A bit of Shortbread

I have tried making shortbread before and it was a mess! Icing sugar everywhere and awful tasting biscuits. I had a friend and her family popping round so I wanted to make something and it seemed like a good idea to make something I wasn't confident at. 

I found this recipe in one of my many cook books and it is brilliant. It might be my fantastic new cake mixer or new kitchen but the recipe is pretty great too.

I will double check the ingredients, but from memory it was

220 grams of butter

220 grams icing sugar and 

350 grams of flour.

Cream butter and sugar and slowly add flour. Bake for 30 mins on low oven, I set mine to 150. And that was all the directions.

And they are all gone. I think I will be making them again.

Tx

Spotty Cake

A little collection of brightly coloured balls of cake.

I brought off trade me a cake pops making set. Its great for making balls of cake. I made a set of colours, I think a tray makes 8 balls and after each time I added more food colouring to get a whole lot of different shades of colour. For Adele, the insides of the cake was blue and white and the balls green and purple.

To get the spots inside the cake, you make the balls and then add them to the raw batter and cook the cake. I also make spotty cupcakes. You can see the balls sitting in the cupcake cases. I made vanilla cake and chocolate cupcakes.

Yummy balls of cake. Even though the balls end up being baked twice they don't seem to dry out at all. 

These made such a cool addition to the table of goodies. The kids were all comparing their insides. Teamed with bright pink icing and glitter they made a beautiful looking cupcake. And quite tasty too. In my opinon of course ;)

Tx

Photo Challenge Week Two

What makes me smile. Of course I had to try and get some photos of the kids, they make me smile (and frown, and mad and....). It is a public holiday here in New Zealand so I took the kids to the gardens and followed them round while they were playing and took photos. I had not been there for a number of years and had a great time looking at all the roses and the green house and well every where. AND we saw frogs. How cool!

So that is my photo for this week.

It has been a crazy week, school started back for the kids, Adele had her first day and she loves it so far. Ryans pleased with his teacher and the kids in his class. I have great feelings about this year. Ryan has signed up to do Speech and Drama, I have a feeling this will be gold for him.

She looks so tiny compared to Ryan.

We are busy packing up our house. We move in a week. Crazy, feels so unreal. I can't wait at all. I have packed away all my sewing stuff, ready to go crazy in my new sewing room. Not long at all.

Tx

And Five done

Today was the day of the big party. As quick as a flash it was all over. All done, my middle baby is 5. She is so exited about school on Tuesday. So excited in fact she has been practising her walk with her back pack on. She is trying to work out if she will walk or skip. Oh the dilemma!

For her party we invited a few of her kindy friends and a bunch of kids she has known through Playcentre, school (making friends with Ryan's friends siblings), coffee group and the like. It ended up with 17 kids and we didn't even go crazy with the inviting. Its nice to have a good core group of friends, who are friends who have kids.

  You can't really see it, but the green tray is a super cool mini milk bottle carrier. I love the milk bottles. I filled them with chocolate milk. The kids guzzled it down.

Her party was mermaid themed, I tried to do everything blue, purple and green. All the way down to the straws and the cake.

I made a simple butter cake and butter cream icing. I made another spotty cake. My oven I have in the rental is terrible, so the cake took for ever to make. But I am so happy with how it turned out. It had a bit of a wow factor, but of course by the time you get to cake all the little bellies are filled and we have loads of cake left.

Oh and I put shells all over the tables, they seemed to be mermaid-ish to me.

Tissue paper decorations in the colours. I think Adele liked it.

The car of course wasn't there, but under the sun shade I set up a nail stand. I grabbed all my polishes and just put them on the table, with tissues and remover and the kids where either going crazy on the castle or painting their nails, including the boys.

And I set a bunch of flowers on the table. I texted Bair to grab some and he came home with the perfect colour. Light purple. Fantastic!!

So tomorrow I will share how I make the spotty cake. Complete with the butter cake recipe.

Well thats all done now. I feel sad that school is about to start, but I know that she is so ready and keen for it. She is a super star and I love her to bits.

Tx

Baking with my Boy

I asked Ryan what he wanted to do a few days back and it was to bake a cake with me. So simple, yet something I really struggle with. But, I made the effort and had a wonderful time doing it. He enjoyed it so much that I felt guilty I haven't done more of it. Certainly something we have to do more of.

We made raspberry chocolate cake. Oh my it is my most favourite chocolate cake. It is one we make a lot and I have blogged about it before. Ryan was so proud of this cake, telling Adele all about the ingredients and eating half of it, at least!!.

Maybe he will make me a birthday cake ;) I very much doubt it, I don't usually get one, but each year I hope that I do. Surely sometime soon they will make me one

Tx

A little bit of photography

I cam across a photography weekly challenge. On Pinterest, one of those random lists that gives you a bit of direction for a few weeks. This challenge is 20 weeks with a whole bunch of different things to try to photograph. I figure it is a great challenge for me as I don't really know what style, things or anything really about me as a photographer. All I know is I love taking photos and I love a challenge and I love lists.

This week is "self portrait". I must admit from summer I am noticing that I am missing from the family photos. Apparently you can buy a remote control to take photos, I might need to invest in one. Soon it will start to look like I have left the family, all these lovely shots of Blair and the kids.

So here is "Self Portrait"

You might not be able to see in a small photo, but I am in that bubble.

I am starting to notice that I really like black and white photos. I like the contrast.  Each Wednesday I am aiming to post my photos from each weeks challenge.

My application has been sent of to do that course, now I just have to wait to see if I am accepted. I have no idea how long that is going to take, hopefully I will find out soon as it starts on the 3 March.

And of course not long till Adeles birthday. Party planning is in full swing. I have to sit down and write a list of what I want to make and what exactly I need. I may be going a little over board, but hey, its her party and if she wants it why not!! (Of course I am not going super crazy, I more mean in terms of cute cakes and home made stuff).

Also we are preparing to move. Into the new house! So not only is it party time it is packing and sort out stuff time AND next week Adele starts school. Man oh man, we don't make life easy at all here.


Right time to head off for my third to last kindy pick-up. I just know I am going to cry on Friday.

Tx

Birthday Skirt

Birthday party invites are starting to come in again. Adele has had two parties this week, Ryan has a couple before school goes back, a friends baby is turning one and, of course, we have Adeles big party. Oh and a birthday for me, but no party.

The party we went to on Sunday was our old neighbours daughter. Adele and her had been the best of friends and it was so sad when we moved away. We have caught up a couple of time since we moved, the girls still love each other to bits. When we arrived at the party from that moment on I am not sure if the girl played with any of her other guests.

I made her a skirt, her mum is all into home made things so I knew it would appreciated. Plus, I knew she would like the style as a friend of hers posted a picture of her daughter in the style of this skirt. She had commented on how much she liked it. So I sort of copied the skirt. I made it fit Adele, they are the same size so I knew it would fit her. It was easy to recreate. A lot of straight cutting and sewing.

I used the matching purple spots and chevron to Adele's pink. I would really like a picture of the girls in their sort of matching outfits. I really hope she wears her skirt to Adele's party.

And of course a cute picture of Greta. She kept popping up in the photos of I was trying to take of the skirt. Of course I have to include one.

I am about to send off the enrolment form to do a Diploma in Photography. Whether this leads to a career change I don't know, but the next couple of years will be filled with learning and be interesting. I am looking forward to it, but sort of nervous too. I haven't done study in a while so I hope I can manage it, and the kids and everything else.

Tx