Friday, December 14, 2012

On my own...and loving it!

I have a whole week to myself - no kids, no husband, just the dogs.  Just how did I manage that, you ask?  I sent them to New Zealand a week early.

I made the huge sacrifice to work an extra week, and keep the dogs out of the kennel for a bit longer as well - while they took advantage of the cheaper flights before the Christmas price hike.

And, oh my goodness, am I loving it.  Sure I miss them, but I needed this down time.  It's been a full on year.  I have been working full-time at school in a Year 7 classroom with some special needs kids this year - fun, but incredibly stressful.

Plus the kid's lives are getting busier with music and sporting commitments and sometimes the only down time I get is 10 o'clock at night - and that's when I do the dishes and the laundry.

So I am cleaning house with a vengeance, reading those books that have been piling up, and writing my first blog post in six months.

Check out this photo...


My two beautiful girls having their own down time!!

Tuesday, July 17, 2012

FJ turns 9!

My baby turned 9 on Monday - it's hard to believe, time has gone so fast.  He's the tallest in his year at school, wearing men's size 7 shoes, and occasionally sprouting a whisker on his chin - which he promptly pulls out!!!!

I told the kids that I wasn't up to doing really technical cakes this year, so this is what he chose - a Lego Ninjago cake.


The cake is"The Amazing Orange Cake" which if you like orange cakes, you absolutely have to try.  It is so easy - rich but light, moist and LARGE.  The one recipe made two 22 cm cakes - perfect for the base of a Ninjago temple plus vehicles that FJ and Miss 13 invented for the characters.

I then invited three of FJ's best friends around for a play - and had the most stress-less birthday afternoon ever!

We tipped the Star Wars lego out on the pool table and said make whatever you like...


And since they're all lego nuts that kept them amused for an hour till it was food time...


Party pies, chips, homemade chocolate chunk cookies, apple juice, and of course the cake.  (If you look really carefully at FJ's left ear, you can see one of his birthday presents - it didn't hurt - much!)

Then I chucked them all outside with a nerf gun in hand and off they went - NERF WARS!!



The girls got to be hostages and it was a beautifully fine day - I didn't see them (certainly heard them, though) until it was home time.  One very happy, tired 9 year old was the result.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Dear Jane blocks

About 8 years ago I bought myself the book "Dear Jane - The Two Hundred Twenty Five Patterns from the 1863 Jane A. Stickle Quilt", and loved it so much I subsequently bought the software as well.  I made a few blocks then, and over the years I have periodically dusted it off and made a few more.

It's great for when you want to sew, but you only have half an hour, and you don't want to clean off your sewing table.  So far we have the Top Left Corner...
The Top Right Corner...
The Bottom Left Corner...
The Bottom Right Corner...
And some of the centre blocks...
Yesterday and today I added Michael's Motorcycle...
Meeting Place...
And Chicken Tracks...
The blocks are only 4.5 inches, in case you're wondering.  Then Blondie decided it was high time she made her own quilt and started cutting some blocks for a simple tumbler pattern.
I'm pretty much leaving her to it as she cuts and chooses fabric because she really won't tolerate much interference on my part.

On a different note - I made one of our most favourite risotto's for dinner tonight - loved by all but FJ who'll just have a meat pie - thanks.  It's pumpkin, spinach and fetta...YUM!
Hubby and I will be fighting over the left-overs for lunch tomorrow - I might just have to go and hide them in the fridge!!

Sunday, April 15, 2012

Progress at last!

I started a quilt for my then still to be born niece about a year ago.  And then it sat, and it sat, and it sat.  She will be one this year and it might be finished for her birthday after some progress this weekend!

I gave up waiting for my sewing table to be clear enough to sew - I just shoved things to the side and, what do you know? I finished the top.
I just love the monkeys, and unlike the last one of these quilts I made, this one didn't have any wizards to turn rows around on me!

Now I will have to uncover the rest of my sewing table so that I can quilt it.

Saturday, April 14, 2012

What to do with a pile of lego...

It is currently school holidays, so I have a wee bit of time to blog.  Term time is just impossible at the moment, as I am working full-time at school, and after school activities keep us busy four days out of five!!

The kids have a pile of lego that does not belong to any particular set.  Last holidays we went through all the lego and separated it out into boxes - Star Wars, pirates, explorers, City, Atlantis, and general.

This is the general...
And this is what the kids did with it last week...
It is a very tall space rocket with all sorts of rooms - a vehicle bay, engine room, dog house, kitchen, laundry, jail cell, sight-seeing room etc.  Surrounding it we have the launch pad, a moon base, various vehicles, bots, and a bad bots base.

Then an asteroid slammed into earth, blew the launch pad crashing into the moon base, taking out the rocket on the way.  And the pile returned to the way it started.

Now they are working on the Ministry of Magic - guess who's been watching Harry Potter again?

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Loosening the Apron Strings

My little girl is growing up.  She turned 13 in October, started menstruating regularly in December, got a mobile phone for Christmas, and got her first job as a friend's regular babysitter in January.

And today she started high school.
She went off with her father on the bus this morning, so he could make sure she got on the right train and then the right school bus.  But once she was on that school bus - she was on her own.  Tomorrow she does it from start to finish all by herself.

She was nervous and Mum was terrified (and trying not to show it!!), but oh so proud.  Haven't quite cut the apron strings, but they are definitely looser!

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Filling the Freezer

My kids don't like sandwiches.  They will have them occasionally for school lunches if I have nothing else but would prefer that that I have something else!!  They go back to school next week so I decided that since I go back at the same time, and time becomes very short, to try and stock my freezer to get over the first couple of weeks.

So far we have a batch of pineapple muffins, a 1-1-1-1 coconut loaf, sliced and bagged, and then this little beauty...
GINGERBREAD

50 grams butter, softened
1/2 cup brown or dark brown sugar
1/2 cup golden syrup or treacle
2 eggs
1 tsp baking soda
2 tsp each ground ginger and ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp black pepper
150 grams sour cream

Cream the butter and sugar, add the golden syrup or treacle and continue beating.  Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.  Sift the dry ingredients together and add alternately with the sour cream, beating until smooth.  Pour into a well greased 23 cm ring tin or loaf tin.  Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for 25 minutes if using a ring tin, allow an extra five to ten minutes if using a loaf tin.

I use the dark brown sugar and the treacle and it is rich in flavour, spicy and moist.

Together with a tub of vegetables, some slices of cheese and crackers, a yoghurt (or some other source of protein such as a cold sausage, a mini quiche, or a hard-boiled egg), and a piece of fruit, this makes their ideal lunch.

They also take a tub of cut up fruit/vegetables for snacking in the classroom.  This  is for a Western Australia wide, school programme called "Crunch and Sip".   I think New South Wales and South Australia also run it. Check it out at Crunch and Sip.  It encourages the kids to bring cut up fruit and vegetables (brain food) and a bottle of water to snack on during the morning.  It had doubled my children's intake of fruit and veg, and they love it.

What do your kids like for lunch?

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Look what I found...

...amongst my old photos.  I investigated the contents of an anonymous brown envelope, and found some photos that I had developed and printed myself, way back when I was a member of the high school photography club.

These were taken in 1987, at a Christian Holiday Camp that the family attended for a couple of years.  Don't look at the quality of the prints - it's horrible!!
All my darling siblings in front of the first of several Toyota Hiace vans that my parents had for carting us six around.  This one saw lots of family holidays up and down NZ's North Island.
My second youngest sibling, Martin, having some fun with a camping stool!
And a worn-out Miss Lottie in a very messy tent - sorry Lottie couldn't help myself!

I also found the negatives and I've found somewhere that will print the photos for me, so that I can get proper copies and see how bad my printing techniques were.  Do you know how hard it is to find somewhere close that will print photos from negatives?  I think I'll have to go back through my other negatives, before the technology disappears forever!!

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Bread

This week I have been continuing my children's on-again, off-again, bread making education.  This is my bread making bible...
My mother had a copy that she used for all her speciality breads, and I bought a copy as soon as I left home.    Recently I had my mother-in-law staying with us, and she was so impressed she wanted a copy of her own.  It is currently out of print, but I managed to find someone who was selling a brand new second-hand copy on Fishpond.  And it got to us before she went home to New Zealand.
This is the Challah bread from the book - made by Miss 13.  It is a Jewish egg bread and was very, very yummy.
And this is the Quick Wholemeal bread - made by Blondie.  And it was quick.  With our Perth heat it was made from go to whoa in an hour and a half.  And also very, very yummy.

FJ will be next - I wonder how his will go?

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Guess who...?

One is Miss Lottie, one is my Blondie...!
I always thought they were very alike - not just in looks either.  My Blondie is very much like her gorgeous Aunt in temperament too.

Monday, January 16, 2012

More Photos

I am about half way through scanning in my grandmother's album now.  I made the tough decision that the album itself was going to have to go.  It's not an acid-free album, and the pages were either super sticky or had lost their stickiness altogether and the photos were falling out.

So all the photos have been removed and temporarily stored in a spare slip pocket album until I decide what to do with them.

In the meantime...
I found this newspaper clipping at the front of the album.  This must have been about 1981, just after we came back from a holiday visiting our grandparents in Warburton, showing off our newest sibling, the first boy after four girls!!
This gorgeous girl is Becca, the third in the family, at about 8 weeks old.
And a wee bit older.
And the beautiful Miss Lottie, The Slightly Mad Quilt Lady, the fourth of four sisters!
Mum and kids (minus Miss Lottie?) with our first baby brother Martin.  Check out the matching bowl cuts!

Ahh - the memories.  I am really enjoying this process, working out when the photos were taken, looking at the backgrounds and clothes.  So are my kids - they are beginning to see where they come from.

Friday, January 13, 2012

A new project for 2012

 Hello all!  A wee bit late, but Happy New Year to everyone.

Having been watching a few TV broadcasts on various disasters around our fair country twelve months ago, it prompted me into thinking we need an essentials box.  You know - insurance and bank documents, passports and the like.  And photos...

Well, seeing as we have lots of actual photos, a lot of which don't have negatives, we have decided to scan them all and save them in various places so we have some rescue options if ever necessary.

I started today with an album of photos that my folks sent my grandmother over the years, which was then passed on to me when she died.

I though I'd show you a couple just for memories sake!!

This grinning girl was me when I was only ten months old.

My first time as a big sister.

A very curious Cat, oh she of Just This Side of Chaos fame.

And Cat just a wee bit growed up.  I still remember that cuddly rug!

More to come...