Birthday Party

Last weekend I invited a few friends over to celebrate my 23rd birthday.

I had grand plans of baking all this incredible food... but since it was my first week teaching at school, it didn't really pan out that way!

Mum & I ended up doing a run down to a local bulk food store and stocking up on lots of yummy food like this instead!

The food table- all the flowers were given to me on the day of my birthday! Two kids from my class gave me hand cut flowers from their gardens, which I put in the vases on the left and right.

Me and my best buds- Claryse, Keisha, Elise & Laura

Opening presents

I'm laughing in this photo because Laura bought me a giant porcelain piggy bank to encourage me to start saving now I'm earning decent money as a full time teacher!



My mum surprised me by secretly ordering a cake- I had no idea until the day of the party! Even better, it was a gluten free choc hazelnut cake with macaroons- and it tasted just like Nutella! Yum.

Everyone had a great night- we played pool and sang along to the karaoke that was on MTV and danced like idiots and stayed up talking til the wee hours!

It's my birthday

It's Birthday Week!

It's Monday the 13th June... which means it's the start of what I like to call "Birthday Week!"




In my opinion, a birthDAY is just not enough.

Hence, in high school, I came up with Birthday Week. It's a whole 5 days of excitement and countdown to the actual day.

My birthday is on Friday. I love birthdays.

Let the countdown begin!

A Look Inside a Kindergarten Classroom

Curious to see what a real kindergarten classroom looks like?

Let me show you!

This is not my classroom, but it is the classroom that I'm in for my four week block of prac.




Because it's a kindergarten room, it's very colourful, with lots of the kids' work up on the walls.


I could bore you with a whole lot of talk about how research has found that classrooms where the kids' work is up on display leads to a more engaged class with higher success rates in learning...





I could also tell you that the Creative Arts (music, dance, drama and visual arts) have been found to correlate with success more so than either academia, sports or community involvement. All the more reason for letting your kids be creative and put up their art in the classroom!

So of course there's lots of artwork up in the room!



And my own creation... You always have to make a prototype to show the kids how to do it!

We made these animal habitats on paper a few days ago- the green one is a lilypad, the pink one is a nest and the red one is a tree!

We've also been doing some work on Japan - here are the koi fish the kids made with me!



Naturally, we do a lot of counting. Here's our counting by tens caterpillar!



These Rainbow Fish we made after reading the Rainbow Fish story book.

Wish List

Yesterday, on Friday afternoon, I drove out of my way to go and get petrol because I had one of those voucher things that you get if you spend more than $30 at the supermarket the petrol station is linked to.

Anyway, since I was out, I decided to make a shopping trip out of it, and so I spent a lovely hour or two browsing fabric shops and homewares stores, just taking in all the prettiness.

And because it's my birthday in less than a month (hint hint!), I thought I'd show you some of the pretty things that I found.


I am in love, in love I tell you, with this bedspread from Sheridan. Too bad it doesn't come in queen size. And that it's actually kids bed linen.




I also love these pale pink mini kitchen scales from Domayne.



I may or may not have ordered something similar to these tote bags with my name on it...




Oh, and also this. It is different to the one above, really. It's a tote basket, not a tote bag.




And since I've already linked to a lot of Etsy items, let's add some more.

I love this set of 4 prints, from here. Reminds me of a set of 6 framed in a beautiful ornate white wooden frame that I saw at Domayne yesterday for $299. Yikes.





I also love this, from here.



I realise that these Nutella Cupcakes don't traditionally fall into the category of "pretty", but still, I wanted to include them. Yum.




In fact, I think I'll make those today.

Photos from my week

I have been busy- I finished my last week of classes EVER, and then went straight into prac at school! I have a kindergarten class and they are the cutest! It's a lot of work planning lessons for 22 kids who can't read or write yet, but it's definitely a good challenge!

So... some pics from the past week:


Fog on the drive in this morning.




Black tea with honey- my fave.




My sister sent this to me when she saw "Alicia's Risotto" on the menu at an Italian restaurant! I do love me some risotto!




My favourite mug- got it from New York a few years ago.




New red shoes! I have an addiction to ballet flats.

Easter Weekend

My friends and I spent the Easter Weekend at the beach!

My friend Laura's family have an apartment in Shellharbour, near Wollongong and we went down after church on Easter Sunday to spend the night.

We made a road trip of the two hour drive to get there. Keisha drove, Claryse sat in the passenger seat and I sat in the back and controlled the iPod playlist we had going.



It was Easter, so we had lots of healthy snacks for the journey...



That ended up a little worse for wear after being stuck in the hot car...



We got there in the afternoon...




This was the view from Laura's apartment.



We spent the day browsing all of the little boutique stores in the main street.



And enjoying the sunshine down by the water.






Keisha lost her shoe in the water, and I came up with a genius plan to find a stick long enough to get it back!



Success!



The sky really was that blue! No editing, I promise!

The four of us- Laura, me, Keisha & Claryse

Keisha & I at low tide.

Enjoying the scenery...

We decided to make our little beach vacation into a photo opp!




What's a holiday near the beach without a jump photo?




Strawberry champagne to finish off a great day.



We made our own cocktails- strawberry champagne with orange & mango juice!



The sunset from our view on the balcony.



We played an intense game of Monopoly- I think some of my friends have futures as real estate moguls!





The next day was ANZAC Day/ Easter Monday- this was one of the memorials we saw around town, covered with wreaths from the dawn service.



It was a bit colder and greyer that day..



These pelicans were on every pole!




The beautiful view of the beach and rockpools as we left