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!

Balm for the soul

Happy Good Friday everyone! I am blogging from the Mornington Peninsula today as that’s where we are spending our Easter break! Isn’t that exciting, my first out of town post for the year?

We went for a little bit of a hike today when we visited Cape Schanck. It’s right at the tip of one part of the peninsula where the famous lighthouse is.

We took the walking trail near the lighthouse and followed the road, passing by glimpses of the ocean….

Until we came to this – a boardwalk that bordered from the top of the mountain right till the bottom where the beach was at!

I must confess I’m terrified of heights so I was gripping really tightly to the wooden rails as I carefully made my way down!

The Dude had to remind us to pause and take in the scenery at various points before we actually reached the end of the boardwalk!

After trekking downhill for what felt like eternity (in reality only twenty minutes)….

We finally reached the foot of the mountain and pebble beach!

We would have hung around longer but the skies looked pretty gloomy so it was time to head back – up the same way we came!

It’s amazing how rejuvenated you feel after taking in as magnificent an ocean view as what we saw today! A perfect start to the Easter holiday indeed!

Have a great day folks!

Our zen place

The Botanic Gardens is a lovely place, tranquil and beautiful….

Perfect for long walks and calming souls…

It’s tough being a toddler sometimes. The world is such an exciting place – lots to do, see, touch and taste! It gets particularly frustrating when people don’t seem to understand what you want or like to do! That on top of needing to grapple with changes to your body makes things extra difficult! That’s why the wide open and unrestricted spaces of The Gardens are fantastic for Bugs! That’s where Mommy lets her roam free and….

Stop and explore whatever catches her interest…

And when it’s time for a break, there’s always a bench or two around the corner to rest our tired feet (or erm… stand in this case)….

The Gardens are our favourite go to place when we are seeking to find a bit of inner calm!

Well in case the pictures and post don’t do it for you, I’ll leave you with this famous last word that I learnt from yoga class might restore some balance in your day!

“Ohmmmmmmmmmmm…..”

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!

The perfect red

The local market looked a bit more festive than usual when we visited it today for our weekly shop.

And then it hit us- the sounds of cymbals clashing and drums beating, a lion dance to celebrate the Chinese new year!

This lion moved pretty fast through the crowd! I managed to squeeze in a shot before it finally disappeared into the market!

There was a little stall set up in the square which was giving out free chinese calligraphy pieces….

We were lucky enough to snare ourselves this huge piece of prosperity! Perfect to hang and invite luck into the house!

All this festivity has inspired me to start prepping some wool for another knitting project! So I dug deep into the stash bag and pulled out this gorgeous skein of deep red aptly named “Bucharest”!
Can’t wait to get started on it!

Hope your Saturday is going great! Till later folks!

How to make a robot

Here’s how we make a robot…

Take one body and add on some eyes…..

Install in the antenna at the top of the head….

Fix on the arms….

And the wheels (how else does a robot get around!)….

And voila! One robot or Luvbot as the brilliant Anna Hrachovec who designed this pattern calls it!

Mildred or Milly in short (my robot’s name – I’m terrible with coming up with techie names) was a stealth knit – I had to hide it from The Dude while I was working on it. That meant knitting during Bugs’s naptime as quickly as I could!

Milly’s hands looked a bit empty so I knitted up a mini pink heart for her to hold! There! Doesn’t she look much happier now?

Add a little note…

And my Valentine’s Day gift for The Dude is complete! Yay!

It was M&M’s for The Dude last year, hopefully he doesn’t mind the lack of chocolate this year! After all, as our favourite author Mo Willems puts it, how can anyone be sad around a robot!?

Happy Valentine’s Day everyone!

Time in the sun

Happy year of the snake everyone! We’ve been a bit busier than usual lately celebrating the new year. Bugs has been tagging along with us as we scuttle about running our many errands of late. So today we decided to take it easy and take Bugs to visit one of her favourite play spots of the moment – The beach!!

We stopped by the brand new playground for a look see….

There was lots to explore, like this huge circular platform that turned when you pushed it….

Or even running the extra fine sand through your fingers was interesting enough for little minds!

The view from the playground was pretty stunning no matter which part you were at….

If you look closely enough, you can see the great Spirit of Tasmania ship docked at Station pier in the picture below!

And but of course no trip to the beach would be complete without an actual trip to the beach !

Whoever knew that seaweed could be so fascinating!

Oh if only everyday could be this idyllic! One can only dream!

Have a great day 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 !

Under the sea

I’m loving the summer holidays! The Dude’s taken a bit of time off work which means we’ve been spending lots of time having fun together as a family!
Today’s adventure was none other than a trip to the Melbourne Aquarium!

The first thing that catches your eye as you step in are these adorable little chaps!

It took me a while to realise that these were real penguins as they were standing still for a bit! Bugs was very fascinated with these cute little critters!

There was a nice little rock pool filled with marine creatures on site for the kids to explore…

This is Bugs’s hand reaching out to touch a starfish – brave little girl she is!

The jellyfish exhibits were quite mesmerising….

But they could not hold a candle to the amazing oceanarium! It really felt like we were walking under the sea!

The creatures inhabiting the space were pretty impressive too – like the giant manta ray….

And the scary sharks!

A pretty cool way to spend a Thursday! Have a whale of a time today folks!