Well hello again!

Hello dear, dusty old blog. It's me, I'm back again with more promises to post regularly (which I know I won't keep) but I'm back for a bit at least. We have started a new project which I want to keep a record of so that my son (now 6) will have some proof of the fun things we do in the name of education!

Big sister (now 10) has started school since we last spoke. She has been attending since last September and is loving it. It has been a great comfort to me to know that although I have never made a concious effort to follow the national curriculum she has coped with the work well. Also, she has really zoomed ahead with her English work. This was always a struggle at home and she hated doing any form of writing; at school however she will go that extra mile to impress her teacher!

Sewing and Sowing

I've been so busy the past couple of weeks, hence the lack of updates. First priority was to finish the remaining show costumes in time for this weekends dress rehearsal. I had to make 6 swirl skirts in black satin and they were not fun. I was convinced I wouldn't be able to do them but when I showed my first attempt to the woman organising the costume making she said it was fine. I set to on the others and to my astonishment managed quite well! So I spent all of last Sunday and a big part of Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday finishing them off.  Hopefully they fitted as I didn't hear anything when Emily returned last night. She had been at the rehearsal all day 9.30-7pm, so was very tired. The show is next weekend!!

The rest of us were equally tired after two busy days in the garden. I finished preparing the veg beds for planting by adding manure, fertilizer and soil conditioner where necessary. I have now covered them with black polythene to help them warm the soil ready for planting.

Isaac helped me plant a couple of rows of onions, not much but it is really all we have the space for. We also added a row of late raspberries, yum! The ones we have are a early variety so it would be nice to get some more eventually that fruit around abouts July.

I  did a little  more sowing, this time mainly flower seeds  for my soon-to-be cutting patch. Lots and lots of sweet peas, cosmos, and rudbekia. For the time being, however, we are enjoying plenty of these...



The seeds I planted in Feb are looking good, the only failure were the peppers. I only sowed 4 seeds as last year all the seeds germinated and I ended up with too many plants. Not sure what went wrong this time, old seed maybe? I'll try again and if no success i'll probably just buy a couple of plants from the garden centre.

The frogs in our little pondhave finally woken up and there was much excitement from Isaac last weekend when he spotted one on our patio. Or as it subsequently turned out to be, two frogs mating!

Birthday Outing

It was Mick's birthday last Tuesday so he took the day off work and we went on a family outing to this place , we had a lot of fun.

The planetarium was a big hit. We saw two shows there, a film show called "Astronaut" which Isaac, in particular, loved and a live show called "Flight Through the Universe" which took us on the most amazing journey. The woman giving the talk obviously had a real passion in the subject which made it very enjoyable, so much so she over ran the time slot!

[caption id="attachment_826" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Here is Isaac learning about pendulums - or more accurately trying to hit Mama on the head whilst she is busy taking a photo."][/caption]

 

 

Here is Emily placing magnetic cogs in sequence so that the alram bell will ring.

 

 

[caption id="attachment_828" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Isaac having lots of fun."][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_829" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="You can't see this very well but it is a big tank of water used to demonstate a vortex."][/caption]

A Spot of Baking

[caption id="attachment_795" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Melting Moments"] 

 

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I haven't made these for ages and had forgotten just how good they are. The problem is when you see just how much butter goes into making 25 of these little mouthfuls it kind of puts you off consuming them.

[caption id="attachment_794" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Melting Moments"][/caption]

Well for about five minutes.

Melting Moments

makes 25 approx.

250 g  Butter  (I warned you)

80 g icing sugar

225 g plain flour

75 g cornflour

1 tsp vanilla extract

For the Butter Cream

80g butter

100g icing sugar 

1tsp vanilla extract or grated lemon rind plus a furthur tsp of lemon juice

Raspberry jam (opt)

 

Method

• Fan Oven 160°c . Line 2 baking trays.

• Put butter, sugar, and vanilla in food prcessor or blend by hand  until fluffy. Then add the sived, blended flours in two or three lots. If using a food processor now is the time to pulse until you see it "ball up".

• Flour hands and get large teaspoons of mixture and roll into balls approximatly  2.5cm across. Place on baking tray and flatten slightly with a fork. Make sure they are about 3cm apart as they will spread a little.

• Bake for about 15mins, they still want to be pale not browned! Leave to cool for 5mins before lifting onto cooling racks. Leave to cool completly before icing.

Icing

• Mix all the ingrediants together until smooth and use to sandwich two biscuits together. If you like you can spead with a thin layer of jam before adding the icing.

• Dust with icing sugar to finish.

• Put the kettle on and enjoy!

Happy New-ish Year!

Well I never did manage to post the photos of Isaac's birthday celebration did I? The camera went doo-lally and I'm still not quite sure if we ever managed to get the photos off it. I didn't manage any posts after that as I was ill for most of December, but well for both birthdays and Christmas and really have just been lazy since ;o)

[caption id="attachment_772" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Birthdays December \'08"][/caption]

Despite the laziness on the blog front I've been super busy round here. I am helping make costumes for Emily's dance show next month so that is taking up any spare time I have. Speaking of Dancing, Emily got her Grade 1 exam results back and she got a distinction! She had set her heart on it since getting one in Primary and I kept trying to play the whole thing down just in case she was disappointed, thank goodness she wasn't! I was so pleased for her, she worked really hard.

Isaac's big news is that he has started one full day at Montessori. Each Wednesday he has lunch there and in the afternoon they do cultural activities (this term it is about magnets) and French(which he adores). He has also started bringing home pre-readers which he was very pleased about! He feels very much a "big boy" now!