Planning a DIY crafty Christmas - Decorating

This year I have decided to do a DIY crafty Christmas, I am torn between how far to take this due to time constraints as it is only

which mildly freaks me out as Princess Monkey turns 4 years old next week (how does that happen? I'm sure she just turned 3 but no here it is again), Diva Monkey turns 6 years old on December 20th (again I'm sure I just brought her home and she's grown before my eyes) and it's a party year for her which has to happen earlier in the month due to school holidays starting here December 10th and then my own birthday is December 8th.

Updating an 'old' pair of shoes on a budget...

In an effort Reduce Reuse Recycle in the monkey house we are constantly on the look out for things we can use in a different way and here is something I came up with recently

We have a wedding coming up and I'm in love with the colours light blue and aqua, mildly obsessed may be a better term than love as we are in the process of  slowly painting our house a really light blue (levent 358 found here in case you're interested) so as soon as I knew about the wedding I knew exactly which dress I wanted to wear as I got it not too long before we found out baby monkey was on her way so I haven't worn it much and it still feels 'new'. I also knew it wasn't in the budget for new shoes and my one pair of nice high heels were feeling a little too high and a little plain not to mention when I'm likely going to be carrying around baby monkey most of the day my back would have been killing me before King of the Monkeys and I even had a chance to take spin around the dance floor but my options seemed limited. Then I came across my wedding shoes, which had been hand beaded all over the top and I loved but unfortunately after storage, moving all over the country and back all the beads were coming off so I couldn't see any other option but to put them in bin but as they were my wedding shoes I was sentimentally attached and just hadn't managed to do it yet. Then I was reaching into my craft cupboard to get the finishing touches for the girls art work brag boards (see here) inspiration struck and I just knew I had to give it a try.

Gluten Free Recipe - Pizza base

We here in the house of 6 Monkeys like having something fun and easy at the end of the week so most Friday nights is home made gluten free and dairy free vegie pizza night. We've been perfecting it and now i's the end of the week again and the start of a long weekend for us so here is our gluten free and dairy free thin pizza base recipe the 'cheese' shown on this pizza is a dairy free and gluten free white sauce we've thickened a little more than normal and dolloped over the top.

Organising our Monkeys - Kids artwork display boards

Organising the Monkeys art work keeping all those the special bits and pieces of paper from awards to special pictures and creations as they are fondly called in the monkey house that they've brought home can be a challenge at times and with 4 children we just do not have a big enough fridge to put every item on it. 

Since our son started started bringing artwork and other things home back in 2008 I've gone through multiple ideas, the fridge obviously but it ended up covered so many different pieces that things would fall off every time we opened up the fridge door. I tried rotating what he was bringing home and what Diva and Princess monkeys were doing at home regularly but well let's say I'm slack I love having kids artwork up for a long time and our fridge just wasn't big enough. ;) kind of like this

So with our friend's wedding at the end of the month of course there are other occasions that come a long with it and a kitchen tea is all part of the journey.

  So to bring some colour into this dreary stormy day here in Brisbane I thought I'd brighten my blog with all things Kitchen Tea thanks to Pinterest (be warned if you come follow me I'm mildly addicted but you can follow me here) whilst waiting for my vanilla sponge cake, gluten and dairy free of course ;),  to bake.

Date nights at home - Themes

Part of our date night 'rules' of sorts is that we have a theme.

The idea of the theme is so we don't end up sitting in front of the tv watching a movie, while we love cuddling up and watching movies together it gets to being a rut.

So tonight's theme is...

Date nights at home - planning

(image source)

I know I promised some baking recipes but currently King of The Monkey and I are attempting to have a date night once a month on the 7th (it's our wedding anniversary date) so this Friday night is our date night and it's my turn to plan it.