My birthday in photos

Today marks the start of my final year of being in my 30s. I've really enjoyed my 30s, especially my late 30s, life is good. Happy birthday me :)

I thought for fun I would take some photos throughout the day...

Got to hang out here for extra long this morning. Got to have good videos chats with my mum and my dad - great start to the day.

 

Aaron and the kids combined efforts to make me the most delicious omelette for my breakfast! Which I got to eat in bed!

 

Liam gave me a massive paua shell, it's HUGE, it's larger than my hand, and I love it.

 

 

Isla gave me this scarf - she chose so well, she knows I love green - and scarves! (I don't know why this photo is so terrible and grainy).

 

We took the morning off home schooling and went opp shopping instead. YAY. Because that's just what you have to do on your birthday! It's kind of become a tradition of mine to go opp shopping on my birthday. See that basket there, it's quite tall, and it's filled to the brim, I got some very gooooood stuff!

 

And then we had gymnastics class, followed by a trip to the library to stock up on more books for the kids. And this book which I had ordered was waiting for me! Perfect timing!

 

So I managed to sneak in time for a cup of coffee and a sit down to peruse - it's so good, its on my book buying wishlist now.

And my beautiful watch is my birthday present from Aaron! (Which I've been wearing for a week already hehe).

 

Moe doesn't understand why he cant sit on your lap while you are trying to read.

 

Then finished the day with Isla's ballet class. She doesn't normally let me watch these days but I was allowed, only because it was my birthday! She is the little one at the front.

 

And now I'm eating Japanese food - my favourite. And as soon as I push publish on this I'm off to sit on the couch and put my feet up.

Oh and I had the coolest thing ever happen - my sister Frith is teaching at primary school and so she called me and put me on speaker phone and the whole class sang me happy birthday!!! It was awesome! Made my day!

Lovely day.

Feeling blessed.

Our healthy Easter eggs

"Up from the grave He arose,
With a mighty triumph o'er His foes,
He arose the victor from the dark domain,
And He lives forever with His saints to reign.
He arose! He arose!
Hallelujah, Christ arose!"

lyrics and composer: Robert Lowry, 1874

Happy Easter everyone! We have been having a very chilled Easter this year, the kids and I have a cold so we've just been chilling and laying low.

- And making a few Easter treats. I cant bring myself to buy Easter eggs these days, too much sugar, and other things that we don't like to eat. Plus when you're not used to having much sugar in your diet they are actually just far too sweet, they just don't taste good anymore.

But these, OH. YUM. Really, these are seriously so much tastier. SERIOUSLY. YOU HAVE TO TRY MAKING THESE.

We made two different types of eggs...

For the first lot

- we melted dark chocolate (70% - 80% cocoa) and brushed it into silicone moulds. We did a few thin layers, putting it in the fridge to let it set a bit between layers.

- then we filled some with peanut butter

- and some with coconut filling which was a mixture of coconut, coconut butter and vanilla essence.

- then brushed or spooned melted chocolate on top.

- then we froze them so they ended up delicious and crunchy.

 



 

For the second lot

- we peeled and halved feijoas and put them in the freezer for a bit so they were cold and firm.

- then covered them with a thin layer of the melted chocolate.

- we left these ones on the fridge so the chocolate was crunchy on the outside but the centre was soft.

Sooo good! oh my goodness, you have to try making these!

We are all craving some hot cross buns as well, so we thought we might give this recipe a go - will let you know if they are a success. The BePure Champion Hot Cross Muffin Recipe.

'Survival' theme birthday party

Liam is into bush craft and survival stuff. Big time. He's never happier than when he's outside building fires and shelters and practising his skills. Or inside creating survival kits or organising and re-organising his pack and gear. 

He had a Man vs Wild birthday party last year and wanted the same sort of thing again this year. 

So I got my thinking cap on and tried to come up with some activities that would push them a bit and make them work as a team. It was actually trickier than I thought to come up with a plan!

 

 

Here is what I ended up with..

 

1. The first thing they had to do was fill a pack with essential items. I hid a whole lot of things that they took turns to try and find, once they had found something they had to take it back to the team and decide if it needed to go into the pack or not. They were only allowed 10 items so there were a few tough decisions to make as to what to leave out.

 

2. Collecting water - they had to transfer water from the bucket down the line to the container using only their hands. They had to really concentrate and work as a team to make sure they didn't loose it all on the way. Once the container was full it had to be carried during the next activities, if the container touched the ground I told them I would tip it out and they would have to start again!

 

3. Keeping a flame going and target practise - They had to hit down targets using whatever they could find lying around whilst keeping a candle alight. If the candle went out they had to stop and relight the candle before carrying on with the targets. (They had chosen matches as one of their pack items).

I was amazed at their ingenious idea of holding the tealight - they wrapped a piece of bamboo bark tightly into a roll and sat the tealight in the top. Apparently something they had seen on youtube :).

 

4. They had to find a hidden bottle and then they could transfer their water into it. It still was not allowed to touch the ground so they had to tie the water bottle to their pack... but they were only allowed to use one hand each! It was hilarious, their two hands kept sneaking in there without them even realising. It took major brain focus and team work to get it done.

 

5. One of the team members (Liam) injured his foot so they had to bandage it (fortunately they had chosen a bandage to include in their pack) and they had to support him through the next challenges so that his foot stayed off the ground.

 

6. Collecting food - there were bags of food hidden around the place that they had to collect up as they did their activities and put into their backpack. They also had to try and pick up popcorn kernels while wearing giant leather gloves. (They had chosen and empty container as one of their backpack items so they used it to hold the popcorn). When they lit their fire they would have to cook the popcorn over the fire.

 

 

The food items they ended up with:

Salami sticks - (giant worms)

Potato chips - (pigs ears)

Cheese - (pig fat)

Raisins - (rabbit poo)

Marshmallows - (fungus)

Biltong - (dried camel)

Oranges with grated chocolate - (dirty oranges)

Bananas - (found growing on a 'banana' tree)

Chocolate pieces (dirt - to put with the bananas)

Apple juice in jars - (urine)

 

 

 

Then they had to get a fire going and cook all the food using only items that they had chosen to put in their backpack and sticks and wood from their surroundings. They cooked the bananas with chocolate stuffed inside. Cooked the popcorn in a pot they had in their pack. Melted the pieces of cheese in tinfoil and roasted the marshmallows on sticks. It was quite a feast in the end! And they did an awesome job of getting a good fire going.

 

 

They were rewarded with chocolate birthday cake to finish. (Same recipe as last year which is grain free and refined sugar free - I make only half a recipe and replace the honey with less maple syrup/coconut sugar. And I make up my own frosting recipe).

 

And then to make sure that they were well and truly worn out we finished the day with some speedy downhill luge racing!

10 years old

I can't believe my (not so) little boy is in the double digits now.

We went for a walk at his favourite beach on his birthday.
I will share some photos of his 'survival' party soon.

Christmas fruit mince tarts (grain and sugar free)

We have been enjoying a pretty chilled out lead up to Christmas, just pottering around, going for some walks, doing some baking, catching up with family.
Aaron is off work now and his dad and step mum have arrived from Australia to stay. My mum will be arriving on Wednesday and my dad will turn up some time this week. The kids are getting very excited opening their advent calendars and counting down the days.
We've planned our Christmas menu and are planning on hitting the shops tomorrow to buy the rest of what we need. We want to make it as relaxing as we can on the day, so we plan on having a BBQ - which means men do the cooking :) (hopefully no rain showers!) and pretty much all the food preparation can be completed on Christmas Eve, so hopefully lots of feet up sipping cold drinks is on the agenda!

The kids and I made these Christmas tarts last week, we've gobbled up quite a few, but there are still some tucked away in the freezer. I'm also going to make a paleo style Christmas cake this week. It's nice to be able to enjoy these festive foodie traditions even when you don't eat gluten, grains or sugar.

:: Christmas Fruit Mince Tarts - gluten, grain and refined sugar free ::

Pastry
1/2 cup whole raw almonds
1/2 cup almond flour
1 cup tapioca flour
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup cold butter, diced (or coconut oil)
1 egg
1 tsp honey
Process the whole almonds until like breadcrumbs, add the almond flour and tapioca flour and pulse until mixed. Add the diced butter and blitz. Lastly add the egg and honey and pulse till well combined. It will be quite sticky but we just pulled pieces off and pressed them into our tart tin. You can chill it a bit to firm it up and make it easier to handle, but don't chill too long or it will be hard as rock :).

Fruit mince
(This made lots so we have had enough to make a few batches. Keeps for ages in the fridge.)
1/2 cup dates
1 cup raisins
1 cup sultanas
1/2 cup currants
1/3 cup dried cherries
1/4 cup preserved or crystallised ginger
2 apples peeled and quartered
1/2 cup almonds
Zest of 1 large lemon
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp brandy or brandy essence
Basically just throw everything into your blender and blitz it until it's all combined and sticky.

Brush your tart tin well with coconut oil and then press the pastry dough into it. Top with fruit mince. Roll some of the pastry out with lots of tapioca flour to stop it sticking and then cut into stars with a cookie cutter. Press yours stars down lighting onto each tart. Brush the tops with a little egg white if you wish.
Bake at 180 degrees Celsius for about 15 mins or until lightly browned.

Putting up the Christmas tree

Our house is filled with the smell of Christmas, I love it, that smell just means Christmas to me! I have to have a real tree, the smell just always brings back the memories of past Christmases, it's amazing how smells can transport you. The needles can be a bit of a pain, Aaron would probably prefer an artificial one for that reason, but I don't mind vacuuming up the needles, it's worth it. Liam and I went to pick the tree up on Sunday afternoon, I assured Aaron that they don't really drop that many needles, haha! you should have seen the trail of needles through the house when I was done positioning it :).

We've been hanging our decorations on it over the last few days. I'm not into colour co-ordinating or sticking to a particular theme. We have an assortment of all sorts of decorations that have been collected over the years, a lot from Aaron's Grandparents that I happily rehomed when they moved to Australia, there are all sorts of interesting ones, and I like it that way.

We've been talking about lots of the traditions of Christmas, and what they mean to us.
- The evergreen is the colour of life, and Jesus brings us everlasting life
- The shape of the tree points to heaven
- The lights remind us of Jesus who is the Light of the World.
- The star on top reminds us of the star that led the wise men to baby Jesus.

 "Star of wonder, star of night. Star of royal beauty bright. Westward leading, still proceeding, guide us to thy perfect Light."

Feeling crafty

It's December people! How do you feel about that? Christmas seems to rush upon us so fast doesn't it. But AMAZINGLY this year I'm ready for it! I know, not like me at all. I've pretty much ticked off all my Christmas present shopping. This is truly amazing, and not at all like me, I always say I'm going to get it done early but then it never quite happens.

So I'm feeling pretty organised really, I mean don't get me wrong, it's still a busy time of year, I'm not quite sitting back with my feet up sipping iced drinks, yet. But we've eased up on the regular home schooling schedule and our classes for the year are finishing up - last drum lesson for Liam today and Isla's ballet show next weekend will signal the official start of our summer holiday, bring it on!

 

 

So we are finding time to do a bit of crafting and a bit of baking, and it feels so good.

Last Christmas just rushed by so quickly as we were so focussed on getting the house finished off - our final council inspection was booked for the first week of January, so it was a bit hard to relax and get into the Christmas mode. This year I'm determined to slow down and enjoy it and celebrate advent and get the kids involved and really thinking about what Christmas is all about for us - celebrating the birth of The Lord Jesus Christ! So expect to see lots of posts in the next few weeks about what we are getting up to. And I hope you too are remembering to slow down and enjoy this time of the year.

FAVOURITES FOR FRIDAY - Our Isla!!!

Happy birthday to our beautiful smiley Isley, 8 years old today - woohoo! She was so excited. Aaron took the day off and we all hung out together. We had our final home schooling classes for the year where we meet up with all the other home school kids and do art and sports. Isla LOVED that dad could come with us. And she reckoned that she finally managed to get all the way down in her splits today AND do a proper handstand, big celebrations!
And... Happy birthday to our beautiful little Evie for yesterday, born the day before Isla's birthday last year! Much to Isla's delight! The only other girl cousin on that side of the family. Isla said to me today that her and Evie and kind of like sisters :). We are off to Thames tomorrow to celebrate her 1st birthday, will be a wonderful day catching up with family, we are really looking forward to it.
Happy weekending everyone.