Recent karate grading.....and the flu

Think the 'lil guy has the flu.

The ACTUAL flu.

Yup, Dr Google told me that, he fits the symptoms to a tee. Or is it a T?

Poor baby, he's now so congested I can hear him snoring from here in the lounge.

Snotty 'kerchiefs everywhere, much to his older brother's disgust.

And we're going camping again soon, too, being school hols and all. 

Hopefully, he makes a miraculously quick recovery....

Now, the karate grading.

That's him in the foreground, with the brown belt.

It's a white belt class (complete beginners) but he's allowed to wear his brown belt which he gained in the Little Dragons, which is the class for 4-6 year olds. Which he joined when he was 3 and left when he was 4.

Yep, super karate kid that one.

He officially graded to red belt (next belt up from white) while he was still 4. 

He loves it (most of the time) and now has his sparring gear as well. Which he looks pretty funny in, seeing as it's generally sized for 6 yr olds and up. Although he's the youngest, he's not actually the smallest, being that he's a giant of a kid. His little friend  is several months older but about a foot shorter, that's him in the front row in the purple belt.

He looks so little opposite his sensei. 

Ah, a proud mummy moment for sure.

How to make a Trash pack birthday cake

Little Mr R has officially turned 5! 

Given my lack of cake decorating prowess, I sneakily suggested to him that maybe he'd like a trash pack themed birthday cake. Have you heard of trashpacks? 

No? 

Little wee collectible rubbery characters in the guise of various types of gross trash/rubbish.

Easy.

Take one large flat birthday cake. I used my favourite birthday cake recipe,  as always.

Mix up some butter icing, and add enough random colours, plus a little cocoa, to make the icing an icky brown colour.

Make up some green jelly and let it set.

Place a large trash pack bin somewhat off center on your iced cake.

Fill the bin with green jelly and spoon random blobs of jelly onto the cake.

Pile on small handfuls of smarties, and place some jelly snakes strategically around, so they can slide through the trash and slime.

Dot the trash pack characters around and put one or two in the bin.

Let a snake slither out of the bin and sprinkle a few smarties in there too.

See? Not exactly a masterpiece though, but the boys thought it was the best. cake. EVa.
Probably because they got some new trashies out of it, but oh well.

Too easy.

Please 'scuse the very ordinary photography...

And now Mr about-to-turn-8 has requested the same cake, so I get to do it again.

Maybe I'll even get creative and try it with a round cake next time. 

Ooh, livin' on the edge!



27/04/2013

Trash pack cake take 2. And no, it's not round.

Here's Mr H's cake, now he's 8, more of the same really.

The icing on this one was tidier, I had a 'complaint' last time that the icing was too thick and gooey, so this time I actually followed my buttercream icing recipe properly and smoothed it on more thinly.

Hmm, less authentically trashy looking perhaps but it appeals to the must have-order-and-everything-tidy side of me.

The bin is full of red jelly instead of green (specific request from turning-8-year-old) and I didn't put jelly on the cake this time.

The jelly on the last cake made the cake soggy in patches after a while, and seeing as I knew not much of the cake would be eaten right away, we left the jelly off to serve separately.

I threw a few clinkers and chocolate covered sultanas on too, more because I had them left over from another project rather than any inherent sense of design, but they work well.

I find the combo of coloured smarties and small rubber characters very appealing, I am just a fan of smarties altogether, they taste great, I love their size and crunch and they make anything that you put them on look snazzy. And they make decorating kids cakes too easy.

Yay for smarties!

I'm doing a whole30

Have you heard of the whole30? It's clean, strict, paleo eating for 30 days. 

Something I want to do, seeing as I've let some poor snacking habits sneak in of late. 

Whittaker's chocolate anyone? 

Don't go and look at that website if you're hungry by the way. Jus' warning ya.

So, I'm eating some of these....

Not too much of this....

Made this a couple of times...
Chocolate almond green smoothie
(Doesn't count as real chocolate...does it?)

Quite a few of these...

None of this...

Adding these to lots of things....

None of THIS...

Some of this...

As well as plenty of nuts, coconut oil, red meat and chicken.

Yeah, hardly deprivation is it?

I'm feeling great though, but then again, I usually am.

I won't bore you with any more details of it, but if you're interested I'm writing up what I'm eating and any results/observations here....My whole30.

Part of the whole30 is also getting enough sleep, so off to bed for me.

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.....

Camping at bear Gully

We went camping this year over Australia Day, down to Cape Liptrap Coastal Park.

A beautiful area of the coast just a couple of hours drive from Melbourne.

Lots of rocks for the kids to investigate.

Wildlife too...

Beautiful sunsets...

Some moody weather....

If you want to check out more of my photos you can see them here on the page I wrote specifically about camping at Bear Gully.

Hint: don't camp there over Australia Day, too many bogans!

And here's the 'lil fella on his first day!

More of 2012

Well, the Big Fella is 7 1/2 now, wow. Had a great year at school in 2012, too. 

This was footy day at school.

Passed his orange belt and is now on his green belt.

Enjoyed some time at the Farm.

And fished in the Mighty Goulburn river. 

The Farm is a great place for crafting and creating. No hair cuts happening, though.

A bit of bouldering whilst camping over Christmas.

Uncle Jono came too!

A bit of hiking.

Time well spent in the Australian bush.

More camping planned for the end of January, 2013 is off to a good start.

2012, such a busy year.

Mr 4 1/2 finished pre-school. That means school next year. I mean this year. School! He's so excited about it, asked me this morning that as it's a Whole New Year, can he start school TODAY....?

He got his junior brown belt and started in the big kids karate classes. 

Did not have a haircut for the longest time.

Played real, live Minecraft in the front yard. Eventually had a haircut, too.

Spent  more time at the farm.

And went camping over Christmas.

And, learnt to ride his new Christmas bike.
With gears....no more pushing-giant-4-year-old-up-hills for mummy.

I wonder what 2013 holds?

We survived the school holidays

I'd been waiting rather desperately (and so had the kids I 'spose) for the school hols, the eleven week term just seemed tooooo long. But once they were here I felt rather unprepared, as I'd been way too busy in the weeks leading up to the hols. I like to put in some pre-school-holiday prep but that just didn't happen this time.

But, we managed. 

Nothing high-brow, obviously.

Crafting....

Good old play dough...

More crafting...

Swimming, library-ing, beach-ing, lots of outside stuff, sushi eating, too much x-boxing.

And growing. Lots of height happening over here.

And just generally hanging round in trees with turtles.

Er, no haircuts though.

A one year anniversary

The one year anniversary of our stillborn baby passed by without fanfare in May. The day itself was uneventful and I managed to keep it all together, right till the very end of the day. Then just a few tears shed at the unfairness of it all.

We had recently spread Baby L's ashes, on this camping trip. They drifted away on the mighty Goulburn River, in the mid morning light. It is a wonderful place, and the farm will always have bittersweet memories for me.

There seems to be reminders everywhere right now, of what we don't have, I think I always see them but most of the time I ignore them and don't let them bother me. But the husband has been back in hospital having the plate in his shoulder out and going back to the hospital has brought back memories of our totally crappy year last year, which was rounded off by the plate-in-the-shoulder incident.

We're going on a snow weekend soon, with two other families. One family has three young children, the youngest being perhaps 2 years old, and a boy after two girls. The other have a five month old little boy. They're the ones who told me they were pregnant when we were staying at the Mansion last year. I haven't met their baby yet, so that may be an interesting weekend. 

One thing that irritates me is something that people say innocently enough. Seeing as our youngest (middle?) child is starting school next year, more people than I can count say something along the lines of "ooh, how exciting for you, you'll have so much time on your hands next year!" Well yes I will and no, it's not exciting at all. It's just an awful little reminder of what should have been happening next year.