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

Today's Handi-work...

A certain wee boy turns two next week. Where did the last two years go?

Spent the last week pondering what kind of cake to make him.

He had a train last year with some pretty awesome blue icing that stained everything it touched.

This year I opted for simple.

He loves planes and I love these jet planes by Pascall. Yummy!

The cake is a double batch of The Pioneer Woman's Chocolate Sheet Cake which with 4 cups of sugar and nearly 500g butter in my double batch should probably be called Cardiac Sheet Cake. Not to mention the butter icing. Never mind. If you're going to eat cake, better to do it properly or not at all.

Here's the finished article.

Happy Birthday my darling boy. X

Return of my Daily Joy...

A few things have happened since my last post.

1. We had a 7.1 earthquake in Christchurch and it had to be one of the most scary and surreal experiences of my life. Thankfully no-one hurt, just house and land damage and we were very lucky.

2. Aforementioned earthquake happened the day we were due to fly to Scotland. Which meant we were delayed by 4 days.

3. We survived the traumatic half way round the world flight with two kids and had an awesome time with my family.

4. Survived the jetlag and return flight only to come back to continued aftershocks.

I'm feeling back to normal last week and this week have gotten back into my crafty stuff again.

Do you recall this chair with its 80's shocking pink seat?


I visited my friend Karen at Plot to Plate for coffee last week and got inspired to get cracking on recovering it.

So this morning I've been busy creating this.

Doesn't it look awesome?? Even if I do say so myself :)

I used some gorgeous olicloth fabric from a local fabric shop and I am so pleased with the result.

Yesterday I got sew frustrated (pardon the pun). I tried to make some pyramid door stops only to realise that this gorgeous fabric from the same shop, liked to frey.

I think i'll start again and try to use the leftover oilcloth from my stool this time.

I'll let you know how I get on :)

Late frost to lost socks

Weather here has been relatively mild, marking the end of Winter and heading into Spring.

Buds are forming on the trees and the rhododendrons have had flowers on for a couple of weeks now. We have our first daffodil in the front garden. It looks a little lonely on its own though.

The thing about Christchurch is that you are often lulled into a false sense of security where things in the garden are concerned. Each year since we've been here there has been a late frost in September. The poor trees and flowers suffer the wrath of this.






We head off in a week to Sunny Scotland. I keep calling it Sunny in the hope that it will give us some unseasonably warm weather when we're there. The truth of the matter is that the weather here at the end of Winter is pretty identical to what they are having on a "good day" through summer. Yesterday and today I've been in short sleeves and it is just lovely to feel the warmth of the sun on my face.






Packing our stuff is forefront in my mind. It seems insurmountable at the moment. Take yesterday, I packed most of Ella's clothes into the suitcase on our bedroom floor. I should have known to move it. Whilst in the shower this morning, Miss E calls to let me know that Master L has kindly unpacked for me and using the suitcase as a bus. I should have known, and I chose not to listen to myself. Never mind, packing the day we leave seems the most logical thing to do. Hmm.

I have a problem.

I think most people out there suffer with it. It's called "a bunch of our socks have entered the washing machine and vanished into thin air". When I say our, I think our machine likes little girls socks most.

Where do you think they go?

Yours truly

Bemused

xx