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I would have to say that the time of the year I find the most enjoyable is when the Christmas baking begins!
This year I started a little bit earlier than usual for a couple of reasons:
- I actually had the energy to do it
- It was cooler on the weekend than I expect it to be for the next couple of weekends
- Our Thursday night craft group have plans of doing a 'communal' craft and decorating gingerbread people for the night this week.
I managed to bake a grand total of 60 gingerbread people, 25 gingerbread stars, 7 mini gingerbread houses and a plain cookie santa sleigh which will be 'pulled' by 9 biscuit reindeers. Not a bad effort if I may say so myself, but I did have to have a nap in the middle of baking it all! Here is a picture of the pile of biscuits:
The recipe I used will definitely be going into the Christmas Traditions Book (which I am going to be working on this week also). Here is a copy of the recipe I used:
Gingerbread
Ingredients
125gm of butter
100gm of brown sugar
1/2 cup of golden syrup
1 egg, separated
2 1/2 cups of plain flour
1 tbs of ground ginger
Method
- Preheat oven to 180°C and cover trays with baking paper.
- Use an electric beater to beat the butter and sugar in a bowl until pale and creamy.
- Add the golden syrup and egg yolk and beat until combined.
- Stir in the flour and ginger.
- Turn onto a lightly floured surface and knead until smooth. Press dough into a disc. Cover with gladwrap and place in the fridge for 30 minutes to rest.
- Once rested, place the dough onto a sheet of baking paper and roll out until approximately 4mm thick. Cut out gingerbread people using a cutter and place on trays roughly 3cm apart.
- Bake in the oven for 7 minutes or until brown (watch carefully as they burn VERY easily). Remove from the oven and transfer to a rack to cool.
The recipe is particularly good as it does not produce a 'strong' gingerbread flavour so it is perfect for the kids!
I will post a photo later in the week of the iced gingerbread people!
Tired! That is the word that sums up how I've felt this week. Work is crazy busy and we have had something on nearly every night for the past week or two! I am planning on sleeping all day on Sunday in an attempt to catch up and feel at least semi-human once again.
Anyway, here is a picture of me from this morning at the 29 week mark:
This week brought about a lot of reflecting on my life and how lucky I am to be here as this time last year, I was in hospital after having a tumour the size of a grapefruit removed from my tummy.
I remember how devastated I was to have thought I only had appendicitis and to wake up after surgery to news that I had not only had my appendix and a tumour removed, but that I had also lost an ovary. I felt incredibly angry towards people who kept telling me that everything would be alright and that we wouldn't have any problems conceiving, as they couldn't possibly know how everything would turn out.
Thankfully, everything did turn out alright and in another 11 or so weeks, we will be welcoming our little baby into the world!
I was so excited to finally find the time to use my spotty muslin fabric that I wrote about in my spring fabric collection post earlier this month. I knew as soon as I saw the fabric that it would be perfect to make a medium weight muslin wrap with, but I kept putting off the project as I imagined that it would take me around an hour to complete. In reality it only took around 20 minutes! I must say that I am really pleased with how it turned out:
The wrap measures 90cms x 90cms and is backed with a piece of white flannalette. Of course, I put on one of the 'boehm baby' labels just to make it look a little more polished.
I figured the wrap would be good to either pop in the nappy bag or the car for those summer nights that turn coolish suddenly, rather than an 'every day use' kind of wrap (which we have plenty of).
Because of the possibility of storing it in the car (and the fact that I really, really, really love the spotty fabric), I figured I should make a coordinating draw string bag as well so that the wrap doesn't get dirty. Here is a picture of the finished wrap and bag:
Because the project was so easy and looks really great, I am tempted to make some more. Maybe if I can get the project list a bit smaller I might do just that!
A couple of weeks ago I found a cute fabric which was white with pale blue and pink stars on it. I thought it would be perfect for the outer of some breast pads since it won't show through my bra, but is still nice and feminine.
There are plenty of tutorials around on how to make breast pads, but the best one I found was on Easy to Entertain's web blog. I particularly liked this one as it has a slight contour which means that (in theory) it should sit on the breast better.
I struggled a bit with what materials to use for the absorbent layers as there seemed to be no hard and fast rule about what was the best. Some people used flannalette, others used old cut up t-shirts and some used worn out bunny rugs. After a while, I made the decision to use white flannalette and some microfleece that was left over from some other craft projects. So long as there is a couple of layers of absorbent material, I guess it doesn't really matter what you use.
Although I used a tutorial, when it came to sewing the pads together I tried a couple of different techniques to find one that suited best. I found that using the sewing machine (as opposed to the overlocker) to make the entire breast pad worked best. I put my machine on a wide, reasonably spaced, zig-zag stitch to sew up the bit to make the contour and then used the 'serger-like' stitch on my sewing machine to sew around the outside. Here is a picture of the finished breast pads:
I am calling these ones my 'round-the-house' breast pads as I plan to make some that have a PUL (waterproof) lining in them for going out. I must say that the pads are more comfortable than I was expecting. Matty and I were mucking around trying them on for size and I stuck one in my bra to show him how it worked. Later on, I spent 20 minutes looking for the missing breast pad before I realised I was still wearing it *sigh*. I guess that's a good thing though!I estimate that they probably cost me under $2 to make the four sets and although the disposable ones aren't overly expensive, I do feel better knowing that I am being kinder to the environment.
Whenever I am asked what I have been up to, I automatically reply with "not much". I am not sure whether it's that I truly believe that I don't really do much at all, or whether I just think that what I have been up to is just too boring for anyone to actually care about. But today, I am going to tell you what I got up to on the weekend and boy does it involve a lot of cute things!
On Saturday we went to my parents house for a bon fire. Matty really enjoys these as it is pretty much a license for him to burn anything he can get his hands on that is lying around the property. I like the fire, but I am not as enthralled by it as Matty is, so I usually take some craft things to do and sit inside with my sisters.
This time was a little different though as my sister Lauren provided me with some entertainment. She had gotten a bunny (and named him Goliath) earlier that day and boy was he cute:
We decided that we needed to find some accessories to make Goliath look even cuter (I did try to get him some reading glasses from the 'teddy bear accessories department in Spotlight, but I couldn't find any!). Mum had a hat that fitted him perfectly though:
Unfortunately for poor Goliath their other Rabbit, Prince, has taken a bit of a liking to him (if you know what I mean), so they have to be separated. I do find it disturbing that Prince is a male bunny also lol....
Anyway, not long after we had finished harassing poor Goliath, mum came in and gave me a present. In my opinion there is nothing better than getting a present when it isn't expected and boy was this present AWESOME:
The school that mum works at had a fundraiser with Biskart cookie cutters and they are so cute! I was extremely excited by these cookie cutters as I was planning on starting the Christmas baking next week and included in the present were cutters for a Santa sleigh, reindeer, a Christmas tree and a miniature ginger bread house! They should keep me out of trouble for a while.
On Sunday I took a trip to Melbourne with one of my oldest friends and had a great day! I headed over to Mathilda's Market in Hawthorn and while I wasn't overly excited by the market itself, I did manage to pick up a set of cute little wooden skittles that I'd been wanting to get for Darth:
They were a LOT cheaper at the market than I had been able to find them online, so the trip was well worth it. The trip was also well worth it for another reason too! I finally found the quilting fabric I had been wanting for Darth's cot quilt (after searching for it for 5 months!):
I must admit that I was buggered by the time I got home yesterday, but it was my sister Jaymee's 16th birthday on Friday so we were having a family dinner and a cake to celebrate.
As I am the chief cake maker in our family, I put together a giant chocolate ripple cake for her on Saturday night. As an extra indulgence I put caramel between the layers as well as cream, so it was particularly decadent. Here is a picture of the finished cake and while it isn't 'cute' as such, it was really quite awesome:
I also got a little bit of craft done in the spare time I had, so I will post some updates on those projects a little later on! I hope you all had a great weekend too!
What a week! One day it's so cold you need the heater on, the next it's a tropical hot wave and you're sweating so much you need to change 3 times a day. Enough with the crazy weather, alright!
I have not been coping well with the heat at all. More so it is the sleepless nights than the actual heat that is taking it's toll, but none the less I am stuffed and glad that this weekend is supposed to be wet and miserable (apart from the fact that our fence probably won't get done again). Here I am this morning, at 28 weeks:
Earlier this week we started our pre-natal classes and while most people told us they would be an utter waste of time, I am pleased to say that both Matty and I found the first one very enjoyable. I guess it's the age old case of "you get out of it, what you put in".
The first class covered general baby care tips, activities to familiarise the group members and a DVD on breastfeeding. I must admit that I was surprised at the amount of effort required in a 'normal' breastfeeding experience. I had thought it would be much easier than it appeared to be!
One thing that did kind of irk me about the class is that they plugged disposables as the 'superior' nappy choice over cloth for 'environmental' reasons, as cloth nappying apparently uses more water than disposables.
It doesn't take much of a google search to find out that isn't the case. If they were plugging them for useability and convenience reasons then I would understand, but recent studies have shown that disposables use 2 litres of water more PER NAPPY (in the manufacturing process) than cloth. Anyway, I'm hopping off the soap box now.
This coming week I get to do the glucose test to check for gestational diabetes. Sounds like fun! Until then though I plan on sleeping a lot and eating my fair share of icy poles if it's hot!
Can you believe that it's only 36 days until Christmas?!?! Like most previous years, I am fairly organised as I REFUSE to do any Christmas shopping (unless absolutely necessary) in December, for a couple of reasons: - Shopping in December makes me spend a lot more money on Christmas due to 'impulse' buys; and
- I just can't hack shopping with sooo many people whose common courtesy seems to disappear in the lead up to Christmas
Apart from the shopping part, I really love Christmas. I love spending time with my family and friends and I particularly love decorating the tree and setting up the advent calendar.
A couple of people have asked me whether I will be making a new advent calendar for this Christmas, but how can I when the one I made last year was so adorable!
My sister and I each made one of these after seeing it in a Christmas Card magazine. We bought a cricut machine and the bags, tags and boxes cartridge from the USA and waited patiently for it to arrive. While we were waiting, we made the tree from a couple of bits of square dowel, painted it white and put our little screws in to hold onto our cute little bags.
Once the cricut machine arrived, we set to work making the bags and covering them with an array of Christmas papers and embellishments. Finally, to finish it off, we went shopping for an ornament to sit on the top. The stand is just a gift box I picked up for $2, with a hole cut in the top to stand the dowel tree in.
The bags are a fairly decent size and fit at least 6 small chocolates in them:
I always try to make sure that I put the same number of each chocolate in the bag so that Matty and I don't fight, although I think this year I may put an extra one in each bag for our baby (which of course I will have to eat!)
