Friday, August 31, 2012

Home Grown Snow Peas

During the June school holidays we planted some snow peas in our veggie garden and last week we picked our very first ones.  This gardening thing is wonderful because when you can go out to your backyard and pick something to eat that you have grown and it gives you such a buzz.  I usually have a smile on my face from ear to ear because we grew these veggies and they taste so fresh and crunchy compared to the ones in the shops that have to be shipped around the country. We haven't grown snow peas before so I didn't know how they would go, however given they were between $16-$27 per kg in the shops in the last month it seems like it was a very wise choice to grow them.  We made it a real ritual to pick "our very first snow peas" off the vine/bush and celebrated our harvest (ha ha) by making a recipe from a BBQ cookbook with roasted sweet potato and Asian sauces....it's delicious and I've made this before.  I did take a photo on my iPhone of the dish which I haven't had the opportunity to load the pic's to the computer yet.  I did take the dish over to Mum's for our family dinner and we were having a little joke about the 100 Mile Diet because we were actually having the 10 Mile Diet (well we are in Australia so it's really the "10 Kilometer Diet") because the snow peas were picked and then eaten within 10 Kilometers.  Here's some photos of our little harvest ceremony!!!  Another gardening success for our family which we were all pretty excited about.







Wednesday, August 29, 2012

It warms your heart

We all know being a mother is a 24/7 job and it's one of the hardest jobs in the world and it's only when you have done it, or are doing it that you fully realize it.  Unfortunately still in today's society it's still somewhat undervalued because we do earn an income being on call 24/7.  There are good days and bad days when sorting out one too many fight over a TV show, who's on the trampoline first or who's turn it is to put the milk away after breakfast can drive you crazy.  All of that being said, this morning I had one of those heart warming wonderful moments that made my day.

I was making the lunches and the kids were sitting at the bench eating Vegemite toast and I started giving them some maths problems out loud.  First it was 5+5 for Sienna, then a few more for her and then James wanted to do some times tables so I gave him some of those and this banter continued for a couple of minutes while I kept on making the lunches.  I then said what does James + Sienna + Mummy = expecting them to say 3.  They both yelled out their answers at the same time and James said "FAMILY" and Sienna said "LOVE".  To me it was a treasured gift and the family values I am teaching them shone through in their little answers.  What was that old MasterCard ad... it's worth a million dollars....well that answer by both of them was worth a million dollars to me.  I'm so proud of both of both of them and our amazing little family.

(The photo below was taken at our very first Charity Fun Run last Sunday, more details to come later).


Monday, August 20, 2012

School Excusion to the EKKA

The first day the EKKA was opened Grade 1 had their school excursion there and all the kids were very excited about catching the bus and going to the EKKA.  First of all we headed to the Woolworths Pavilion for some delicious taste testing which was great.  We then had some photos taken, and received a plastic chicken for visiting the stalls within the Woolworths Pavilion.  We listened to the school bands playing a concert while we ate lunch and then headed off to the Animal Pavilion for a while.  We saw lambs, chickens, horses, turkeys (very noisy ones), ducks, birds, cats, dogs to name a few.  The kids loved seeing the decorated cakes as well and were very excited as they saw the next one on display.  There was a cake like the UP house, Smurfs, Angry Birds, A Block of Chocolate, a Hedgehog and a Hot Dog.  It was a big day out and all the kids (and parents) were pretty exhausted once we arrived back at school just in time for the bell to go.  Here's a few pics from our day out to the EKKA.









Check out these fancy cakes, the kids loved looking at these!


Saturday, August 18, 2012

Home Made Pizza

We love our home made pizza and here are a few photos of some recent pizza's we made.  10 out of 10 from everyone.




Monday, August 13, 2012

EKKA 2012

Yesterday Aunty Lisa and I took the kids to the EKKA (our Royal National Agricultural Show) where the country meets the city. 

Once we got in the gates we headed to the trapeze area as it wasn't busy and they both had a go on that which they enjoyed and then we had our traditional Strawberry Ice Cream which is famous at the EKKA.  We then headed off to the Woolworths Pavilion for some taste tests and some funny photography where they take a photo of you with a green screen and insert your picture into an existing scene.  With cows, on a fishing boat, picking apples, a bakery and a cheese shop.  I'll scan those and load them another day.  I also took James in to see the Channel Nine News Room where the news is filmed nightly from the EKKA.  He got to sit in the actual news desk with the main ring behind him which was really cool.  We also got a photo taken with the Big Brother Logo.  Lisa and Sienna waited outside because they didn't want to go in.  James and I had a ball doing those two little things.

Next we had some lunch followed by a look at the fancy cakes that the kids would enjoy seeing and then got our show bags and headed home around 2pm.  This year James decided he wanted to get the "Greatest Show Bag on Earth" while Sienna wanted to get "The Idiot Bag". Sienna's show bag came with a rip stick (yep, a big heavy rip stick and James bag came with a skateboard however when Sienna saw the skateboards came in pink she negotiated with James to swap the rip stick with him so he got that and she got the pink skate board and their original show bags...both were happy.

The kids spent the afternoon laughing and being silly with stuff out of their show bags. Whoopie cushions, little toilets filled with a goo that make farting noises (yes, all kids love toilet humour) and they couldn't stop laughing. There were fake ants and cocheroaches which at 7am this morning Sienna placed the ants on my shoes and she couldn't wait until I found them.















Sunday Morning Breakfast

We have been cooking our eggs in the Thermomix and now I have Sienna eating them as well. She eats just about anything however wasn't so keen for the eggs until the perfectly cooked "dippy eggs" with some toasted soldiers for dipping.  The great thing about doing the eggs in the Thermomix is you do not have to be standing next to the stove so you can go off and have a shower.  I would never leave a pot of boiling water cooking while I wasn't in the kitchen.  Here's a couple of photos of our  breakfast of eggs last week.  I have quite a few egg cups in plain white Maxwell & Williams however at the moment I only have 2 available egg cups as they must be in a box in the garage so I just put my eggs on the plate.  YUM!!


Chocolate Fork Biscuits

I recently came across a lovely blog called Jelly Peaches & Ice Cream.  They were easy, quick and so very tasty.  If you like chocolate you will love the taste of these as they are very chocolate-y.   The recipe only made 12 biscuits but you really only need to eat one biscuit as they are a nice size although who could stop at one!!  One tip is that when the mixture is combined it doesn't stick together and it's sort of loose however you just get a couple of teaspoons of mixture squash it in your hand to get it to hold together rand roll into a ball and put it on the tray.  As per the recipe once all the biscuits are looking like round rum balls on the tray, get a fork and dip it into cold water and flatten each biscuit.  Give these ones a try and they come highly recommended.


Sunday, August 12, 2012

Stick Insect

About a month ago we were having a family BBQ here and Sienna discovered a stick insect on one of the plants.  The kids were both excited and a little scared of it so grabbed a stick and got it to climb onto the stick.  It's great that the kids can experience the simple things of nature in our back yard (however I don't like the bush turkey that has been visiting our back yard recently as I am having to chase him off a few times a day).  Back to the story of the stick insect, we eventually put him up on a bunch of stick branches and he was well camouflaged.






100 Days of School

Sienna recently celebrated 100 days of school and the kids had a little celebration in the morning along with the parents.  Sienna decorated a special t-shirt and drew 100 diamonds on it.  We were planning to write the numbers 1-100 however we were short of time so she made up the whole idea of the diamonds.  I bought a packet of t-shirt transfer paper a few years ago and it's been sitting in the cupboard ever since.  Sienna drew on the transfer paper and then I scanned the page into Photoshop Elements and then flipped the page in reverse (so the writing was the wrong way when I printed it).  Then when the page was face down on the t-shirt and ironed on, the writing would be correct.  It was pretty simple and we were both thrilled with how the t-shirt turned out.




 

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Origami Session

The other night James and Sienna were in the study at the kids table making Origami birds.  James is very good at Origami and was helping Sienna make her bird.  I had to take a photo because lately kids are being kids and mostly annoying each other rather than playing together.  We're all tired and maybe because it's the middle of the year, I have no idea...but things have been less than calm in our household and I'm hoping this will change soon.  It was really nice seeing them working together the other night.