Welcome 2013

Hello dear reader,
It's been pretty busy around here with two small children to entertain and occupy for the last couple of weeks.
We've been on a bit of a mission to keep the TV turned off for as long as possible during the day. It's no TV before 4.00 pm, and when we do, it's a movie, and you know, the kids are actually having an old fashioned holiday.
The house is a complete mess, but they're having fun.


They've been drawing,
drawing on the footpath,
seed planting,
walking to the Milk Bar,
building cubbies out of cushions,
cooking with me,
threading beads,
playing complicated pretend games together,
trampolining,
painting,
playing with guinea pigs,
making sweets,
indoor swimming when it was too hot for outside,
stuff! It's good.
I have been going bananas in the garden.

Here's pictures

Sour dough bread I made

 Elsie's play dough man

 little man with a beret

 Little Parisian pickling cucumbers...

 Carrot flowers!

We call these fairy lanterns, not sure of the proper name

 This is beautiful! Purple!

 Corriander flowers

 Lovely plant and planter for Christmas, and my new "no dig" beds.

 Lettuce, basil, and sunflowers

 Another "no dig" bed...looks a bit like a shallow grave...Tomatoes up the back

Cosmos and Pea

 Banana passionfruit flower

 Plum/peach yumminess ripening

 Lemon bounty

 Apples

 Columbine

 Crispy Columbine

Pretty green underworld....

Little family of bears

 

Let me introduce this little bunch of guys. I started making these a few years ago, and for some reason, didn't finish them until the other night, all they needed was the arms sewn on!

Anyway, here they are, I think I'll be including them in the market at Freshwater Creek Steiner School, this Friday eve.

You'll see them on My etsy or Big Cartel, if they don't sell.

Keeping sane

I'm sure I am way behind everyone else when it comes to this, but , I have discovered that if you set your alarm about 15 minutes earlier than when your kids get up, you can actually get everything done and have a delightful morning before you get your kids to school. Amazing! Dishes done, breakfast bowls ready to go, lunches made...and even a shower for myself! kids washed too! I tell you, you've got to have hand when it comes to kids, and that 15 minutes could be the key.
: )

Saving money with kids

Yesterday we came to the conclusion we just aren't saving enough money, any money. So we set ourselves a goal...save more.
So, how what do you do with two small kids on a wintery day?
1. Pack a simple picnic, like sandwiches and biscuits, and a bottle of water.
2. Travel a short distance to a park you don't go to much.
3. Gumboots!
4. Warm coats
5. Play! Hide and seek, make sure the adults pair up with the kids. What's the time Mr wolf is also good.
6. Finish up at the library for some quiet reading.
= no $ spent.
Also, it seems evident that kids LOVE doing this kind of thing!

Day one of holidays

Kardinia pool
What a fantastic place. It hasn't changed in 30 years, except for the other enormous pool...and taken the really high diving board down. BUT, besides that it is still one place in geelong that has hardly changed. Love it, the kids love it too. See you next year pool.

Very excited about tickets I just had delivered to my house today! C and L's Best bestest play...Arts Centre, New years day.
For my more sophisticated reader, or should I say sophistama-cated reader, this may seem a bit ridiculous for a grown woman to be excited about going to see a children's production of an ever so slightly annoying cartoon show...But I am!!
My mum took me to see Philippe Genty when I was a wee little girl in the 1970's, and it blew my mind! It was like crazy European muppets..now of course Philippe Genty is very grown up and esoteric, still full of whimsy and humour, but different to the whacked out 70's version that I saw.

Zigmund follies

So, what I'm getting at is, I hope that the experience of going to the theatre has some kind of impact on my kids, so when they're all grown up, they remember that whacked out show they saw with the crazy cardboard cut-outs... who knows...I'm just excited.
It's no wonder I like French things.
Il n'est pas étonnant que j'aime ce qui est français! 
Please let me know if this is a ridiculous translation.

A new place to spend way too long fiddling about

PINTEREST
So many pictures!!!


We have had very bad sickness in our house over the last couple of weeks, that's why it has been so quiet here on the blog.
Sometimes you've just got to not get on the computer.
I was very lucky not to get this THING that made us have to WASH everything! Sick-ups is what I'm getting at.
Oh how I wish I was somewhere else when all of that was going down. Or coming up.
But you can't, because your the Mum, and not sick.
I did go to see the Vienna exhibition at the NGV, and I loved it...that was my day off the nursing duties. But, when I got home everything was worse...much worse. My co leader had come down with the bug, as well as my girl!! Eeeek.
Anyway, that's in the past, and things are looking brighter.

My absolute favorite portrait of Egon

Sick day : (

So, no kinder today, little E had croup last night and a pretty horrendous cough today. So what to do?
 I know she loves play doh, and we've made our own loads of times, but today I thought....we'll do salt dough, and  bake it...make decorations...she can pretty much do it all herself. No kinder, but still doing learning activities.
So here's the recipe, if you'd like to try....your 4 year old can do it.

Get a big bowl
2 cups of plain flour
1 cup of salt
1 cup of water

also you can add, but not necessary for it to work.
1 tablespoon of vegetable oil, makes kneading easier- we added this
1 tablespoon of lemon juice, makes it harder when it dries
1 tablespoon of wallpaper paste, makes it more elastic while shaping...not kid friendly

NEXT
Put the flour, salt and any of the optional ingredients into the bowl, and slowly add the water while stirring. ( E just put all the water in at once, and it didn't make any difference)...
Knead the dough for about 10 minutes, to make it smooth, if it's too dry, add a little water. Too sticky, knead in a bit more flour.
It was here that we divided up the dough and made different colours. Did a bit more kneading.

THEN
Make your shapes, we used cutters and laid the pieces onto baking paper. If your making complicated forms, I suggest you work directly onto the baking paper on a baking dish...so you don't wreck your work having to move it. If you want to hang decorations, don't forget to put a hole in the top, to thread a string through.

DRY
We dried our pieces in the oven on the lowest temp our oven would go for quite a long time...maybe about 1-2 hours or so. I could smell the toasty-ness and took them out.
Or if you're in warm climates you could just put your work in a warm dry place for at least 48 hours.

WHEN
your work is dry, you can vanish it with PVA, or paint it, then varnish it....or pop a bit of PVA on it and roll it in glitter...whatever takes your fancy.....

recipe credit to Ancient Nile's  ancient Nile Article Salt Dough: a quick introduction
www.ancientnile.co.uk/saltdough

cooking in the oven

Not all bad.

Finding great little spots around Geelong, makes me feel like it's ok to live in here.
One little treasure is James St Bakery. I first knew this cafe, when it was Wholefoods. It's where I had my first solo exhibition, so I do have a soft spot for this location.
Yesterday I took the kids there for a 'good' lunch, and it was so nice. Lovely big wooden tables, great home cooked food. The kids shared a yummy club sandwich, I had a good ceasar salad, great coffee and treated all of us to beautiful macarons! Else had green tea and mint, and liked it. Charlie had a jaffa. I had a salty butterscotch one. Thank you James street Bakery for providing a nice little spot in the middle of our town.

these are my attempts of making macarons...the ones at James street Bakery are 1000 times better.

learning to talk

The other day my little girl said she saw a skunk...Now in my part of the world it is not possible to see a skunk. My little boy heard this new word, and tried to say it.
And, well...if you don't have Ss...and K sound, and maybe replace K with a T sound...you see where I'm going.

And with all new words, was repeated for quite a long time...luckily this was all happening in our drive way...and not in the supermarket.

I like amazons and swallows...it must be the red hats

Can someone take me to bewilderwood?

It's a children's adventure play place in Norfolk...

Getting 4 year olds to eat their vegies

Here is the current four year old

and here is how you have to present vegies, if you want them to eat them

Tempura Vegetables,
you may notice a bit of a scene.., a lady under a palm tree, with a love heart, by a broccoli bush, under a zuccini sun 

And then this is what they can do

and also I just listed this in my little shop to your right

http://kitchentablestudios.bigcartel.com/

Wednesday

Making crumbed lamb with Else...Fun, for once, cooking with toddlers is totally over rated most of the time.
So, this is what we did.
Take your plain lamb cutletsand scrape off a bit of the meat to make a handle...frenching I do believe is the term.
Then toss them in a bit of seasoned flour ( S+P), get the little one to do this in a clean plastic bag, making sure they've got a good grip on it.
Then, get some crumbs (Panko) are good and put in some more seasoning...I like screaming seeds, Mediteranean Mix.
Put the lamb into a beaten egg to coat, it then into the crumb mix, crumbing both sides (get the little one to do this part too)
Done.
Pan fry them in a bit of oil...I use rice bran oil.
Serve with salad or favorite vege...we're having ours with oven chips, beans and some crunchy carrots

Photo to follow

Autumn

Knitted Socks

These days it is not necessary to buy all your knitting patterns from wool shops and mega stores like Spotlight. There is a world of knitting patterns, some tried and true…some...well, pot luck. I have great success with a knitting site called "Knitting on the net". favorite thing to knit at the moment is socks. Winter is not far away, and I want everyone in our house to have warm feet. Here are two patterns.
One is for little socks for two to three year olds, and it’s really easy. It’s knitted on 2 needles and sewn up at the end. The other is probably of moderate difficulty; I guess you’ll need to have a bit of confidence with knitting on 4 needles. It’s not that hard really. I've already made two pairs...really easy.

The second pair ( 4 needles) for Pete are a little more difficult, but if you make a few mistakes It doesn't matter really. I made this pair REALLY thick with a 16 ply wool, which is great for slipper-ry socks around the house. here is the pattern Good luck knitting these socks.

I tell you it is a good feeling making things yourself