My 1st Time Hosting Christmas!

I know it's a bit late for a Christmas post, but better late than never, right? (and this way I can pretend it's still the festive season, lol) I had a wonderful time hosting Christmas lunch for Mr. B's family & also doing Christmas Eve dinner for my family. It was busy, stressful & at times crazy, but most of all magical & fun! :D

I woke Christmas morning a buzz of excitement & ate a lovely gluten free & diary free croissant (baked fresh then brought online from Choices Gluten Free). I filled it Toblerone (I figured it's Christmas so I'd deal with the pain of having dairy for this one special day :P) folded it & warmed it in the oven so the Toblerone melted inside. It was yummy! :D

I'm not going to post about all the many gifts that I received this year (I was very spoilt), although they were all so lovely, it was more of a day & night to get together with family, chat, eat & enjoy each other's company. I loved playing host. Decorating the house was fun!

The Christmas Tree:

This Mr. & Mrs. Claus decoration has been on our family Christmas tree since I was a child. This is a special edition to Mr. B & my Christmas tree in our home :-)

This cute Santa decoration is actually a snow globe! (for those of you who don't know I am mildly obsessed with snow globes)
A lovely gift from my friend, Jess :-)

This tin cupcake was a gift from my sister x

This gorgeous Hello Kitty hand blown glass ornament is a favourite!

Our tree is not complete without an angel on top :-)

This hand made reindeer has been a trusty 'present guard' since I was a child. Another special Christmas decoration I can't bear to part with :-)

This gorgeous ceramic 'Cookie' decoration was a gift from Mum x

Christmas is just not complete without my sequined reindeer & Henry the chicken :-)

...and let's not forget my Helly Kitty stocking!

The Table Settings:

Even though we had traditional Christmas bon bons as well, I couldn't resist these cute bunny bon bons:

Keeping up with my snow globe obsession I got this cute Christmas train for the table. Each carriage is a snow globe!

We brought this pretty detailed table centrepiece from Prouds the jewelers

I visited my family for a fun-filled Christmas Eve family dinner. I wore this emerald green maxi dress from Modcloth:

My sister made this amazing 3 layer jelly:

The layers are: strawberry, coconut & pink lemonade. It was so sweet & yummy & also gluten free! :-)

My Christmas Day Outfit:

It didn't take me long to decide on this Portmans white dress for my Christmas day outfit. I had purchased it (on sale) a few months prior & had been resisting temptation to wear it as I was 'saving' it for this special day. I paired it with a old red bow belt & my trusty old Target red shoes (a perfect mix of old meets new, I thought).

Christmas Day lunch was absolutely delicious! Mr. B's family made so many gluten free versions of Christmas favorites that I have missed out on in previous years. Mr. B's sister made an amazing gluten free stuffing, there was gluten free gravy, leg of ham, roast veges and of course two roast turkeys stuffed with orange, sage & gluten free stuffing:

Me being stupid about to carve the turkey :P

I baked a few Christmas treats this year including gluten & dairy free gingerbread men:

and a gluten free twist on a family favourite, New Zealand lolly log/lolly cake:

I will do a separate post about the lolly log & the gingerbread men, including recipes later :-)
I hope you all had a lovely Christmas & that 2013 has been wonderful for you so far!

miss_tash x

Presents from Mister Mailman :-)

Hello everyone. I hope that you all had a very Merry Christmas! I had a wonderful (yet very stressful) time hosting Christmas this year. (But more on that in my up-coming Christmas post)

Little did I know that at the time all the stress was making me sick. Now that the Christmas rush is over I am taking time to have a breather & focus on recovering from illness. I won't be able to post clothing posts for the next few weeks as it's painful to try clothes on right now (terrible for a dress lover like myself).

But here's one I prepared earlier. A few things that Mr. Postman delivered before Christmas from my favourite online store, Modcloth:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Tee

The Very Hungry Caterpillar was a cherished childhood story for me, as I'm sure it was for many of you :-) So you can imagine how excited I was when I discovered it in a t-shirt! If this tee could talk it would tell you the story of The Very Hungry Caterpillar (obviously :P) This tee is made by a company called Out of Print. Not only is it cute, but the purchase of this tee shirt sends one book to a community in need! :D

 I also got this gorgeous cherry print dress that I had in my wishlist for over a year. Sometimes it feels good to finally splurge on the things you have been longing for for so long :-)

'Pull Up a Cherry Dress'

Here I am, caught on camera playing around with tinsel & laughing:

If this dress could talk it would tell tales of the last day at work before Christmas vacation, sneaking sips of champagne, twirling in the courtyard & tales of many more adventures to come :-)

 I will do a Christmas post in the next few days once I trawl through the 100s of photos :P

Until then enjoy the summer days,
miss_tash x

On the Road-adventures in attempting to be removalists :P

On the first weekend of summer Mr. B, his sister & I hired a truck and drove down south to help Mr. B's parents move house.

Mr. B & I have moved 3 times in the past few years, so we considered ourselves to be seasoned moving specialists....oh how we underestimated the size of this job! Hehe

We started out on the Gold Coast then drove to Toowoomba, which is west of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia. We then traveled 381 km (236 miles) south interstate to Armidale, New South Wales.

Leaving Toowoomba:

At this point I was way too enthusiastic & excited as I had never been in a truck this big before!

We managed to gather quite an impressive bug collection on the windscreen through the 5 & a half hour drive. Sadly, I saw a lot of road kill on the road :-(

We stopped about half way in Stanthorpe (famous for it's apples):

This pic was taken in front of The Big Apple (please excuse Mr. B & I as we are in our 'moving clothes')

We had something sweet to eat at a lovely little cafe/supermarket/restaurant called Vincenzo's. They had an amazing menu, with quite a few yummy gluten free options. We tried the gluten free orange cake and a gluten free salted caramel macaron:

They also had this cute pasta shaped like kangaroos! I would have bought some but unfortunately it was not gluten free :-(

Next we stopped in Glen Innes, a cute little town in 'Celtic Country' NSW. There was even a mini Stonehenge-style sign that says "Welcome to Celtic Country":

We stopped at The Super Strawberry (a cute little strawberry farm/shop)  & these scotty dogs greeted us out the front:

(Just between you & me I think the dogs on the right are going through an identity crisis: "Am I a dog or reindeer?" hehe)

The shop was loaded with lots of other cute home wares & nick nacks. I found this gorgeous porcellen dish with 3 birds perched on it. It was a bargain at $9.95:

They also had homemade avocado & mango butters, chutneys, pavlova, strawberry drinks, choc dipped strawberries, strawberries & cream and loads more. We didn't have time to eat or buy anything more so we hit the road...

It was 37 degrees celsius in Armidale when we were moving & packing! We stayed over night & on the drive back to Toowoomba we passed through a crazy storm in Allora (just out of Warwick). The lighting cracking across the fields was actually really pretty, but I was too scared to take photos of the storm itself.

Sunshine coming out after the storm 

Then it was full sun half a km down the road

It took 6 hours to drive back to Toowoomba with a heavily loaded truck. Then we drove home to the Gold Coast, by the time we got home it was past midnight & we hit the pillows for work the next morning. Zzzzz

I do appologise that all of the pictures are bad quality-they were taken with my phone from a moving vehicle. I saw so many beautiful things out the truck window, but wasn't quick enough to take a photo. Australia really is a beautiful country!

We did a great job moving all the stuff in the heat within the time frame, but I don't think we will be doing too many more jobs as 'Mr. B & Tash's Removalists' :P

'Trucker Tash' lol, I won't quit my day job :P

miss_tash x