:: Spring Giveaway! ::

Today was the very first day of Spring and I couldn't be more excited! I am a huge fan of warm weather, longer days, the fun clothes and accessories that are filling the stores, and not to mention the fact that my baby nephew will be born any day now! To celebrate, I thought I would have a little giveaway.

Here are the rules as to how you could win this great Napoleon Perdis lip gloss and 'Boudoir Palette' (which contains three eye shadows and two lip glosses):

♥ The give away will end Wednesday 15th of September
♥ The give away is open internationally

♥ I will be selecting the winner using a random number generator

Mandatory Entry:

♥ Follow my blog on Google Friend Connect and leave me a comment containing your email address and tell me what your favourite Spring make up look is

Optional Entry:
♥ Blog about this give away and leave me a separate comment with the link

This give away not only coincides with the first day of Spring, but also with Spread the Love week over at Oh, My Darling. And so, dear readers, I encourage you to pay it forward and spread the love a little this week. Who knows, you might make someone's day?

Good luck!

:: You've Got Mail ::

I'm not going to lie, this past week has been pretty awful. I've been cooped up inside with bronchitis and have been spending a lot of time in my room with my asthma nebuliser. Oh, isn't that sorry image! But then, on Friday afternoon Mr LG came over like a knight in shining armour carrying in his arms some parcels that had never looked more exciting after a week of seeing only the inside of my bedroom walls!

The first parcel was some of the most vibrant and lovely miniature roses I have ever seen. Yellow, orange, and a wonderful combination of yellow and red in the one rose! Tell me, have you ever seen red and yellow roses like these before? I sure haven't, apparently they're from South Africa!

The next two packages were my first pen pal letters! So exciting! Both of my lovely friends from New Zealand (Jess and Hayley) came to my rescue and helped brighten my week. This first package is from Jess and contains some wonderful things all made in New Zealand - red licorice, butterscotch chocolate, a recycled notebook, a New Zealand pencil, sunflower seeds (which I can't wait to grow in my garden!), stickers and a letter! I can't wait to send a package back to her!

The second letter came from Hayley. We met through the Dear Darlings pen pal swap. It was written on the prettiest of paper (and she has the coolest hand writing!) and the shimmery green envelope was right up my alley! I can't wait to write back to her!

I have some mail outgoings too, but I can't show you them just yet for risk of spoiling it for the lovely recipients!

I hope you are all having a fabulous weekend!

Much love.

:: Food, Glorious Food! ::

Food, glorious food! Don't care what it looks like ...

Okay, so that's not entirely true. You see, whenever I have a get together with family or friends my first instinct is to take photos of the food. Does that make me weird?

This scrummy, yummy food is from about two weeks ago when Mr LG and I went to my brother and sister-in-law's house to watch the last few episodes of the first season of V. They cooked shallow-fried whiting for us (Mr LG and I aren't big on any sort of seafood) and oh my goodness, it was delicious! I was pretty much in a food-induced coma for the rest of the afternoon. I'm not yet fully converted on this whole 'fish love' thing some people seem to have going on, but I have to say I don't exactly hate it either. My next seafood related quest is to conquer my dislike of prawns! I will let you know how I go.

Do you have a food you can't say no too? I'm a huge fan of savoury foods - soft cheeses, olives, semi-dried tomatoes, sporessa ... mmm! I can never say no, even if I'm so full I'm about to burst!

:: Baby Shower ::

Last Sunday was my younger sister's baby shower. It's hard to believe that in about 5 weeks time my sister will be a mother and I will be an Aunty. The Baby Shower had a jungle animal theme, so we had elephant cupcakes (among mountains of other delicious food) and the most adorable animal carousel as a table centrepiece. We played some fun games like captioning pregnancy based comics, guessing baby animal names, and guessing the baby's name, weight, length and due date.

Gluten free elephant cupcakes!

'Normal' elephant cupcakes

Animal carousel centrepiece

My younger sister

My seriously cute next-door-neighbour

Look at her huge tummy!

My sister and her boyfriend still can't decide on a name for their little boy. Any suggestions are definitely welcome!

:: Brisbane - UQ, St Lucia ::

There aree so many things I love about Brisbane, and one of them is the University of Queensland at St Lucia. I studied at UQ for six years and I never got sick of the sandstone buildings and amazing greenery. It is also one of Mr LG's favourite places in Brisbane, so last weekend we went there for a picnic. We sat by the lake and ate yummy food while we watched the ducks.

Mr LG with the big, bushy beard he's currently sporting :/

She was not happy I was standing near her babies

It was incredible to watch all the othr ducks in the area rally around the babies to stop them going into the water where there were eels hanging around. You can see an eel in the background of this photo. Yuck!

It was the perfect afternoon.

:: Lavender ::

Back in May Mr LG and I planted some daisies and some lavender in pots on our front deck. Neither of us are very skilled at anything plant related, except perhaps, on how to accidentally kill them :( True to form, our daisies aren't looking so good. But, our lavender has it's first flower! I am so excited (and kind of amused that my future namesake is growing just fine).

Look, look!

I can't wait 'til it's a full pot plant of amazing smelling lavender. Do any of you grow flowers? What are some fail-safe flowers we could grow?

:: Royal Show - The 'Ekka' ::

Once a year every capital city in Australia has a royal show. The show is full of fun rides, show bags, games, farm animals, fashion parades, fireworks, and many other fun things. In Brisbane our royal show is called The Ekka, because it is held at our Exhibition Grounds. This year I went with Mr LG, two of my sisters, my brother-in-law, and one of my friends.

My favourite part of the Ekka is Sideshow Alley at night time. I love the bright colours, the screams of delight (and possibly fear, haha), the smell of fairy floss and dagwood dogs, and the crazy carnies who try to get you to play their games.

What is your favourite part of a carnival?