Labour Weekend.

I've been meaning to post this since Monday night, but every time I sit down to do it, I get caught up looking at all the pictures I came home with from our lovey weekend. 

 Is this not the most cutest nephew you have ever seen?

I just love him to bits.

We got to spend a long weekend with him and it was bliss.

He is learning and changing and growing so quickly and there is so much to catch up on each time we see him.  It’s hard to believe it has only been a month and a half since our last visit!

He is just delicious and Mike and I couldn’t get enough of him! 

Neither could my parents.  They love being Ma and Grandad to such a sweet little man.

Seeing as it was a long weekend, we got to stay for an extra day, which meant we got to squeeze in a lot more than we'd normally have time for... 

Like target practice in the backyard.  The first time I've shot a real gun - and no, I don't plan to make a habit of it, but shooting cans in the back yard is fun.  And by the way, my aim is FAB - four out of five cans on my first try!

We went and watched 4x4's... I ended up carrying Levi in the front-pack, so I only snapped two less than average pictures - one of the 4x4s and one of the baby.  Surprise.

Oh, and Mom, Sarah and I managed to measure, cut, piece and sew an entire cot quilt in one day.  One day I tell you.  And ain't it purdy?  Props to Mom for all that sewing!

I came home with just over 600 photos.  Not bad for a two and a half day visit…  Levi and my camera have a love-love relationship.

It was hard to say goodbye, but not that hard – he’s coming to visit us next week.

I.  Can’t.  Wait.

Sixty-One.

There are 61 sleeps until Christmas. 

One of my most favourite things to do at Christmas is something our church does every year.

They go out into the community and find people in need.  They get alongside community groups and find people who are facing illness or going through struggles, people without families – people that are not expecting a special Christmas. 

No names, just details are written on decorations – single mum, six year old boy, grandmother raising grandchildren, elderly man – and hung on big Christmas trees and then then we get to choose a person off the tree, take home a gift box and fill it up with things for that person. 

We don’t know who our gift will be given to, but we know that it will bless them and that at Christmastime; they will know they are loved.  That somebody, a stranger, cared enough about them to fill a box with beautiful things, just for them.   I love that.

This year we chose…

I am so excited to fill our Christmas box with sweet baby girl presents for this precious wee girl’s very first Christmas. 

I heart Christmas.

Distractions, Distractions.

72 sleeps ‘til Christmas and I am not quite where I planned to be with my handmade gifts, I haven’t done much at all. 

Correction: I haven’t done anything at all. 

Oops… I should probably get started, but there are so many other things going on that it’s hard to concentrate!

I have however made a dent in decorations.  Yay!  Decorating the tree is one of my most favourite things to do at Christmas time, I can’t wait :)

Speaking of trees and pretty things on trees… Remember our plum tree and all its blossoms?  Yeah, they’ve gone.  So sad  :(  I loved looking out the kitchen window every morning and seeing them.  I’ll let them off though, because in their place are baby plums. 

HUNDREDS of baby plums.  

 And look what else we found down the back… 

                                    

A peach tree!  It’s full of blossoms and it’s so puurdy!

See how easy distracted I am?  Instead of making gifts I’ve been taking photos... Of trees.  Oh dear.  I must get crafting!

“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.