Advent Blog Along #24 & 25 (Final)

Woops! I was so flat out Christmas Eve and Christmas Day , I didn't even get time to sit at my pc and write out a blog post! But now the big day is over, and I am left smiling because of what a beautiful day it was.

Here is a snap shot of our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day:

(our table setting)

Christmas Eve was a busy day with preparations and visiting the inlaws for a quick lunch. That evening, we headed for Church. Hubby sang a beautiful song as part of a duet and it was a really lovely service.

After church we did a quick run in the neighbourhood and checked out some lights.

On Christmas Day our lovely friends and my brother arrived to share the day with us.

  We produced a big feast!

My yummy strawberry and white chocolate trifle.

We enjoyed lovely gifts - this is a sampler of our highlights.

Ready to open their stockings, Christmas Eve.

I got my very own iPad!

Milly and EJ were stoked with their Frozen and Star Wars quilt covers

Mop was happy with her gift - and subsequently has done half of the projects already!

Daz got his own tablet too!

We all had a wonderful day. I am now on a new level of exhausted from hosting three meals and I am ready to rest for a few days to recover. 

Advent Blog Along #12,13,14 & 15

What I am doing:
Hello! I'm hooooome! We had a lovely time chilling at a beach-side location. I coped very well with the gorgeous weather and playing with the kids. We arrived yesterday afternoon and since then I have been doing washing and unpacking.  My brother popped in with his girls for lunch which was lovely. I did manage to squeeze in some time to do an Advent Activity with the kids today.

Why is it so hard to catch all three with their eyes open and looking at me?? *sigh*

Rocky road with a twist... this has mars bar in it! YUMM!

And of course baking with kids is not complete until they are licking the bowls and spoons.

One of the finished products of today's efforts. Cranberry and white chocolate short bread.

What I am creating:
Today has been so flat out I haven't had a chance to do much creative, apart from playing with lettering on my envelopes.

What I am listening to:

That was intense!

Last week I had to go to an intensive at uni. For those who haven't had the utmost joy of experiencing one of these ( my sarcasm is dripping!)... I will explain.

In a nutshell it is one entire semesters lectures, crammed into 5 days. Talk about brain drain! So I would get up at the crack of dawn to get to uni on time, and wouldn't get home until the evening. I was so tired at the end of each day that all I could manage was to flop onto the couch and watch mindless stuff on TV until I fell asleep. I looked longingly at my crochet, but knew that if I attempted it, I would muff it in a big way.

So today will be the first day that my brain has been in working order since that intensive and I will be able to pick up my hook and yarn once more! I am excited!

Before I had that week, I decided to use up some of the lemons from our tree and make some curd.

Can't wait to tuck into this!

So much colour!

I spent the day just marveling at the colour around me as I pottered about doing stuff.

I whipped up a block for my Granny Sampler.... getting so close to finishing now!

Picked up oranges from our markets for 47 cents a kilo....

... so I made orange and lemon (from our tree) cordial

I baked triple choc-muffins.

It's been just a beautiful day.

Taco Lasagne

Yep, you can drool.

This was a pretty tasty meal, served with guacamole and a dollop of sour cream. It was all kinds of delicious and really easy to make. The family gave this one the thumbs up.

Recipe found on Pinterest.

Brunch muffins

We invited our new Pastor and his family over for brunch. I love brunch, don't you? I made these: Spinach and Feta Muffins. Om nom! They were pretty tasty! The recipe had tomato on top, but I omitted that mainly because hubby doesn't really like tomato.

I got the recipe from Pinterest and you can find it HERE

Crunchy French Toast (Pinteresting)

While we were away for the long weekend, I decided to give a breakfast recipe I had pinned ages ago a try.

Crunchy French Toast.

Seriously. YUM!

I did change the recipe somewhat. I put raspberries in with the nutella in the middle and it was just as awesome.

Tomato overload!

The worst thing about growing tomatoes is that they all grow and ripen at the same time. Not three a week.... 133 a week! So what does one do when the tomatoes are starting to over-ripen because we can't eat them fast enough?

This one makes ketchup in the Thermomix!

Pin for this recipe can be found here.

Chick Pea Fritters (Pinteresting)

Yum. Just yum! Very filling, very low in calories and just yum!

The kids demolished these in no time, and my very carnivore husband enjoyed them too. There have been requests to have these again, so I say they were a hit!

Chick Pea with Yoghurt Sauce pin here

#Pinteresting

Greek Burgers (Pinteresting)

I found this recipe on Pinterest a while back and I decided that I would give them a go for dinner. It is a greek flavoured burger pattie with a cucumber sauce. Pretty delicious. I served it with baby spinach leaves, capsicum and tomato.

(excuse the dodgy photo, but this was slapped together very quickly so my staaaaarrrvvving children could eat!)

Verdict: YUM! They were demolished off very quickly. My hubby said they had a Yiros flavour about them and he thoroughly enjoyed them.

Honey Balsamic Beef

It was really hot today. Too hot to spend time with a hot oven or stove. I pulled out the slow cooker and got to work on a Honey Balsamic Pulled Pork recipe I found on Pinterest. Except Pork is really expensive at the moment, so I used beef.

Verdict: YUM!

I didn't get hot and sweaty in the kitchen.

It just simmered away in this delicious smelling sauce all day. Shredded it up and served it. Yep. That's my kind of hot summer's evening dinner!

Christmas isn't Christmas without our rocky road (Advent Blog Along day #22)

I've been making rocky road since Mop was a baby, and every year I make it the exact same way. When Mop was a baby she was allergic to nuts, and I hate glace cherries, so I made my own kind of nut-free/glace fruit free rocky road. 

Mop thankfully outgrew her nut allergy when she was six so I could theoretically put nuts in... but I never do. 

Each and every year the kids help me make it, get covered in chocolate and love it! Usually I do a fair bit of the preparation, but this year I noticed that my kids are growing up and I barely did anything! EJ took over the chopping with the knife, Milly cut the marshmallows with scissors and Mop melted the chocolate. All I did was pour it into the pan to set!

I hope when I am grey haired old lady that on Rocky Road making day, the family will crowd into the kitchen and help me - even with all the extras - sons and daughter in law and grandchildren. I hope they treasure this precious time together when they grow up and leave home.

Summer is coming!

Summer is coming and what better way to prepare for it than to make a sweet and refreshing cordial to put into icy water or mineral water. Strawberry and apple cordial. Yummmm! It tastes wonderful! And I made it in the trusty thermomix!

Pin here

Frozen Party? Sure... why not?

My littlest is among the millions of Frozen fans out there. She LOVES it. This year she asked for a Frozen themed birthday party. Sure.. why not?

The morning of the party arrived... and it was storming! It was supposed to be an outside party!! Common storm! Pass already! But as the morning progressed, more and more storms developed. Then we had a doozy of a storm and the call was made to move it inside.

I made up cute little party bags

The birthday girl

Anna & Elsa's Chocolate fountain was VERY popular!

We had Frozen/Snow themed food. This was just one of them.

My A-MAZE-ING husband made a snowflake shape with cupcakes. (Baked & decorated by him - I suck at baking!)

We made snowflakes out of paddle pop sticks and decorated them with glitter and gems.

We played pin the nose on Olaf. 

We also played Blindfolded Snow Shoveling - which is a hilarious game!

Here are the party girls all having a wonderful time!

My beautiful Milly with her gorgeous cake.

And this? Biggest mistake I have ever made in parties - but it was the most fun for the girls. We made snow. They played with it for ages, but it made them and all the floors in my house messy because it was tracked EVERYWHERE!!

We did other stuff, but I don't want to have a mega load of photos and bore you to tears with it. My darling girl ended the day happily and as I was tucking her in that night she sleepily said "Mum, that was the best party EVER! In the whole wide world!" That made my tired feet and crazy week worth it. I also overheard the girls tell Milly "This is the best party EVER!!!" Yep... my head is swollen. :)