My Exciting Life

I realised today that there are many things that make me happy.  Not the obvious ones like my kids' smiles, Nev cooking me dinner, or buying myself a nice new pair of shoes (when the hell did I last buy shoes???).  No, I'm talking about things that really shouldn't be so exciting...

Doing housework without any assistance.  Vacuuming without Alex following me around turning the vacuum down to low, or hanging out the washing without her destroying all the pot plants by the washing line.  "I am alone.  I can do the dishes!  Yay!" is NOT a normal thought process.  What's wrong with me??

Popping into the supermarket, taking only my wallet and phone with me.  I'd say just wallet, but I need the phone in case the tiniest human decides she's OMG STARVING while I'm half way around the store.  Anyway.  Nobody in the trolley singing Elmo's song at the top of her lungs (as adorable as that can be).  Nobody in the carrier meaning I have to do squats every time I need something from the bottom shelf.  Just me and the groceries.  Aww yeah.  

Only dealing with two pooey nappies per day.  Again, nobody wakes up in the morning and thinks "gosh, I hope I get to change only two shitty nappies today" but that thought has crossed my mind.  This is of course not to be confused with hoping for no shitty nappies today, because that just means tomorrow is going to be a world of poo.  Stinky stinky poo.  Everywhere.

Five hours of uninterrupted sleep.  This one isn't so relevant anymore as I have magical babies that sleep through the night from seven weeks of age.  Pre-kid (PK?) I'd feel half dead if I'd only had five hours of sleep before work, but the first time the tiny humans sleep for five hours straight is amazing.  I've never felt so refreshed in my life!

Good weather.  "Silly Ree, it's normal to be happy about good weather!" you might say.  You'd be right.  But I don't get excited about good weather because I'll be able to take a nice relaxing walk along the waterfront on my lunch break.  Oh no.  I get excited about good weather because I can do extra washing.  And it will all be dry by evening.  Super duper bonus points if I get to hang it by myself.  

And finally, finishing a blog post in one sitting.  This one took me a week.  

Spot Birthday Party

Little Miss Alex is quite fond of Eric Hill's Spot books (she has 16 of them at last count, two of which are mine from when I was little..!).  One of her favourites is Spot Bakes a Cake and she always says "wow!" when the cake is revealed, so a plan was hatched to make her birthday party Spot themed. Here's a wee look-see at what we did.

First, the invitations.  I downloaded some Spot placemats from this website, and through the magic of Photoshop, drew an Alex into the picture and added the party details (duh).

For the envelopes I got some coloured A4 paper and used these instructions to fold them up.  I also printed off some return address labels with Spot on them.

I drew four pages from Spot's Birthday Party, painted them all pretty-like and stuck them to the wall at toddler height along with the accompanying text from the story:

Alex and Spot checking them out

 Nev bought 10 helium balloons in bright colours (just like Spot's balloons at his party), and brought them home with him on the train.  What a good Dad!

We cleared out the lounge and set up a ball pit (do you have any idea how much mess a bunch of kids with 300 balls can make??) and colouring table with some of Alex's favourite characters and stickers.

The table had a table cloth just like Spot, dog bone shaped bowls for the chips and little metal dog bowls full of Pebbles and Jelly Beans.  There were dog bone shaped biscuits and because Elmo is her best friend at the moment, we had to make Elmo cupcakes too.

Ready and waiting with Elmo and Spot

 And then there was the cake.  Just a round chocolate cake, with pebbles stuck around the side, blobs of yellow icing with jaffas on top, sherbert rope things (Spot used icing in the book, but I wasn't about to pipe icing that thick all over the cake!), and four of the dog bone biscuits dipped in white chocolate.

Nev's Mum pointed out that Spot baked the cake for his dad, and it's Nev's birthday next Saturday so I might have to repeat the process with an Alex assistant.  We'll see...!

Other neat things I found online and copied were fruit (melons, pineapple) cut with cookie cutters into stars/hearts and cheerios cut so they look like octopuses when cooked.  And This is where I found the candles and paper plates etc.

Blog? What's that?

You may have noticed a lack of blog posts here lately.  I'm going to go ahead and blame the tiny human in our lives for that - what with her teething and growth spurting and teething and not sleeping and teething I haven't really had any free time without a still tooth-less grizzle monster nearby demanding cuddles.

So, what else has happened in that time?  I'm three, nearly four weeks behind on my photo challenge.  Nev has had one whole day off work. The cats went to the vet for the annual check up - Basil has gained 500g this year and Zari's teeth are shocking so now I get to try and brush them(!).  Nev's Gran turned 90 so we went north to attend the party and Alex was cuddled by many old ladies.  We haven't had curtains in the living area since Monday as the curtain rails had to come down so our new windows could be installed.  Alex has started throwing herself forward onto her stomach (from sitting) quite often and it almost looks like she might be trying to finally figure out this crawling business.  But not before she yells into the carpet a lot.

And finally, I've perfected the art of making a Brownie in a Mug.  Because I feel so guilty about neglecting my blog I'm going to share the recipe with my dear readers - all 11 of you (including my Mum).  

Ingredients:

4 tbsp flour

4 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp cocoa

2 tbsp vegetable oil (not an oil with a strong flavour, which I don't have so I just melts me some butter instead...!)

2 tbsp water

Dash of salt

Instructions:

Put dry ingredients in a mug and mix.  Add oil and water and mix well - it's easy to miss mixing the dry ingredients right at the bottom of the mug.  Lick spoon.  Contemplate eating mixture as-is.  Nuke for about 1 minute (1:20 in my 1150W microwave).  Brownie should still be gooey in the centre when done.

Words of Wisdom

Since taking on my new role as Domestic Goddess I have learned many things.  I thought I'd share some with you.  Gosh, aren't you lucky!

Typing anything with a baby on your lap only works in two situations:

1. Baby is not yet old enough to sit up by themselves and/or reach the keyboard 
2. You have your screen split with a TMBG DVD so baby watches that while you type in a tiny squished up window on one side of the screen.

Failure to comply with the above results in something along the lines of this:   

     dd ds  `  rffv fvrtc fff, a spotlight search, your window minimised and a slimy keyboard.  

Every fine day is a blessing.  Wash everything you can, heck, even find things to wash.  If you don't, mother nature will punish you with five days of rain.
  

No matter how much you hate folding washing, it is always (always!) quicker to just fold it and put it away than it is to rummage about Mt Washmore every time you need something.  This is extra true when a baby is involved as they always need socks, a flannel, a new overnap.  Do you know how hard it is to find a pair of tiny white baby socks in a pile of clean (white) nappies??  Also:  cats like to sleep on clean washing.

Speaking of the felines... If you are owned by cats, shave them to save having to vacuum every day.  OK maybe not.  But it will be damn tempting, especially when your tiny human is mobile.  (I'm guessing - Alex likes to stay where I put her.)

Lists are great, particularly when sleep deprived.  If you write a list of things and complete a task that isn't on the list, add it just so you can cross it off.  Completely satisfying.

If you'd like to get your pre-baby body back (or better!) don't buy any exercise equipment, just use your baby as a weight!  Resistance increases as baby grows, and you can do all kinds of exercises while holding them - squats (picking up baby), crunches (baby sitting on your stomach), arm curls (holding baby, extra fun if baby is in their jolly jumper harness) - just use your imagination.

Not knowing how to drive helps with weight loss too.  When you're going stir crazy being stuck at home all day, you have no choice but to exercise in order to go anywhere.  Try living at the top of a hill for added exercise..!  *cough wheeze die*

Any good domestic goddess bakes treats for her family (mostly herself) every week.  If you're going to be baking anything that uses baking powder or baking soda, wait until the child is asleep for a guaranteed long nap or for the evening.  Otherwise, as soon as you add the wet ingredients and the mix becomes time sensitive, your baby WILL all of a sudden require cuddles/milk/new nappy. IMMEDIATELY, if not sooner.  It's just not worth the risk!  This is why we often have Afghans in the cupboard instead of cakes.

Finally, there is no shame in writing a blog post while baby is asleep.  Even when you should have been folding Mt Washmore or vacuuming up 39487532 clumps of cat hair.

Weekly Photography Challenge - Week 4: Colourful

Or Colorful if you wish to be American.  ;)

This week I decided to try something I've wanted to do for quite a while:  make a rainbow cake!

Here is the final picture for the challenge:

Rainbow Cake, originally uploaded by rattyree.

To get to this point, we took the Edmonds Cook Book chocolate cake recipe and customised it.  We substituted cocoa for more flour, used mint essence instead of vanilla essence and then divided the mixture into six and added 2tsp of food colouring to each portion.  Mixy mixy and then drop into the cake tin.  The frosting is chocolate flavoured and full of black food colouring.  The spare Pebbles have since been consumed.  *shifty eyes*

I didn't get any pictures of the mixing process, but it looked like a leprechaun had vomited rainbows all over our kitchen.  :D  Here's the post-baking process for your viewing pleasure (pictures mostly unedited):

Despite looking so very wrong, I can confirm it is quite tasty.  

Moa Droppings

Moa Droppings sit

On the cookie tray to set

Tasty little balls

Moa Droppings, originally uploaded by rattyree.

That's right folks, I was a good housewife today and did some baking.  These even have the husband seal of approval:  "They're good!  ...For sweet food".  I wonder if he'd like them more if I had put the sultanas in like I was supposed to?  Vile little dried fruit that they are.