A mixed bag

Nothing quite evokes the feeling of summer for me, than the Channel 9 cricket theme song! It's been a bit of an icon for Australian cricket since the late 70's and brings back quite a lot of different memories of summertime fun.

Of course with summer, comes the buzz of Christmas in the air. I'm just starting to get my head around Christmas which is creeping up rapidly. We have some of my husbands family coming up for Boxing day, so I'm working out a colour scheme for the day.

I'm not normally a 'red' person, but it has grown on me this year. So red, gold, silver and white seems the go for me. I bundled a few things together to see how it looks.

I haven't made honey biscuits in years, so gave them a whirl during the week. They taste delicious but they didn't look the best! After leaving the mixture for 6 hours in the fridge, the dough seemed a perfect consistency, so I rolled and cut out many, many shapes, but upon baking they spread and you had to use your imagination to work out what shapes they were to start with!!  My decorating skills weren't the best, but here is a look at some of them....very rustic!!  BUT as I said they taste great...yum!

We cleared some of the furniture out of our family room during the week as we had the carpet cleaned. There were quite a few stains around where the dining room table was and it's come up a treat.

The impatiens and lobellia in my wheelbarrow are growing really quickly and will hopefully fill the whole area.

My roses out the front and blooming really well. Nearly time to dead head some of them.

And of course our gorgeous little grandson is growing fast as well. He's 11 weeks old now and is freely giving smiles and has just started giggling.

Had some family up the other weekend, so we spent some time again at LaVilla for a yummy afternoon tea!

Have got a few Christmas break-ups over the next week, so if I don't make it back to do a blog before then, I hope your Christmas is an enjoyable one.

Christmas ideas

I was trauling Pinterest on the weekend for some inspiration for Christmas decorating and saved quite a few things to my 'Christmas' board.

Here are a few pics of things that I really liked and would be simple to do.

 

 Looks like stawberries, marshallows and maybe a chocolate or cake?

Cute Christmas cards made with buttons.

Decorate Pringle containers with Christmas paper and braid and fill with biscuits
or yummy Christmas treats as a gift.

Nice rustic tree with a message.

Lovely table decorations

Are you getting into Christmas mode?

Weekend Fun!

We had 2 of our friends daughters come up and stay for the weekend to catch up wtih their sister who also lives in Loxton.

They are lovely girls who we have known all their lives and have been like the 'daughters' we didn't have as we had 2 boys!

It's always fun catching up and talking and doing 'girlie' things together.

They were excited to meet Owen our little grandy and the fight was on for cuddles!!

Us girls went out for lunch yesterday at Lavilla. As always, it was delicious!

A giveaway that we had girls staying in the house was the amount of 'product' that appeared in our shower shelf!!  I had a little chuckle this morning when I reached for the shampoo!
This was the lineup.

This is what it's usually like!

We had a lovely lazy Sunday morning. Hubby had gone off on a day trip to Adelaide early, so I whipped up some egg and bacon muffins and I brought out all my 'Bella' boxes (about 12) with excess beauty products that I didn't require and they had fun going through them and choosing goodies to take home. Yay, it cleared up a shelf in my bedroom! I thought about taking a photo but respected their privacy as they were in their pjs and straight out of bed!

Yesterday morning when I was making a jug of fruit smoothie, I took off the lid to pour it into glasses and accidently pressed the 'pulse' button and I had smoothie go everywhere and had a mess to clean up!  Oops....quite funny though!!

The girls headed off around lunchtime today and I potted around in the garden and planted out my wheelbarrow by the backdoor with impatiens and lobellia.

 My impatiens either side of the back door are just coming into flower, they are a double impatiens flower in a pretty light pink colour. They actually look like rose heads.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.

An easy sweet treat

If you have a jar of Nutella in your cupboard and some puff pastry you're set to whip up a delicious sweet snack or simple bite sized finger food for dessert.

Simply spread a sheet or sheets of puff pastry with Nutella, like so

Roll up and cut the cylinders into 2cm pieces and lay upright onto a baking tray. Bake in a moderate over for about 15-20mins until the pastry is nicely coloured and crisp. Cool on a baking tray and place on a platter and sprinkle with icing sugar. Mmmm delicious! I bet you can't stop at one!

On the subject of food, I made some scones to take to a friends for a Melbourne Cup Day gathering. I normally make my own whipped cream with a sprinkling of icing sugar and a splosh of vanilla, but this time I cheated an bought the 'Dream Whip' whipped cream in a can. It made them look a little more fancy and the cream tasted quite nice too. Very handy to have in the fridge, I've found out!

 Our little grandy Owen is doing really well. Here he is with Pop holding a present they had just opened.

 

Wow, I can't believe I've managed to do a blog post mid week!

 

This and that!

Something I had been creating in the past couple of months but couldn't show you was a baby shaggy quilt. I came across a pattern on Pinterest ages ago and knew it was something I wanted to make for our first grandchild.

As we didn't know if it was going to be a boy or girl, I chose fun neutral type colours. Here are a few pics of it.

Above: Piecing it together into a fabric sandwich.

Above: Getting out my old 'Singer' machine and stitching away.

Above: The finished 'shaggy' side.

Above: The finished reverse side.

I was quite happy with how it turned out. Here is the link to the instructions.

Owen has just turned 4 weeks old and he is doing really well. He's a very contented baby and we are just loving and appreciating being close by to have cuddles and to be a part of his life. 

A couple of weeks after he was born, I went down to Adelaide with Daniel, Telesha and Owen so Owen could meet his great grand parents. It was a lovely day and he travelled well.

 

Above: Owen with Paul's Mum and Dad and my Mum.

My youngest sister came up the other weekend, and we visited some open gardens and ended up at a local gift shop / cafe for iced coffees...they were delicious!

Friday week ago I attended the MainstreetSA Awards dinner in Adelaide, representing the Loxton Chamber of Commerce and we were delighted to win our category for 'Outstanding Partnerships' with the Loxton Council. It was a great night. 

Last night I did a roast for tea as all the kids were coming around and instead of garlic or herb bread, I made some Yorkshire Puddings to go with it. I'd never made them before and was pretty stoked with how they turned out....they were a hit!  I used Jamie Oliver's recipe, which can be found here.

My camera is full of, yes you guessed it 'baby pictures'!!!  I won't bombard you with them, but here is one of Owen with Paul, it was amazing they had identical coloured shirts on....Ford colours of course!! 

I haven't been very good lately at remembering to take other 'non baby' photos, so must get my act into gear!

A new family member :)

I am delighted to introduce you to our first grandchild - Owen Stanley. He was born on 27th September, weighing 7lb 8oz.  The photo below is my first cuddle...he was only about 5 hours old...naaawww!!

 

Below...Proud Pop and our son Daniel (proud Dad!). I love the way Owen is looking up to Paul as if he's really checking him out. Owen was so alert the whole time we were there.

 

Below...Owen and his mum, Telesha.

 

Below...he was only in hospital for 3 days and then it was time to be strapped into his capsule and go home.

 

Below...6 days old. He's doing all the right things, like feeding and filling his nappy well!

Below...Uncle Adrian bonding with his nephew!

 Below...Last night he was comfy hanging around on Pops lap!

We are so fortunate to have both our boys and their partners living close by.

Owen's middle name, Stanley, was after my Dad (Stanley) who passed away last year and also Telesha's Pa's middle name is also Stanley, so it is a special family name that will live on.

Hope you are enjoying your weekend.