Egg #fmy52weeksofmemories

Easter Sunday morning. Crack of dawn. Isabel came into our bed. She laid there for ten minutes, then asked if she could wake her sister. I said as long as she did it gently. As soon as Isabel quietly mentioned the Easter Bunny to her, she was up!

There was lots of  "Oh my gods" about the foot prints and chocolate treats. Although it was early, it was exciting for me too. I didn't care that their breakfast consisted of Disney chocolate and Cadbury eggs.



Mum put on a pizza night for dinner and we left with our stomachs bursting. I am still getting over it.

The following photos were taken with my camera by Izzy. She likes to use my camera, I know I shouldn't let her play with it, but she loves taking photos and I don't want to discourage her. It could be her 'thing', and I quite like the images she produces from the angle of a six year old.

April #52weeksofmemories

 13. Sharing

The start of April may have been shorty nightie weather, but now, at the end, it's definitely time to get the flannies out!

I froze some muntrie berries I collected last month. I love using them in Hot Cross Buns instead of sultanas.

14.Easter 

Summer at the playground on Good Friday wearing a santa hat. Huh?

Easter Sunday evening, down the beach with family.

15. Reading
It is amazing how much Izzy has learned in the first term of school. We've been a bit slack with the reading in the holidays though.

16. Favourite
Some favourite photos from this week

Back to school and an easy Chocolate Slice

We've just gone back to school this week in South Australia. Izzy started back at kindy yesterday, a full day. Just what you want after two weeks of having both of them home. There's no worrying about if she was ready, I was ready.

We had a great holiday break, got some easter craft done, too much chocolate consumption and a catch up with our mothers group mates. It was great that easter fell IN the school holidays this year.

Sunday I had a bake up. There wasn't much to put in a lunch box. Instead of taking money out the bank to buy stuff they day before our big fortnightly shop, I baked with what I had in the pantry. Simple stuff. Nothing fancy.

I made my sultana loaf. Tea, sultanas, sugar and flour. I used a spiced chai tea in this one, and iced it with half a teaspoon of golden syrup mixed with little boiling water, then mixed with icing sugar.

Homemade crackers, these are very moorish. I will post the recipe soon, these are before I had cooked them.

This chocolate slice is easy to make with ingredients everyone should have in the pantry ready to go. It is also scrumptious.

Chocolate Slice

120 grams butter or margarine
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup self raising flour
3 tablespoons of cocoa
1 cup of coconut

Mix dry ingredients together.
Melt butter, pour over dry ingredients and mix well.
Press the mix into a slice tin. I greased my tin with oil spray.

Bake at 180C for 15 minutes.

When cool, ice with chocolate icing, sprinkle with coconut and slice!

Never have a problem finding someone to lick the spoon.

Joining Jess for #IBOT on this very wet tuesday.

Coconut Rough

It's the last day of term next Friday here in SA, so that means it's the last day of playgroup today. That means, instead of the usual healthy morning tea of fruit for the kids, we take party food.

 Popcorn has always been my easy take along party snack, but I don't have any in the pantry. What I do have in the fridge is a temptation that for the last few days has spelt disaster for my waistline. Leftover Easter eggs. 

I had no intention of using them, besides stuffing my face, if only I don't take that first piece.....but I went looking through my book and I found this little recipe from Jakes school days. 

I did have some choc chips but not enough, so I used some easter eggs. I just hope the other parents forgive me for chocolate loading their kids, as if they haven't had enough this week.

I made some cupcakes as well and popped the coconut rough on top. It's like double prizes at the show!  What is even better, the chocolate is walking out of my house on a tray and not in my belly!

Flogging my blog with Grace this week

The Easter bunny giveth, and the Easter bunny taketh away

{a post written on tuesday nite}

I am sitting here contemplating another wine or the shower I haven't had today. I think I will take my chances on getting one in the morning. 

The floor is still unswept, unmopped. It took three hours to get Summer to settle to sleep. I had plans. Check my emails, visit some blogs. Clean the floor. I have just folded and put away the washing that has been piled on my bed. It's now 11 pm and I should be in it, but I'm here, having that piece of me that everyone else has been taking bits of all day. 

Yesterday was a shit of a day. I was emotional, impatient, grumpy, not good company at all. 

Today hasn't been too bad really. A definite improvement.

Sunday was a good day. Nothing better than sharing the anticipation and joy with your kids on Easter morning.  I made flour footprints the night before and arranged the eggs out ready. Bit the end of the carrot  and left it laying next to the prints. Izzy was most excited and cautious at the same time, I had to reassure her that the bunny was now far away and not lurking behind the furniture, ready to pounce on her!

While the Easter Bunny bought chocolate, he took all the bottles on Sunday morning. No more milk bottles before bed for Izzy and no more cordial bottles for both of them during the day. I remember when Jake was the same age, the Easter Bunny took his milk bottles too.

Chocolate for breakfast!

Summer is still having me before bedtime. God knows how long I will keep that up for, she's almost 17 months! I fed Jake for 3 months and Izzy for 11. Maybe it's me who isn't ready to give it up. I was so ready with the other two. I think I could have stuck with it longer with Jakey, but Izzys biting was becoming unbearable and I'd had enough. 

It was about time the bottle left the building. All of Izzys friends (as far as I knew) hadn't had bottles for a long time. I had no problem giving her drinks in them during the day, and a milk one at bedtime. But I was conscience about letting her have them in front of other people, in public. I don't think it is very popular in this day and age, and I was wary of what people thought or judged of me. Most kids go straight onto a sippy cup before they can walk and talk. I'm not one for reading all the latest kid moulding wrangling books or taking advice from well meaning child health nurses, so I probably missed the memo about getting rid of the bottle at an early age.

The bottle had worked for me, it worked for us. But it was time that Izzy, at almost three and a half learned to live without it. This meant getting rid of them all together, so Summer has to get used to not having one either. It has worked out easier than I thought it was going to be. Although Isabel did sneak in a cheeky and quiet "I want it in a bottle", when I gave her her warm milk in a sippy cup, she didn't kick up a stink, and went off to sleep well. The next battle will be to successfully get her toilet trained at night. No nappies. Getting rid of her night time bottle is the first step towards dry nights, I hope!

Linking at Jacana

Easter jaffa cake

Izzy wanted to cook a cake. A brown cake. By this I assumed she meant a chocolate cake. I have some oranges to use up, so we combine the two and made a jaffa marble cake.

Marble Jaffa Cake

2 eggs

cream

1 heaped teaspoon orange zest

1 cup SR Flour

1 Tblspn cocoa

orange food colouring

Crack 2 eggs in a 1 cup measure. Fill to top with cream.

Add zest and flour, stir to combine.

Divide mixture in half. Add cocoa to one half, and orange food colouring to the other.

Add half of the cocoa to a lined cake tin in blobs here and there. Add all of orange and then add rest of cocoa mix on top.

Bake for 30 minutes.

My sous chef/bowl licker!

I iced our cake with just icing sugar, cocoa and water. Then went about making grass, carrots and a bunny with fondant we had left over in the freezer, from a Cake to the Rescue cake. This is what ours turned out like, pretty darn good if I say so myself!

A blustery days baking

Yesterday was as blowy as buggery and the rain pelted down. The thunder and the lightening clapped and cracked the night before. I heard the thunder, it woke me long enough to hear it, I had no idea of the lightening though.

As we left for kindergym early yesterday morning, it poured. I was thankful for the trees covering the gate and I didn't get too wet. By lunchtime when we returned, I was quite wary that the tree branches may come down on top of me, and the car as I opened the gate. The wind was really forceful. A big branch had come down in the library car park and the SES truck siren wailed past as we left. Someone was in a bit of a fix. Luckily no cars were damaged, an hour before the car park was full, probably a good thing, because I may well have parked there. A friend that  joined us for baby bounce was one car park away from having a squashed car. Lucky!

Before we left for kindergym, I filled the bread maker with ingredients to make dough for hot cross buns. By the time we got home from the library it was done.

I have a Sunbeam bread maker, Brett bought it for twenty bucks at a garage sale a couple of years ago. I am not really an appliance freak, but we do get some use out of it. I do bake the occasional loaf of bread and is great for making all sorts of doughs, bread rolls, foccacia or pizza dough . This is more or less the same recipe that I used. I substituted the sultanas for choc chips. They were good!

We made this cake too. It's a blimin' cracker of a cake, I have blogged how to make this one before. Make sure you use something else than bourneville cocoa, it isn't any good for this cake. You will see it doesn't look as good in my previous post here, plus it doesn't have finger holes as well...yet.

I took some of both today for morning tea at playgroup. Usually we just have cut up fruit for morning tea. Silly me just assumed with it being the week before Easter, and a Friday, it was the last week of term. It wasn't! We always have party food the last Friday of term. I took it on a panic and a whim. My usual party food take is popcorn, easy as a bag of microwave popcorn! The kids loved it anyway, and at least one of the adults couldn't resist chocolate cake. Looks like I will be making popcorn in a couple of weeks, when it really is party food day.

Easter Bunny funny

I made this up last year, when I wasn't a blogger. I had seen it as a cartoon on a tee shirt at Cotton On, and recreated it at home. With Easter coming up I thought I would share it, hopefully it gives you a giggle like it did me.

I had no problems biting the rear end and ears of a chocolate rabbit and eating them. There is definitely something special about the taste of Easter chocolate, looking at this reminded me of that taste and smell. Yum!

I have been able to resist all the chocolate choking up the aisles at Woolies so far. I haven't had chocolate for nearly two months, I am not tempted by it and am not missing it. Yet. I weighed in this morning, and have lost ten kilos up to date.

Izzy has noticed all the shiny Easter merchandise. I keep telling her we can't buy or eat it them until Easter and I am getting away with that little white lie. Plus I don't need the temptation sitting in the wardrobe at the end of my bed, I have always had to go buy more by the time Easter Sunday arrives!