Friday Night Fireplace

First Fire of the Season...the girls excitedly collect sticks and logs..... The MR builds up the fire... We toast Marshmallows.... YUM!... when they are all gone, children turn pyromaniac... producing glowing sticks of fire.

Oh what fun we have around the fire.

Sabbath

But if from thence thou shalt seek the Lord thy God, thou shalt find him, if thou seek him with all thy heart and with all thy soul ~ Deuteronomy 4:29

Foody Friday is back....

Two lovely ladies at church (from the US) taught a Mexican Cooking night.. IT WAS YUM!! A few weeks later I got up the courage to make my own tortilla's and they were worth it :)

Wheat Tortillas



2 1/2 cups plain flour
2 1/2 cups Wholemeal flour
1/2 cup oil
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 cups boiling water
flour for rolling


In a large bowl stir flours and salt, mix in the oil by hand until mixture resembles oatmeal. Make a well in the centre and pour in half boiling water. Mix with fork. Then add other half of water and mix in. Knead until dough does not stick to your fingers and is smooth (like playdough)

Make balls (about golf ball size), place on a tray, cover with a cloth and allow to sit atleast one hour (or up to 8 hours)

Roll tortilla's out to desired thinness. Fry on frypan 30 seconds each side. And voila you have a tortilla!!

We made vegetarian bean Quesadilla's with our tortilla's. I always need more Vegetarian recipes.. and this one is very yummy and filling.

Bean Quesadilla's

1 onion
garlic clove
green capsicum (bell pepper) chopped (I used red)
2 tomatoes
can corn kernels
kidney beans lightly mashed with fork
taco seasoning
cheese

Heat oil in frying pan and gently cook onion and garlic until soft. Mix in Capsicum, tomatoes, beans and corn and taco seasoning cook until heated through.

Spread tortilla's with the mix and sprinkle cheese on. Top with another tortilla, Fry in frying pan each side until cheese is melted.

Enjoy

Brrrrrrr..... its cold outside

I do believe it was 2 degrees this morning (35 farenheit) when I was forced out of bed at 5am by Miss G!! How rude!! Our house is beyond freezing..(no insulation, no central heating, nothing but air under the elevated wooden floor board..brrrr) we have successfully made it 3 years without a heater so I am not backing out now :)

So the freezing cold forced me into action this morning and I whipped up some Rice Heat Bags See Last years bags here As last year I made the bags without a cover... they got pretty dirty and ended up in the bin, so this time I made ones with little pillow cases that can be washed. I used an old flannellette baby blanket to make them.

Want an easier version? Try these Hot socks by Full Circle They look like fun!

Now I am toasty warm lugging my rice bag around the house with me!! And LOL... did you see the post from last year?? I get what I deserve for joking about being pregnant!! Something I didn't think possible.... has exactly come true.. and I am even wearing a similar purple shirt today.... OoOoOoOoO... spooky :)

Thanks go to the Queen

For having a birthday so we can have a public holiday long weekend :)

We went strawberry picking

They were the best tasting strawberries ever!



Then we went to the beach!! YAY!



In the freezing water with cousins


We stayed with cousins (best 5 star hotel:) great service! And went to a baby blessing

Then we drove the long way home in the dark... I love long weekends :)


*I have wanted to know how to do photo grids for yonks.. finally taught myself!! very easy in Picassa

Popping out

As requested ~

*Note* pregnancy self portraiture is hard (the only good shots out of 50 :)

Silence.. sweet silence

Last night I took Miss K to Achievement night. I was without the other girls and was actually just outside the temple all alone. It was a drizzly night, but the rain had stopped. There were beautiful reflections everywhere.. so I stood in the quiet, alone, noone around and took some photos.

It was a wonderful 15 mins of reflection. We all deserve some time - preferably somewhere beautiful and peaceful.

First Day of Winter..

and the 500th post I have written!! Had enough of me yet??

This morning I read this blog- Carli's Clan and felt the inspiration hit straight away... and I forgot it was the first day of winter... so PERFECT TIMING!!

Have been feeling a bad parent lately.. kids watching too much tv/movies/computer games.. and not much craft from me...

I had all the ingredients (minus a few) to do exactly what Carli did!! YAY!!

First off white playdough - so I mixed up a bowl of it and we made snowmen!! Miss G's favourite thing at the moment are snowmen. She even giggles in public toilets if she sees toilet rolls stacked up and yells out.. 'look mum... snowman!" She stacks cans and says they are snowmen.. pretty much any three things stacked on top of each other are snowmen.



The best thing? we played with the dough straight from the saucepan!! Warm playdough.. mmmmmmmm... on a cold day.. wonder if I can microwave the dough each time we play with it??

Then we made edible snowmen (Miss A made them but she had no clothes on - yes even in winter!! and she wouldn't put any on, so I said she gets no photos then!)

I only had condensed milk, icing sugar and coconut so that is what I made them out of. If I had chocolate and cream I definately would have made these snowmen at Cupcakes and all things Sweet they are super cute!!



This one looks like it's smiling


The first one 'melted' so we had to add extra icing sugar and coconut


Dreamy stuff for my kids who have never seen snow... even I have only seen snow twice and The MR once ... if you count July Summer Left over snow in Utah ;)

Sabbath

And again I say unto you, It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God ~ Matthew 19:24


* I LOVE camels. Took this photo yesterday at the Local Fair. I am always drawn to the camels, they look funny, strong, regal, cute, hilarious all rolled into one :)

Love is a Lollipop

I tricked Daddy into buying me a lollipop as big as my head (something Mum would never do! *shudder* stickiness!!)


Mmmmmmm....... (look at her tongue down the bottom - getting ready for a big lick)


Sooooo good :)

Rigging???

I have allowed more than one vote per person on my little poll on the side there... now... strangely The MR's choice of name seems to be winning....... hmmmmmmmm

I personally dont think Esther matches our last name.. and of course Australians dont pronouce ER... all I can think of is Festa Esta... lol.. but that is my humble opinion :)

Its all going a bit pear shaped

Along with a bunch of girlfriends we all put in some money and buy fruit and veg from a Wholesale Market. Upside.. lots of fruit and vege's VERY CHEAP... downside... time and effort in buying, lugging, distributing 20kg bags of pototoes, pumpkins, carrots, apples, pears, banana's etc... Hey we work hard for the money!!

And there is of course the now weekly challenge of thinking of things to do with the food.. last fortnight it was carrots and avocados... hmm what to do with 3 kg of carrots...the week before that sweet potato.... this week it is zucchini and pears.

So the pears all ripened at the same time... 20 'starting to bruise badly' pears staring at me...

So I made poached pears for the first time.. all a bit fancy for me :)

Peel pears leaving stalks intact

slowly heat
2 cups of water
1/2 cup sugar
cinnamon

to dissolve sugar

once dissolve place pears in water and slowly bring to boil

and that is it.. since I had so many pears I added extra water and then extra sugar as I wanted it to make a syrup.... but boy was that stuff SWEET!!! but served with non sweetened cream.. it was PERFECT

Sabbath

Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God: and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God ~ 1 John 4:7

(Our family with The MR's mother at her recent 60th birthday bash (great food, big band.. the works :)

rewards

Last week Miss K as a grade 3er had to do the NAPLAN (National Assessment Program – Literacy and Numeracy) testing. 3 days of tests for kids across Australia. She was a little nervous. I kept telling her that really the tests were to test if the teachers are teaching well.... not testing her persay.

Anyway she is a smart cookie and I know she did just fine... so as a reward we went to get a little treat after school, after the last day of testing. I rarely do this so it was fun.

I read somewhere out in the blogosphere about someone who takes her children out to a nice cafe at the end of each school term for a little celebration.. I think that is totally sweet and might have to do that myself

Relief.. Testing is OVER! Pass me the desserts!


What do you mean I have to share?


Someone forgot their cafe manners... we were meant to share this cake with 2 forks.. she just picked up the whole piece and went for it

Names PLEASE

Now that everyone knows we are having ANOTHER girl... everyone wants to know names!! We could barely come up with a name for the third girl let alone a fourth.. so I am completely NAMELESS at the moment.

Please leave YOUR suggestions of baby names and I will choose the ones I like the best and maybe next week we shall have a little poll on the right column and you can all vote for the one you like the best.

Note.. I like unusual/not so common names... but nothing too weird that the child would be teased about. For those who know my kids names makes it easy... if you are a bloggy friend I will email them to you,if you are interested.. I am just not putting them up on the blog for the world to see.

Also I tend to LIKE many names.. I have a huge list.. but very rarely come across names that I LOVE.. so that is why I need help.. my other problem is that I have come across quite a few names that I like.. but they are unfortuneately too similar to the names the girls already have.. I already get my kids confused, I dont need to make it worse by having rhyming, same letter, similar type names, I want them all to have individual non similar names.

WANT To HELP NAME MY BABY :) LEAVE A COMMENT :)

some ideas I have so far, but none I love

Liliana
Luciana
Maybel/ Mabel
Celeste
Eve
Eden
Marissa
Kiara
Sasha
Makenna
Kenley
Zarah

MDAY roundup

The Annual Mothers Day Photo (lucky Mothers day is a Sunday :) and we are already in our church clothes


Can't get more love than this :)
(upside of attending church 5 metres from the Temple - beautiful gardens.. downside... spending each week preventing kids from picking said flowers ;)

Earlier that morning (too early...)
Breakfast made by the MR and the girls and opening my gifts (Roses chocolates, Tulips, and a Toaster, socks and slippers) The girls were so proud they kept the toaster a secret - their idea to buy it as ours was kinda broken. State of the art 4 slicer, extra lift, fit all types of bread :)

mmmm.. the slippers were so nice I almost forgot to take them off when I left the house !!
(for my Northern Hemisphere readers... socks, slippers,dressing gowns, flannel pjs are all popular mothers day gifts here as it is starting TO GET COLD!! Winter is coming :)

And Carli was right "And if it was up to me, all mothers of the world would wake up to tulips. Elegant and beautiful in their cooler-weathered simplicity"

My family knows I LOVE TULIPS!!


Hope your Mothers Day was lovely too.

Model Mother

... oh did you think you were gonna get a blog post about me as the model mother... bah ha hahahha.... you all already know I am perfect right ;)

After seeing this idea for a Mothers day gift, featured on The Crafty Crow I thought it would be fun for the girls to paint me :) We grabbed some canvases and for their first attempts at portraiture I think they did pretty good

Miss 8 even used some gold paint for my hair highlights :)


Miss 6 gave me 'kissing lips' - I like em :)


They are taking Pride of Place on our Mothers Day themed Mantle this week.

Mother Messages

“Be kind to the women. They constitute half the population and are mothers to the other half.”
A lovely friend sent me an email this week with quotes about motherhood she had found. It made my day. As Mother's Day approaches, I want to share them with you and some of the wonderful women in my life. (My girls are lucky enough to have 2 grandma's and 2 great grandma's.. its a busy weekend here :)

"More than half a century ago, the First Presidency proclaimed, "Motherhood is near to divinity. It is the highest, holiest service to be assumed by mankind. It places her who honors its holy calling and service next to the angels" (CR, October 1942, 12–13).

4 direct generations of girls :)

A mother's nurturing love arouses in children, from their earliest days on earth, an awakening of the memories of love and goodness they experienced in their premortal existence. Because our mothers love us, we learn, or, more accurately, remember, that God also loves us.

President Thomas S. Monson said, "One cannot forget mother and remember God. One cannot remember mother and forget God. Why? Because these two sacred persons, God and mother, partners in creation, in love, in sacrifice, in service, are as one" ("Behold Thy Mother," Ensign, April 1998, 6)."



femininity “is the divine adornment of humanity. It finds expression in your … capacity to love, your spirituality, delicacy, radiance, sensitivity, creativity, charm, graciousness, gentleness, dignity, and quiet strength. It is manifest differently in each girl or woman, but each … possesses it. Femininity is part of your inner beauty” (Ensign, May 2000, 96).



Happy Mothers Day to you all.

I blame the possums

Remember those passionfruit flowers? Well now I have gorgeous passionfruits everywhere.... so I am thinking is it bad to take said Passionfruit to the Church Stake gardening competition (I think you have to enter something you grew)

because technically... I didn't plant them, though they are growing in my garden... I didn't plant them, or tend them, or grow them with my love and devotion.... Personally I blame the possums... Last year there were half eaten passionfruit shells left around by the possums and maybe seeds in their poop??

Why is it that the food I don't plant grows the best... we had awesome tomatoes sprout from compost and now passionfruit... but anything I actually plant and try to grow dies :)

So if I win best passionfruit ... don't tell anyone my secret :)

What you've been waiting for..

Some people have questioned if I have a growing belly or not.. since it hasn't be seen on this blog :) Well here it is people.. Shadow Stylz...


*note this is early morning long distorted shadow.. I am not that tall... nor that large around the belly :)...yet.....