@ my house

I am so excited for my friend & her gorgeous feature in this months Home Beautiful mag.


Her vintage camera images can be seen on the wall.


Dreams coming true! 


Congrats Susannah XO
















join in with more 'at my house' fun here
A Spring Breakfast...



Today I did one of those HUGE grocery shops...My little one and I filled the trolley with ample amounts of fresh fruits and vegetables, assorted nuts, dried fruits, pumpkin bread, organic eggs, free range chicken, meat and of course much more. I was on a bit of a mission to come up with some new homemade snack ideas for the little one and we are all defiantly in need of a change at breakfast.

Breakfast is a very important meal in our house...the three of us always eat breakfast together at the table and for months now we have enjoyed streaming hot bowls of porridge. We like to mix the porridge up a little by adding banana, sultana's and a sprinkle of Cinnamon...or fresh strawberries/blueberries with a dollop of creamy Greek yogurt. It's been yummy and filling for all three of us, but I am in need of a major change. I was reading through my cookbooks over the weekend and found a recipe for homemade Bircher Muesli...I am really looking forward to giving this recipe ago:

Bircher Muesli

250g rolled oats
2 cups of milk
125ml cream
100ml orange juice
1 tbsp lemon juice
90ml honey
2 grated apples
2 diced oranges
80g sultanas
50g slivered almonds
125g natural yogurt

Just soak the oats in all liquids. Add the rest of the ingredients and leave overnight in the fridge before use. Top with with melons or berries.

I have also started making my own yogurt again with a yogurt maker. I use the Easiyo maker and the little yogurt packets are sooo easy to use and contain no artificial colours or preservatives are gluten free and contain billions of live cultures.
I am looking forward discovering some new healthy Spring recipes to enjoy with the family over the next couple of weeks. Anyone got any old favorite or new that they would like to share? to me Spring food seems so healthy and fresh don't you think!

Happy breakfast eating!
* this recipe was found in my Bathers Pavilion Cookbook on page 29.

Point + Shoot : 27



Friday 3rd Sept 4.30pm


So the hubby pulled a sicky and we spent a full 24hrs away just the too of us. We drove all of 25mins to get to our destination but boy it was so much. Its been ages since I spent some decent time in the city with my favourite friend and was so great to just walk around and soak it all up. 

Our hotel was smack bang in the middle of town which was nice and handy as we wanted to fit as much as we could while we were child free.



Here are few of my other favourite snaps..





I forgot how wonderful Melbourne's lanes and street art was.




We spent a little time shopping of course although got a little distracted by these teenages on a stage solving the Rubiks cube in under 20 seconds
(a little dorky but so fascinating at the same time)
On the way home we stopped for a quick game of Bowling .....




I kicked his butt :)


Hope you had a nice weekend too!




Don't forget to check out what everyone else did over at Fat Mum Slim
While your at it check out and join in with Claire's Week-a-boo too!!

Make a Fabric Dollhouse

Happy Monday! Hope you had a lovely weekend...

Today I must share with you an idea I stumbled upon over the weekend for creating a portable fabric/ felt dolls house -- perfect for the car or in restaurants or at weddings or any other time your wayward child must sit still for any length of time! Best of all, these 'doll' houses are not just for girls; you could adapt the design to make a 'barn' house for those of you (including me!) with a boy-o.

I found the tutorial here from the blog UK Lass in the US and I am so keen to make one for Fern! Check the basic example out below:
 
Isn't it adorable? And the best part is, the design is only limited by your own imagination! There's even a Flikr group showcasing the creations and variations on the dolls house submitted by other readers. There are so many amazing designs featured, I hardly know where to start! These are just a few of my faves:







What do you think? I really really want to make one. I'm thinking a horse stable for Fern, because she is slightly horse mad. With plastic horses, or maybe mini My-Little-Ponies. Yes, I'm full of excitement about this project except.... I am feeling the tiniest bit time-poor at the mo. Elliott and Fern are taking up pretty much 100% of my time and I am not finding many spare moments to whip out the sewing machine! I went onto Etsy to (shame shame) buy one but they didn't really have much in the way of pickings, and nothing really took my fancy. So I'm going to have to find the time on this one! But it will involve getting 2 kids into the car and over to Spotlight. In truth, I haven't ventured out of the house by myself with the two of them yet. I am the teensiest bit intimidated by the thought, and have no idea how to do it. Shopping stage fright, if you will. Helllp! 

The amazing self-raising baby


I'm thinking of getting rid of my 'word cloud' taggy thingy. It's making me feel guilty because Maxi-Taxi is easily the biggest thing on it which leads me to believe that I write about him way more than Cappers and The Badoo. Cue Mother Guilt (no Working required).

It doesn't help that Cappers has always been a self-raising child. Even as a baby she self-weaned, got rid of her own dummy and toilet trained herself. We're really just here to be a rapt audience.

She's an extremely independent, pleasing child. Rather smug, a bit bossy, a total dobber, but very much a sweetheart. "Look mumma," she will coo. "I gave The Badoo one of my dollies to play with." Actually, she has a voice on her that could cut glass, so it's actually more like "LOOK MUMMA," she will screech. And if she's standing too close, you can't help but wince. But it's a small price to pay for all the charm that is the Cappers.

She's a Kid Who Can. Cappers just gets it and gets on with it. Imagine my delight after struggling through a season of rugby with Maxi-Taxi (what is he doing down there, gardening? You kick the ball, Maxi, the ball. Oh, that's lovely, honey, you're a blue tongue lizard looking for insects in the grass, now go and listen to the ref, sweetie) to find myself at gymnastics with Cappers dazzling everyone with her co-ordination, interest and prowess.

I was beaming, brimming with pride. I'm the mum of a Kid Who Can, I congratulated myself. I was leaning back basking in my child's amazing canness when all of a sudden a stricken look came over her face. I heard a caw of what sounded like 'toilet' and then, the unthinkable. All over the super-absorbent gymnastics mats went that puddle, that river, that Amazon of wee. Dear god, how much had the Kid Who Can had to drink this morning? Was the humiliation ever going to end?

"She's really never done anything like this before," I called to the wincing audience as I raced a still weeing Kid Who Can't Hold On through to the bathrooms. "Really, not even when she was TOILET TRAINING HERSELF AT 2... DID YOU HEAR ME? AT TWO! HERSELF!"

Now look at me. Here's the lovely, capable Cappers and I've chosen to tell you the only story I know of when she was the kid who couldn't. It just proves that when things are good, there isn't really a whole lot to say. Have you noticed that?

Polka Dot Kitchen Winner!

Torie Jayne Giveaway
My contest ended yesterday and I just picked a winner using random.org and I am delighted to announce the winner of the Variete stores Polka Dot Kitchen Giveaway is...

Drumroll please? Without further ado, the lucky winner is...

Karen Sanders of the beautiful shop Cavania. Please e-mail me your details.

Congratulations Karen, you will receive from Variete stores a flamenco pink polka dot apron, oven glove, double oven glove and tea cosy; flamenco blue polka dot oven glove, double oven glove and tea cosy.

Thank you to all of you sweets that entered, to my loyal followers and new friends.

I will be doing this again! It is so much fun!

Have a sweet day!

in Daddy's arms





Amethyst & Aqua

Amethyst & Aqua
This week on Flickr Faves Sunday, I bring you an Amethyst & Aqua palette with these gorgeous pics. Check back soon for some more of the most inspirational photographers on Flickr.

Some beautiful shots from my Flickr favourites (clockwise from top left):
Have a sweet day!
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