Rain rain go away....or maybe don't...

It's been raining all night, and it's still raining now.  The garden needs it, and now it's getting milder you can see everything starting to grow. I'm quite looking forward to a nice Spring and better Summer.

I dropped the car off to the radiator guy this morning to have my A/c looked at as it's been acting up for, well, let's just say forever. I don't want to go through another Summer of not being cool in the car when driving. So I'm having a day at home, which is a good thing. Only just under 7 weeks of this third pregnancy to go.  The past few weeks i've been getting loads of braxton hicks when I do even the smallest things. Last the midwife checked the baby was fully engaged, so she's suggested that I take it as easy as I possibly can.


Take it easy? Doesn't she know me at all? Well, i'm trying.

A batch of bolognese to go into the freezer. Thought I should start stock piling those all important go-to meals for when baby arrives.

Do you like them? Bought myself some flowers on Sunday, I'm loving the colour.

Oh! Look what arrived today :) It's only taken us a few months to decide on what to get and how much to spend.

I made bread dough with this method yesterday, so popped a loaf in the oven to go with the bolognese we'll have for tea tonight.

I haven't spent all my time in the kitchen, I did sit down to try and finish this for baby. I'm getting there, just the sleeve, neck and then sew up to do. It's been slow progress, but when I put my mind to it, it gets done.

Master L been sleeping so well this week, it's funny how he's been so unsettled at night for almost 3 years and now suddenly is sleeping through...go figure :) Of course, I can't get comfy at night and am up regularly to go to the loo (sorry if tmi), so i'm still tired.

*yawn* think i'll go have my nana nap now....zzzz



A crafty first

I've wanted to learn to quilt for such a long time.  However, I'm not one to have confidence in following instructions, even with pictures, so I have a friend "Martha" over at Plot to Plate who is hosting weekly lessons for myself and a few other friends.

It didn't start off well.  The first week was a chore with working out how to use the rotary cutter and mat on the fabric with confidence. Let's just say I got a little frustrated and relied on Martha to help. I realise now that a 6 month pregnant belly gets in the way a bit.  I also couldn't get my head around the maths or how important it was to be soooo accurate with the cutting and sewing part.  The quick unpick was used rather often.

I got there in the end.  We had a second lesson this week and I went off with a hiss and a roar and got lots of 9 patches done no trouble at all.

Here's what I've achieved so far.

These long strips here are all sewn together into a 12" block which there will be x6 of in the middle of the quilt.

These are the 9 patches, 6" wide which I will use to border the quilt with the triangles that we are making next week.

I decided to do a quilt for the new baby's cot. Even though we know it's a girl, I went more neutral so that this can go into her memory box for when she has her own children.

I've got this thing where I want to have a couple of things in there for each of the children to hand on to their own. Miss E's got a beuatiful hand knitted shawl (bought by her granny and knitted by a talented Aunt) and a hand knitted cardi by me. Master L was given a beautiful cot quilt by my lovely friend Martha and a little first size hand knitted cardi by me. This baby, who we are struggling to find a name for (all suggestions welcome!), will have this quilt and a hand knitted cardi. I love the thought that these may be used by generations to come.

Today's achievements....A List

1. Get out of bed after 7am.

2. Make the kids Saturday morning pancakes in Hubby's absence (he's in Australia with work until tomorrow morning).

3. Get everyone dressed before 9am.

4. Look at the sewing machine on the dining table and decide to finish the bunting (flags) for Miss E's room.

5. Take photo of finished article (hanging with blu-tac) before it proceeds to fall down.

6. Make a note to get pins to hang bunting.

7. Get kids ready for a walk around to Poppa's place for coffee.

8. Ask Miss E 4 times to put on her shoes.....blood pressure elevates to boiling point....lose it like a crazy lady and shout VERY loudly to "just put your bloody shoes on will you!".

9. Realise bedroom window is open and cringe that all neighbours must have heard "that crazy scottish woman yelling at the top of her voice".

10. Take 10 mins time out then apologise to Miss E for shouting so loudly, before getting an apology from her for not listening.

11. Get both kids to Poppa's house for coffee and decide that a certain fast food restaurant is a good place to take the kids for lunch, that way they can act up all they like and I won't be tempted to kill them (sarcasm, people!).

12. Get home, lie on the couch and beg the kids not to disturb me for 20 mins.

13. Get disturbed by kids at least 10 times over course of next hour.

14. Make pizza dough for dinner later.

15. Visit a friend for a coffee (just lovely).

16. Get home and make pizza (see below). Yum!

17. Get into some comfy clothes post pizza.

18. Start blogging this whilst kids watching cartoons before bed.

All in all a successful day...my kids are still alive, I haven't gone into labour and I haven't cried......

...yet!

Recently in our house....

I've been doing a lot of baking to satisfy some of my "sweet" cravings. Trying to put healthy ingredients with the unhealthy - banana choc chip muffins. Super easy and quick. One i'll definitely make again. I can personally recommend them hot from the oven with a home-made flat white on a sunny day sitting in the garden. :)

Our kiddies are getting so grown up. I swear our girl Miss E has added two inches to her legs in the past 2 weeks. Master L is just a little dude. Loves to be silly and getting a sensible picture of him standing still is proving to be quite a challenge.

Trip to the dentist today for both of them. We take them twice a year for a check up with our own dentist, a lovely soft spoken scottish lady called Morag. Turns out Miss E has 3 of her adult molars coming through and a wobbly bottom left tooth. She was so delighted! I had a terrible experience with the dentist in my younger years and swore that my children would enjoy going, hence the twice annual visits and all the excitement I can muster running up to the appointments. Both sat in the chair without a hand hold and opened their sweet little mouths like professionals. I'm a very proud Mummy!

Return of the joy...

Hi everyone, remember me? I'm back after, like, well, hmm... 6 months-ish?

There's been lots happening. Plenty of shake rattle and rolling with earthquakes, but we're all safe and our house is fine. In fact we're one of the lucky ones that have had the damage to our house fixed. However, with plenty of aftershocks, we've had to lodge another claim, but thankfully it's just cosmetic stuff.

I'm 19 weeks pregnant with the third little rascal and due for my scan tomorrow. Thinking that we will find out whether it's a boy or girl. Simply just to be organised. When you've already got one of each sex and a whole linen cupboard of clothes to go through, it will be worth finding out I think.

I've been desperate to crotchet something for a while now and this afternoon whilst Master L was sleeping, I did this....

I'm impatient and wanted to do something quick that I knew could be finished in an hour. It's relatively easy and I followed the instructions here. It looks quite complicated and fast when you watch it, but it's actually relatively simple once you get the hang of it. Mum crotchets a bit and I've watched her do it before, but it looks very complicated until you try it yourself and realise how easy it actually is.

I'll try to get back with some photo's of the past 6 months and let you see what we've been up to.

For now, I'll get on with the washing folding, dinner preparation, floor sweeping etc etc etc.

It's nice to be back. :)

A weekend away...

A few weeks ago we had a trip away with friends to Mt Lyford. Just an hour and a half drive from where we live.



We had some sunshine which was just lovely, a glorious day.

We climed hills...

And had a picnic in what was probably the most spectacular location I've ever picnicked.

And living in NZ we're never too far from a fault line, but I had never stood directly on one until then.

But of course, it wouldn't be a holiday away with kids unless we had some of this.

It snowed on the first day of our arrival so we went snow hunting. Realising that Master L was tired we carried him the whole way up the hill only to carry him screaming like this the whole way back down again.

A quick snowman was built, thanks P!

And the children were oh so impressed, can't you tell?

What a weekend away and great to spend time with good friends.

Can we pleeeease make scones...?

...of course we can darling!

Miss E's new favourite thing to do is help with dinner prep or baking.

Here's my recipe for Savoury Scones. Basic scone recipe courtesy of NZ's Edmonds Cook Book and adapted to suit.

Preheat oven 200c Fan or 220c normal

Ingredients

3 cups all purpose/plain flour

6 teaspoons baking powder

75g softened butter

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup grated cheese

1 cup grated/chopped veges (I used courgette red and orange pepper and threw in a handful of finely diced salami)

1 to 1 and a quarter cups of milk

Dump flour baking powder and salt in a bowl and mix well.

Add butter and cut in with a knife/pastry blender or rub with fingers until no lumps remain.

Add veges and cheese and mix well.

Add Milk and bring together until you get nice damp dough. I used around the whole 1 and a quarter cups here.

Put onto a floured surface and pat/roll to 3/4 inch thick.

Cut into desired shapes/ sizes. I got 9 adult portion sized scones from this.

Place on non stick or lined tray and bake for 15 mins or until golden on top.

Enjoy warm with butter or a slice of cheese sandwiched between.

Yum!

Stef x