My final weekend before summer holidays ended and it was back to reality and the office for me ... at least until April/May (not so bad really Scott tells me).

After a week at home with clingy cranky high needs toddlers, my sis and I were in desperate need of a time out and despite our promises to wait for our mum to get back from her holidays, we decided to go see Saving Mr Banks.

I preface my review by saying that I went in to the movie, totally biased and expecting to love it. Mary Poppins to this day is one of my all time favourite movies and I was sure I wasn't going to be disappointed. Guess what? I wasn't! I loved every single minute of Saving Mr Banks from the opening sequence 'Winds in the East mist coming in ...' to the very end of 'let's go fly a kite'.

The story, the cast ... it was all completely brilliant in my humble movie-goers opinion. I shed tears and possibly clapped a few scenes, it just inspired so much emotion. The little Australian girl was mesmerising, Colin Farrell was the tortured father and of course, Emma Thompson and Tom Hanks wowed as you would expect. It gave so much insight to a story I have loved forever and made me ache for its author and the childhood she lived through that controlled her adult life. With no special effects, action sequences or animations, the movie rested solely on the quality of its storyline and the cast's delivery and made a nice change. Its absolutely a must see and I would have to say, Oscar worthy for sure.

I also did a little shopping of course and picked up some bargain buys from plenty of my favourite stores ... you know, Kikki K, Country Road, Kookai, Peter Alexander, the usual haunts. Winter PJs at less than half price for E ($14 a pair), a monthly planner (to keep Scott on top of things), Fresh Jive tees for Scott at only $10 a piece (these wash and wear amazingly well), new tees for me for $12 at Kookai, back up EL mineral powder ($20 people) and pajama style pants at more than 50% off to fit my expanding bump.







We rounded off the weekend with two birthday parties, a 2nd birthday on the Saturday morning for a friend's little boy and my beautiful littlest niece Lillee's 1st birthday on the Sunday. With a 'You are my sunshine' theme and colours of yellow and pink, Karly and I were busy baking and prepping to meet the brief. Its not a 1st birthday without chocolate crackles so I whipped up some mini ones along with some number 1 hundreds & thousands cookies and fairy bread.



decorations came together beautifully and the birthday girl was an absolute delight for her party despite having only a 30 minute nap the entire day. E on the other hand was more than a little clingy, wary of the crowd despite knowing almost everyone and at least had a 60 minute nap that saved us from a potentially more difficult afternoon.

What did you get up to?