Category — family

We recently took the kids for a mini holiday to one of my favourite places within sensible driving range.  I LOVE the river.  As soon as I get up there I feel calm.

We squeezed in quite a lot, and I even read a book. First stop was the races:

We had a lovely (although slightly slanty) picnic:

And the girls got some practice in (I used to love doing this with my dad - such a brilliant memory - for me anyway - it probably wasn’t quite as much fun for him until I’d had enough practice……):

And then there was the Golden Cow, the pedicure and massage,  a wicked kids playground, golf for the bloke, the very little cooking, the pool, the very yummy dinner and the just going slow for a few days…..  Lovely…..

- you are finding it hard to find a comfortable sleeping position
- you are up every two hours to go to the toilet
- any sudden changes in direction could result in knocking your stomach into a door since you forget  you need a bigger turning circle
- the facility for remembering simple words and familiar names is temporarily unavailable
- you sit down on the couch to rest for 5 minutes and wake up 2 hours later
- you walk to work and your stockings fall dragging your knickers with them.
- to combat above, you wear your knickers outside your stockings for the trip home
- any Tom, Dick and Harriett rubs your tummy saying - “Oh, I just have to” (Which incidently I don’t mind but it does happen a lot)
- every second person says to you - “are you sure there’s only one in there??” or “you can’t have long to go”…..
- sitting at your sewing machine, you wonder why your janome isn’t feeding the material through properly and realise that its caught between your boob and your bump!!!! (the material that is, not the sewing machine…)

I worked from home on friday so we had a slower start.  We “made” time (by being late) to further embelish some imaginative play.  Off to creche went the wicked fairy and the tiger butterfly. 

Right, I’m off to work on a quilt for my mum - it’s her birthday next week and let’s just say, there’s a fair bit to go……..

After our rough start to the weekend, it ended up lovely with not much planned.   A bit of ballet, the market and lots of lovely hanging around. We laid low - I squeezed in a bit of sewing - the sky for my mum’s penguin quilt, and we ate simple but yummy food:
Friday night - ham & vege soup with Laurent’s olive bread mmmmm
Sat - borek’s from the market, then antipasto and insalata caprese - I LOVE tomato, Boccocini and Basil - I could live on it.
Strawberries were cheap at the market so we had some soaked in cointreau and sugar on some meringues for dessert.
Sun - french toast for brekky, for dinner we had corn cobs and potato rostis, with vanilla milk puddings and strawberries for dessert. 

The seasons are a changing eh?

Anyway, I used this donna hay recipe to make the vanilla puddings.  Simple to make - I had an apprentice.

Donna Hay’s Vanilla Milk Puddings

1 tablespoon gelatine

3 cups milk

1 vanilla bean, split and seeds scraped

1/3 cup castor sugar

1/3 icing sugar, sifted

150g raspberries

150g blueberries

Sprinkle the gelatie over ¼ cup of the milk. Set aside for 5 minutes. Place the remaining milk, vanilla, sugar and gelatine in a saucepan and heat for 5 minutes. Remove the vanilla bean and pour the mixture into 6 x ½ cup capacity ramekins or moulds.  Refrigerate for 4 hours or overnight.

Combine the icing sugar, lemon juice, raspberries and blueberries. Set aside for 10 minutes. T o serve, unmould the puddings onto plates and spoon over the berry mixture.

Serves 6

You can use sliced strawberries like us, and add cointreau to the berries’ bath.

I was challenged earlier in the week when I arrived at kinder pick up on Thursday.  The fill in teacher had brought in snails for everyone to draw and to plonk onto black card to watch the trails.  Cute (ish).  But when I arrived, it was evident we had someone who was OBSESSED with them.  She had been drawing them all morning and playing with them constantly.  She had even built a house (weetbix box) complete with grass and a lovely lace bed.  “Can I take one home mum?”  My immediate reaction was an understanding and sympathetic “no - we can get one from the garden if we really want to”.  We “relocate” stacks and they eat our veges - I had never entertained a snail for a pet.  Well, I have never seen anyone so sad.  She was devasted - she knew all about how to look after them: to give them grass or white paper to eat; and to flick water on them to keep them moist.  When the tears started, I reconsidered.  Do I give in to the tears, what’s wrong with a snail, why can’t she just have one, who am i to determine what is considered a pet? etc etc.  Anyway, Daisy the baby snail came home with us.  She had the big responsibility now of a pet and she was loving it.  We took Daisy to creche the next day to show her friends there.  When I arrived for creche pick up - there was a sad story waiting.  One of the 3 year olds at creche had stolen Daisy from her weetbix house in Dusty’s locker and stepped on that sad snail several times.  Dusty walked in just as it was happening.  My heart sank.  Even though I wasn’t a huge fan of Daisy, I was so sad someone so little could be sooo mean. 

So the search is on for a pet.  Not sure if the timing’s right for a dog but we are on the hunt for something to scratch that itch as it were.  And we have been having lots of discussions about how not to be mean and how to be respectful of other people’s things. And what we do when people do mean things to us.

that’s what the last few weeks feel like. buzzing on by. Did get to a few brown owl meets, a couple of ivanhoe quiltoffs, a perle 8 but mostly hanging with the fam. Took Sadia to the last qtr at the MCG to watch the tiges not quite lose to Melb (if you want to dip your foot in at the footy, the ‘g lets you in for free for the last qtr - great option for certain 3 yr olds who don’t concentrate on far away games for that long. We got to sing our song - which she loved.  The other kid is totally converted to dad’s poos and wees so I have to fly the black and yellow flag - I refuse to be outnumbered).  

We also went to Peter and the Wolf played by the Heidleberg Symphony:

Someone had a practice exam - freaky man - it’s ok anti-over schedulers, she only does ballet, she LOVES it and she can opt out whenever she wants.

I got a new neice - two weeks early:

and she got a quickie quilt - which looks like its still on the camera so that will get aired sometime in the next 100 years (I wonder what blogging will look like in 100 years?  perhaps we can just think things and it will go on our blog - that could be very very dangerous….and really quite messy in my case…)

xoxoxo

One of the ladies turned 5 last week - I can’t believe it.  And for 9 months she has been talking about a spotlighting party.  To anyone who has been in the ute for traditional spotlighting: you’ll be relieved to know that she just means looking, not anything more sinister than that.  It was a quiet birthday year this year, last year’s dino party at the museum was ridiculous really so it was a much smaller affair this time. 

So the kids decorated their paper glasses Dame Edna style - Hello Possums - thanks to Nikki for the tip off re the glasses at Riot Art.  They are also at Windmill but I didn’t get there.

We covered our torches with red cellophane (I called the ranger a few days before looking for any intel I could pass on to the kids about the possums we would be looking for.  I explained what we were doing and she said “you do realise it’s against the wildlife protection act to shine any type of light at wildlife??”  Great, there goes the party…..  Anyhow, it turns out if you tint the light with cellophane, it’s not as damaging or disturbing.  Gave the kids something to do - they were soooo excited to have torches out - it was gorgeous.)  We had a quick bite to eat - Planning Queen style:

Then we gaggled off to the gardens in such of something to spotlight:

The kids had soooo much fun running around the park spotting possums.  We were looking for the Powerful Owl but she remained elusive.  Then we walked back home for ice-cream cake:

Thanks to everyone who helped on the night - to Mum for coming down and helping get things organised, Nic for the tea cups and Carmen for the grownup food.  Happy Birthday kiddo:

not the NGV - as I found out after I waited in line with all the other very keen Dali-heads for about …..half an hour!!!!  Nevermind, we got there, the kids got to do some dali-stuff while I waited in line:

I love living in Melbourne - and it’s nice to be home long enough on the weekends to enjoy it.  And Damage cooked tea on Saturday night - he conceptualised, he hunted and gathered and he executed - chicken casseroley thingy - yum, all the better because I didn’t have to lift a finger….  But then, he did spend half of our sunday listening to the footy via his phone.  Which gave me the shits and I behaved like a child.  Then he composted the garden so I stopped being a spoilt brat and made some pumpkin soup. Which was yum. And a chocolate self saucing pudding.  Which was also yum.  I’m off to have some soup.

I feel like we have been FLAT CHAT.  My niece was staying with us all last week and we had a weekend away to my hometown.  It was busy - we did fit in a trip over the river to non-swineflu land and the Farmers Market - it was awesome!!!!  I go to the Queen Vic for all my fresh produce but have been to the collingwood cf farmers market and will have to hunt down a few more.   SOOOOOOO FRESHHH - I was in heaven.

Anyhow, after only two days in the country, I was feeling claustrophobic and thought a day at home in melbourne would be what we all needed.  So we fled back to melb on sunday and yesterday we had a lazy late breaky at home and a bit of a tidy up.  Me and ladedah were in our pj’s until after lunch.  Damage took the girls to the park, I went for a walk after being inspired by Pip last week and we capped it off with a drink at local cafe.   Damage even cooked tea!!  Rested, feels better.

still going - this week a bit all over the shop but I’m committed….

Tuesday:   Mushroom Rissotto
Wednesday:   Rack of Lamb with zucchini & potato rosti (is anyone else watching masterchef??)
Thursday:   Honey chick stirfry
Friday:  Take away
Saturday:  we are at a party - yippee
Sunday:  Mothers day shananigans all day so doubt dinner will be more than an egg in bread
Monday:  Tuna Mornay

It’s easy to menu plan when you dont have to cook much huh??