourse........ if it all goes pear shape well .....hmmmm

Master Ex a new pitch to the Networks........

Last night I was watching tv and heard an announcement that had me reeling........ an Australian version of 'Iron Chef" is about to hit our screens. I'm sorry but what the hell??? I love a good episode of Iron Chef.... usually after a few glasses of wine as it does give me the giggles, but mainly I love it for all the weird and wonderful food that is cooked which just doesnt tally for me with Australian cuisine. However it got me to thinking that there are a ridiculous amount of cooking/chef/reality kitchen shows on at the moment so I too have come up with my own idea of a show 'Master Ex' where one can reflect on what your ex/exe's cooked you for the first time and if it impressed or set the basis for your entire relationship.

Looking back for myself Ex #1 cooked macaroni and cheese with bacon and pineapple, he knew I did not like cooked pineapple but as he was the 'chef' it was his decision............mmmm yep 7 years later I realised his wants and pineapple would always come first.

Moving on to Ex #2 the first meal of spaghetti wasnt cooked by him but by his housemate (he took the credit), after I found this out I thought he was trying not to make a mistake with that first meal but it turns out he was a great cook when he did actually cook, unfortunately he was just very lazy. Unfortunately it took me 5 years to figure this out.

Lastly we have possibly the worst presented meal ever....A massive steak bleeding on my plate with a salad of lettuce, tomato and huge heart attack size blocks of cheese. On the table three open cans, one each of corn, beetroot and asparagus nestled up against a tub of meadow lea margarine and a Tip Top loaf of white bread. Condiments consisted of a bottle of tomato sauce and an industrial sized Saxa salt dispenser.

Looking at this spread before me I knew then and there I would marry this man, born and bred on a cattle farm, no pretentions, no pretending and he gentlemanly offered me the fork to spoon out the cans with first (he no longer eats from cans since I explained the effects of salmonella).

Okay so maybe not a show that people might tune in to every week like it is but throw in a few challenges a few around the world destinations and a contestant or two that you love to hate and yeah I think this can work...............:)

At My House

Today I am playing along with Button By Lou Lous at my house. In my house we have a large number of matchbox cars which you will find lined up in all manner of places

The reason we have so many cars is that I dont allow my boys to eat chocolate very often.....I know I know I am the worst mother on earth! so every fortnight when we go grocery shopping and they salivate over the chocolate and lollies on display I let them choose one treat either a car or a chuppa chupp (yes I am cheap too) Most times the car wins out and hence they are everywhere in our house.

Every six months I do a big clean out and send a bag full to the Salvation Army and at the rate that Mr Sprout has been stepping on them in the night and cursing I think its time to say goodbye to a few more.

When Honesty is not Always the Best Policy

With the time to Christmas fast approaching I have been seeing a few decorating ideas on blogs with tips on how to dress up your mantle and it got me to thinking about what is on the mantle in my bedroom............

This wooden sculpture was an anniversary gift from my husband and to be honest I hate it. He bought it while in Noosa at a friends wedding last year so I am thinking the romanticism of the occassion may have inspired him?? He went to a shop that I used to buy from alot while living there to be certain that what he bought I would definately like, this is what he told me before I opened the gift. Very clever dear husband because now I must like it, you know there is trouble ahead when you get an explanation before you open gifts.

With money being tight we had decided on no gifts, also the fact that a girlfriend of mine had received a dolphin lamp that glowed and blew smoke from her husband really scared me. Though my husband has good intentions he buys awful gifts, hence I thought I was being clever using the budget as a no gift reasoning. Maybe some tinsel could hide it for a few months.....say November to March?? followed by an Easter theme..........

Things that make you go Hhhmmmm #11

So I received this email tonight and it made me go Hhhmmmmmm............

HELLO.


How are you today, Hope all is well with you and your family? My name is Miss Happiness However it really pleases me to write you for a lovely and sincere friendship even if we haven’t met or seen each other before. I will be so much appreciate to see your reply soon so that we can share pictures and know more about ourselves.

I shall appreciate an urgent response from you.

With lots of love from your new friend Happiness.


 

Wordless Wednesday

When Telstra Comes a Knocking

image courtesy notesondesign.net

Last week a water main burst somewhere our street and ever since our home phone has been dying a slow death. A few crackles here, a warbely ring there and now just constant static. So I had the painful job of ringing Telstra to inform them of the fault, after many minutes of being on hold, giving up and then calling back I finally got through and have a technician coming to my house to resolve the problem. 

I have been given the standard tradesmen trick of a 4hr period where they may or may not deem to visit so to make this less painful for myself I have decided upon a guessing game. All you need to do is visit my facebook page and leave a comment as to what time you think the technician will arrive and the closest to the time will win a 50% off storewide voucher!

Things that get my Goat aka things that give me the.......

Today I ran into a friends husband whom I havent seen for a couple of months while out shopping which was very nice, we had a little chat and off I went. I came home and told my husband who I had bumped into and what was said and I have been chewing over the exchange ever since. You see I was asked how business was going to which I replied I was very busy, he then told me I looked very tired which I had to agree to because I am! Trust a man to point out the obvious.

It was the next couple of statements that have got my goat, firstly that my husband and I dont have a life. Oh really and how is it we dont have a life, well its because Brennan works 2 weeks straight and then on his week off  he looks after the children for a few days while I sew. That equals no life.

Secondly because I work I dont go to all the morning teas, tupperware parties, make up parties, adult parties, candle parties etc etc to which I am invited to, whereas he informs me that because of this the women who invite me will keep 'bitching' about me.

Where is the respect for the work at home mothers??? Yes I am home but that doesnt mean I can drop everything to make up numbers for your 'party' and help you get a free gift. Yes my husband helps out on his week off and you know what if I didnt work I would still expect that of him he is the boys father. And lastly I dont want anything to do with a bunch of women that put you down when you aren't there.

I love my job and I love that my husband is supportive of me and yes we may seem boring to some or up ourselves to others but you know what we dont care :)

Yeehawww!

Happy Fathers Day to all the dads out there...........................

Turning Old into New

Everytime I travel overseas I always bring back something that I hope will last a lifetime, mainly art or sculptures or wood carvings. I ofcourse buy all the obligatory items like shoes and clothes and accessories which now either dont fit, have been worn to death or lost in my many moves. While I was in Thailand I bought these cute little elephants which my boys love to play with, however they are losing all their little sparkly bits so I thought I would spruce them up a bit ..............

While spring cleaning this weekend I found some box picture frames in a cupboard so I cut some leftover fabric and popped it inside then sat the elephants on the inside edge of the frames.

My old elephants look like new again and they are now out of reach of little fingers ...............

Flying with Jetstar - A near death Experience

Image via myspace.com

Last week I flew from Qld to Melbourne with Jetstar. Travelling with me was Junior Sprout 18mths and Elder Sprout 3yrs along with all the normal paraphanalia that goes with travelling with children, the backpack for Elder, mummys handbag and laptop bag and Junior's monkey backpack with the harness tail. Now this harness has been viewed by a few fellow travellers as unnecessary and a few dont mind telling me. Well let me just say that the horrible and cruel and demeaning harness saved Junior sprouts life, literally!

If you have flown Jetstar you will know that you need to climb down a set of stairs onto the tarmac to unboard the plane, while the flight attendants are very friendly when you board the plane some are not so nice when it is time to unboard. As 3 flight attendants stood at the doorway saying goodbye and talking about what they were up to that weekend I was struggling away trying to lift down Mr 3 while Mr 18mth stood on the plane. While I did this Junior decided to try the step down himself and promptly fell between the plane and the staircase and was dangling in the air tethered to me by the harness strap I had hold of. To put it plainly it was freaking scary as I pulled him to safety.

Meanwhile one of the flight attendants had noticed this and calmly asks 'oh did he just fall?'  where I responded 'Yes I just saved him that is a very dangerous step!' and what response did I get do you think?? Nothing just a 'Yes it is high isnt it' and back to what they were wearing out that night. Gee you think!! Maybe she would like to fall headfirst onto a concrete tarmac from the height of a plane but I dont think she would be alive for very long let alone a small child.

Jetstar you suck!

image via jethag.com

Missing Kalgoorlie

Well here I am back in Kalgoorlie after being away for 5 weeks. I truly missed being in my little house with my husband and the boys missed their father terribly.

I am also very happy to find out today that our Red Check 3/4's are in the latest issue of Shop 4 Kids...yay!!

And lastly I am very excited to find that my Winter '11 fabric arrived while I was away and I love it, expect something very different from me next year :)

Missing in Action

My poor blog has taken a back seat lately as there are big changes happening at Brusselsprouts! I am currently in Qld working, catching up with friends and doing a spot of shopping. Back with details of the changes we have in store soon x

Things that Make you go Hhhmmmm #10

Are all of these gals ladies???........

I have my suspicions.

Boys............

Yes I know we have toys mum, yes we have a sandpit and yes we have bikes and even a mini trampoline but those are soooooo boring. All we ever wanted was a bucket full of cold ash and our dumptruck. Yes I know you locked us out of daddys area of the backyard, but really some twisted wire?? thats the best you could do?? I thought even you could come up with something better than that. There are heaps of cool things back here, the wood pile, the trailer, the pile of ash and it all sits on top of this fantastic red dirt that never washes out. I'm sorry mum but its just a boys paradise :)

At Our House...

It is freezing cold this morning and the backyard is blanketed in white ice so the boys are reading today.... until outside defrosts

what is happening in your house today?

 to find out what is happening elsewhere pop over to Buttons by Lou Lou's blog and go for a wander :)

Back off Ladies He's all Mine!

A couple of weeks ago my husband took eldest sprout to the circus, a simple task you say? Not in my husbands world! It all started when my husband came running through the back door in a panic, you see he has this one pair of jeans which are his favourites, he refers to them as his 'good' jeans and likes to wear them everywhere. Well that day he was wearing his 'good' jeans while unloading a trailer full of firewood, hence his jeans were filthy and he was devastated that he would be unable to wear his 'good' jeans in a dark circus tent where no one would see him.. .go figure.

He came up with a brilliant idea, I would wash them on a fast cycle and dry them in the late afternoon winter sun.....I saw problems with that but he didn't. So being the dutiful wife that I am I washed his jeans while in the meantime he rigged up a rope and pully system across the backyard where he thought he would capture the most amount of sun.

With only one hour to go the 'good' jeans were still wet so I suggested a hair dryer, he liked this idea and set off to get the dryer while I went off to sew. I never heard him return from outside with the jeans so I looked out the window to see what was going on.

Well there he was in the backyard wearing a blue singlet, rubber ducky boxers, black socks and double pluggers with the industrial length extension cord and the hair dryer blowing away for all its worth. Yep he's a keeper my husband, a pure gold moment!

I bolted for the video camera and now have many amusing minutes of screen time. We also now have a new clothes dryer :)

Guessing Game Giveaway

Woohoo!! we have reached 500 fans or likes.. whichever you prefer.. on our facebook page and to celebrate we will be having a giveaway. Now its not going to be an ordinary random number giveaway, no siree we will be having a guessing game which will be loads more fun.

I will take some close up photos of random items that I have blogged about in the past, post them on my facebook page at 8pm Wednesday 23rd June (tomorrow night) and  whomever comments with the correct answer first will win a prize. There will be 3 items up for grabs. So for all my blog followers you might have a little advantage over some people who dont read my blog but I wont make it too hard for anyone :)

Babyology - A Review

I just discovered today that we have been reviewed on Babyology !!!

June has been a hell month of sickness in our house and I have been offline quite a bit so I was super excited to see this lovely write up.

 Thanks Babyology!

A New Addition............

Say hello to our new little friend! I won this little cutie from the very talented Bugalugs Handmade I love knitted and crocheted toys and am slowly getting a few together

 I'm not sure its politically correct to have a golliwog anymore but I love him, I think our little bugalug looks very happy and can be made in the colours of your choice!!

Thankyou Bugalugs :)

At My House

We are playing along with Buttons by Lou Lou's at my house again this week. Junior sprout has a new chalkboard and things started out well so I happily went off to make toast.....

On my return ( I was gone a whopping 3mins) I discovered this............

I wasnt worried as I thought it was only chalk and would wipe off, but no this is crayon added to the chalk bucket by the ever helpful Eldest sprout............

Whats happening at your house??

Things That make You Go Hhhmmmmm #9 (Warning X Rated)

This Hhhmmm was kindly emailed to me by Michelle an Aussie blog follower living in South Africa, thanks Michelle! What I find most hhhmmmming is that 25 of these have been sold.............................

A Prayer to the Apple God

I am so excited, there are apples on my apple tree! The apple tree that my 6ft5 husband has to duck under to get to our front door, the apple tree that he wants to cut down, the apple tree that he said would bear no fruit. Well ha dee ha ha Mr Brusselsprouts cos I spy me some apples, now comes the hard part how to keep them on the tree long enough to get big and fat and edible??  so my argument for not cutting down the tree has some merit..............

At My House

Today I am playing along with Buttons By Lou Lou's what's happening at your house. We bought little Sprout his first bed and here he is having his first sleep in a big bed. My 2 sprouts now share a room which we call the 3 bears room as all in a row there is a single bed, a cot and then the new junior bed. I'm expecting Goldilocks to show up soon...............

A Bad Mother Throws a Party - The Finale

 

Well here it is the party table. I ended up being very slack and bought mini cupcakes and a mudcake, not wanting to battle with my oven I thought this would be the easiest way to go and the kids did not mind at all.

The lolly jars I picked up at Kmart and pirate themed them with Kit Kats as planks and Maltesers as Canon Balls, I got some white paper bags from the local craft shop for free (thankyou ladies) and used  little wooden pegs to close them. The little wrapped boxes were a thank you gift of chocolates for the parents.

The goodie bags were a big hit with bubbles, slinkys, bat & balls and stickers. I made treasure maps and hid some treasure chests in the backyard with chocolate gold coins in them which had the children running all over the place. And finally I served the fish shaped crumbed fish and chips in newspaper cones, easy for the kids to walk around with and no cleaning up later!