Can you guess what we've been doing?

We've been BAKING!!...and licking the bowlsHow is that for a happy chocolate cake mix smile? I can't believe he could eat so much cake mix without getting sick.

All this morning we've been very busy...

...sifting...and measuring......and mixing and spooning......all in preparation for the Rocky Show!! Only a few more sleeps, Jack's getting very excited. So here are our entries... a close up of my mini cake entry (keep in mind I am an amateur, my piping needs a lot of work)

and a close up of Jack's layered jar.

I have been having one of those weeks this week and it was topped off by the realisation Saturday morning that I had misread the info for the drop off times for the show entries and therefore Jack's hard work on his layered jar and his painting (pictured above) were not going to be in show. I phoned their office as soon as they opened to see if there was a chance of still getting them but to no avail. I felt just awful and shed quite a few tears but I guess what's done is done. I havn't told him and I don't think I will. I'm hoping that with the excitement of the show he will be too eager to go on the rides than look at the exhibits and I've got them hidden in my boot. Keeping my fingers crossed on that one. I truly feel soooooooo bad about it all. I was going to beg them this afternoon when I dropped off our cooking but I didn't think that the cooking group would overlap with the art people.

Jack and I were at Spotlight looking at cake boards the other day and I was squatting down to check out the stock and could see Jack in my peripheral vision standing beside me. Next thing I hear this male voice say "You got a tattoo there mate". I turn to see Jack there with his sleeve pulled up to show off his press on tattoo to the heavily tattooed man who was there shopping with his wife. It was adorable. This guy had tattoos all up both his arms and here's Jack with these scrawny little lily white arms proudly showing off his tattoo that is celebrating 100 year of preschools. Such beautiful memories.

Our week...

Well, my roster has changed and I am now working Monday and Tuesday's and then am off for the rest of the week which I think is going to work out well.

On Tuesday, Jack's daycare had and excursion to the Heritage Village. He was telling me all about all the animals on the way home and he even got to milk a cow which i thought was pretty exciting. He tells me he got milk on his shoe.

On Wednesday we had swim class and then Jack and I spent the rest of the day shopping. Thursday was an extra swim class again. Jack is getting so much more confident in the water. Soooooooooo much better than he was last term.

On Thursday night I thought I'd make something new for dinner so we had Pork with Sage and Garlic and Risotto Milanese which was quite nice. Owen didn't like the risotto at all but I didn't mind it. The pork was nice, you cook the sage leaves in a little oil in the pan, take them out and then brown off the garlic, take it out, cook the pork and then at the end put the sage and garlic back in with some lemon juice.And for dessert we had creme caramel. Did you know you can get it as a packet mix? It's not too bad. I made the creme brulee the other week too which was really nice.When we were out shopping Jack bought some sparklers so we've had to go outside the last couple of nights for a sparkler and then he wishes on a star. It's very cute.Today was the Romp in the Park, a kid's event which has stalls from different kindy's and daycares with activities for the kids to do. We met up with our friends the Bruckners and later on the William's as well. Jack was pretty overwhelmed to start off with and didn't want to do anything but he ended up doing a couple of things.

Here's he and Jared painting some boxes for the box city...

Here's Jack turning on the siren in the police car. Those poor police people who were there, they had a constant line up of kids going through their car turning the siren on and off.

This is Jack doing his tough Police face. LOL, funny kid.

After we'd looked at all the stands and had lunch we went and had a look at the animals. Here are the kids lined up to look at the crocodiles.

Jack had a great time. It's nice to have something like that to go to. There were quite a few people there which was great to see.

This afternoon Jack was blowing some bubble in the yard. Check out this huge bubble!!

I love his giant bubble wand, the bubbles are so spectacular.

And here he is busting th bubbles with his tongue. They are chocolate scented but I'm sure they'd still just taste like detergent. Ah well, whatever makes him happy.

Our local show is on next week and I decided this year that Jack and I would enter a few different things in the show. He is entering a painting, a layered jar, a scrap page and some baking and I'm doing some scrapbooking and some baking as well. I thought it would be something fun to do and make it a bit more exciting for him to look at the exhibits and see his own stuff. I'm entering the mini cake/cupcake decorating category and have been making little fondant ribbon roses and leaves and things but I'm really going to have to get myself sorted tomorrow because the entries have to be in on Sunday.

And lastly, some orchids that were flowering in my garden. I love orchids. I have a couple of different ones that my Grandma and my Mum have given me. They just get stuck in a tree and neglected at my place but they seem to like it like that and I get a few nice flowers throughout the year.Well, I'm off to bed.

Ciao

An afternoon at the beach...

...and Jack did brave the water a little although he didn't go all the way in and yes it was bloody cold. Crazy kid.

So, I'll start with the story of how Jack and I ended up going to the beach. We've taken a leaf from the Bruckner's book and have a special calender on the fridge for Jack with pictures of different things he'll be doing during the week such as daycare or swimming class or soccer or whatever and I had checked Owen's roster and scheduled a nice family trip to the beach...however I read his roster wrong. Jack and I had a nice afternoon at the beach but poor Owen was slaving away at work. We tried to convince Jack to go today instead so Daddy could come but he showed us his calender and explained that Saturday was the day we had to go. The things kids use against you :P

Writing his name in the sand...Splashing about in the rockpools...Armed with his fish catching bucket.

So as I said yesterday, my camera is finally back. It was nice to be able to take photos that didn't take 4 hours for the shutter to work.

K, I'm outta here...peace out.

Hootie hootie hoo!!!!

The post of an excited woman!!

My camera is FINALLY back!!! It's been away for repair for 2 whole freakin' months!!

Jack and I are off to the beach this afternoon (I don't think he realises how cold it's going to be) so I'll be back tonight with some photos no doubt!!

Some party photos...

It was Jack's best friend, Jared's 4th Birthday on Saturday so we headed over for a party in the afternoon.
Here are the two friends sitting playing pass the parcel. For best friends these two sure do tussle alot. They're constantly tickling or pushing or slapping at each other. Boys, I tells ya!?

Anyhoo, it was a great fun party. The kids and Tricia played musical statues...and duck, duck, goose & bust the balloons (Jack stood back for that one, he's dosn't like busting balloons) & musical chairs. The kids had a ball as normal when they're together.

Jack put on his own party hat...very fashionably. Well I guess it is quite a masculine way to wear a party hat, as a horn.Sitting with Hayley enjoying the cake.And this photo is from Sunday when we went to the park with Grandma to play a bit of football.

It's late and I'm tired so I'm outta here. Catch u round.

Introducing...

... Wet!!

Wet is Jack's new fish. Unfortunately Ishy 2 passed away on Monday night. We were going to try to do a sneaky fish replacement but were unable to find an Ishy 2 look alike so I told Jack on the way home from daycare that Ishy had died and Daddy had buried him in the garden. He was a bit sad and said he wished he could see Ishy again because he loves him and he wanted to play with him forever. RIP Ishy.

Onto a bit of cooking...Owen just LOVES ribs. We used to go to Lone Star all the time and he'd have ribs with baked sweet potato with cinnamon butter so that's just what I made for him. I never buy ribs because they are so expensive considering that it's half bones but they've been on sale at Woolies so I thought I'd give him a treat. I made my own recipe using inspiration from a few different recipes I found around and they were pretty good. They were just a little spicy, nice and sticky and yumm. So in case anyone is interested here's the recipe I used.

1 1/2 tblsp of smoked paprika

1/2 teasp dry mustard

1/4 teasp chilli powder

1/4 teasp cinnamon

salt and pepper

Save a tblsp of the spice mix to go in the sauce and rub the trimmed ribs with the remainder of the spice mix. Wrap in foil and bake in a moderate oven for 30 minutes.

In the meantime, simmer all the following ingredients...

1/2 cp tomato sauce

1/4 cp bbq sauce

1/2 teasp crushed garlic

1/4 cp brown sugar

1 teasp worchestershire sauce

1/2 tblsp bourbon

1 tblsp soy sauce

1 tblsp of the spice mix

a splash of liquid smoke

Remove the ribs from the oven and place under a grill or on the BBQ and baste with the sauce. Turn a few times basting regularly. Eat 'em up

I'm sure they'd be even better if you left them for half and hour or so after applying the rub or marinate them in the sauce overnight or both but they are pretty tasty as is anyway.

BTW liquid smoke is this bottled sauce kind of stuff that you can buy from gourmet cooking shops that is exactly what it's called, smokey liquid. You can even get it in mesquite or hickory flavouring. You don't really need it in the recipe obviously but it just gives a bit of extra smokiness to the sauce but I really would recommend using smoked paprika instead of normal paprika. It's such a great flavour.

Here's our little chef in training stirring the sauce ingredients. He just loves to cook. Unfortunately he just dosn't like to taste anything he makes. Fussy little eater he is, gets that trait from his Dad. Another soccer photo. Note the tongue. LOL. Of course all kids know it helps with hand/foot to ball co-ordination. Too cute. Again he had a really good class this week and was the last indian standing in the cowboys and indians game. There is an extra session on Sunday which I think will be a little game as well so that will be pretty cool.

And lastly, I have another digi freebie mini kit available over at my other blog, Sweeet Digi Designs if anyone is interested.

Here's a quick page I did using the kit. I also used one of the chipboard element from the other freebie kit I made. Again, I'm just learning so don't expect too much but the flower is really pretty and I'm really pleased with the damask pp. Alrighty I'm off to watch Survivor, catch u later.

My Mother's Day weekend...

It's been a nice weekend. It started off really well with dinner out with my Mummy friends. We went to the new restaurant on the riverbank, Saigon Saigon. The food was very yummy. After dinner we went and checked out the scene at a few of the bars in the area, enjoyed some great music at the Oxford Tavern and then headed down to the other new place that's just opened on the riverbank, the Edge. It is gorgeous. It's an apartment complex and on the bottom floor is a bar/restaurant kind of thing. We had the yummiest deserts. My chocolate cheesecake was soooooooooo rich I couldn't finish it. Yummo!!
On Saturday afternoon Jack and I along with some of his friends went to see The Wiggles!! That was a fun show. It's the first time we've seen the Wiggles live so that was a great experience. They put on a good show. Here's Jack and Jared, all excited before the show started.

The boys pulling funny faces.

And The Wiggles (well not Sam obviously, he was there just not in the photo)

Then on to today...after opening my Mother's Day gifts (a cute new pink mobile phone and a cupcake book set) Jack and I got ready and went and picked up Grandma to go to the markets at the Heritage Village. We had a great time and Mum and I both got some new jewellery.

Jack was happy, he got to go on just about all the rides and things.

Here he is on the horse drawn coach ride...

Riding the pony who is having a water break...Riding on the camels...again...And here he is with his face painted and his tongue all blue from his icy cup. When we came home I did some cooking and then we had a play in the yard. I found this dragonfly perched in a shrub. I have never seen a dragonfly stay still for so long. They are pretty cool looking insects.Tonight we went to my Aunt Marie and Uncle Rob's place for a pot luck family dinner for Mother's Day. It's so nice to see everyone. My poor Grandma's not feeling herself at the moment but hopefully she'll start improving soon.

This little guy/girl climbed down to come and check out the festivities. It was pretty game and come within half a metre or even closer to us. Isn't that cool.Well, I'm falling asleep here so I'm off to bed.

Cheers

So I thought I'd have a go at digital scrapbook designing...

And I have a little mini kit available for free download if anyone is interested. It's my first time so don't expect too much but it's a cute little kit. Here's the preview...

and here's a LO I did using the kit...

So if you're interested I've started up a new blog, Sweeet!! Digi Design, the link for download is over there.

A nice couple of days...

Well yesterday was a long day for Jack & I. We got up early (well early for us at least) and Mum came and picked us up and we headed down to the Calliope markets. It's an hour or so drive so Jack was a bit bored on the way down but he coped pretty well. There wasn't really anything awe inspiring down there unfortunately though but it's nice to have the time with Mum and to have a leisurely browse around. Jack nearly drove me potty with his constant request for rides though (there were only a couple of things there, I think he was expecting more). I only bought some scrapbooking stuff and a Ben 10 raincoat for Jack. He had a turn on the ducks, the spinning cup ride, the jumping castle and the train and camel rides with Grandma. She's such a good sport.Owen wanted to see the new Wolverine movie that just came out so he stayed home and then when we got back we all packed back in the car and headed down to the beach. Mum and I were originally going to go to the markets at Yeppoon and so I had told Jack we would be going to the beach but then the plans got changed to the Calliope markets so as I said, we had a long day.

I love going to the beach!! (I know I've said that so many times before but I truly do). The water yesterday was mighty chilly!! Jack braved it for awhile but eventually he was shivering so much that he could hardly stay on his big lizard.

So out he got and got wrapped up by Grandma and Aunty Jenny in 3 towels. His silly old Mum and Dad though!! LOL, we stayed in for awhile. It was quite nice in the water and there were some decent waves so we played around in the surf like kids, catching waves on the lizard and Jack's little foam boogie board. Jack had a couple of dips. He'd go and dig in the sand, fly his kit and splash around in the shallows for awhile and then back into the towels to warm back up.Grandma watching the kite flying.

This morning the boys headed over to our friends house for a play and I did some digi scrap shopping!! Not much, just picked up a couple of things from Weeds & Wildflowers, Shabby Miss Jen and Jen Wilson Designs. There were some good bargains to be had this weekend, just about everyone had sales on for national scrapbooking day. I was really pleased with my bargains and can't wait to use them. Then I started sorting through Jack's massive supply of toys, trying to sort them out a bit.

This afternoon Jack had soccer practise. It was great. He did really well. He listened to the coach really well and did pretty good at the exercises. He nearly caught everyone in sticky glue and he had so much fun. It was nice that Owen was off and got to come and watch him. They play 'cowboys and indians' where half the kids line up on either side (the cowboys) and the other half the kids (the indians) have to run through the middle and the cowboys have to "shoot" the indians by kicking the balls at them. Here's Jack's very enthusiastic "Yeeee-haw" to let the coach know he's ready to go.

Oh and here are my newly painted kitchen tiles. They look pretty good hey?

Well, that's all folks, if I can ever get the photos to load.

Ciao