Simple pleasures

Mother’s Day for us over at our household began with a huge serving of delicious banana pancakes. That’s one serve there pictured below – specifically , my serve, my reward from the family I guess on this special day.

We then headed outdoors to the local playground for a bit of a play….

And then made our way to the botanical gardens to spend the rest of the day! Autumn in the gardens is quite breathtaking, check out the gorgeous orange and red colours on this tree that we saw along the way!

There were plenty of dried autumn leaves for everyone to kick around in, I couldn’t resist picking up a few to keep as a souvenir….

All that walking around did make us tired so we stopped by a bench for some lunch and cake!

A pretty relaxing and pretty perfect day it was today! Hope you had a lovely day too!

The Easter update

Ok so Easter is officially over and I’m a little late in updating my posts. But that’s because we’ve been having lots of fun touring the peninsula!

Easter for us began with the traditional unwrapping of the chocolate eggs….

Once we had taken care of that, it was off to the grounds of the beautiful Heronswood gardens for a visit!

The Diggers club is also on site. I was really tempted to get a few seedlings and seed packets home, especially after we spotted this….

And this and lots more amazing produce during our walk through the gardens!

But the Dude reminded me about our success rate with gardening -currently its pretty dismal. So instead we did the more sensible thing and spent our money at the lovely cafe onsite indulging in this gorgeous orange flour less cake!

Our next and final two destinations were to beaches. First up, the Dromana foreshore….

And then to the famous Gunammatta beach where we managed to catch incredible views of the surf and the ocean beach!

Bugs had a ball exploring the gardens and the beaches. But she was especially thrilled when the Easter bunny paid a visit in the evening bearing, yes, more chocolate eggs! Here he is, the Easter bunny that I’d crocheted a few weeks ago….

And watching tv with us after we had consumed his gifts of joy…

The holidays have been fantastic for all of us! Hopefully they have been for you too!

Till later folks!

Piece of cake

We visited the toy library recently to return and refresh our toys. That’s Bugs playing happily with this shape sorting toy – anything that keeps her sitting still for more than five minutes and does not require batteries (Humans not counted) is a real surprise to me!

Anyway we picked up this pamphlet while we were there….

Yeap! It’s cake stall time again! How quick the year has flown by! This round we managed to get a recipe sheet of suggested cakes to make, just in case one had difficulty in finding a cake recipe to use!

The cake monsters in us just had to give some of the recipes a go. First up, a delicious and spicy apple and cinnamon teacake!

Mmmmm this was truly the perfect complement to a cup of steaming hot tea for the afternoon!

The next one that we made – a lemon yoghurt cake was a real winner in our books on a couple of fronts: One – it was ridiculously easy to make. All we had to do was to put all the ingredients into a food processor and give it a whizz….

Pop the mix in the oven for an hour or so and after all that, you have one perfect cake on your hands! I love how even this cake rose in the oven! It smelt incredibly lemony too while it was baking!

Now the second reason as to why this cake is a winner is that it tastes great! Moist and fluffy, citrusy and not too sweet, this cake was the perfect perk me up for a hot summer’s day!

When life gives you lemons, use two and some yoghurt to make a cake!

Hope you are keeping cool somewhere ! I’ll end off with a picture of Bugs siting in a tub of water during playgroup this morning!

Sunny side up

We’ve been hit unfortunately by a terrible stomach bug recently. By we, I mean all of us, the whole tribe. Tragic, I know. Especially since it was over the Australia Day long weekend!

It started with Bugs early one morning. By dinner, The Dude and I were taking turns making sprints to the toilet. Thankfully all of that unnecessary exercise lasted a day. By Monday, things felt a lot brighter (and lighter -an unfortunate side effect).

We mustered up enough strength today to head out to our beloved IKEA for a change of scenery. Being cooped up at home for three days does make one a bit stir crazy after a while.

Anyway we picked up this cute little basket of felt vegetable toys that Bugs had a blast playing instore! I love everything about it – from the pull apart lettuce leaves to the lifelike button mushrooms, only thing was it costed us fifteen bucks!

Pretty pricey if you picked up the other sets as well – a brekkie set, fruit basket, sandwich, salmon and of course dessert, five extra sets in total which meant an extra sixty five bucks or eighty bucks in total for the collection! That’s quite a bit of chump change for toy food I thought!

So I whipped out my trusty crochet hook, selected a suitable pattern and coloured yarn….

And hooked up a fried egg while Bugs took a snooze in the afternoon!

This was so fun and quick I had to make another! Now this vegetable basket looks more protein enriched than it did before!

We all know eggs are good for you! Just make sure one doesn’t land where it doesn’t belong!

Hmmmm I wonder what I can make next… There are a few ideas, I’ll have to sleep on it to decide!

Till later everyone!

Holiday updates

It’s the start of a brand new year and we are just easing back into our everyday routine after a fantastic few weeks on holiday! Not that we went away to anywhere special, it was just really nice to hang around and enjoy each other’s company for a change!

It’s been an enjoyable summer holiday – we’ve made quite a few visits to the pool (especially on those crazy hot days)….

Visited a farm or two so that Bugs could get acquainted with the goats (they are her favourite animal of the moment)…

And the chickens…

The zoo was a pretty cool experience too….

Especially when there was a chance to pretend to be a zoo keeper by feeding soft toy animals with plastic vegetables!

Our surprise find this holiday was a trip to the beach at sunset
-an invigorating and extremely sandy experience for our hair and shoes….

We’ve spent our summer evenings indulging in quite a bit of popcorn….

And baking – this marble cake was totally worth the effort it took to get those separate colours!

And the best part of all, I think, is that summer is not yet over! Lots more fun to come ! Especially when this baby is in town….

My brand new sewing machine! I have The Dude to thank for this! I’ve been busy exploring this amazing tool – couldn’t resist making a trip to Spotlight to pick up some fabric and sewing this for Bugs!

I am not the only creative one at home lately, Bugs has been showing her artistic side as well – that’s her latest masterpiece (with a bit of input from The Dude and me)….

2013 is looking great so far, I’m looking forward to another exciting year of blogging! Signing off with a picture with the new friends we made over the holidays!

Till later folks !

Milk and cookies

Merry Christmas everyone!Its the big day now as I write this! We’ve just managed to put Bugs to bed – it took quite a bit of convincing that Santa would only drop by the house only if she went to bed. Well we got there in the end and Santa is on his way here now, right after he finish his rounds in the rest of Oz.

Now a little bird told me that Santa likes milk and cookies as a snack. And that he would very much appreciate it if a little something was left out for him when he dropped by to deliver the all important presents.

So we got down to business this evening and decided to make some jam drops for the big man!

You can tell The Dude was not too keen on jam in his biscuits by the tiny amount that dotted the top of each jam drop. Despite that, they still smelt pretty amazing baking in the oven!

Filling up the cookie tin with all these cute little red dotted circles really made out evening!

We did a taste test and the jam drops were to die for! I think Santa is going to be really pleased with them! Now its off to bed so that the magic can happen!

Hamming it up

Woweee what a day it’s been! I’ve so much to share, it’s difficult to really decide where to start! Perhaps simple is the way to go here!

Well The Dude and I hosted our annual Christmas do today. It sounds really grand but it really was with close friends and family, a close knit crowd, just the way we like it!

A special occasion like this deserves special occasion food, like some Christmas ham for instance!

This ham was so huge, it took up most of the oven space! The Dude was the chef of the day -lucky me! Here he is prepping the ham before it went into the oven, see how carefully he’s poking the cloves into the “diamonds”!

Ten minutes later, this impressive looking ham was ready to be cooked and glazed!

It was a bit of effort to glaze the ham but the end result was really worth all the hard work! This picture doesn’t really do justice as to how beautiful it looked after it came out of the oven!

We enjoyed the ham with a large tasty spread of assorted salads and bites….

And but of course, we had a big selection of desserts to sample from to end off the meal!

All that eating sure is hard work! Especially after I’d spent the previous night working hard at finishing these….

Knitted Christmas lights!!

The lights hang happily on our bookshelf now, at a height where Bugs can easily touch them, which was really what I’d intended for them since embarking on this crazy project!

Time for a cup of tea and some much needed rest now! Have a great day everyone!

In the mood for food

The Dude has been hard at work at the stove recently. In fact, all our latest dinners and desserts have been single handedly cooked by him from scratch!

Like this moist and delicious banana and walnut bread for example, the perfect comfort food on a drizzly summer day which was yesterday.

The latest concoction can be attributed to the one and only Donna Hay. Her recipe for port and berry sauce was what The Dude worked on today.

I love how red and bloodlike the sauce looks. It passed our taste test with flying colours and would be definitely perfect with……. Oh I’m keeping it a secret for now but it shouldn’t be too hard to guess!

Hope your Saturday is going great and stay tuned!

Fan mail

Hello there! It’s not too long before christmas! Have you got your mail organised?

We are still in the midst of writing up our Christmas cards. There was one very special letter that we got round to doing this morning….

A Christmas letter to the big man – Santa Claus himself! The Dude helped Bugs put together her very first note…..

Here’s whats written in the card in case The Dude’s handwriting is a bit too scrawly to read :

” Dear Santa,

I’ve tried very hard to be a very, very good baby girl this whole year! I hope you also think so and bring me lots of presents for me and my mommy and daddy! Thank you Santa and merry Christmas!

Your little pal,
Bugs”

Now as we all know, Santa lives in the North Pole. Thankfully the folks at Australia post had kindly set up a mailbox right in the city to collect and deliver all of Santa’s mail to him personally. That’s where we headed to post our letter!

We passed by the huge Christmas tree in Christmas square. There were lots of activities for kids being held at that place. But it was a really hot day so we didn’t stop to play.

We put our card in the giant post box and headed indoors into the cool shade….

Where we were given free cake by the folks from the NGV who were celebrating the launch of an exhibition!

Check out how huge our slice was! It was good and yummy and a sweet way to finish off our mini city excursion!

On other news, I’ve embarked on my latest knitting project for Christmas. Here’s a sneak peek on what’s in store – cab you guess what it’s about? hint: it’s sparkly bright!

Have a fantastic Saturday folks!

Better late than never

“You’ll never guess what just happened!” I whispered into the phone on a call to The Dude as Bugs and I made our way home from playgroup.

“What? Tell me, don’t keep me in suspense!” The Dude replied.

“Bugs fell asleep all by herself in the pram on the way back!” I shrieked as calmly as I could.

There was a pause on the other end and then the reply “No way! You’re kidding right?”.

“Way! She’s fast asleep in the pram now! Pop down from work for a moment and take a look!”

“Woah! She is faaaaast asleep! Amazing!” The Dude muttered once he took a look at Bugs in the pram.

“Remember when she was a little baby and how she used to wail the house down whenever we put her in the pram and pushed her around to get her to sleep?” I gently nudged him, “And how she never ever fell asleep in the pram despite what we did?”

“Yeap you don’t forget something like that.”The Dude replied.

“19 months it took us, to reach this stage.” I mused.

“Well better late than never, yeah? I think this warrants a celebratory lunch! Let’s do takeaway!”

“I agree! Lemongrass fried noodles with fried veggie spring rolls for me please!”

“How many spring rolls would you like?” The Dude queried.

I pondered for a brief moment and replied “Two big ones please! I think the occasion calls for a bit of indulgence!”

“Do you want a soft drink or dessert with that?”

“No, let’s save that for when she falls asleep by herself in the car! You never know, it could happen in the very near future!”