- 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…)

My mum had an op shop party for her birthday – everyone had to come dressed in gear from the op shop. We found the most excellent pink parachute trackie for Damage to wear – so beastie boys batting for the other team. We also found an anchor for him to wear on a chain around his neck. The kids started calling him Pirate Piggy – love it. Will have to find a photo. Anyway, also secured some great vintage sheets and these shoes for me to wear:

Gotta love the country oppie.

Planning Queen has been nominated for the nuffnang Asia Pac blog awards.  You can help her win by voting online.  It’s easy - find out more here. 

Congratulations Queen of the Plan – and good luck!!!

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……..

I’m into easy “baking”. These have been winners in our house recently:

12 minute Coconut Ice
(this is not a hard version and we keep it in the fridge once made)
1 can condensed milk
3 & 1/3 cups icing sugar
4 & 1/2 cups desicated coconut (I use shredded sometimes)
coctineal

Combine condensed milk, icing sugar and coconut and mix well
Divide mixture in half, press half into base of slab tin and colour remainder with a few drops of coctineal (we do other colours if we fancy). Press coloured mixture over white in slab tin. Chill until firm. Cut into bite size pieces. Go easy – it’s quite sweet…..

I am also utterly obsessed with gingerbread at the moment. We made these ones yesterday:

The girls helped so we did some for our favourite teams as well as those playing. Poor Saints – I was hoping you’d get there. At least then some mates wouldn’t have painted their fence in vain…..

Anyhow, the gingerbread recipe from taste.com (we don’t do the egg white icing either, in fact we rarely ice them, they are so delish without it):

Makes 20

Ingredients
Melted butter, to grease
125g butter, at room temperature
100g (1/2 cup, firmly packed) brown sugar
125ml (1/2 cup) golden syrup
1 egg, separated
375g (2 1/2 cups) plain flour
1 tbs ground ginger
1 tsp mixed spice
1 tsp bicarbonate of soda
Plain flour, to dust
150g (1 cup) pure icing sugar, sifted
8-10 drops red liquid food colouring
8-10 drops green liquid food colouring
Smarties, to decorate
Method
Preheat oven to 180°C. Brush 2 baking trays with melted butter to lightly grease.
Use an electric beater to beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy. Add the golden syrup and egg yolk and beat until combined. Stir in the flour, ginger, mixed spice and bicarbonate of soda. Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Press dough into a disc. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest.
Meanwhile, place egg white in a clean, dry bowl. Use an electric beater to beat until soft peaks form. Gradually add icing sugar and beat until stiff peaks form. Divide icing among 3 bowls. Cover 1 bowl with plastic wrap and place in the fridge. Add red colouring to 1 bowl and stir until combined. Add green colouring to remaining bowl and stir until combined. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the fridge.
Place the dough between 2 sheets of baking paper and roll out until about 4mm thick. Use a 9cm gingerbread man cutter to cut out shapes. Place on trays about 3cm apart. Repeat with any excess dough.
Bake in oven for 10 minutes or until brown. Remove from oven. Transfer to a rack to cool.
Place prepared icings in small plastic bags. Cut a small hole in a corner of each bag. Pipe icing over gingerbread men to decorate. Finish with Smarties.

I haven’t had one for so long I forgot how to spell it. Taking ages but it was an exciting milestone to find one in my hair.

I just bought tickets for the side show

It’s on December 11. We are due the 15th. Do you think that’s cutting it a bit fine?? We have had one induced 11 days over and one 15 days early. Could go either way couldn’t it?? Watch this space – I might be scalping closer to the date…….. In the meantime, i can look forward to seeing some fun musica.  If you are new to kitty, daisy & Lewis, check this out:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxW3Ed7GrhQ

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.

did you get yours??

How exciting being in print with such famous people as lady thornberry, ms mikes, planning queen, lizyloo and margaret fulton!!!  Go here to order yours: http://www.handmaderecipebook.com/