Browsing through the Edmonds Cookbook

as I was having a look through the Edmonds Cookbook I found this recipe

SPICE BISCUITS

125 g butter, softened

¾ cup sugar

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 egg

2 cups flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon mixed spice

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Cream butter, sugar and vanilla together until light and fluffy.  Add egg, beating well.  Sift flour, baking powder and spice together and mix into creamed mixture.  Roll into balls and place on baking tray.  Flatten slightly with a fork.  Bake at 190 C for 12 minutes or until lightly golden.

I thought it sounded good so tried it... the response from the kids was "Yummy can we bake it again?"

Life is full of bumps and bruises

especially when you are a boy who loves to run.  Dylan skinned his knee on Monday and this is the  result on Tuesday

and this is what it looks like today

so I guess a trip to the GP is in order just to make sure that nothing is wrong.

Happy birthday

So it was my friends birthday yesterday and she put on a BBQ which was great, got to meet her ex as they are thinking about trying again and being a proper family and some of her other friends who she talks about.  The kids are great friends with her kids so they were happy to play and amuse themselves and she had baked a Chocolate Mud Cake and now the boys are asking me to do one at home but for the life of me I can't find a good recipe.

Checking it out

We have a new community playgroup which opened today so the kids and I went to check it out.  Bonus walking distance so we got a bit of exercise but the room is small, there is no carpet on the floor so if a child falls it is onto hard floor, the kitchen is not safe for kids, it is just in the room and no way of keeping children out, they expect a gold coin donation but all they provide is tea or coffee, if you want your child to have morning tea then you have to bring it with you.

They are doing mondays and wednesdays but from next month the HIPPY Group Meetings are going to be in that room so they are going to have to change to another day instead of wednesday and apparently the goal is to eventually be 3 mornings a week.

Will go for a bit with Scott and see how things go.

What a day

Today I decided it was time to get the boys some shoes, they keep losing one so they have mismatched pairs and being boys they would rather go barefoot but Dylan keeps having the unfortunate experience of always standing on prickles.

Got both these shoes for $10, just excuse the mess.

Ended the day by baking (yes in this heat) a Lemon Sour Cream Cake.  Recipe in the Edmonds cookbook, for those not in New Zealand or who don't have an Edmonds Cookbook here is the recipe.

LEMON SOUR CREAM CAKE

125 g butter. softened
2 teaspoons grated lemon rind
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 cup plain flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup sour cream (that is half a cup)

Beat butter, lemon rind, sugar and eggs together until light and fluffy.  Sift flour and baking powder together.  Fold sifted ingredients into egg mixture alternately with sour cream, mixing until smooth.  Pour into a round cake tin and bake at 160 C for 45 minutes or until cake springs back when lightly touched.

Now they say to dust with icing sugar when cold but I prefer to make a vanilla or lemon flavoured icing and ice it properly.

Taking the cake for the picnic after church tomorrow so hope it tastes as good as I remember.

What a beautiful morning

The kids asked to go to Western Springs today as the weather was so good, so we did a picnic and made a morning of it.

With so much to do it made perfect sense, we fed the ducks and had a walk around the lake and then kids then played on the playground.

A bit of history about the springs

Here are some of the scenes around the lake

Here is the view we had while we had our picnic under the leaves of a big tree and enjoyed the shade.

Some geese and goslings came to see what we were doing

This is what amused Dylan a lot

Some more of the lake on our walk to the playground

I will try and get a better photo of the birds of the Western Springs Lakeside next time I go as there is information about each bird and it is a bit hard to read like that.

Some more of the lakeside on our way back to the car after the playground

This next one is the toilet block as I have never seen such a nice one before

Here is a map of the area

My thoughts on books I'm reading

I do enjoy reading and thought to put my thoughts down so I can remember what I enjoyed reading and what I couldn't finish due to boredom or just not of interest to me.  I'm not a professional reviewer so don't expect much.

PALE ROSE OF ENGLAND by Sandra Worth

I enjoyed this book, I felt for her when things went wrong which they often did.  There wasn't much to celebrate in this book but it was well written and I could imagine being there, just glad I wasn't as it was set in 1495 to about 1532.

Picnic in the park

Today it was such a great day that I made some sandwhiches and drink and then went off to Tui Glen Reserve for a picnic.  I remembered my camera to do a few more of the Dare to explore challenges which was to take a photo reading in a park or on the beach and then to take a photo at an Auckland landmark.

I'm sure that would qualify as a landmark.

The kids have now asked to do more picnics in other parks around the city and since there are a large number of parks I'm sure we will be having heaps of picnics.

Little monkey

As noted yesterday we did a discovery activity for HIPPY and we washed money so today Dylan brings me all the dirty money and asked if we could wash more money.

We are now collecting tarnished money to wash when there are a few more coins.

At least he is thinking and asking questions.

Pay it Forward

I noticed a post on my Facebook wall

2013 Creative Pay-It-Forward: The first five people to comment on this status will receive from me, sometime in the next calendar year, a gift - perhaps a book, or baked goods, or a candle, music - a surprise! There will likely be no warning and it will happen whenever the mood strikes me. The catch? Those five people must make the same offer in their FB status

so I did.. comment and put on my wall.  Got to think of what I can do apart from baking which I do enjoy but might want to try something new.

Audio books

The other day at the library I was browsing the audio books and found one that sounded like it would be interesting so I took it out and got a chance to listen to it today.

This is what I think of it so far:

THE DAY  MY BUM WENT PSYCHO BY Andy Griffiths and Read by Stig  Wermyss

It started off ok but half way through the first CD (there are 5) it was getting a bit much and really far fetched.

I might listen to the next CD another day but it is a bit too much for one day.  Great sound effects and voices by Stig Wermyss but that doesn't make up for the lack of a good story.

Catching up

Dylan is doing HIPPY which stands for Home Interaction Program for Parents and Youngsters and can be a lot of fun.

The first 2 weeks were so easy he got a bit too sure of himself and now he is struggling a little with things like cutting and pasting (both were introduced in the first few weeks) so he is a bit behind the other kids but we are using the holidays to catch up.

Today we had a Discovery activity where we "cleaned" money.  We used tarnished $0.10 pieces and tried water, salt, vinegar and then a mix of salt and vinegar.  He thought it was magic when the salt and vinegar mix cleaned the coins and made me clean all the others as well.

Lazy day at home

Just having a lazy day at home and watching the kids playing or fighting and trying to pretend they are really playing.  Great weather for them to run around outside, not too hot and not raining.  I have almost managed to catch up on my washing, so nice to hang it outside and let it blow in the breeze.  The cat has come inside once but the kids were a bit rough with her so she is hiding outside somewhere.

Church out of the box

Today we had the first experience of church in the park, what a brilliant day for it, wonderful weather and great company.

A challenge was issued today:  What does out of the box mean to you and how do we incorporate church out of the box into our daily lives?

Love vege shopping

I just love living so close to some orchards and things as we get fresh fruit and veg at a very reasonable price.

Today I got strawberries, carrots, apples, bananas, cucumbers, peaches, garlic, cauliflower and cabbage for just $20.00

Summer holidays 2013

The kids are signed up to the Dare to explore challenge through the Auckland Libraries and are finding the challenges exciting, they have made their own snowflake and designed their own chocolate bar (glad I'm not eating some of the combinations they came up with), named places, parks, roads in New Zealand starting with every letter of the alphabet and done a timeline for a grandparent or someone famous.  There are still a few to do but they have to the end of Jan.  at least it should get them interested in reading and thinking about what they are reading.

Thoughts for the new year

Well it is a new year so thought that this time I'm going to blog to have some way of remembering what we got up to and what we really enjoyed and what some of the low points of the year were.

Life is a bit hectic at times, Hannah is starting high school and Dylan is starting primary school and at some stage this year I'm hoping Scott starts kindy as he is a bit full on and needs the social interactions and more than I can give him at home.

Enjoy the ride!