Picnic Dinner with Home Made Bread, Pasta & Spaghetti Bolognese

Last night I decided to have a picnic dinner in the lounge room rather than outside because we also had a movie to watch and dinner time was later than usual.  I set up the coffee table with the red and white spotty table cloth and the kids loved it.  We had home made bread, home made pasta and spaghetti bolognese which I got out of the freezer, also home made.  The kids thought the whole evening was fantastic and we got to watch a DVD that we hadn't seen before called Hotel Transylvania.

We got the DVD out from a"Hoyts Kiosk" booth (like a code vending machine only bright green and it's for the latest DVD's which are $3.50 to rent).  The machines used to be called "Oovie" however now they are owned by Hoyts.  There are three machines near us in different directions and last night we gave it a whirl as a few of my friends use them.  It's all done by touch screen menus ie latest releases, kids movies, etc. so you can easily see the picture of the movie on the screen and then it's just a matter of selecting the movie, swiping your credit card, typing in your email address (for the first time) and the DVD pops out.  The whole process took about 3 mins.  The movies have to be back by 9pm the next evening so no 7 day-er rentals however given you can get the latest DVD for $3.50 on a weekend and it's super convenient we will be using this service from now on.  Going to the DVD shop requires looking through all the DVD's on the shelves, waiting in the queue, putting in your password, and waiting around the other side for your DVD's so the Hoyts Kiosk is super easy and super quick.  The returns just pop back into the same slot the DVD comes out of and also you do not have to return the DVD to the same kiosk.  This morning we had to go to a local shopping centre and they have a kiosk there, so we returned it to a different location which was more convenient today.  All good and the movie was great too.

Anyway that's enough about that....here's the pictures of our little family picnic in the lounge room.  The kids wanted to have the home made ice cream for dessert as well, however since our dinner was a little on the larger portion size I said they could have some grapes instead.  It was a fun night and James told me my bread looked so professional because of the cuts in it that I should be very proud of myself.  He was so impressed that it looked like the bakers loaf.

 

Look Up - Look Down 2013 - Three

Look Up - Sienna doing tricks on the trampoline in the backyard.

Look Down - Rosemary growing in the backyard veggie garden.

New Home Made Pizza Base

This afternoon I gave this new pizza base a go and it was great.  I found it on "The Prairie Homestead" blog and due to lack of time (school pick up) and ease I just popped all the stuff into my bread maker and pushed a button and let it work it's magic.  I would normally make it in the Thermomix however that would involve getting the dough out of the Thermomix putting it into another bowl and cleaning the Thermomix and this afternoon I just didn't have the time.  I bought my bread maker about 15 years ago and it was just the Kmart home brand which from memory is Palasonic (not to be confused with Panasonic).  Anyway I knew it was the home brand and it was $110 when all the other bread makers on the market were double that.

We ended up dividing the dough into two pizza's just because I have two kids and both wanted to put the toppings on a pizza however next time I'm just going to use all the dough to make one thicker pizza.  We actually like thin pizza's at our house but just the same I'd like to give this a go.  I mixed in some "Pizza Herb Mix" into the dough at the ingredient stage and it gave the dough a lovely smell and I couldn't wait to eat it.

We used our home made pizza sauce made in the Thermomix which I have frozen on hand, some ham and some kebab of some kind and some cheese......YUM, YUM, YUM.  Adding the herbs into the dough was my favourite bit of flavour.  Here are my apprentice pizza chefs each making a pizza.

Look Up - Look Down 2013 - Two

Playing along with Amy's "Look Up Look Down" posts here's what it's like in Brisbane at the moment.

Look Up - Walking along the main road behind our place.
Look Down - The water flowing from down the hill into the creek near home.

First Day Back at School (yesterday)

Here they are all excited to go back to school to see their friends and start learning again.  James is going into  Grade 4 and Sienna is going into Grade 2.  James loves his teacher and Sienna knows her teacher as one of the prep teachers has moved into teaching Grade 2 this year.  Day 2 and they are both exhausted I think Sienna was more exhausted yesterday going back and James is exhausted on Day 2...as for me after 8 weeks of having them home, I'm just plain exhausted!

For Mummy; back to making lunches at breakfast time, making dinner either at morning tea time or afternoon tea time and the endless washing and ironing of school uniforms, school notes, functions, diary appointments and I only have 2 kids to organize.  I'm sure you can relate to all of this.

I hope everyone is taking a big breath because Mummy's HERE WE GO AGAIN.......another school year begins.

Sienna is holding her new "Hedge Hog Pencil Sharpener"

More Water Overnight

We had more rain over night however because of the little river bed drainage system that some very kind friends of ours helped me with last night the water as flowed nicely out of the backyard to the storm water drains.  There is a small portion of water left which will need some sunshine to dry up but it was a lot of water in a very short space of time.  I ended up going to bed around 2.30pm because the wind was so strong and noisy it was hard to sleep.  I made the kids stay inside this morning because the wind was still so strong and we have lots of tall gum trees around and so for safety reasons we were all inside.

In the news tonight unfortunately a pregnant mum and her 3 year old went out for a walk to have a look this morning and a huge tree fell over the both of them and they were trapped.  Luckily for them an off duty fireman happened to be driving past and had his chainsaw in the boot and cut some branches off them however the little 3 year old is listed as critical at the moment (sadly overnight the 3 year old boy died which is just so tragic).  This story emerged midway through the day however my telling the kids to stay inside was based on a tree doing just that and we are safe in the house.  Sienna proceeded to tell me if a tree fell on the house it would come through the roof anyway and get us and I said yes, however we would be more protected than if it just fell on top of you in the back yard.

We did go out for a 5 minutes walk this afternoon when the wind died and there was no rain and I had very strict rules about staying next to me and we were'nt going to go close to the water because we do have a causeway thing at the end of the street.  Here's a few photos and one of a huge tree that  had fallen over down the road in the middle of the night.

And an update on the rainfall...125mm when I looked at it again

  

The Lake House

OMG we have had some rain here today.....we've been in this house for a year and a half now and on two occasions we have had huge and fast rain which has half filled our back yard.  I can even remember those days and when they were because the yard was half full of water.  The first one was this time last year on the first day of school it just bucketed down so much that our normal 15 minute drive to school took us 1 hour and we got to school late and we drive no where near the city which is obviously more traffic, we are out in the suburbs. Then last November James was invited to a pool party in the afternoon and storm came and again the rain came thick and fast and filled half our back yard with water within 30 minutes to an hour however those two times have been significant but nothing compared to today's rain

We should be changing the name of our house to The Lake House and I'm sure you'll agree when I show you the pictures below.  Bear in mind this is from rainfall only.  The other things Brisbane is contending with at the moment is a release of water from The Wivenhoe Dam, The Brisbane River overflowing because of (i) rain and (ii) the Wivenhoe Dam and of course there is also a King Tide which is not helping with the flow of the rivers either.  All of this combined is perfect for Brisbane to flood as it did exactly two years ago.

As for me, I'm only contending with one issue of the rain falling so imagine if you were in an area where all of those things combined are happening near the river and then when the river overflows which is expected to peak on Tuesday the water from the storm water drains comes up into the streets.  We are fine here but areas like Rosalie which is not near the river always gets hit when the water comes back up through the storm water drains because the river is overflowing.....so...my friends.....I am actually one of the lucky ones.  There is always someone worse off than you are.  So here's what our backyard transformed into today and the photo of the rain gauge was 52mm over night...(that's from last night) so I'm sure it's over flowing from today's rain.

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