Kiama

Minnamurra Rainforest Walk: The Falls.
Lucky to have seen a water dragon and a lyre bird too.

Since Fiji was a no go zone, we decided to head to the coast instead and spent 5 wonderfully relaxing & kid free days at The Sebel. We were very impressed with the hotel, which is less than 1 year old and incorporates onto it's grounds the original school house and huge, old oak trees. So a real meld of the new and the old. Gorgeous.

Mini Blow Hole & Bombo Headland.

Kiama itself was actually a beautiful piece of coastline. We enjoyed exploring the volcanic coastline, the Blowhole and the Little Blowhole. Actually the Little Blowhole was much more exciting and seems to be far less temperamental than it's big brother. The Blowhole needs the wind to be blowing in exactly the right direction and high tide etc. The Little Blowhole just performs the whole time.

Knight's Tower: Illawarra Fly & the Picasso Cows.

We spent alot of time at the beach swimming and catching waves. Lots of walking everywhere. Kiama is small enough to walk everywhere, esp. as the Sebel is so conveniently located. Trip highlights included the Illawarra Fly, the spectacular Minnamurra Rainforest, Blowholes & watching Twilight ;-)

The Lighthouse: Kiama Heandland.

Fun in the Sun.

Today we had two birthday parties to attend. Both were lots of fun and really laid back and relaxing. The kids had so much fun catching up with their friends. So lots of feasting on party food and cake. Not so good for the diet! Oh well.

And one last happy snap so that The Crone can see how much O & S have grown! Esp. Miss S. When the kids realised we were going to visit Jo-Anne they started up with the: "Oh that's the garden we can dig in!" Unfortunately Fuzzy and Stringy picked some of Jo-Anne tomatoes, which didn't go down too well. Sorry J..... :-)

The Gruffalo

Husband Deluxe plays a game with the kids while at the park and the kids call it: The Gruffalo! It is a mix of that book and the 3 Billy Goats Gruff. Husband Deluxe hides under the bridge and the kids run along the top while the Gruffalo says "whose that trip trapping across my bridge".




He then wiggles the bridge, lifts it up and tries to catch one of the kids. Eventually he grabs one and takes them underneath the bridge for a good tickling. My job is to rescue them and return them to a safer part of the equipment! All three kids absolutely love this game and can keep them amused for awhile!










Also while at the lake we found a family of ducks. The kids loved feeding them and just watching the ducklings swim around, being cute.

Dropping Sleeps.

Fuzzy Wuzzy has dropped his daytime sleep. Which is fantastic considering he is now over 4 and will be at preschool full time this year. It was wonderful that he slept for so long. It really gave him the rest he needed and us a bit of a break. He didn't cope at all well, on the days he had to miss a sleep for whatever reason.

Last night I snapped these shots of him sleeping sideways on his bed. When I went in to check him at 10pm initially I couldn't find him & had a moment of panic thinking "where could he be?" I couldn't see him as he was sleeping halfway down his bed. He must have been quite uncomfortable, as his head was hanging over the side.
This latest shot was taken this afternoon. He's flaked out in front of the TV. Poor little man, so tired. I hope he isn't up till 10pm tonight!

Start Them Young?

And wait to see if they follow in their Daddies footsteps becoming computer geeks? Squealy loves the computer. Not that he can do anything yet, but he tries (or pretends to).

He also loves stepping into whatever shoes are laying around the house. Notice he is wearing his big sisters size 12 pink sandals!

What a funny little guy.

Full Steam Ahead.

He has had another accident, while still recovering from his previous falls.

This time he tripped over the TW Shape-O and landed on the wooden chair. He collected the corner of the chair right on his cheek and has grazed another eye. Hmm I really think he needs his orthotics now, but we aren't seeing our Podiatrist for a couple of months. She wanted to wait till he did all his summer growing.

So we are back to having him look like a battered child. He was like that when he first started walking, constantly falling, tripping etc. He did seem to grow out of it, but we're back to him hurting himself constantly.

Poor little man. At least we apply ice ASAP and it helps so much with the swelling. We've also been rubbing Arnica cream on, which helps with bruising.

Banana Muffins

I decided to clean out our fruit bowl today and found 3 very sad looking bananas, perfect for making into something baked. So what better to do than make up a batch of banana muffins.

Banana Muffins

2 cups of Self Raising flour
3/4 cup caster sugar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 cup milk
125g butter, melted
2 eggs, beaten
1 tsp vanilla essence
1 cup mashed banana

1. Place dry ingredients into a bowl.
2. Add wet ingredients and mix until just combined
3. Bake for 12-15 minutes at 200 deg.

Makes 12 muffins or 24 mini muffins.

*Highly doubtful that the little people will eat these. But they are seriously good.

Flowers from my Grandma.

I've not been at all well this last week and my lovely Grandmother (Abuela Paqui) sent me these beautiful blooms from her garden. Apparently it is from the rose bush I gave to her when she first moved into her new townhouse and was establishing a garden from scratch. It really did brighten up my day. It seems so old fashioned to firstly grow your own blooms and then give then to someone who is feeling under the weather.

Made me feel like Jane Austen for a day. Especially the scene from the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice where Jane and Lizzie are picking flowers in the garden.

Lightening this way a come...

Photography by Jeff Gilbert.

Last night a thunderstorm came over our place quite quickly. There was alot of noise in the distance and lots of thunder. Our friend, Jeff Gilbert took this photo of the storm! Notice the lightening in the distance is actually hitting Black mountain Tower.

Wow what a photo. My digital camera just couldn't capture the lightening quickly enough. So many thanks to Jeff for allowing me to share this photo with you all. Was taken over Gunghlin late last night.

Please click on the photo to see the whole image!

Mmmm smells good...

Husband Deluxe bought me a bread maker for Christmas. Now it isn't a fancy one, just a very basic model from Aldi for the bargain price of $69, but it sure does the job.

We have been mucking around with several recipes but so far this is our favourite one so far.

Whole Wheat Bread

1 3/4 cups water
1/2 tablespoon olive oil
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons Salt
4 2/3 cup whole wheat flour
6 teaspoons quick active yeast

1. Place all ingredients into the bread pan in order listed, except the yeast
2. Form a small well in the flour & pour the yeast in.
3. Place the pan into the bread maker & cook on the whole wheat program.

Husband Deluxe has decided to add a little olive oil to avoid the bread texture being too crumbly. Which is why you need more yeast in this recipe. It seems to work and the best thing is this bread is preservative 282 free, so is an excellent choice for Fuzzy Wuzzy.

I am planning on experimenting with making a loaf of raisin bread. Poor little guy. He always wants to eat English Muffins or Raisin Toast and they *all* have the 282 in there!!! If anyone knows of a 282 free raisin bread or English muffin please leave me a message.

Lunch with Friends.

Today we had a laid back lunch with Tim and his boys, Timothy and Marcus. They bought with them our dear friend Kelli who is visiting all the way from Canada. It is always wonderful to catch up with them, but esp. when Kelli is in town.

Fuzzy, Marcus and Squealy.



The weather was fabulous, not too hot or too cool. The conversation flowed over cocktails and BBQ lunch. The kids nibbled in between playing on the trampoline. They had a ball playing out the back with the all the outside toys.

Tim And Kelli.

String Bean just adores Kelli and spent most of her time telling her tales of her recent adventures. She is at the stage where if you'll listen she will literally talk your leg off. Kelli had to sit next to String Bean during lunch and she also had to help her when she had a blood nose later on in the afternoon.

Kelli and String Bean, cuddle time.


We were also the lucky recipients of a massive bottle of genuine Canadian Maple Syrup. A Christmas gift from our Canuck gal pal. Now not being able to eat chocolate in any form I have acquired a taste for the other fine things in life. Maple syrup being one of those. With such a huge bottle in the house I may even splash out and use it in some cooking. Although the kids are keen to have pancakes tomorrow morning. So we'll definitely use some up then.

My Favourite Spread...

Who needs a Thermomix and the $1800 price tag when you have a 'Husband Deluxe'?








Organic lemons from my tree.

Now lemon butter is my favourite spread and I have a lemon tree. So 2009 being a year of trying new things and being frugal at the same time we decided to give making lemon butter a go. Why haven't we done this before?

20 minutes of whisking.

This is amazingly simple to make and the taste.....lush springs to mind. Heaven in a jar.








Made 3 baby jars of lemon butter. Just the right amount as it's preservative free, it won't keep for long. Although it is going to disappear pretty fast, as it's so good.

Lemon Butter

4 eggs
3/4 cup caster sugar
1/2 cup lemon juice
2 teaspoons of lemon rind, finely grated
125g butter, chopped

1. Place eggs and sugar in a double steamer
2. Whisk until the sugar has dissolved
3. Add juice, rind and butter.
4 Whisk for 20 minutes until smooth. Don't boil the mixture.

Canoe and Friends.

We had such a busy day today. My brother came over and did quite a few odd jobs that we've been waiting years to get done! So happy. It is amazing how a few small changes can make such a big difference. So once Squealy was busy eating lunch and Chris and Ant were back into it, I decided to duck out with String Bean and Fuzzy Wuzzy.


String Bean & her friend Katie.

We went to join in the canoeing that was taking place at John Knight Memorial Park. It was a Girl Guides activity and it was so much fun!!

String Bean loved it but then she is a real dare devil. Fuzzy on the other hand was cautious and worried he'd end up in the water. Some of the older Guide Units were doing canoe skills such as solo canoeing and were actually being capsized to practice emergency situations. They also had to tread water for 3 minutes and then tow the canoe back to shore. This, of course, freaked Fuzzy out big time. He really is a very cautious child.

Fuzzy Wuzzy in the canoe!

String Bean has Sparkles: the Rainbow Fish Guides teddy. He goes to the girls homes every week and then they have a go at writing about what he got up to at their homes. So far he's been to JJMH, on a canoe and grocery shopping. I do know, for a fact, that he will be visiting our washing machine before he goes back to Guides next year!!!

A beautiful day, spent with family and friends.

String Bean and the lovely Honeyeater having a paddle.

From Small Beginnings...

I planted a blueberry plant about 2 months ago and it has already produced some fruit.

Totally delicious. I can't wait to get a much bigger crop next year. Now I'm tempted to plant more into that bed. I'm really keen to try growing rhubarb, so I've got some on hand for make yummy cakes. Apparently it freezes really well. Will have to go see if now if an OK time to plant it.

I've also had a bumper lemon crop this year and am going to try making lemon butter. I love the stuff and the store bought variety is so ordinary and just bland. I will post about how that goes later on.

Poor Little Guy x2!

Poor Fuzzy has had two falls in as many days. He had a tumble while riding his scooter and badly grazed his knee and got a huge swollen lump/bruise between his eyebrows. Then last night he was running along pushing a tip truck and flipped straight over the top and has very badly grazed his cheek and now has a huge swollen lump on his eyebrow.

He looks like a battered child. At least being four and very articulate he is at least able to tell people what's happened to him! A visit to our lovely chiro sorted out all the tension in his neck, not surprised he had a tight neck :-)



Here's a photo I just had to share of Squealy chucking the biggest tanty. All because it was time to go out this morning and he didn't want to stop watching TV. Oh no, not another TV addict in the house! Typical two year old behaviour, I guess we'd be worried if he wasn't chucking tantrums hehehe.

Neighbouring Ducks

Mumma Duck and her 10 babies.

Our neighbour purchased 4 adult ducks during Winter 2008. He hasn't been looking after them very well and they are basically left to their own devices (they can escape as the yard has no gates). They have since had babies so now there are four adults and 10 babies. They are super cute and they come and visit the front garden looking for food, which the kids love!

Squealy was even saying: "Very cute. Duckies very cute!" He's so delightful at the moment.

A New Year and New Things To Do.

Well as 2009 rolled in we kept up the pace and continued blitzing the house. The wisteria clippings made it into the trash pack, lawns mowed & I nearly finished washing all the windows. *sigh* No recovering from a hangover here :-)

We also were lucky enough to discover a colony of ants nesting underneath our umbrella stand. String Bean was the recipient of an 'Ant Jungle' set from her friend Ethan for her birthday. According to the instructions collecting eggs is the best way to establish the colony, so we decided that since eggs were around, today was the day.

So we set the included trap and collected some eggs and a few ants that were hanging around. We then chucked them in as best we could and set the trap with chicken to try and collect some more ants. It's easier if you're just collecting ants, as you chill them in the fridge for about 6 minutes to put them to sleep and then you can tip them straight in!

Over the day we have added another 3 trap loads full of asleep ants to the colony. They wake up instantly and start cruising around and checking each other out. We were getting them into the trap with left over chicken so they spent most of the time breaking it up into tiny little portions, which they them take down into the tunnels. The ants have already made a heap of tunnels in there which is fantastic. The kids have really enjoyed watching ants do their thing!