she...

gosh, she brings us so much joy.

girly weekend #2...

our little trip to the Collingwood Children's Farm...

Nora found it difficult to leave. 

What a beautiful way to spend a Saturday...or any day.

-  If you're wondering what the mysterious spot on Nora's nose is, she had a dive at childcare the day we came to Melbourne. Poor little sausage...

-  Total photo overload...

girly weekend #1...

Nora and I have come to Melbourne for a lovely weekend with my sister, Tracy. It's beautiful weather and luckily Tracy lives close to the essentials of Melbourne...

So far we've enjoyed delicious coffee at the lovely Cibi's - child friendly and great service; walked up and down Brunswick, bought some LongLissies, had a swing and have now returned home for a nap.

Some pictures of today's adventures and my sister's lovely home.  Tomorrow morning we're off to the Collingwood Children's Farm...

grateful - 3/52...

A few friends have started a 'Grateful Project'* on Instagram in 2013. I'm a few weeks late but I thought I would join in here on a weekly basis.

This week, I'm extremely grateful for a generous, sensitive and loving family. I've had to have some treatment which means I cannot see Nora for 10 long days. I'm staying with my parents while Joel cares for Nora.

the lovely surprises that keep arriving...

Here's hoping this project will keep me positive and grateful for my blessed life!



*I"m sure a few bloggers are doing this also.  Please feel free to join in!

therapy may be required...

We have been accosted with a crying, slobbering, happy then sad 19 month old. I don't know who this child is but I'd like Nora back! We can't work out whether she's teething, sick, has joined the Bon Jovi philosophy of 'sleep when I'm dead' or just testing the boundaries? Let's just say there has been copious amounts of shoulder shrugging and desperate sighs between Mr and I.

Right now, she's happily playing, opening and closing the window chatting to Daddy.  TWO minutes ago she was howling and throwing food on the floor...What the?

Does anybody know if there are some specific behaviour changes around 19 months? I want to see the light! HELP?!

baby bake off...

A friend loaned me a book recently called 'Bringing up Bebe' by Pamela Druckerman.  It is a life-changing perspective on parenting, femininity and life in general. The book is now being ordered and I will be putting my highlighter to good use. Pamela is insightful, sophisticated and extremely transparent. I hope to write a separate post about it but for now, head over to her website for more details.

One of the chapters in the book talks about how the French teach their children to cook from a young age (we're talking 18 months on). This teaches patience, independence and, I believe, the importance of knowing 'where my food comes from'.

I loved this idea, so we started yesterday! I had planned to make some cheese scones this week anyway and thought it would be a fairly safe starting point.

Here is the (slightly fuzzy) proof:

It was messy, slightly frustrating and it did test my patience.  However, I managed to nullify all those feelings and enjoyed watching Nora mixing, rolling, eating the dough and throwing (literally) the scones onto the tray.

I'm not sure whether she realised the 'scheeeese' (cheese) she was having fun with was what turned into the delightful hot snack 30 mins later but she will at some point, and by then she will be on the way to learning (and eating) all sorts of things.

Let the baking begin baby-peeps!

Lovely days...

What a weekend!
Thank goodness, it was filled with family, friends and gosh darn whiz bang kitchen appliances.

A friend held a thermomix party (incredible and incredibly expensive). The host was bubbly, full of food admiration, and we ate throughout the entire presentation. Bread, lime butter, risotto, a beetroot salad*, sorbet, a herby dip with crackers - YUM!

Joel and I made it to the movies, read the paper over breakfast, watched this little one strut around in her beads...

and filled my pantry with some deliciousness!

* Beetroot, carrot, apple and lemon juice, process into small chunks and serve.
**Check out Merle's Kitchen for some lovely baked goods.

Pumpkin Soup or Stew...

My poor little Nora fell and hurt her tooth on Tuesday and so that night we were awake...a LOT. At 3am, when I had resigned myself to the fact that it was now the start of my day, I made some coffee and toast, bundled Nora onto my lap, turned on ABC iview and started watching my new favourite cooking show Nigel Slater's Simple Suppers. It was the 'Hot and Cold' episode, which includes lamb and natural yoghurt, caramel apples with apple ice cream, hot porridge with cold milk and a lovely pumpkin dish with sour cream.

With a giant pumpkin sitting in my fridge I knew the soup/stew was a great idea for tonights dinner. The recipe is simple and can be done while doing other things:

Ingredients
40g butter 
2 onions, chopped 
1 carrot, chopped
1 stick celery, chopped (I didn't have any celery so added some red onion and capsicum)
3 sprigs rosemary
2 bay leaves
1 clove garlic, chopped
400g lentils 
1.2 litres vegetable stock
600g assorted pumpkin (total chopped weight) (I also added some sweet potato)
small bunch parsley, chopped
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
4 tbsp sour cream

Bubbling...

Preparation method

In a large pan melt the butter and then add chopped onions, carrot and celery. Add rosemary and bay leaves and after a few minutes add the chopped garlic. When softened, add lentils and pour over a litre of veggie stock. Bring to the boil and then leave to simmer.

Peel assorted pumpkin into large chunks.  Add to the stew, season and then pour over enough water to just cover all the ingredients. Put a lid on the pan and leave to simmer for 30-40 minutes.

When the stew is almost ready, add the chopped parsley.

To make the stew creamier, remove a small bowlful to a food processor and blitz it with 200ml of stock. Pour it back in and the stew becomes instantly more velvety. (I didn't do this as my pumpkin/sweet potato was so soft it turned into a soup just by stirring).

Serve the stew in bowls adding a spoonful of sour cream to each. 

-------------------
I also made up a batch of Jamie Oliver's Pizza Dough and later added some tomato relish and danish feta for a cheats pizza:

DELISH!

Where does the time go?...

I love reading blogs...

It only started a few months ago and now I'm hooked.  It's inspirational, motivating and gets my creative juices bubbling. My only problem is, I get so swept up in the mummy/working role that I don't seem to have the time to utilize those juices.

The ideal week would include spending time with family, working, researching, cooking, friends and some kind of craftiness.  At present, I'm so exhausted from working that the days I have at home are spent playing with Nora, cleaning and sticking to some kind of routine.

I would really love to be able to create this:

Thank you icandy handmade

and make this:

Thank you Manger

Oh well, at least I have these two lovelies to keep me busy!

How do you make time to be creative? To do the things you love?
I'd love your thoughts.

Good Times...

Hello Hello!
Getting back into the groove after the holiday was a little harder than expected...

Here are some snaps from our trip away -

One of the many beautiful breakfast's we indulged in.

Mushrooms in a white wine sauce, chilli and dill on ciabatta.

Yes....breakfast.

We had a brilliant time away.  Nora was truly amazing at all points of the trip, we're really proud of her and look forward to many more adventures in the future.  Koh Samui was a great destination and the Thai people are beautiful, smiley and so helpful.  We had a lot of time to stop, think, re-evaluate, not think, eat and enjoy happy hour.

We're very blessed...

Leaving on a jet plane...

Today, we leave on our adventure to Koh Samui in Thailand.  We're nervous and excited. Joel's never been overseas before and well...we're travelling with a 15 month old. It feels like we've been planning forever so I didn't think this day would actually come. Now that it has, it feels pretty surreal.

I've bought Nora these cute Fizz Green Native's:

I figured we'd be spending most of our time around water and it is possible that it may rain most days, so these little waterproof beauties should pull through!

Since we have a 7 hour and then another 2 hour flight to get to Koh Samui, I did some trolling through the blogs to find some tips on travelling with an infant.  These were some amazing tips from the lovely A CUP OF JO blog.  Check it out, it will definitely provide some great guidance on your next trip with the bubs.

Do you have any more tips on travelling with children?

P.S. I'll hopefully be having an internet free holiday so will not get to any posts until we return.  I look forward to sharing some holiday snaps with you.  Thanks so much for visiting...

In the garden...

Nora and I spent a little time out in the yard yesterday. It was seriously blowing a gale and quite chilly but Nora loves being free out there, pottering about with her little shoes on...

Watering the pavers...

Hopefully more of this outside play will allow me to start my veggie garden that I've been dreaming about. I have just purchased this book on the Book Depository.  They currently have a new offer every hour. Check it out here.

Today's the day...

I've been meaning to start posting for a while but was a little nervous about getting it right so kept putting it off.  However, since reading this blogpost from Imogen Eve I've decided to bite the bullet and begin with a small non-scary post.

So...

On Friday night, this little munchkin and I were home alone while Joel had a well-earned evening out. I decided to have porridge for dinner mostly because of the ease but also because I know Nora loves it! We added some raspberries which made it healthy and super delicious.

What's your easy go-to meal?