My 'It's A Girl' Baby Shower!

Today I want to share with you my Baby Shower which was thrown a few weeks ago to celebrate my baby bump and to get ready to welcome Mr P and I's new addition as we're just weeks away from starting our own little family.

I wore a flower crown because when else will I have an excuse to wear one! It was made by a talented local The Flower Crown Cartel and it made me feel every bit the glowing Mum-To-Be. When I eventually (and reluctantly!) took the flower crown off I dried the flowers out and it's become a pretty dried flower crown which I've hung in the baby's nursery (more to come on the nursery tour soon!).

The Baby Shower was a combined effort by my two beautiful bridesmaids who impressed everyone with their Hen Party planning for my Wedding that when they offered to throw me a Baby Shower I was very grateful and happy to accept!

My two friends did the invitations, decorations, games and were the hostess with the hostess on the day which meant I could relax and socialise with all the guests which really made the whole day so much more enjoyable for me.

We had the Baby Shower at my house out on the newly built deck and the girls decorated it beautifully with a pink, black and white theme with bunting, balloons and paper pompoms it looked so pretty.

I made a dozen or so flower arrangements with a few bunches of pink and white flowers from my favourite florists on Beaufort Street in Mount Lawley. I recycled the jars from my engagement party and replaced the ribbons with pink, black and white ribbons to match the theme.

I placed the flowers on the tables out on the deck and by the front door and they looked so pretty.

My lovely Mum made all the food for afternoon tea - little finger sandwiches, quiches, fritata, sausage rolls and for the dessert table this was a combined effort I made cupcakes, my Mum made slice and my Auntie made a cake and biscuits.

I gave my camera to a friend to take photos on the day so I didn't need to worry about it and she did a great job at capturing all the happy snaps (including the odd selfie per below!).

Friends and family traveled near and far to make my Baby Shower and I especially love that my 90 year old Nanna (and cruise ship companion!) rang the morning of the party saying she just didn't want to miss it and organised for a 4 hour round trip from the Country to come to the party and I'm so glad she did.

I was showered with gifts from friends and family and feeling ever so grateful for all the thoughtfulness and love our little one will have when she enters this world.

I have hosted two Baby Showers for friends and family and it really is a special occasion to celebrate.

Did you have a Baby Shower?

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[All images my own]

Cookbook Review: I Love Soup By Beverly Le Blanc

This is a book review of I Love Soup: More than 100 of the world's most delicious and nutritious recipes by Beverly Le Blanc that was published by Nourish Books on 13 September 2016 and released in Australia in February 2017.

Beverly Le Blanc is a food editor of the UK edition of Readers Digest and has written 12 other cookbooks including slow cooking and student meals.

The name says it all really - this is a cookbook for soup lovers with over 100 recipes for well known and delicious soups, from indulgent and creamy soups, to hearty and filling meal in one soups, to delicate summertime chilled soups it has it all in this a one stop guide for soup lovers.

I really like cookbooks that focus on one dish like this one and with over 100 soup recipes to pick from if you feel like soup then this book is bound to have a recipe for you.

This cookbook is perfect for beginners as the recipes are very easy to follow and there's some fancier recipes as well if you are hosting a dinner party or feel like something a bit more indulgent.

I would have liked to see more images of each recipe there was only images for half the recipes and it's really a necessity for cookbooks to have images of every dish to be inspired to cook them and to see how the finished dish should turn out. Reading this as an ebook was a bit difficult and a hardcopy version of this cookbook is a must to use in the kitchen.

I recommend this book to soup lovers it's a great one stop guide to making soup and a must have for the kitchen shelf at home.

I give this book 3 stars out of  5

Jarrah Jungle's Star Rating:

1 Bad - I'd rather eat brussel sprouts topped with anchovies than read this again
2 Not Good - I'd rather watch paint dry than read this again
3 Ok - I'm sitting on the fence - its not great but not terrible either
4 Good - I'd give up a bottle of the worlds best champagne for this read
5 Great - I'd pass up a date with Ryan Gosling for this read

I Love Soup can be purchased from Nourish Books

Sharing my book review on Good Reads here and Netgalley

Disclosure:  NetGalley partner with bloggers such as me to help promote authors and their books and I was given this ebook published by Nourish Books to review. As always, all opinions are my own.

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[Image via Nourish Books]

Jarrah Jungle Blog - 7 Year Milestone

I hit publish on my first blog post 7 years ago on the 24th of May 2010 

and have written over 1000 blog posts since then !

I know I'm a little early but I wanted to write about my blog's 7 year milestone before our new addition arrives as our little girl is due in May and who knows it could be any day now so I thought I'd better hit publish on this post now before my hands are full as a first time Mum! 

If you're reading this THANK YOU for coming on this blogging journey with me all these years and for sharing in my adventures (and misadventures) of turning Mr P and I's first house into a home we love.

What changes we've seen in our home over the last 7 years - we've completely gutted, renovated and restyled our home inside and out, built a garage extension, added a front courtyard and built a backyard deck and patio. There's not a wall we haven't painted or door we haven't replaced we've transformed every inch of our home with love and care to turn it into our own abode. 

The property goal for us from the beginning was to renovate and retain the front house and to subdivide our block in two and I'm thrilled to say we have finished the last stage of this and are awaiting the subdivision to be signed off as complete which should come through any day now.

We can then put the back block on the market for sale or we will wait for Perth's property market to pick up a bit - it will depend on what advice we get from Real Estate agents once we're read to take this next step.

We'll continue to live in our renovated Jarrah Jungle home on the front block until we feel it's time to move into a bigger family home (which may be sooner than we thought with a baby on the way!). But we really want to enjoy all our blood, sweat and tears and the home we have created for now.

On a personal note you've been there when Mr P and I become fur-parents to our rescue dog Lexi, the excitement of our engagement and then our DIY wedding and now our journey into parenthood as we will soon be welcoming our little baby girl into our home.

I promise I won't bore you with too much Mum life stuff but I will continue to write about how our home and style evolves as we turn our couples retreat into a family friendly home.

Thanks again to you my amazing readers for all your support over the years and coming on this home loving journey with me xxx

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[All images my own]

Book Club Book Review: Modern Girls By Jennifer S Brown

The March book picked for my book club to read was Modern Girls by Jennifer S Brown

This is a story set in the 1930's in Manhattan and New York and is told in parallel chapters by mother Rosie and daughter Dottie.

Rosie immigrated from Russia when she was a young woman and for the past 20 years has been a housewife and mother to five children. Dottie has a great office job, friends and a boyfriend and lives an American lifestyle but maintains strong Jewish beliefs and family traditions.

Both Rosie and Dottie fall pregnant and deal with their pregnancies in very different ways.

There are many issues touched upon in the book such as the Jewish community and the war in Europe and I wondered if this was going to be a wartime story but it turned out not to be the case.  Of course the pregnancies which are the main focus of the story bring with them many different reactions, scenarios and dramas as well.

I really enjoyed following the lifestyle of Rosie and Dottie, they are both strong female characters, and it ended in such a way that a sequel could be written. I can see this being turned into a movie one day.

I recommend this book to anyone looking for an easy and pleasant read about the American way of life in the 1930's.

I give this book 4 stars out of  5

Jarrah Jungle's Star Rating:

1 Bad - I'd rather eat brussel sprouts topped with anchovies than read this again
2 Not Good - I'd rather watch paint dry than read this again
3 Ok - I'm sitting on the fence - its not great but not terrible either
4 Good - I'd give up a bottle of the worlds best champagne for this read
5 Great - I'd pass up a date with Ryan Gosling for this read

For exclusive extras and daily updates ... follow Jarrah Jungle on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter

[Image via Jennifer S Brown]