woo hoo

Oh, wow!  Always appreciative. 

My clever friend made Woo the most lovely present. 

 I'll show you another day!

Time to eat.  I'm sure it's just  me but I always think I've captured more of an event than I actually have.  There were scrumptious little crustless sandwiches &  Korean snack foods  - Pockys, Corn Claws, Peach Aloe Drink in tiny bottles, that didn't end up making it to 'film'.  Nevermind.  I think you get the  picture.  Cute.  Pretty. Pink!

Teeny, tiny cupcakes.

The birthday cake.  Honey joys and big cupcakes. 

Super, super easy to bake and I think they look so sweet piled up on the stand. 

Plus the cupcake 'cake' reduces the spray effect, and thereby the spread of winter lurgies,

when it came time to blow out the candles.   

Dear little friends

Just the perfect sized bottles. 

I know you can buy these gorgeous little vessels online now.  But I can let you in on a little tip.  Go to your local Italian delicatessen.  Purchase a six-pack of apricot nectar.  Share the nectar with your family.  Wash out the bottles and there you have it. A cute set of bottles plus a yummy drink. It seems like madness to me to buy the empty bottles for more than the cost of them full!! 

Ok, that was the practical, sensible, thrify me speaking.  The ridiculous, attention-to-detail-at-any-cost me told me to purchase 25 super-cute paper straws for $8 online.  Actually it's now $10 for 24!  Hey-ho.

Some more of the decs

And here's to my baby girl.  I hope you have a wonderful year being 3!

3

My precious girl.

Just look at her.  I know she's mine and I'm supposed to love her more than words can say.  But she's such a joy and so sweet and fun and wild and clever and chatty. And so completely lovable.  It's almost embarrassing the amount of attention she gets when we're out and about. 

And if you haven't met her let me assure you she'd sweep you off your feet too.

Tigs is careful and considered with his present opening  and very sweetly always opens the card first and thanks the giver.  Not so Woo.  She's just in there and at 'em.  All presents were ripped asunder within a minute or two.  Only this little scene remained intact for a while.  Tigs spent an age 'setting the scene' the evening before her birthday.  He wnated her to be able to play with something immediately.  The house they live in took some time to put up.  Not quite sure there's enough room for two on the sofa though :)

I mean look at that hair. 

 It is always in her face and sticking up at all angles and

it just makes my heart melt into a little pool more and more each day.

Her birthday fell on a Friday which meant it was a bit of a non-event.  Greg was at work all day, Tigs at school and I had to go to work in the evening.  In fact as Greg walked in the door I plonked my paltry effort of a cake on the table.  We sang, she huffed and puffed, I cut, we ate and I left.  And just look at her smile.  Did she care?  Not a jot.  My happy, appreciative, easily pleased little one.

Tomorrow we are having a little party for Woo and 5 little friends.  Tigs will stay home from school to share in the fun and is going to be the co-host of the day.  I um'ed and ah'ed all evening about whether to send him to school or not.  So I took my mum's suggestion to flip a coin.  Heads it was! With a healthy whack of inspiration from the most perfectly pretty party I've seen in a while we will celebrate tomorrow.

Happy, happy 3rd birthday my darling girl.  I love you to the moon and back. 

You fill my days with happiness - ok and sometimes a little frustration ;)

 Love Mummy

x

say g'day seven!

The day began far too early and had ended too, too late the night before for both Tigs and me.

By midnight the wrapping fairy had fallen asleep and instead of stylish, carefully planned and executed gifts all I managed were a batch of tissue clad and red grid tape parcels.  He had to begin with the 'T' and work  through to 'is, 7 ! YAY'.  YAY containing the pièce de résistance - Lego Atlantis.  Between the end of school and the family arriving for a party all 480 odd pieces had been connected, with very little assistance from me :)  He's a natural Lego dude!  By 9am the following morning Woo had demolished it :(

I'd wrapped each package with something nice, but not stellar, and cunningly hid something guaranteed to float his boat.  The first some cute new handmade jammies with a new DS Star Wars Lego game tucked between the folds.  One that had caused a minor tantrum at Costco some weeks earlier when he'd seen the DS game and the super cool Lego Book on the shelf and had jumped up and down with excitement about them.  We had told him that as his birthday was coming up he should wait and hope and that he couldn't have everything he wanted when he wanted.  Therein the scene erupted and whines of "It's not fair" and "You get everything you want" had echoed around the store. I was less than impressed ...

Greg then, in some unfathomable way, decided that in order to reassure him that we wouldn't let him down come his birthday and to have patience promptly GAVE HIM THE BOOK that we'd hidden with the DS game at the bottom of the trolley.  I stood  wide mouthed and incredulous as this unfolded and I watched one pouty and petulant 6 year old switch on the charm and get away with murder. 

Miraculously - extraordinarily - unbelievably,  it has had an ongoing positive impact.  I know!  Hard to believe, and certainly not a technique described in ANY parenting tome.  I rarely give Greg credit for his parenting but this episode appears to have worked and has infact taught Tiggy that we are always there for him and will do our best not let him down in life.  And to reassure the nay-sayers he usually doesn't get what he wants in terms of material items but he absolutely knows that we love him and that,  he gets by the bucket load!

And he gives love back by the armful too.

More to Greg and me than to Woo so this little moment had to be shared!

Having your birthday on the winter solstice ( I know this is a very late post on the big day!!) has its merits and by 7.00am in the pitch dark, we were outside waving sparklers in a figure '7'!  Can you see it just in there?  I know there is a way of capturing it perfectly but I had a) not read up on how to do it photographically and b) did not have my wits about me sufficiently at that time of day to even try aside from the auto setting. So that my friends is the closest we get - this year.

Our day progressed rather normally and by the evening the most immediate family gathered for his favorite meal, shepherd's pie. 

Floss

Babcia (no Dziadziu he was working late)

Momo and Booboo - currently sunning themselves in Mauritius.

The meal should have been followed by apple crumble but I had to have a cake for his birthday and as he's not a real lover of traditional cake I did my now famous ice-cream cake.  

Take one tub of the recipient's favourite ice cream and invert it on a platter.  Lavishly slather it in Ice-magic and before the topping sets push some juicy fresh strawberries into the chocolate.  Place in the freezer until it's time to sing!!

Then scoop large balls into waffle cones, spray on some cream in a can (come on it's his birthday!!) and plonk a sweet frozen berry on the top. 

YUM!

That weekend I took 13 children to Kung Fu Panda 2! 

 Am still awaiting medal in the mail...

E x

see ya six!

the night before seven, snuggles on the sofa with dad

My beautiful boy recently kissed goodbye to six and welcomed in seven, with great gusto, in spite of going to sleep far too late and waking far too early!
I'll be back with his birthday soon.

We're coming to you live from the bush at the moment - X

in England's green and pleasant land

via the daily fiona

perfection ...

festive fancies

Oh, these are so yummy and super simple. Years ago I was given (by my Mummy) a beautiful Tasmanian Huon Pine pasty presser thingie (don't google it you'll come up against a brick wall). I don't know if it has a proper name (I do now it's called a tart tamper - which sounds and looks borderline rude).  I have a mini-muffin-tray-tart-tamper, say that three times!

The recipe is super easy, deliciously tasty and incredibly moreish.

Making the pastry:
125g butter (room temperature)
1/2 cup icing sugar
1 cup flour

Place ingredients in a food processor and run until the pastry clumps together in a ball.
Divide into balls (small hi-bounce ball size) for each mini muffin tin.
Press with tamper - flour between pressing.
Refrigerate for at least 20 minutes (I didn't and they worked fine - they just cooked faster).
Place your choice of filling (I made traditional mince pies and  have half a jar left. I could very easily be tempted to make another batch!) in chilled pastry cases and bake 12-20 minutes (according to oven) at 180C (170C fan forced).
Allow to cool in pan then ease out - either by inverting muffin tin and pressing bottom of each tart or by easing edge with a knife.  Oh they're so good. 

Fillings
The choices are endless really but these sound great too:
Mixed nut pies
Chop 3/4 cup mixed nuts and divide equally between cases
Melt 60g butter and add 1 cup brown sugar, 1 egg and 1 tsp vanilla essence.
Mix until smooth and gluey.
Spoon over the nuts and bake as above.

christmas 2010

We were woken desperately early by Tigs who appeared to be on Chrissy-Crack!  His excitement and delight was just too infectious to force him back to bed until a reasonable hour, so up we got and stared on giddily as he spun like a top around the house searching for, and finding, evidence left behind by Father Christmas.  We had had to be fairly creative as the 'seccret' has been questioned.  In classically sweet Tiggy-style he stated that he knew that Father Christmas wasn't real.  He assured me that it was true and that he knew it was us who bought the presents and added in hushed tones "Poor Mummy and Daddy having to by all those presents" - ugh he melts me.  I didn't respond, I think I was unable to inhale, for fear of either lying to him, or feeding the lie.  I'm not sure if I'm proud of myself then for out-foxing him or ashamed for not being completely honest with him.  He's only six...  Anyway he was satisfied and reassured by the note Santa left, the dirt from his boots on the windowsill and a couple of his beard hairs caught there too.  And if there was any remaining doubt in his innocent mind, well the mess the reindeers had made on the front garden cleared them up!  

Having had hours and hours of brilliant help  from Flossy and my step-mother "Granny Alice" with all the food prep on Christmas Eve I was free to go to church in the morning, which was Heavenly, followed by the equally stellar bringing together of family to share in a very traditional English Christmas feast.

The kitchen team, Flossy, Me & Alice.

All the important people around one table and a rare shot of my bro Georgie, who spent a disproportionate amount of time concealed behind his laptop, headphones on, oblivious to the goings on around him.  A scary insight into what lies ahead for us when Tigs is a teenager.  Woo, slept right through the whole of lunch .  Such a pity, but, I add guiltily, it was quite peaceful ...

Greg - bad shot - oops.

Momo

Booboo

Dziadziu & Babcia

I could hardly hold Tigs back a minute longer and as soon as Woo was up it was under the tree and into the presents.  I think the children were suitably provided for (oh my gosh were they lucky) and I too was spoiled with some lovely presents.  But nothing quite tops my most precious and treasured gifts, Tigs & Woo.  I hope you had a lovely Christmas too.

Back soon,

E x

merricks - beware - lots of photos

I'm popping back to 2010 for a few posts to catch up with our end of year.  I was rather caught off guard by the end of year activities and excitement and in an all time first I didn't send out my Christmas cards.  Oops!  Oh well I now seem to subscribe to the New Year card brigade and may get around to them yet.  I did  have the perfect opportunity to take them to Merricks but, oops, I forgot to take them down.  It's a shame really as I was extremely pleased with them.  I will post one here if, and only if, I actually get them done and in the post box!

So, back to the post.  Ah, Merricks, such a happy place.  This is how I remember large chunks of my own childhood, wandering through scrub, bush and farmland, riding, relaxing, refueling. Now my babies are being afforded the same happy childhood thanks to our supremely generous friend, Tim,  who handed over his retreat holiday house haven  patch of paradise for a few days before Christmas.  Old friends of Tiggy and Twinkle may remember that last time we came here I couldn't bring myself to leave and so we stayed on.  I felt the same way this time and although we couldn't linger longer I can't wait to go back again.

There was time for cuddling "Granny Alice" (She loathes her title - but hey ho).

Magic moments with my beautiful babies.

Fun times,  how groovy to be able to go into your own paddock to chop down a Christmas tree.

I love the mirrored pose here - "Now how do we get this monster back to the house?".

Ah, you need another adult, to lug it from the very bottom of the paddock to the house.

It was tall and gracious and round as a pudding in the middle - the tree, and oh, well, probably me too!

Star

Something 'carative' Tigs whipped up with a bit of bark and sea sponge.

There were morning kisses ...

...and precious pearls that fell for the first time.

Relationships to rekindle with dear Foury, the overgrown puppy.

Teeny Woo on board ...

... and old, old, oh, how old Sally lugging two around.  Thank goodness they're both featherweights!

There were yummy choc-tops at the Flinders Pub.

And many morning 'cino's' at the Merrick's General Store.

A lazy hazy, dolphin spotting, afternoon at Point Leo. On a rare warm and sunny day.

Moments stolen with my 'baby' brother.

And glimpses of the festivities to come.