11th Birthday Pool Party Fun PART 1

Apologies for the length of time taken to blog about the twins 11th Birthday Bash, there always seems to be 101 jobs to be completed here at AnK headquarters. In February Mr T and Miss M turned 11. It was a hectic week with the kids swimming carnival the day before and a sleep over for 7 eleven year olds that night.

 

I always find it difficult to come up with a theme to suit our boy/girl twins, this year we went with an orange, navy & aqua pool party.

 

Part 1 Blog is about the food table, suppliers and designers are listed below.

 

 

Our Food Table - Tissue paper pom poms from Little Big Company



DIY Printable Birthday Banner - My Party Design

Tiny Teddies on Towels (Sour Strap) Cupcakes with umbrellas -
DIY Printable cupcake wrappers from My Party Design

Pool Party Cupcake topped with the cutest sunglasses, lilo and bikini toppers
made by Sugar and Spice Cupcakes

Miss B enjoys a cupcake
 



Cheezel Floaties - DIY Printable Food Labels by My Party Design

 

Disposable Blue Cups from Pink Frosting and Chalkboard labels from Hello Hudson

 

Jelly Pools - jelly, round sugar lolly and jellybaby in a shot glass

 

Melon beachballs - orange and blue spot serving cups from Little Big Company

 

Pool Water and Straws (various ebay sellers), flags from My Party Design.

DIY Printable Pool Water Labels My Party Design

Popcorn Fish Food (Caramel Popcorn)
Paper Cones from Little Big Company

Shell Sandwiches


At the Pool Party we also had a lolly buffet, think i will leave those photos for another day.

Yellow is the new Red...GO BOREE

It has been a hive of activity here at AnK Headquarters for the start of 2013. The arrival of Miss Kat, our new Governess,  and her husband Brett was much anticipated and highly welcomed.  Kat has already survived 1 unit of Year 6 new national curriculum via Distance Education, 1 trip to Longreach for the kids swimming carnival, 1 rather large 11th birthday party, a 2 week visit from the grandparents, an Alpha Rodeo and much much more.

Welcome Miss Kat, we hope you enjoy your time at 'Malden'

Each year at LSODE the kids get very much into the team spirit.  We are of course on the 'best' team, the bright sunny yellow BOREE :) We even had the chance to make a banner for the swimming carnival.

GO BOREE

The kids will tell you that the best part of going to school events like the swimming carnival is catching up with their friends.

Mr T with his friend Mr B who shared the ribbons, 1 first and 1 second each.

We do have a pool at home and the kids had been practising their strokes in preparation for the swimming carnival.

Miss M was delighted to get a blue ribbon for breaststoke, her favourite stroke.

And in a first for the AnK Household Mr T picked up age champion.

LSODE 11 Year Boys Age Champion 2013

It was a rather long trip home from the swimming carnival with 7, 11 year olds in the car - lots of pizza, a guest appearance from Julia Gillard (aka Rosie) and some very tired kids. It was the perfect opportunity for Miss M and Mr T to have their school friends over for their birthday.  Promise I will blog about that next :)

Some of the LSODE Year 6 class

And the winner of the swimming carnival....BOREE of course :)

Savour The Outback

Savour The Outback - From the Kitchens of the
Longreach School of Distance Education

Apologies for being absent from the world of blogging over the last few months.  It has been a hectic time at AnK Headquarters. Way back in September last year we were thrilled to release our school recipe book ~ Savour The Outback.

Longreach School of Distance Education is a unique school -

"Imagine a classroom more than twice the size of Victoria, where the playground is as vast as the outback and the partnership between home and school is legendary."

 

Also known as "School of the Air", our distance education centre provides schooling for (mainly) geographically isolated students scattered across Central and Western QLD. As part of the P and C at our school we also have a seperate Tourism Sub Committee, the Tourism Committee are a very dedicated group of volunteers that overseer the tourism business at the school.  LSODE Tourism offers tours of the school, live lesson link ups and an amazing insight into the world of Distance Education. With several staff on the books and lots of tourists to cater for it is certainly a busy committee to be part of. I joined the Committee in 2008 and became Secretary in 2009, Angie joined in 2009 and became President in 2010.  So if you are wondering why AnK can be quiet during the school term then this is one of the reasons.



All ready for the official opening

As part of the souvenirs sold in our Tourism Room we wanted to produce a new Recipe Book, I started collecting recipes in 2008 and the book has been a work in process ever since.  At times I wondered if we would ever cross the finish line. A considerable amount of tears and wine later we have produced an amazing book that will be proudly placed on many kitchen benches all across Australia and even worldwide.



Matt Bron and Angie officially launching the book.

The book was launched at a special function held at LSODE by Matt Bron Director of QLD Tourism, Outback and Gulf and attended by lots of families and locals.  We had some recipes to sample and lots of books to sell.


Within a month of releasing this special book we were thrilled to have SOLD OUT of our first print run of 1000 books, we are quietly confident that our next print run will also be a sell out during 2013. Not only are the recipes fantastic but the photography is also spectacular.

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you would like to order a copy of this amazing book, you can do so by emailing tours1@eq.edu.au

 

Books are $30 and $12 postage (for up to 3 books) or books can be purchased from Myers Newsagency, Longreach QLD.

We promise to be back soon to the badly neglected blog for some more news on what we got up to at the end of 2012. Thanks also for your patience while we have completed this project which will raise funds for remote children to access a quality education.  Funds help with minischools, camps, library resources and home tutor training.

 

If you are in the Longreach area whilst travelling please pop by and visit our school, it is certainly a tourism attraction worth attending.

 

Kristy, Angie and School Principal
Mrs Rowena Arthur at the Recipe Book Launch



AnK Helper Suzanne also forms part of this committee -
she is in charge of Souvenirs
(yes we like to keep things in the family !!)

Madeit Monday - Pretty Floral Dresses

It's been a while since we had a Madeit Monday Blog....check out these gorgeous floral finds on madeit, perfect summer dresses for your Princess :)




Oh Veronica Matilda Vintage Dress $49



Missy Melly Maxi dress $60

Missy Bug Boutique Roses and Lace Flutter Dress & Brooch $38

Mozzie and Mac Perfect Summer Floral Dress $48

Sweet SoDa Designs Vintage Roses Flutter Sleeve Dress $28



Chester & Lolly Lolly Summer Ruffle Neck Dress $32




Enjoy,

Busy Busy

You must all think we have given up this blogging thing, after all it has been a while - many months in fact.  What's been happening to keep us so occupied that we haven't had the time to blog ?

 

Term 3 came all too quickly to AnK Headquarters, and with it came the arrival of the lovely Miss Courtney, new Governess for the Malden Schoolroom.

 

Courtney has shown extreme patience and skill when tackling the new distance education curriculum and handling the terror twins ! From monopoly games to sewing and fishing the kids have welcomed Miss Courtney to Malden and we hope she is enjoying her time with us.

We have had sleepovers and netball tournaments (even a trophy win !)

 

We tackled Capella Craft Fair and had an AnK 5th Birthday Facebook Party.

 

We had a visit from Ma Ma and Pa Pa

 

 

   and planted some new herbs.

 

The kids went to Sports Camp and School Musical Practise.

 

We got the gooseneck ready and headed in for Alpha Campdraft.

 

 

and then hit the road again for Twin Hills Campdraft, Races, Rodeo and Gymkhana.

 

In between all that we have packaged up madeit orders, been working on custom outfits, ordering school musical costumes and running our grazing property, all the while ensuring that we continued on with that pesky new curriculum.......no matter where we were........

 

 

Ohhhhhhh and we did manage to launch a recipe book too, but I think I'll leave that for another day :)

 

Before you all fall asleep reading what we've been up to.