Gabbie's Gourmet Taste Bud Tingler
We have discovered the BEST addition to our kitchen table ever. Gabbie's Chilli Jam! No matter what I serve up it tastes 100% better with some of this taste bud tingler spread on it!
We have discovered the BEST addition to our kitchen table ever. Gabbie's Chilli Jam! No matter what I serve up it tastes 100% better with some of this taste bud tingler spread on it!
Rain and Rugby don't mix. They make for soggy pitches and cold miserable spectators.
Late nights and early starts don't mix well either. Glasses of (Rhiannon!) bubbles that taste so good in the wee small hours in the company of friends make for muggy heads and bodies that don't want to crawl out of bed at 7.30am to get three kids up and dressed and off to Rugby matches.
When I looked out the window this morning at the rain pitter pattering on the patio below I confidently assumed that Rugby was cancelled. A phone call to Gareth's Rugby coach took the smile off my face, it was still kick off at 9am.
Rhiannon is a Welsh name. In ancient Welsh folklore Rhiannon was a horse goddess.
It is an unusual name and outside of Wales your rarely hear anyone called it. It is also one one those names that you never see on those stands with personalised name keyrings, bookmarks, pens etc.
Rhiannon has had a bit of a growth spurt. Her school tracksuit pants that she wore last winter are half way up her shins. During the summer she wore the school shorts but now it is CHILLY and she desperately needed warmer bottoms. We searched all the local (and not so local) shops looking for a new pair her size with no luck. All we could find was age 4 or 10.
Eventually we settled on a size 10 with a drawstring waist and legs that were ridiculously long. Nothing a sewing machine couldn't put right I thought....
Note to self: Don't leave clothing adjustments to the actual morning they are needed!At 8am this morning, in my pj's, hair sticking up wildly and 20minutes before we needed to be driving to school, out came the sewing machine...
Rhiannon was good as gold. She stood on the table while I pinned, cut and sewed furiously. Job done, I threw the new shorter legs at her and raced upstairs to get dressed as she proudly put on her perfectly adjusted pants. I wish I could describe my state of mind the same way!
Granny and Grandad Joe live in Ireland. Every few weeks we find brown paper parcels in our letter box with colourful stamps with birds on them and a big green customs label. The kids don't even hesitate to read who the envelope is addressed to. They already know it is "CHOCOLATE BUTTONS FROM IRELAND!"
When my brother Joe went off to India last month, Rhonda and Cian moved up to Anne and Kel's house for company while he was away. We decided to make the most of seeing Cian by making Wednesday nights a regular "Get together" for tea at our house. There is nothing better than seeing our kitchen table piled high with food, cluttered with plates and a person in every chair, even extra chairs pulled up on the corners for us all to fit. It is noisy, squishy and fun!
It can be a real rush trying to get home from work, get the kids to do their homework, prepare dinner and still get them to their after school sports.
Some days I feel a bit like a taxi, tutor, housekeeper and nanny rolled into one.
Some days I am getting from A to B to quickly I don't stop to smell the roses but tonight arriving at Gareths Rugby training I stopped and looked at the sky...Wow!
The last 7 days it has rained. The weather man had warned us and he was right.
The next 7 days will rain, the weather man says so it must be true.
It will be showery on Sunday the weather man told us... and we woke to blue sky!
We jumped up and decided that we better get out and make the most of it before the weather man said "I told you so"
Guess where we are going tonight!
*UPDATED*
Our Church held their big Garage sale fundraiser today. It has been raining almost all week so when we looked out the window and saw small patches of blue we jumped in the car, pockets full of loose coins ready to go discover what bargains lay in store...
There were toys, jewelery, bric a brac, sweets, homemade cakes, tea and coffee.
Each kid bought something with their pocket money. What came home with us was almost less important than the fun they had exploring the contents of the tables and bargaining with the ladies behind them!Gareth ended up with a jar of lollies and the game "Battleships" A game that Byron had been reminiscing about last week!
Do we pass on humour in our DNA? Or does humour develop when we are brought up by similarly-thinking parents?
Would Byron ever need to doubt the paternity of his kids, specifically Rhiannon?
Don't waste your money on an internet paternity cheek swab Mr B...
Just have a look at the photographic evidence....
Last weekend we decided to go chill to the sounds of a local Jazz band playing in Pippies, a bar/restaurant overlooking the lake. We were all suffering from different stages of our Swine Flu outbreak head colds.
The weather was sunny but chilly and the band were on the outside deck.We huddled up with hot chocolates and coffees and
shivered listened to the band play a mixture of jazzy tunes.
It was fun seeing someone playing Saxapohone other than the talented Mr B in our living room. I think he enjoyed it too. Eventually as our fingers turned blue we admitted defeat and decided to call it a day.
1 Cup of Olive Oil
1 Cup of Brown Sugar
3 Eggs
1 1/2 Cups Self Raising Flour
1 Tsp Bicarbonate of Soda
2 Tsp Cinnamon
1 Cup of Walnuts
2 Cups of Grated Carrots
My brother Joe is working in India for a couple of months.
He has a new camera and if I am truly honest I have a mild case of lens envy. Not just lens envy because his new camera out gadgets my new one hands down but also because his latest photos he has emailed are, well, ...
So just a little message to you Joe, Ease off the talent a little can you. We all know you got a bit more of the Sheeran brains than I did, now can you just stop showing off the fact that you got a big slice of the artistic talent too....?!!
It was cold and rainy today. I collected the kids from school and when we got home I sent them running upstairs to get out of their damp uniforms and get into their pj's.
By the time they came back downstairs they looked much cozier and we made three cups of hot chocolate, whipped cream on top, marshmallows and sprinkles! What better way to forget it's raining outside than to get cozy inside!
Can someone please help me? I'm a bit confused. It's this stupid head cold. I thought it might have been swine flu for a while but Byron reassures me I'm overreacting. It's just that his head cold only lasted 24hours. He moped and sniffled though one day, went to bed and woke up 100% perfect the next morning.
I on the other hand must have succumbed to a mutated version of his bug because since Thursday evening my nose has run like a tap, my eyes are red as a vampire and I have worked my way through three boxes of tissues, two toilet rolls and a super jumbo roll of extra absorbent kitchen paper.
I have also been responsible for maintaining the Australian pharmaceutical industry in this trying economic climate. I have worked my way methodically through 4hourly does of Paracetamol, 6 hourly Ibuprofen, squirted numerous doses of Drixine up my sore nasal passages and rubbed a whole pot of Vicks vaporub on.
Just to support the alternative medication industry I have ingested teaspoons of foul tasting Olive Leaf Extract, multivitamins and Evening Primrose capsules. Not sure if Evening Primrose has any cold fighting properties but God help Byron if I were to get pre-menstrual on top of this already frayed mood.Tonight I even made a litre of chicken soup with 6 cloves of crushed garlic floating around in it. I look awful, I reek of Garlic and I sound like a fog horn.
I cant see any time scales on the tin of soup?
Does anyone know when I should be feeling back to myself again?
Gareth was invited to a great party this weekend. His friend Kayla was turning 7. The party was at a local swimming pool and there was a HUGE inflatable assault course in the water! Just in case it wasn't fun enough the lifeguards put detergant on it so it was covered in bubbles!
Gareth thought it was brilliant. I captured a small video clip on my mobile phone. It's pretty grainy but it gives you an idea of the fun they had.
Kayla's Mum Karen is a friend of mine. She had paid extra $20 for an extra lifeguard to help the kids along the inflatable. This poor girl slipped off a few times to the cheers of all the watching parents. I would have paid $40 just to see Karen on it instead! It was a great party and one that I am sure all the kids will be talking about in school on Monday morning!
Now I know I am in danger of boring you out of your tree if I post about how great Gareth was at Rugby every Saturday. I had decided to give you a rest from this topic this week....
I love kids, I love how their minds work.
I called in to see my nephew Cian last week. He is 2 1/2 and has a facination with clothes pegs.
He had three in his hands and was clipping them to each other to make a rocket. '
He held out the first peg "This is the motor"
He held out the second peg "This is the handbrake"
He held out the third peg to me "What is this one?"
I tried to think like a two year old boy... "I know Cian, It's a super sonic jet !!!"
He looked puzzled, looked at the peg, looked at me and said "It is a peg"