moments of twenty: Nutella & Raspberry Crepes

We made these for dinner tonight. A great recipe! I substituted the butter with vegetable oil but followed the rest to the letter, doubled it and Yummo! We had ours with Nutella and strawberries. There's enough batter left for us to have crepes again tomorrow!
moments of twenty: Nutella & Raspberry Crepes: "It all started when reading Julie & Julia (I first saw the movie but loved the book too). Julie makes Julia Child's famous crepes, describi..."

Poppy made a Rocking Horse

This is the email from Dave's Dad today. He's been quietly making the most beautiful rocking horse I've ever seen!! The kids are going to absolutely LOVE it! What a family heirloom it will become. Thank you SO much Dad!!
Here is the email...


Hi Dave and Angie
Pictures attached of the rocking horse from "Go to Whoa".
This will be for Isabella for a couple of years and Hamish later.
There is nothing preventing Josh and Sammy having a go other than getting
Isabella's permission I guess.
I have sat on it and had a small ride.
Probably will have to partially dismantle to get in car to bring down.
So looking forward to seeing you all again, seems ages. It is ages.
Love to all
Dad and Anne
XX

Here's the finished rocking horse. Isn't it beautiful!

Here's the man in action. Isn't he talented!!

Student Represenrative Council

Beautiful Sammy.

Sammy came home with her new SRC badge today. She's been chosen from her class peers to be their representative for this term. At her school they like to share the job around so each term new reps are chosen. Sammy was do excited to be chosen and I know shell do a great job. We're so proud of her! Well done Sammy!

The badge!

Player of the week

Pity about the red eyes. But a handsome boy!

The whole hat!

Joshua got the player of the week for Drama classes today and got to take home a sombrero to keep for a week. We're so proud of him!

Today I got told!

Tonight Isabella came out of her bed numerous times. Dave was out and Hamish is not well and was sleeping on the couch. I didn't want to move him to a safer place in case I woke him up and so Isabella used this to her advantage. I used counting a couple of times, which works momentarily, but then I just had enough and yelled at her to stay in her bed or I was going to come and take a favourite toy away.
Well Isabella felt that she needed to come and tell me that she loved me but I had told my friends that I was going to get her to do 'nice talking' for stars and that I wasn't doing 'nice talking'. Well I had a hard time keeping a straight face. I couldn't think of a comeback for that!! So I said that we'll try and get stars for going to bed at the right time and I did take a toy away from her. Who knows what did the trick but she stayed in bed once I got up. Probably it was me getting up to her!!

Costco

Dave bought our Costco membership on line and we've finally been to get our cards, visit the store and make our first purchases.
We got a great deal on Huggies nappies which were $58 for a box of 184, and bought a few other odds and ends which set us back $210! I read a few forum posts about Costco shopping and how to do it so that you actually save money. People suggested that you first arrive in a big enough car. People mover - check! Next you knew your prices. Other store catalogues (not a check here, but useful for our next expedition). Stick to fresh or dried, canned foods and avoid prepackaged meals that are super high in fat and are NOT cheaper. Check. We bought a big package of snow peas, some cucumbers and a package of cos lettuces. All will last long enough to be eaten. Be prepared to spend a few hours there. Check. Stay calm. Harder to do with the HUGE crowds but a check here too. Also an observation from me. Bring along a strong man to push your trolley. The shopping trollies are all suffering from a serious obesity problem and I was grateful to not be pushing one. On the plus side-you can fit two children in the front of the trolley. We also saw someone pushing a big guy in a trolley. The trolley is almost too wide for the footpath so I imagine there will be many standoffs trying to get to or from the centre. Perhaps even a bit of trolley-rage!
The cafe outside was on par with Ikea prices and meant we could feed the kids cheaply as a treat for dinner.
The only real downside of our journey was Isabella falling backwards off one of the benches and hitting her head really hard on the seat behind her. She screamed the house down and when I managed to calm her down I noticed blood on her head and an enormous egg. Poor little thing! Josh was a huge help and bribed her with playing on his i-phone when Hamish started screaming as well. I had him in the baby bjorn and when Isabella hurt herself I calmed her down and gave her a big cuddle and he woke up. I then needed to feed him and Josh looked after Bella. What a great big brother she has. He was so concerned with how she was he couldn't finish his pie. Almost unheard of in a growing teenager. So sweet!

Police directing traffic outside Costco

Trolleys everywhere.

The queue.

Josh trying out the 3D TV.

Sammy's turn.

Helping Isabella out.

Sammy at the seafood counter.

The supersized trolley.

The crowds.

Eating Costco Frozen yoghurt.

Josh and his pie.

The bill for Costco's cafe.

Pie with mustard, sauce and green relish.

Poor Isabella's injured head.

On our way home.

After mothers group

Isabella had some lovely friends over to play today from my mothers group. A really nice bunch of women and really it's more about the adults than the kids I think. We all had a lovely play day and so did the kids.
I was lucky enough to have Sammy make some weetbix slice this morning before she went to school. What wonderful children I have! I couldn't have done everything I needed to do without her help. I managed to have breakfast and a shower AND feed Hamish. It's really like having a much needed extra pair of hands now that she's older.
The friends came and played monsters and also with the playdoh I made last week. There is now more grey brown playdoh after there visit, but isn't that the point of playing! Mixing all the colours together makes browny grey every single time funnily enough. I'll just make some new playdoh when we run out of the different colours.
Once her friends left we had a "face plate" lunch and then Isabella did some craft. In between her beautiful creations she decided to wash her bike. Who knew it was dirty!! Then back to craft again.
While she was washing I washed down the table top of our outdoor setting. It was so nice to be able to sit outside in the warmth today. It didn't feel like winter at all. It did remind me that we need to go and pick up the outside umbrella from my sister. It almost started getting too hot outside. Well never for me, the reptile that I am who never seems warm enough.

Sammy is growing up

Sammy is turning into such a beautiful young lady. She has asked me a few times if she can do her legs and I told her when she was ready to do them all the time then she could do them. Well today was that day. We bought some depilatory cream from Costco today and she used it on her legs tonight. I told her not to grow up too quickly!!

Changing it up...

I'm stuck to the couch with a sleeping Hamish lying on me and the computer perched on my lap. I can't move for fear of waking him up so I thought I'd update my blog with another free background from the cutest blog on the block. Poor Hamish is still very snotty and is snuffling on me like a pig searching for truffles.
Too late!! He's awake. He just started bobbing up and down on my chest like he's in a bobbing for apples game. Very funny!! He's attached now and relatively happy.
So today was a day of catching up with housework and reorganising my craft room. Hamish slept for 3 hours today which is unheard of in this house. So I used the time wisely and tidied, spray and wiped, vacuumed, loaded and unloaded the dishwasher twice, put a load of washing on (hubby hung quite a few loads out today. In our house I'm very lucky as he is in charge of the washing. Lucky me!! A big thank you to you honey!! XXOOXX) dusted, wiped down all the photo frames in the house and changed some things around in our room (the decorative bits). Since Hamish was still sleeping after all of this I then started on the craft room. I managed to unpack the last of the cardboard boxes in there and got rid of a whole lot of rubbish.

An unused photo frame. Will change out the yellow I think.

I even managed to make a little bit of craft. Not very interesting, but I thought the kids would like to know what we're having for dinner and if anyone wanted to cook they could see what was on the menu for the week and then make something. This of course is wishful thinking, but my darling husband has started to cook more often and the two oldest are showing a smidgen of interest. Maybe this will help.
Dave got everything ready outside for him to start painting the cot tomorrow and for me to paint the inside of my scout cupboard that Dave got for me for FREE. I need it to finish my craft room, so I'm keen to get it painted.

She said this is for when she turns five. See the '5' in the middle.

Isabella LOVED having the craft stuff more accessible in the craftroom and spent a good couple of hours happily sticking bits of paper and sparkles to paper and then using the super patterned scissors to cut more paper and stick that on and then use textas to colour it all in.
A good day was had today by all! And a very productive one for me. Yay me!!

Quality time for new parents

Got to love a photo of our feet!!

Watching some Letterman while the little man sleeps on his dad.

Hamish has a cold

The 'Snot Sucker'.

Snuffling away on his Dad.

Hamish has a runny nose and he sounds just like a pig as far as the kids are concerned. To fix this I'm constantly sucking out the runny stuff with the 'snot sucker'!! Don't you love it's name!! The kids have also decided to decorate our tissue boxes. In the background you can see Isabella's writing on the tissue box. She wrote the letters that start our names. At the moment he's sleeping on his dad, snuffling away.

Baking

Decorating with sprinkles.

She did her hair herself.

With chocolate!

With glace cherries.

Poor Isabella is still not quite herself, so to the oven we go for some baking and a cheer up. Nothing like warm biscuits straight from the oven with a nice cup of cold milk.
The easiest and cheapest recipe I know.
120 Biscuits (It makes close to this many!)
1 cup sugar
500g butter
1 tin sweetened condensed milk
5 cups self-raising flour
1. Cream butter and sugar and then add in tin of sweetened condensed milk.
2. Mix in flour.
3. Break up into four bowls and add your choice of stuff to them.
4. Roll into teaspoon sized balls and lay on baking sheet.
5. Bake in a moderate oven for 15 minutes or until just golden.
This recipe is not very sweet so I usually add sweet things to them. Some ideas are: choc chips, cut up dates and rolled oats, roll plain balls of dough into Milo or chocolate powder, cornflakes and sultanas, half a packed of jelly crystals. It's really up to your imagination. I sometimes roll out the biscuits and put them on a baking sheet like I'm going to bake them and then I stick the whole tray in the freezer and till they are hard. I then take the biscuits and put them into freezer bags. Next time I want some freshly baked biscuits I just take out as many biscuits from the freezer as I need, put them back onto a baking sheet and let defrost for a few minutes and then bake as normal. It makes me look much more organised than I am. I always have biscuits ready to bake for company!!

Along for the ride

Rugged up in the pram.

Every Tuesday I go to a physiotherapy exercise class for new mums. We concentrate on our core muscles and making sure they're all normal and strong after having a baby. There are three or four ladies that are volunteers for the class and mind the babies. Hamish does not like any of them unfortunately and spent the first two classes screaming. The ladies remembered his name from the first class and I don't think it was for his good looks. So last week my mum looked after him and he was a little better behaved. This week she is recovering from a wrist operation and so had my lovely sister along to help. How lucky am I!! Well Hamish slept the whole time. Not one peep!! I'm so grateful for their help it makes for a relaxing work out. Here is the little man wide awake on the way from the carpark to my class.

How to cheer up a sick girl

Isabella had an awful night last night. Her temperature went over 39 and we really had trouble keeping it down. Isabella came through to our room about 2:00am burning up. Poor little girl looked awful. Dave got up to get her some panadol and try to cool her down. I got up for a little bit, but by 2:30am I was exhausted and wanted to get a little bit of sleep before Hamish woke me up for his next feed. He ended up sleeping until 5:30am. Dave struggled to get her temperature down and so this morning we took her to the doctors. It's times like these that having Dave work from home are great!! I really appreciated his help in getting Isabella to the doctors. I could've done it by myself, but with Hamish along it would've been difficult trying to coordinate his feeds and looking after Bella as well. If you're reading this Dave, thanks! It was so nice having you there with me!!
Anyway Isabella has virul conjunctivitis poor thing. She's feeling a little chirpier this morning, but is not herself.
Once home I made Isabella some playdoh like I promised. This kept her happy for about an hour. Just enough time for me to clean up breakfast dishes, pack the dishwasher, clean up the playdoh mess I'd made and do a once over of the house. Hamish luckily fell asleep in the high chair while watching me make the playdoh. He was NOT happy!!

In the process of making playdoh.

Hamish complaining loudly!

See those beautiful colours.

A happy girl with washing in the background.

He fell asleep just before I finished.