“Happy pretend birthday, Dad. Sorry about the cake…”

My Dad’s birthday was two weeks ago, but we didn’t celebrate it until Monday just been.  My mom surprised him with a trip to Rarotonga and they flew out on the day of his birthday, so we decided to wait until they got back before doing anything for him.

Rach and I decided to stick with the tropical island theme and throw him a Luau Party.  And by party, I don’t mean party.  I mean a family dinner with a theme. 

Rach organised the decorations and I did the cake.  I was planning to do an island cake with waves up the side and a towel and palm tree on the top.  It went pretty much to plan, until about ten minutes before we left the house…

As I was getting the branches out of the hot water cupboard to finish off the palm tree, I accidentally knocked one of the branches and it snapped off.  Then, because the rest were unbalanced, they backwards rolled off my hand and dropped on the floor.  Miraculously, only one branch crumbled off, but it was bad and I was now two branches down.

I tried to mould them back together without any luck.  I tried adding extra fondant.  I tried meringue icing.  And as a last resort I tried hot glue and chopsticks (seems logical, right?), which worked really well on two of the leaves, but the other two wouldn’t have a bar of it, so I was left with a set of two really great stuck-together branches with chopsticks hanging out the sides and two very sad-looking, half-crumbled branches.  Fab.

I decided to leave it and go to Rach’s before I got too stressed about it.  I wasn’t really concerned about the leaves by that point; I was more concerned about the naked palm tree trunk that was looking “a lot like a turd on a stick.”  To be honest, not quite what I was going for.

Rach thought it was hilarious.  We had another go at fixing the leaves, but after realising there was no possible way to make it work, we were left with two options – dismantle one of the plastic pot plants from her doll house, or cut a green flower off one of the leis.  We chose the latter.

When Dad arrived home, I picked up the cake to show him.  He was a tad stunned...  I looked down and realised the flower had fallen off – he was quite relieved when I replaced it and explained what it was meant to be!  Thankfully, the rest of the night went smoothly and I think it’s pretty safe to say the cake tasted much better than it looked…





That awkward moment when Dad blew out his candle… and the top of the palm tree fell off…

(excuse the poor photo!)

Happy birthday, Dad!

I love you lots.

Already?!

I can’t believe it’s the weekend again!  This week flew by - It seems like just a couple of days ago we were driving down to New Plymouth to see this little guy…

We had such a great weekend with him (and his mom and dad).  He is growing so quickly and he has changed so much compared since the last time we saw him.   

He was pretty stoked to see us.

He’s very clever; he can roll over all by himself.  If you give him your fingers, he can pull himself up to stand and if you hold your hand out, he gives you high-fives.  It’s official.  My nephew’s a genius.  And very cute.

It was so good spending time with Sarah.  It’s been far too long and talking on the phone just isn’t the same as hanging out in person.  We had a good catch up and I’m looking forward to the next visit already :)

It’s always hard to leave, but did much better this time (there were no tears in the driveway this time!).  Maybe because I know we’ll see them again next month.  And the month after that.  And the month after that for CHRISTMAS! 

93 sleeps and counting.

Twine Baubles

Today there are only 100 sleeps left until Christmas!  To celebrate, I’m posting one of my first Christmas projects for this year - twine baubles. 

You will need:

Water Bombs

PVA glue

Twine

Scissors

Plastic sheet

Blow up water bombs to the size you would like to make your decorations (I also used normal balloons to make some bigger baubles).

Squeeze some PVA into a plastic container – I used ones I could throw out afterwards to save on clean-up time.  Add water and mix until you have a consistency about the same as cream.

Cut a length of twine long enough to wrap around your balloon (I used about 50cm for the smaller ones) and put it into the glue mixture, making sure it is covered completely.  Leave it to soak for at least two minutes.

Fish out your length of twine and run your finger and thumb down either side to get rid of the excess glue and then begin to wrap it around your balloon, making sure that you tuck in each end of the twine in to stop your bauble from unravelling.

Place completed baubles on the plastic sheet and leave to dry for a few hours (I put mine in the hot water cupboard overnight). 

When they are dried completely, use scissors to pop the balloons and then carefully pull them out. 

And voila!  You have twine baubles for your Christmas tree! 

Happy weekend y'all :) 

Caramel Mudcake (At Last).

This cake is seriously yummy. 

So seriously yummy that I only make it if we are taking it somewhere or having people over.  It's just too dangerous to have in my pantry.  Last time I made one for my Mom, she made us take half the cake home with us and Mike and I managed to polish it off in two days.  Two days!  Not something that should be repeated often.

Ingredients

250g butter
150g white cooking chocolate
2 cups of brown sugar
1 cup of buttermilk
1 1/2 cups of plain flour
1/2 cup self raising flour
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 eggs (at room temperature)


Method

Preheat oven to 150 degrees.  Grease a 20cm round cake tin and line with baking paper.

Combine butter, white chocolate, brown sugar and buttermilk in a saucepan and stir over low heat until smooth and melted.  Transfer to a large bowl and let it cool to room temperature – about 30 minutes.

 Using a whisk, add the sifted flour and self-raising flour, followed by vanilla essence and eggs (don’t over mix or your batter will become tough).

Pour mixture into your prepared tin and bake for one hour and 50 minutes.  After the one hour mark, turn your tin around and loosely cover it with tinfoil before baking for another 50 minutes.

Test with a knife/skewer to make sure it is baked through and then remove from the oven and leave to cool completely before icing (tip: covering your mudcake with a dense towel while it cools in the tin will help to keep the moisture in).

To make the caramel icing, melt 125grams of butter in a small saucepan.  Once melted, add 80mls of milk and ¾ cup brown sugar (firmly packed).  Mix, bring to the boil and simmer uncovered for three minutes.  Remove from heat and cool for 10 minutes.  Gradually add icing sugar until the icing is thick.

 

Eat your heart out.

North Head.

Mike and I went on a date a couple of weeks ago.  It was a beautiful sunny Saturday, so we decided to catch the ferry over to Rangitoto Island and spend the day there. 

We got ready, packed our picnic and headed off, arriving at the ferry terminal just in time to see the ferry we were meant to be on pulling away from the wharf.  Oops.

The ferry only runs twice on Saturdays and the one we were aiming to catch was the second one, so there was no way we would be exploring Rangitoto as we'd planned.  Instead, we decided to go to North Head, one of the volcanic mountains close by. 

The view was amazing. 

  

We picknicked, chatted, admired the view and enjoyed each other's company. 

  

We even got to watch our ferry docking at Rangitoto! 

And before we knew it, half the day had passed.

 Sometimes the adventures that don’t turn out at all how you planned are the best adventures.

Spring has Sprung.

It happened overnight and right on schedule.  Look what we woke up to on the first of September?

Our plum tree is full of beautiful blossoms.

  

  

I love spring-time. 

The air is still crisp, but the sky is blue and the sun is shining... and summer is just around the corner. 

Life is good :)

Bad Blogger

I’ve been a bad blogger, I know.  But not without reason – we’ve been a bit overwhelmed with busyness over the past few weeks and unfortunately blogging has been last on the list of priorities.

It started with a work function the week after our anniversary.  I was quite involved with the planning – it was a surprise party for the boss, so required lots of sneakiness and organisation.  I was in charge of invitations and decorations, so our lounge floor was covered in company memorabilia for a good couple of weeks while I cut out invitations and worked on the guest book and photo board etc.    

The weekend after my work-do was spent with Mike, doing the things he wanted to do with me on my birthday - seeing as he had to work on the actual day, we did them on the weekend instead.  He made me breakfast in bed and then we went out for the day, I had my hair done, then we had a nice lunch at a local café and did some shopping and just hung out together.  We went out for lunch with friends the next day too and then suddenly, I turned 22. 

I was very spoiled on my birthday – Mike got me a new camera (yay!).  And I also got lots of cute kitchen things – tea in vintage tins, pretty cupcake cases, baking tags and a pretty tea trolley to display it all on!  My lovely friend Neva gave me a patchwork book and the promise of sewing lessons, yippee; I have been wanting to learn for the longest time!

Two days after my birthday, I woke with a horrible migraine, so I stayed home from work and slept for most of the day and then lay on the couch in the lounge in my dressing gown and sunglasses, with all the curtains closed - I’m sure it was a really attractive sight for Mike to come home to!

The next day, our much-loved Granny went to be with Jesus :(  We got a call shortly before 6am on Thursday to say that she had collapsed and been rushed to hospital unresponsive.  We jumped out of bed and rushed to the hospital and on arrival, we were told that she had pneumonia, but also that all her organs were failing and there was nothing more that they could do for her.

It was special to spend those final hours with her.  We held her hand and talked to her and shared our favourite memories of her (my favourite was the time we went to visit and she called out, “Who is it?” Mike replied, “It’s your favourite grandson!”  And she said, “Oh lovely, is that you Paul?”  Hahaha, poor Mike!  He is sure that she really did mean him and just got the names confused.). 

Granny stayed with us until all of her kids in New Zealand were at her bedside and the ones who live in America and Australia had called and spoken to her, and then she peacefully slipped away in her sleep.

The past week and a half has mostly been spent with the family; two of Mike’s cousins came to stay with us and we have had lots of family dinners and barbeques to go to, as well as funeral preparations to take care of and then of course, the funeral.  It was a lovely service; the chapel was packed and it was a real celebration of her life.  There were some tears, and a lot of laughter, the way I think there should be.  Favourite memories, funny stories and some of her famous sayings were quoted (“Monkey know which tree to climb.”).  It was a beautiful way to farewell a lady that was so loved by so many.

Yesterday was spent at Granny’s house sorting through her things.  Mike’s dad put aside a beautiful crystal jug and set of glasses that he wanted us to have – they were given to Granny on her wedding day, so it’s precious that they now belong to us.

It’s going to take a while to adjust to Granny not being around anymore - It was hard going to her house and seeing all her things without her in the midst of them - but I know that she is at peace now and is in a much better place.  She loved Jesus and had told us many times that she was ready to go home to Him.  I am happy that she is there with Him now.

We will miss her so much.  She was a beautiful lady and I feel blessed to have known her.  

So, there you have it, that’s where I’ve been the past few weeks.  Things are starting to settle back to normal now, so I’ll be back soon.  I promise I won’t leave it so long before the next post - I have lots of recipes and crafting to share with you. 

Until then xo