The Easter Parade Hat

Emmylou was laid low this week with a bout of tonsilitis (following hot on the heels of her little sister). She was almost ready to go back to school on Wednesday but not quite, so we had a quiet day making an Easter hat for the parade at school the next day. We did a paper version first to make sure it worked and then cut out the cupboard and cut tabs on the bottom of the crown to glue on the inside of the brim. We didn't make a top for the hat as that looked too hard.

Then we made flowers from tissue paper and pipe cleaners and she stuck them on. One flower was poked through a hole at the top for good measure. Emmylou decided to add a bunch of pipe cleaners for extra garnish. Here she is trying on the finished product, but looking a bit pale and peaky!

I couldn't go to the school parade as I had to work, but she had a lovely time.

Happy Easter everyone. Hope you have a lovely few days with the people you love.

A busy thrifty weekend

We had a lovely weekend last week. No birthday parties or other commitments which was nice (not that we don't like birthday parties.......there are just so many children's ones popping up all the time) so we were able to please ourselves.


Here are a few shots to illustrate....


As always, there was plenty of puppy love. Here is Kippy on his green bathmat where he is allowed to hang out when he comes inside for the evening. He scouts under the dining room table for dropped morsels of food and then we say in a stern voice "Mat!" and he usually trots over and sits on his mat in the hope of a doggy treat. Usually, at this point, our Curly Whirl Girl gives him some attention, whether he wants it or not. I love the resigned look on his face as he submits to our girl's affections.

The state of our "playroom" has been giving me grief for ages and we didn't have the money to buy some much needed new shelves to create some order from the chaos. The girls weren't going in there much as there was not much floor space to walk on, what with all the dolly cots and prams etc. Then, a cheque in the mail, and off I went to Ikea to finally buy some shelves. Scott put them together on Saturday morning and I got high on organising endorphins. In my zeal to get the tidying happening I forgot to take a "before" photo but perhaps it is just as well. We took out every toy, chased away the spiders and dust and then Scott set to work.

When he was finished, the shelves provided a fun space to play in for a while before I was allowed to start work. I could just see a split chin happening at any moment when someone overbalanced.
This photo shows embarrassingly, just how anally retentive I truly am.

Here are the girls with their beautiful cousin playing in their newly tidy playroom corner. Of course, it hasn't stayed this tidy but at least you can still see the floor. As my mother likes to tell me, we have too many toys but, hey....we like playing!

On Sunday morning, my big girl and I got up earlyish and headed to a huge flea market at a nearby Catholic Church. We took along our pocket money and here is what we bought.

I chose this happy little jug and a pretty lace doily to put it on. I realised later it has a rip in it but you can't see it here. My big girl fell in love with this daggy old traymobile. It was only $2 but it didn't quite fit my vision of her room's decor. But she wanted it so badly that I felt it would be mean to impose my aesthetic tastes on hers. She chose some more old doilies and found three horses (also $2) and here is the finished display for her room. She's a happy girl. (Her two top teeth are so wobbley (spelling?) they are sticking out like little bunny teeth. I hope they fall out soon).

I finally managed to finish the baby quilt I have been making for the Mountain Baby Quilt Project. I didn't really like working with flannellette. Apart from being horrible to touch in our sticky heat, it was much thicker than normal cotton fabric and I broke a sewing machine needle sewing the mitred corners of the binding. But, it is ready to go and I just have to get organised and parcel it up. It has some crooked quilting and a lump in the binding that looks like a snake swallowed a mouse, but it goes to the States with lots of love from our family.

I also finally started cutting squares for the quilt for the new baby due to arrive in our family (my brother's ,not mine!) any day now. I have since changed my design around and used less plain colours and more patterns but you get the idea.

Now, another weekend is looming. Have a good one, everybody.

Things I'm Into (A la Tammie)

As I've not been blogging much lately and am trying to concentrate on the positive side of things, here is another "Things I'm into" post courtesy of Tammie to show what we have been up to at our place. (Hope that's ok, Tammie!)

1. Hanging out with Gina - Since she arrived in Australia on Christmas Eve, I've been enjoying hanging out with my beautiful new sister-in-law. My brother has been at sea for a few weeks and their first baby is arriving in early April so we've been buying baby clothes, choosing material for me to make a baby quilt, having hot chocolate and cake and buying a baby sling with my big sister, more shopping, more eating......you get the idea. Now that my big brother is home from the sea and I'm trying to let them have some time together, I'm really missing Gina. Here she is with my little girl on Christmas Day. She was an instant hit with both my girls who are extremely excited about having a new auntie and the impending arrival of a beautiful bubba.

BEFORE

1. Having a less shaggy dog - Although Kippy does look rather magnificent with a full Cavalier King Charles coat, I have not been brushing him as I should have and he had some terrible tangles that I couldn't even cut out for fear of hurting him. He was also leaving white hair all over me if I cuddled him and although he is only inside at night in the laundry, there was plenty of Kipper hair on the floor needing to be swept up. So.....the nice lady from Pooch Mobile came to the house and gave him a much needed hair cut topped off with a warm bath. Unfortunately, I forgot to ask her not to cut his feathers off his legs so he now looks like a beagle. But his coat will grow back quickly and he will look like a nice tidy Cav again. In the meantime, I am more conducive to cuddling him again.

AFTER

3. Going to jazz ballet with E - After two years of school with no extra curricular activities (I guess I'm a lazy mother), E has started jazz ballet with a school friend. She just loves it and is learning a dance to a quite funky Miley Cyrus ditty which she practises diligently. G and I like sitting outside the classroom, watching the show and chatting to the other mothers. E doesn't have the full uniform yet but here she is ready to dance in her black t-shirt with her hair tied back. How come she looks so grown up all of a sudden????

4. Baking scones - We have had weeks of rain, off and on, and after seeing a yummy photo of scones in a Country Style magazine, I decided I really NEEDED to make some. I found a recipe and started rubbing that butter into the flour. A short time later, I had hot scones with jam and cream and my neighbour arrived in a timely fashion to help me scoff them. The recipe was from David Herbert in the Australian Weekend Magazine (sorry - can't be bothered to find a link - a lazy mother AND a lazy blogger) and had chopped apricot in the scones. Yum....I love apricot. Of course I had to make another batch two days later as it was still raining and well...I had the rest of the cream to use up, didn't I?

5. Quilting - no photo yet but I'm in the midst of making a quick flannelette baby quilt to send to the Appalachian Mountains. It's a project I read about here and if I don't finish it soon, winter will be over in the Appalachians. Luckily, Rachel, who organises it has been very patient with me. Unfortunately, while sewing on the binding yesterday the needle on my sewing machine broke so I'm about to traipse down to the nice man at the sewing machine shop so he can show me how to put a new one in. I've tried myself without success.

Just while on the quilting topic, I just noticed this post of Rachel's with a photo of her fabric stash all neatly folded and in a little cabinet. Such a pretty sight that I wish I had one instead of shoving my fat quarters and material into shopping bags and squeezing them into my wardrobe. Check it out.

6. Having a rare date with my husband - Yesterday, we organised the girls' favourite babysitter and went out for a day off together. We went to our favourite haunt of late - the Barracks at Petrie Terrace. We happily spent over 5 hours having coffee/pie/icecream/lunch, seeing a movie, browsing in a bookshop, without having to shift the car. It was heaven - and so great to see my boy in a different light (as in not someone I mostly discuss children and chores with). When we got home we had an impromptu photo shoot as the girls wanted photos of their beloved babysitter, Olivia - all of 18 years old and worth her weight in gold (rather than the paltry $65 we paid her). Thank you Olivia. I won't embarrass you by putting your photo on my blog so here's one of Scott and the girls instead.

Something learned today

Wow.....I've really slackened off on the blogging front. Apart from being busy with life (as you guys all are - don't know how you do it), I honestly haven't been able to find anything interesting to say.

But today...I did learn something interesting. If you try and fob your three and a half off with playing quietly beside you on the bed while you try and watch a few minutes of the Oscars, she may very quietly squeeze some three in one shampoo/conditioner in your hair. You may think she is gently patting your head and you may enjoy her tender ministrations but you soon realise that your head is wet and sticky and you need to have another shower and wash your hair before you can go out for the school run and post-school jazz ballet class.

That's the extent of my wisdom for today.

PS I'm so glad my mother and sister don't read my blog. They would be appalled at the ironing board on display in the lounge room and the extension cord snaking along the floor to my sewing machine. Oh well...it's a mess but it's MY mess!

A screen free day

It's been good having a little sabbatical from feeling obliged to produce regular posts that are even slightly interesting and not too nauseatingly self indulgent, but I feel like posting tonight so here I am. Scott has ducked out to buy groceries after cooking us a thai chicken curry so I'm quickly grabbing five peaceful minutes on the computer before I tuck in.

We had a successful "no screen day" at our house today. I'm really proud of myself and the girls. I forgot to remind Scott of the plan last night (I'm intending to do it every Wednesday) so when I got up at 7am after a nice little sleep in, the girls were already playing the computer. It soon went off though with a minimum of fuss. My big girl got ready for school and then I set the girls up with watercolours, paper and brushes in the playroom. So far..... so good. I raced around doing morning chores in between admiring their artwork and telling my little girl "No....you can't paint your hands this morning". Soon bored with painting, they decided to play with their "Strawberry Fayre" fairy toys. Multiple fights over who had which fairies soon broke out and I realised that this is why TV makes life easier for parents. The children sit in a peaceful state of zombiness in front of the TV for longish periods. Sigh. This was going to be harder than I thought. I promised the girls I would set up a "post office shop" in the lounge room to ease the pain of no TV/computer.

After dropping the big girl at school and doing a few errands, the little girl and I came home and
started playing shops. This was fun until after lunch when I hit my customary "wall" at 1pm and desperately wanted to lie on the couch and read "The Time Traveller's Wife". This is the time when I normally let my curlywhirl girl watch another batch of TV while she lies on me or at the other end of the couch. But playing shops with Mum was so much fun, there was no way she would let me skive off and read my book while she played in happy solitude. I had to do repeated deals of 5 minutes of shops and 5 minutes of me reading. I really really missed the TV.

After picking up my big girl and her friend who comes to us every Wednesday after school, the three girls happily played post offices for about an hour. Only a couple of mild squabbles over who had the kitchen scales for weighing parcels. Then, after the friend left, I let them have a quick dip in the new paddle pool despite the fact that it was cloudy and cool. Then we had to rush warm baths and dinner and homework and pick up the Dad from a strange railway station as his trains from the city were cancelled. Then came the best part. My big girl would normally be watching some last minute TV or wanting to finish an inane computer game and resisting bedtime but she asked if we could start reading bedtime stories early and would brush her teeth while we read. What a treat! A whole hour of snuggling up with my big girl while the other two ate crackers and cheese and read stories in the other room. It was the most peaceful bedtime we have had for ages. Even Scott, who takes all my obsessing over childhood with a grain of salt and a lot of laissez-faire attitude to parenting, was amazed at the peace.

I was going to take photos of our lovely day and the post-office but Scott took our camera to work, so it's just boring old words tonight.

The girls are extra precious to us at the moment for two reasons. Our little girl has started "big" daycare and truly hates it. Leaving her there two days a week is breaking our hearts but we are going to give her a couple more weeks and see if she settles in before looking at other options including me giving up work which we can't afford to do. So I'm very conscious of enjoying the time she is home with me as much as I can to try and make up for her sadness at going to "kindy". She tells me every night at bedtime that she doesn't want to go.

Also, a 12 year old boy was killed by another student in a tragic incident at a good boys high school just a few suburbs away from us earlier this week. When I heard today that he was an only child, I just wept for his parents. It's made me think so much about the importance of family and the need to love our children every moment we can. There was also an incident of bullying at our school this week in which one little boy was slightly injured and which E witnessed as both boys involved are friends of hers. So childhood and schools are really on my mind. Scott says times have changed so much that our children will never have the innocence and freedom that we had and that makes me sad.

Well....here is my husband...home from hunting and gathering at the supermarket so I'd best be off and eat my dinner.

Favourite gluten free recipes

I promised a fellow blogger, Margaret, (Peg or Peggy too), some gluten free recipes so here they are. I usually just buy gluten free flour from the supermarket or health food shop and substitute it for normal flour. If you can't find any, there always pavlova! Here's my pavlova recipe as well.

Sorry I don't have any photos to go with them.

Pavlova

6 eggwhites
1 and a half cups of castor sugar
dessertspoon of white vinegar
tablespoon of cornflour (check it has only corn and no wheaten flour)

Heat oven to about 120 degrees celsius. (a cool/slow oven)
Draw around a dinner plate on a piece of oven baking paper/greaseproof paper and cut it out and put it on a pizza tray or baking tray.
Separate eggs being careful not to get even a smidge of yolk in the white. (Good idea to do each on in a separate cup then tip the white into your big bowl)
Beat eggs with an electric beater until stiff peaks form. (My husband sometimes does this bit by hand to prove his manhood!)
Add castor sugar about a third of a cup at a time beating for about 5 minutes or so to dissolve the sugar.
Add dessertspoon of vinegar and beat.
Add corn flour and gently fold through with a spoon.
Heap mixture in onto paper on tray in a round shape with a spoon and swirl the edges up a bit higher. (Sometimes I make a heartshaped one for Valentine's Day)
Cook for about an hour on 120 degrees or until outside feels crisp when you tap it with your fingernail. (check after 15-20 minutes and if going brown, turn the oven down a bit).
Turn oven off and leave in oven with door open until cool. Take out if looks too cooked, though.
Fold in cornflour gently until mixed through.

Fill with whipped cream and top with fruit - eg strawberries. Sometimes I used a tin of destoned cherries and put grated chocolate on top.

Chocolate Brownies

150 g butter
125 grams dark chocolate
3 eggs
a quarter cup of cocoa powder
1 and a half cups sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
1 cup plain GF flour (or you can use self raising GF flour)
icing sugar to dust

Heat oven to 180 degrees celsius
Line a cake/slice/lasagna tin with baking paper extending over the two sides so you can lift it out easily later.
Melt butter and chocolate (I do it in the microwave in the same bowl - 30 seconds at a time and stir in between goes). Let cool down a bit.
Beat eggs, sugar and vanilla with a whisk until well combined
Whisk in chocolate and butter mixture.
Stir in sifted flour and cocoa. Do not over beat.
Pour into prepared tin. Bake for 40 minutes
Slice will rise up and then sink back down again, leaving the surface a little bit cracked.
Dust with sifted icing sugar.

Carrot and Apricot Slice

1 cup Self Raising Gluten free flour
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Three quarters cup of caster sugar
Three quarters cup of grated carrot
Three quarters cup of chopped dried apricot/sultanas/chopped ginger or whatever you fancy
Third of a cup of dessicated coconut
Half a cup of chopped walnuts
2 eggs lightly beaten
90 grams of butter, melted

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius
Line slice tin/lasagna dish with baking paper extending over two sides.
Sift flour and cinnamon into large bowl.
Add sugar, carrot, dried fuit, coconut and walnuts and stir until combined
Add eggs and butter.

Spread evenly into prepared tin and smooth surface.
Bake for 30 minutes until golden and firm to touch.
Cool in tin and then lift out.

Top with cream cheese frosting or make lemon icing with one cup of icing sugar (check is the gluten free kind not "icing mixture"), and a tablespoon or two of lemon juice. (Add gradually so you don't end up with running icing).

David Herbert's "Perfect baked cheesecake".

250 grams plain sweet gluten free biscuits (We use Arnott's rice cookies)
quarter teaspoon ground ginger
125 grams melted butter

500 grams cream cheese
3/4 cup caster sugar
3 eggs separated
1/2 cup cream
2 teaspoons vanilla essence
1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest
2 teaspoons lemon juice

Crush biscuits in a plastic bag with a rolling pin. Put in bowl and mix with ground ginger.
Mix with melted butter unti mixture comes together .
Press mixture with your fingertips into a spring form cake tin greased and lined with baking paper. Press mixture two thirds up the side of tin.
Refrigerate for 30 minutes.
Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius.
With electric beater mix cream cheese and caster sugar until creamy.
Add egg yolks, cream, vanilla, lemon zest and lemon juice and beat until light and fluffy
In clean bowl, beat eggwhites until firm peaks form.
Fold egg whites into cream cheese mixture
Spoon onto cheesecake base and smooth top
Bake for 35-40 minutes or until pale golden colour and just set in the centre.
Refrigerate for 6-12 hours. Dust with icing sugar before serving.

Enjoy.

A day at Mooloolaba

It's been such a great week for getting out of Brisbane and catching up with old friends. This is one of my oldest friends, Annie, who lived just up the street from me when we were about 12 years old. We played and laughed together all through our high school years, although we went to different schools. We practically wore a track between our two houses, wrote silly magazines together, laughed hysterically at silly faces and songs, played monopoly and canasta for hours on rainy days, went on church beach camps together and became Neil Young devotees. Now, Annie lives in Sweden with her little family and we rarely see each other but when we do, it's like being thirteen years old again. Hard to believe we are all grown up and married with two girls each. And here they are:

Daddy and our wee girl have a cuddle.

Mooloolaba in the scorching Queensland sunshine.

Time for me to have yet another blogging sabbatical. Once again, life is needing my attention and our family are trying to have less "screen" time. I'm also trying to be more "zen" about life and mothering and to slow down a bit and stop rushing. Which, for me, includes blogging. I'm sure I'll be back at some point though and I'll still be dropping in to my favourite blogs to see what you have all been up to. Happy 2010 and 'bye for now to my tiny band of bloggy friends.