2018 Mount Gambier christmas pageant

This is one of my favourite days of the year. It means Christmas is ON like Donkey Kong. 

We traditionally put up our Christmas tree this weekend, not a day before!

I get just as excited as the kids do. Probably more so, as I wave back a the happy smiling people on the floats. The pageant has such a fantastic cheery, friendly atmosphere. How can anyone not feel good here?!

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Exploring Red Rock Bay

We are so lucky to have a such a fabulous natural playground right on our doorstep. Red Rock Bay is a short drive from our holiday house in Pelican Point, where we spent the weekend.

I saw things I have not seen here before and I've been here lots of times! Seals for one thing, and also real live sea urchins. The moving spines on the urchins look like moving appendages, it was mesmerising! I had only seen dead ones washed up on the shore.

Another thing that had us going for a closer look was a rusty Landrover carcass, obviously swallowed by the ocean and then spat out again, after the salty raging sea had taken it's toll. It is amazing the sea has this much force, tumbling  an entire vehicle around in it's belly and coughing it up somewhere else. There's a lot of reef around here that it would have had to be washed over too. It makes me wonder where the owner is now and if they a curious to where there car had washed up.

Written on the back of the Landrover...I think you had a problem!

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And then they were seven and nine

My girls celebrated their birthdays this last weekend. Summer turned seven on Friday, and Isabel nine on Sunday. Geez the last few months have been a blur, how is it November already?

The family got together on Friday for an overdue pizza night at Mum's house. The pizzas that come from her brick oven are amazing. It was so good to catch up with everyone, together. Ate too much.

The girls had friends sleepover and a joint birthday party on Saturday. I had a cupcake decorating station this year and it was a hit. The girls both chose different icecream cakes from Woolies this year, which was less effort for me. No cake baking or late night decorating! #winning

Ate too much, and probably drank too much wine on Saturday night too, which resulted in a three hour nap on Sunday while Brett took the kids to the beach! #winning

Cockles season started on November first, so we drove out to Canunda and dug for cockles, we found heaps. It was a great way to work off some junk food. I didn't cook any up this year, they're all in the freezer to use as fishing bait. The kids had a ball digging for cockles, it's one of our favourite things to do at this time of year.

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Summer's first prize choc chip biscuits

Millicent had it's annual show on the weekend. I didn't enter anything this year. It came up so fast and with the gymnastics annual concert the week before I was a busy little bee and could not fathom how I'd have the time or energy.

The kids still wanted to enter stuff, and as usual they did pretty well. Isabel entered a couple of things in junk art, got a two firsts and her decorated terracotta pot won a sash for best exhibit in that category. Super proud.  The circle wire hanging sculpture thingy behind her was something she knocked up during the week, and the pot she'd decorated at mums earlier in the year.

She entered flowers which she got a few wins for, and also won most points in produce, including her bouquet of weeds. Along with flowers and vegies, we apparently grow prize winning weeds in our garden also.

Summer entered two things. She wanted to enter choc chip biscuits and a drawing. Well I nagged her for a few days to do a drawing she could enter, and the morning before show entry drop off we found a how to draw website (which I have linked below) and she drew a dabbing panda. She won second prize.

How to draw a dabbing panda

Not the best photo to show her bickies, but she won first prize. These are pretty great biscuits, super delicious too! Summer and I both agree it's the brown sugar that make them so good. Here's the recipe for first prize choc chip biscuits!

150g butter

1/2 cup caster sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 egg

1 3/4 cup plain flour

1 cup dark choc chips

Preheat oven to 180C(or 160C fan forced). Line two baking trays with baking paper.

Beat butter, sugars and vanilla with electric beaters until smooth. Beat in egg until combined.

Stir in flour in two batches then stir in choc chips.

Roll about two teaspoons of mixture into balls, placing them about 3cm apart on the baking tray. Flatten slightly, and bake for 15 minutes until golden around the edges. Transfer to wire rack to cool.

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