Girls Weekend ....

A friend and I are off to Wellington tonight for the weekend! That's right two whole days and two whole nights of doing exactly as we please. This will most likely include loads of shopping, coffee, yummy eats, more coffee, wine, dancing ....... So excited! Thank god for partners who can hold the fort. I felt pretty gratefull this morning,so got my lovely a few treats for over the weekend, see I'm not totally selfish!!

Anzac Day ........

Today in New Zealand it is Anzac Day. A day where the nation remembers the New Zealand and Australian soldiers who fought during World War 1.
Our town as part of the 'lest we forget' commemorations, created a reenactment of the war. This was held in a heritage park on the edge of the city. The reenactment was made into a 20min film, then was opened to the public today.

We took the boys along and it was truly amazing, a real eye opener. The trenches were so real like with the soldiers moving around and the sound effects, that we had 3 little boys crying before we were halfway through the tour!

                             

Unfortunately I didn't get any good pics in the trenches, as I was too busy consoling crying children! The theatre company did an amazing job in portraying what it would have been like at the time. I think it was a great learning opportunity for the children as well, and helped them understand a bit more the meaning behind Anzac Day.

In other news, I finished my Milo yesterday! This was very exciting for me as its the first thing I have ever knitted apart from a wee hat that didn't work out! Sadly I have no pics, because I made it the wrong size! I didn't measure Archie before deciding what size to make and it has ended up too big! Nevermind lesson learnt, ill just have to knit another! Hope you all had a nice day xx

Term two ......

School and kindy went back today in our neck of the woods. It was an odd day, almost like I had the  post holiday blues. I couldn't quite get it together, had all these things planned to do, but did nothing.... you get the drift!
 I really enjoy the slower pace of school holidays, hanging out at home, no time restraints etc. Don't get me wrong my kids drive me crazy from time to time, but in general they are great wee friends and I love watching them together, playing, interacting and creating. Its so nice for Archie as well to have his big brothers home to play with, I'm sure he gets lonely with just me! I guess what I'm trying to say, is it obviously takes me a while to get back into the swing, of school/kindy pickups, swimming lessons, school lunches and that I miss my little boys! I know It will only take a couple of days and we will be back on track! Anyone else feel a bit blah when the holidays end??

Sick .....

This morning we all piled in to the car at 8.20 am ready and rearing to go. This is very unusual for us, as we like to chill out in the morning and take it easy, especially during the school holidays! Today though, we were dropping Jack off too soccer camp, picking Nana up, and going out to see the hamster farm!! My littlies have been looking forward to this all week, I was looking forward to it as well as we were going to sneak in a coffee and a browse at one of the local winery's!

However half way there we had a glitch in the plan, Charlie was sick. Full on. Glassy eyes, high temp, sore tummy the lot. Now you might be wondering how I had not noticed that he was sick before then, this is why. Charlie is like the boy who cried wolf, he always has a sore tummy, or a headache, when its convenient for him (getting out of chores, not eating dinner etc..) So when he mentioned it this morning, I just brushed it off like any other day, bad mummy!

My new favourite winter sheets (managed to wash everyones sheets!)

Soooo, we dropped Nana off and headed home. Charlie was popped to bed, and promptly slept for 3 hours.
Now I had one small child who was very disappointed we didn't get to see any hamsters, so we did the next best thing in his eyes and baked! I had come across a recipe on line to make bulk biscuits. It only had 4 ingredients to make the basic dough, then you can add what you like. We quartered the dough, and added peanut butter to one lot, choc chips to the other, and put the other two in snap lock bags to freeze for another time. These turned out great, (I will write out the recipe at the end of the post), easy to work with dough, and nice and versatile. While they are certainly not some sort of culinary delight, I'm sure they will go down a treat in the lunch boxes.

 Next on the baking list was cupcakes, Archie loves making cupcakes, well actually the icing! Today was the first time he was able to use sprinkles,  (I'm a mean mummy who wont let her kids eat all that colour, plus its one of the things that makes jack go CRAZY!! ) finally I found at the super market, some sprinkles that used natural colours, hooray yep not deprived any more!

yay!

Cupcake ?

All in all, though we didn't have the fun excursion that was planned, while sicky slept, I was able to spend some nice one on one time with Archie, and I caught up on loads of house work!  There always is a silver lining, its taken me a long time to figure this out. I used to get so disappointed when things didn't go to plan,  rationally I knew that it was just life, but I used to dwell on the bad. Now the kids are older, this kind of thing doesn't happen so much which makes it easier I guess, and we can all go to the hamster farm as a family on the weekend xxx


Basic cookie dough

1cup sugar
500g marge (I used butter)
1 tin condensed milk
5 cups s/r flour
heat oven to 180, grease oven tray (I used baking paper instead)
cream butter & sugar. Mix in flour & cond. milk. Add any extras to mix - this is the fun part - we did a few different versions - added cocoa to some, choc chips to some, craisins to some, orange peel to some - the choices are endless, what ever you have on hand to biff in - do it! Place on baking tray in balls & press down with fork (we did slightly bigger than teaspoon sized balls)
Cook for 10-15 mins til golden brown.

Uninterrupted .........

Uninterrupted sewing time........  AMAZING!! Thank you my lovely for taking days off in the school holidays xxxx

Sunday .....

Today I went to the market and had coffee with friends. It was sunny, the coffee was good and we gossipped for ages FAB!  I got 3 dresses, a really pretty floral one, a practical merino one, and one I will refashion into a tee. I got all 3 for $4, SCORE!!

Merino dress, nice and cosy!

 

We took the boys for a bike ride up the river, then an ice cream.

                              






Archie's Fav!

Off to the Trains, Archie's idea of paradise!!

Home we then went for dinner and whilst I was making dinner, decided to make a loaf to use up some of the mountain of feijoas we have at the moment. The boys wanted bikkies, so made some of them as well!

It was lovely to spend the day together as a family. We all seem to be so busy with our own activities, that we make it a priority to have family time on a Sunday. We don't do anything fancy, just hang out and enjoy each others company.



Jack took charge of the  bedtime story!

Tomorrow Andy has the day off, and he is taking all the kids out for the morning so I can have have some uninterrupted sewing time! I'm looking forward to completing some of the orders that I have mounting up, I might even be able to show you some pics!

The Hunger Games ......

What can I say, join the revolution and read!! I havn't been able to put this book down, such an easy but fascinating read. Really looking forward to the movie, hopefully it's at least half as good as the book!