A planning day to map out the next 3 years for Storyfest, a trip to the City, learning how to make soap, starting, what may become a family tradition and attending Dana’s baby shower – she’s been a busy week.

From the work side of things, we’ve announced two amazing women to join the Storyfest board which has approved the further development of regional festivals for children. It’s exciting to work with a group of individuals who share your passion. A trip to Brisbane (for work) reminded me of the craziness of the City and it’s been some time since I’ve been mid-Brisbane during the workweek. So busy – I’m not sure I could step back into that lifestyle. Taking me nearly 2 hours to get home, I’m not sure how people do that traffic everyday.

A few weeks back my friend asked me if I was interested to do a a soap making workshop, initially I was like – nope, not for me. I took a look at the information and decided I’d give it a go, if nothing else, it gave me an opportunity to catch up with Angéline. We set on Saturday morning to a little studio just around the corner – The Craft Parlour. There was a group of 5, all keen to try our skills at soap making. I had decided to embrace the soap making gig, I’ve been on a mission to use all the mini soaps, shampoos etc that you gather from hotel stays and was down to the last bottle of body wash. A particular brand of soap I love, I can’t get any more.

As we’re led through our course, there’s a certain personal element involved, you select the essential oils, whether you may like to add an exfoliating aspect, which is my case was poppy seeds. So we all ended up with a very personalised set of 6 bars of soap. It was a great morning, definitely something I’d have a go at doing myself – I wouldn’t say it’s a cheap way to get soap. I settled on Lemon Myrtle and Rosewood oils, added in poppy seeds and clay (for natural colour). Very happy with how my soap turned out. I was so engrossed in the process, I hadn’t noticed the others around me and their ‘flair’ or ‘artistic’ ability. The photos speak for themselves.

Saturday afternoon, the family arrived and I found out that we were making a cake for the baby shower. Two tiered heart cake, iced and decorated! Last April, Manon, Dana and I made Navy’s 2nd birthday cake a multi-tiered frozen ombre! The opportunity to hang out with my kids and chat and laugh and try and figure out what the hell we’re doing is priceless and moments like these I will forever cherish! Due to a miscalculation of pans and cake mix – we ended up with a monster 4-tiered cake to celebrate this boy crashing the girl party!

Whilst we were absolutely thrilled at our achievements we then needed to work out how to transport! We backed up this morning to add the piping and the chocolate letters, I then left them to it to get it to the venue.

It was wonderful for Dana to gather with family and friends to celebrate the upcoming baby boy coming into our world – I think there were about 20+ of us of which 7 are pregnant! Holy hell – don’t drink the water!

As I sit and type this, my apartment is a mess with the remnants of cake making and a two+ year old – I love it, my heart is full. Roll on baby boy! He’s due 13 March…

With many celebrations to plan for in the coming years, possibly my next craft workshop should be cake making!