Queen's birthday long weekend

Hi guys!  How are ya this chilly Tuesday?  What did you get up to this Queen's birthday long weekend?  As for my family and I, we had a blast spending it with some of our family and friends.  Here's a break-down of what we got up to...

Saturday morning - we had my son's rugby league game followed by the club's monthly junior prize-giving where Jubs won the Player of the Month award for his team!  How awesome is that?  He was sooo happy because to be recognised amongst so many talented kids in his team is definitely an honour and something to celebrate and be proud of.  It happened so quickly that I only had enough time to grab my phone to snap this pic!

Very surprised and proud Jubs!!

We stayed at the club and had their yummy $10 steak dinner!!  Oh yeahhh!!  Sooo good!!

Already half-eaten, lol

Sunday - we supported the Warriors at Mt. Smart stadium (where they unfortunately lost),

Go Warriors!!!

then afterwards we headed over to our friends place, where all our sons got together for a sleepover.  Thanks to Mia and Terence for accommodating these rowdy boys, hehe.  We all had fish and chips for dinner, and I managed to whip up a small cake for dessert.

Giant donut that I'm sure Homer Simpson wouldn't mind...:-P

Monday (yesterday) - we all met up again at a park for a bbq and a game of touch AND we got to ride on Kiwa's cool quad bike!  All the kids took turns, and of course so did the adults!  We had sooo much fun!!        

Well, that's a glimpse of our Queen's birthday long weekend!!  Hope you had lots of fun, too!!  Catch you guys back here tomorrow for Dave's chocolate birthday cake that I made on the weekend!!

xo,
Jackie

Christmas family portrait

Good Monday everyone!!  Wow, I am sooo happy that we have a sunny day today, after one long rainy week!!  Woohoo!!  Let's pray it lasts fro

Now, this has got to be one of the coolest Christmas eCards ever!  It's by JibJab, and I couldn't help myself from trying it...check out my family video by clicking on the link below...

http://sendables.jibjab.com/view/V9kNbE3MxoBPln3d?cmpid=jj_url

Pretty sweet right?  I love it!  It makes me laugh every time I watch it!  You should go and try it for your family!  It's a quick and fun way to send a unique Christmas greeting to family and friends around the world.  Some of them are free, too, like the one I used.

Today, I want to share with you our fun and unique family portrait for this year!  But before I do, let's visit the ones from the previous years just for fun!

I scanned this one because I couldn't find the original.  2009 family portrait.

2010 family portrait

And now without further ado, our 2011 Christmas family portrait...(drum roll please)...

Something fun and unique!!  Thanks to our friends from Photobooth Auckland for the fun experience!!

This year's one was definitely more chillaxed.  I mean, we didn't even dress up for it, apart from the Christmas props that our friends Tamara and Alec provided for us to use.  I mean, com'on now, I was still in my sweaty touch clothes with NO makeup whatsoever!  Definitely a more natural and honest take on my family!  Which is why my hubby and I love this year's one sooo much!!

Have you done your Christmas portrait yet?  Do you get yours professionally done each year?  Or do you do the sit-on-Santa's-lap thing that they have at malls this time of year?  Or are you a DIYer like us?  However you do it, I'm sure it will be great!!

I'm so excited for Christmas!!  Mainly to celebrate such a special day with the people I love.  

Enjoy this sunny Monday guys!!  See you again tomorrow!!  Oh, and this week will be my final bloggin' week for the year!!  I will have some time off to spend with my family then see you all back here next year!!  Oh yeahhh!!  

xo

I'm baaack!!

Hey guys, first of all I would like to apologise for not even letting you know that I would be away on a little holiday!  I was in the beautiful Rarotonga (Cook Islands) since last Friday and only arrived back yesterday.  I was there for my best friend's wedding and it was seriously the best wedding everrr!  Unfortunately, I didn't have my Canon with me (boohoo) but I managed to take some pics with my Mum's (Sony Cybershot) digital camera.  I had to hand-carry the wedding cake and cupcakes so I had no space for my Canon...next time I'll definitely bring him.  But to be honest, no matter what kind of camera you have, you'll be able to capture beautiful photographs because Rarotonga is just that!  Beautiful!  Everywhere was a kodak moment I tell ya!  I will try and put some pics together from everyone's cameras because I didn't get to take a lot.  But here are a few sneak peeks for you to see...enjoy!

My snorkel gear on the beautiful sand by the crystal clear water...ahhh, just like a postcard xo

I spent a lot of my time at the beach because it was just too gorgeous!

I miss Raro!!  

Well, that's it for now.  I will share more pics tomorrow!  Good night!

xo

Birthday for two

Last weekend we held a small family gathering over at my parents place to celebrate two birthdays - my little brother's and I!  It was a lovely day.  Lots of delicious food to eat with plenty of laughs with the fam bam.  And of course, there was cake!  But not only that, we also had cupcakes!  Even better!

My dear sister-in-law Gaile (who unfortunately was sick to attend the gathering) made my brother's birthday cupcakes as well as my birthday cake.  I loved it!  Sooo pretty and cool.  It was also nice not having to make my own cake (which honestly I didn't really mind too much because I would really be making it for the family anyway).  Here are some shots I took for you all to see.

My beautiful birthday cake

My bro's cupcakes

Pretty cool, huh?  It was super delicious, too!  Thanks again Gaile!  Hope you're feeling better now.

Now, I wanted to give my bro something small and special.  I decided to make him something small and sweet.  With my sister-in-law (his wife) Ruthie's suggestions, I decided to go for the Starbucks coffee!  I've been wanting to do a mug cake, so this was perfect!  Click to see after the break...

Fathers' Day 2011 continued...

FATHERS' DAY PART THREE
...with my side of the family

Okay, so remember how yesterday I said I would show you my favourite part of the new-look Viaduct?  Well, without further ado, here it is...the giant bench(es)!

I really wouldn't mind takin' one of these babies home (to my backyard).  The perfect siesta bed slash reading chair slash kids playground, hehe.  Love it!

Click after the jump for more highlights...

RWC spectacular!

Hey guys!  Who enjoyed the RWC opening last Friday?  Did you see it live?  Or on tele?  Or did you miss the whole thing?  As for me and family, we decided to join in on some of the RWC hype on Friday night.  We watched the super cool fire works display from under the bridge!  It was the best view!  There were lots of people, but nothing too crazy like town.  We managed to find parking ten minutes before the fireworks started.  We even found a perfect spot next to the water.  It was a beautiful, clear night.  My three boys enjoyed it sooo much!  My twinnies were glued to the sky.  There were different colours exploding everywhere.  The patterns that came out were spectacular.  It was sooo big and loud you could feel the ground trembling.  We thought this would scare our little ones, but they loved every minute of it!  It was nice to see so many families there.  Our eldest boy imagined the whole thing was a Pokemon battle, he was lovin' it!  I was sooo gutted I forgot to bring my camera to capture the fireworks, but I think it was meant to be.  I think it was one of those 'better to live in the moment' moments.  Had I been taking photos all night, I would have missed the whole experience, so by the end of the night I was quite grateful I didn't have the camera.  It was a nice time with the fam :-)  Of course, knowing me, I still managed to find a way to document this experience (with my phone) - although unclear, they're enough to remind us of what a great night it was!

Okay, now I confess for the following pics you're about to witness...definitely doesn't paint the picture I described above, but it really was a beautiful night!  Sorry, again, this is all my Nokia X6 was able to produce...I'll see if I can put some more pics up later that my hubby took with his Android...maybe we'll get better pics, we'll see...

Afterwards, we rushed outta there and headed to Massey to my sister's casa where we watched the All Blacks play Tonga.  The one most talked about highlight of that game was when Sonny Bill Williams (SBW) took his super tight shirt off when one of his sleeves were ripped off during a tackle.  You should have heard the (ladies in the) crowd roar, haha.  While all the men were rolling their eyes (jealous much?), hehehe.  I gotta admit, my sister and I were one of those roarers, lol.  For those who missed out, here are some pics I found online...

Anyway, enough about shirtless rugby players!  Our internet is still giving us grief, so the Fathers' Day post I promised y'all will have to wait yet another day.  Hope you're all warm and cosy in this cold weather!  I pray no more tornadoes come our way - too scary!  See you all again soon!

xo

August in a glimpse...

Good morning everyone!  Hope you had a great Fathers' Day weekend!  My hubby sure was spoilt with love, laughter, and cake!  Will share more of that tomorrow, so be sure to come back.

Today I am delighted to 'begin' a monthly summary, where I'll be posting little glimpses of what I shared with you each month.  Not sure why I didn't think of this sooner.  Enjoy!

CUTEST

I started August off with sweet cake pops, which I renamed PARTY POPS!  A sweet treat made from left over cake scraps and covered in sprinkles!  Yum-oh!

COOLEST

Then we shuffled the streets of London with dancer Kimberley from Vibe One, who asked for a special cake delivery for her bf in Auckland!  How sweet!

MOST PINTEREST-ING

Of course goes to the Pinterest Challenge we did with Katie, Sherry, Lana and Emily.  Everyone shared amazing work!  Good stuff guys!

OLD SCHOOL

...goes to our trip down  memory lane where we visited my life as a dancer in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia! Good times!

RANDOM-EST

...has to go to the 'deer' action we had on our street.  Random and cool!

FASTEST

...goes to the little quickie action in the car with a cake!  There's gotta be a first for everything, right?

BEST MUSIC

...goes to DJ Kiwa who rocked the house!

BEST DANCE

...goes to this awesome dancing!!

BEST ROMANCE

...goes to the 'Love' cake I made for my hubby xo

MOST CHALLENGING

...undoubtedly goes to the MJ tip-toe shoes cake.  I can still remember the sleep deprivation, lol!

MOST SIGNIFICANT

...goes to the colourful confetti cupcakes made for my eldest son for making significant progress in his reading.  Well done! :-)

MOST THOUGHTFUL

...goes out to the bake sale held at Delish Cupcakes where I, along with so many other volunteers, baked lots of goodies to raise funds for those affected by the Christchurch earthquake.

MOST FASHIONABLE

...goes to Fashion Friday, where I shared some of the latest fashion trends I'm diggin'.

MILLENNIUM AWARD

...goes out to my Uncle who turned 50!  Made him a vanilla bean cake to celebrate via skype.  Love technology!  

MOST COMMITTED

...goes to the first wedding cake I made!  This is the first of many more wedding cakes to come, I'm sure.  :-)

and last but not least we have...

MOST CARING

...goes to the SPCA Cupcake Day!  

Well, there you have it!  August in a glimpse!  I can't believe it's now September!  Yay, my favourite month ('cause it's my birthday month, hehe, and it's SPRING).  See you all again soon for more cool cakin' and creatin'!

xo

SPCA Cupcake Day

That's right guys!  I am a proud supporter of this year's SPCA Cupcake Day and the image above is the official sticker I (along with all the other Cupcake Cooks) will be wearing when selling our cupcakes.  If you would like to find out more about this event or how you could help SPCA, then click here.

This is very exciting for me because this is my second charity event that I've been involved in this year.  I haven't mentioned this yet but earlier this year (as most of you fellow NZers would know) we had the most tragic earthquake happen in Christchurch.  This natural disaster took a lot of lives along with their hopes and dreams.  I was shocked when I heard the news and all I could do was pray for survivors.  I remember feeling really helpless and wondering what else I could do to help (apart from donating money online to Red Cross).   Then I stumbled upon a page on facebook set up by the lovely Delish Cupcakes in North Shore, Auckland.  They had organised a 'Get your bake on' for anyone to join and all money raised would go directly to those affected by the Christchurch earthquake.  I had both my hands up!!  What a lovely idea and a sweet gesture to show Christchurch that we are thinking of them.

It was a great day!  Lots of people turned up with their loose change and empty stomachs yearning for sweet treats.  I was one of the volunteer bakers and helpers on that day.  I even put my "I (heart) cake" t-shirt fit for the occasion, because it was Black and Red - the Canterbury colours.  I donated some delicious chocolate cupcakes and banana cupcakes with red and black daisies (again, using the Canterbury colours).  It was an awesome experience!  I got to meet so many lovely people, doing their bit to help out.  We made over $6k that day - what an incredible achievement!!

See pics after the jump...

This is dedicated to the one I love...

The title is from a song btw...  Anyway, to get our Wednesday started, here is a cute image I found on one of my favourite daily reads.  Since our subject today  has something to do with both Love and Chocolate, I thought this image is perfect!

Image source: Atypical Type A

Today I have something special to share with you all.  It's a cake I whipped up this morning for my dear husband, Lui.  Recently we've been witnessing blessings in our lives for which we are truly grateful for.  My hubby has been working very hard at his job, and sometimes it may go unnoticed by some, but his bosses and I know the amount of dedication he's been investing in his role that has and is making a huge impact in their company.  He's the go-to guy for anything - Lui this, Lui that.  Very similar to my current role as a stay-at-home-Mum - Mum this, Mum that...hehehe.  Lui very rarely wants a piece of my cakes, maybe because I make them too often it's lost its special factor about it, I don't know, but when he asked me on Monday if I could bake him a cake 'just 'cause' I thought 'wow, this is strange'.  So today I made a simple but rich-in-chocolate-and-deliciousness cake for him.  If he is reading my post today then there won't be a big surprise reveal when he gets home later, but that's okay, we can all still enjoy eating it as a family after dinner.  :-)

Of course, when I say simple, I meant about the decoration of the cake.  The frosting is not perfectly finished, but I think the handmade look gives it a nice touch.  I couldn't help my self from adding some embellishments to the finish, in this case making some frilly border to surround the bottom of the cake, and some Maltesers shaped in a heart to go on top.  I have to admit I couldn't resist eating a couple of those Maltesers in the process, lol.  But I didn't eat any until I saw what resembled a heart shape, hehe.

Before I reveal the cake, here's a scanned pic of something I found inside my (yummy) cereal box (Hubbard's Light & Right Berry Uplift).  I cut it out and placed it on our fridge, just as a reminder of how blessed we truly are.  Hopefully you can appreciate this, too.

Click below for the cake reveal...

A little quickie action in the car last night...

...with my cake!!  Com'on guys, what were you thinking?  LOL.  Since it's Friday I thought I'd spoil you guys with a second post!  If you haven't read my first post today, then simply scroll down or click here.

Remember yesterday how I said I was going to whip something old school and traditional for my Father-in-law's birthday?  Well, today is the big cake reveal!  But before I show it to you, I thought I'd tell you a little story of how the cake came to be...

Now, my sister-in-law was very adamant that we couldn't be late or else we'd have to pay the whole bill.  Well, I was kinda busy yesterday and only got to the baking part later in the afternoon so I was really pressed for time.  My hubby was like 'com'on we gotta go' and I was like 'but I still have to frost the cake'...he reminded me about what his sister had said, so of course I just packed my things and went straight to the car.  LOL

After dodging a few red lights, and really putting a heavy foot on the gas (just kidding guys, it was more like, "another red light?  com'on!!") we got there bang on time!  We decided to unload the kids first, then find a carpark.  I decided to stay behind just so I could quickly frost the cake and do some quick decorations.  Man, can I just tell you that there was not a lot of room to manoeuvre in the car!  Plus it was really dark in that carpark, I had to turn the inside lights on, and even that wasn't bright enough.  But, ya gotta work with what ya got, right?

While resting the cake on my legs, and using my left hand to rotate it as my right hand was busy smoothing with a palette knife, I realised that this was one of those moments that needed to be documented.  So, I (very carefully) placed the palette knife on my left hand and grabbed the camera with my right and snap!  I didn't have the luxury to take too many pictures, so I settled with the one.  Then after that I went straight back to work.  After some smoothing and sprinkling magic, here's what I ended up with...

Not bad for a quickie-in-the-car job huh?  If you'd like to read more about our night, then just click below.  There are some pics of what we ate, too - yum yum yum-ehh!!

Hello deer...

This week our street has been busy with a film crew and super star reindeers!  I know, reindeers!  (Hence the post title...)  They blocked off our street from the general public, put signs up everywhere that filming was in progress, authorised personnel only.  We even had tow away signs!  It was pretty exciting as my Mum and I were driving back to my place from a walk and I had to verify that I lived there in order to gain access to my casa!  Hehehe...

My neighbour tells me that our street is very popular with the film industry.  I mean, our street does look good and does resemble Wisteria Lane (from Desperate Housewives),  just not as grand and without the white picket fences.  Many members of our family and friends have given us the "wow, your street looks like Wisteria Lane on Desperate Housewives!"  LOL, I just find that too funny!

Anyway, check out some pics I took of the filming commotion that went on this week...after the jump...

Going down memory lane...

Good Thursday guys!  Hope you're enjoying the clear blue sky that is outside.  I am loving the warmer and sunshiney days we're being blessed with this week.  Definitely savouring them while they're here, because you know what Auckland weather's like.

Today is my Father-in-law's birthday!  So I'll be whipping up a little something sweet to present to him at our family dinner tonight.  I'll post pics up tomorrow!  I am excited because we're having authentic Malaysian food.  We've recently discovered this amazing restaurant that is delicious and well-priced (thanks to my lovely sis-in-law for introducing this wonderful place to us a couple of weeks ago).  It has won some awards, including the Best in the West in 2009.  Where is it?  It is in New Lynn, West Auckland, called Bunga Raya Restaurant.  I absolutely love the food, and yes, it tastes so authentic I feel like I'm in Malaysia again!  It definitely brings back some awesome memories from when I went to Kuala Lumpur (KL) as part of my Performing Arts (Dance Studies) degree, where a group of us (we called ourselves 'Mango Jammin') represented New Zealand for the TARI International Festival of Dance 2007, (ASWARA).  Good times!!  While we're on that subject, let's take a little trip down memory lane to my life as a dancer.  Enjoy!

Just arrived and already immersing ourselves in the Malaysian culture.  Of course, first stop was FOOD!  Ah, so yum-ehh!!

More pics after the jump...