getting ready for christmas

I have to admit I am usually much more organised than I am this year. But we have been having a lovely time with family visitors and just before their arrival the semester at uni was wrapping up so I've been busy and put it aside for a little while. Thankfully much of the gift buying had been done earlier. But from today, getting ready for Christmas is in full swing! I made these awfully cute little "Christmas Puddings" in a flash to start of the festive mood. A friend introduced me to these a few years ago and now they feature every year. Too easy and so cute.

This is my favourite time of year. I love Christmas and everything about it. I hope to share with you some of the fun things we will do over the next month.

It is a magical and momentous time especially for children. For us it is a time for family, for faith and reflection, for gratefulness and for fun. 

I make our own Advent Calendar, which is my project over the next few days {here is a sneak peek}. 

I need to sit down and look at a proper calendar to work out which days are best for some of these activities. It means the month flows so nicely and we can always do the Advent Calendar activity that very day {unforeseen circumstances aside, of course}. I made these cards last year and will be adding to them this year.

I have seen this idea on many a blog, I can't remember where I saw it first. It is just the best idea, I love that it is completely personalised to suit us. I can fill the calendar with some chocolate, no chocolate, stickers, erasers, Christmas decorations and mini candy canes. I will share more photos of it when it is done and hanging on our pantry door!


Join in some Point & Shoot fun over at Chantelle's.

perfect pumpkin pie

I know Thanksgiving doesn't have anything to do with Australia, but I grew up with it and think it is a lovely little holiday. No big plans for us this year as it really does get lost here, but I did make pumpkin pie for my family and for a good friend {who is missing her home in America!}

It is delicious. Really. Try it! It is perfect for the holiday season, with hints of clove and cinnamon. It smells divine, and tastes even better with a little whipped cream on top.

I used Libby's pumpkin pie recipe, and bought Libby's Pumpkin Pie puree from good old USA foods, here. That links you to the mother of all pureed pumpkin cans, it made 3 pies and a few mini pies. They sell the smaller cans too, but you might regret not having enough to make MORE PIE.

Here is Libby's famous recipe for just one pie. Double it if you're using the nice big can! {The recipe is on the back though, which is great!}

• Ingredients:
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 large eggs
• 1 can (15 oz.) LIBBY'S 100% Pure Pumpkin
• 1 can (12 fl. oz.) Evaporated Milk {i used the low fat one}
• 1 unbaked 9-inch (4-cup volume) deep-dish pie shell
• Whipped cream (optional)

• 
  

  Directions:

  MIX sugar, cinnamon, salt, ginger and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk.
  POUR into pie shell.
  BAKE in preheated 210°C oven {depending on your oven} for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 180°C; bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. 
  Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve immediately or refrigerate. Top with whipped cream before serving. 
  ENJOY.

a bit of whimsy

I bought this beautiful doll from the lovely Sarah at Bit Of Whimsy Dolls. I mentioned her in another post a while ago. She has a fabulous new website now and it is filled with just the most beautiful girl, boy and animal dolls. We are going to be re-homing a frog very soon for my son! Seems he's gone from liking the oh so cute dinosaur to being slightly obsessed with little frogs.

Our new doll-friend is totally gorgeous and I am thrilled with her! She is meant to look similar to my daughter and is a special First Christmas gift.

I hope my little girl enjoys her new friend for years to come.

I can't wait to start sharing Christmas-ness. It's my favourite time of year. Just need to get organised and put aside the time.

{phonetography friday}

{using his big bike}

I'd love for you to post a link to your phonetography friday photo in the comments section if you join in.

x

phonetography friday

I absolutely love my iPhone. Over the past few months I have been playing with a number of iPhone photography apps. My two favourites are Cross Process and Hipstamatic. 

Cross Process is useful because you can use the app on photos you have already taken, where as Hipstamatic is an app that you need to take the photos through

If you are like me, your phone is always on you. I always carry a camera in my bag everywhere we go, but often take photos with my camera too. These photos are usually very 'in the moment' photos and they end up being quite special in making memories count! You know that saying - "the best camera is the one you have with you". Very true!

I like to think that these apps help make my photos look a little less 'camera phone' and a little more 'phone-tographic'.  

Perhaps you'll join me in phonetography friday this upcoming Friday? Just use your phone to take a photo of anything. It could be your breakfast, you kids, yourself, anything from your week. Make the photos you take with your camera phone count!

If you take part I would love for you to leave a link to your photo in the comments section.

Looking forward to Friday!

{image from here}

6 months {point & shoot}

Where has it gone? Over the weekend my little baby became a 6 month old!

Everyday I am thankful for this little bundle of pure joy. 

Everyday I am thankful that I am able to be a mother. For me, it is the best thing in the world, and I love it.

Happy 6 Months to my little girl. Time has gone so fast, and I am amazed each day by you.

 I love your ever growing personality, your smile and your laugh. 

The way you take it all in. 

The way you look at me at 5am in the morning. 

The way even Daddy is happy to see you when the clock says 3:43am. 

The way you love your big brother. 

The way your hair is just crazy. 

The way you look when you know you're sitting up on your own. 

That you think the shower is just the most wonderful thing ever. 

The way you are, I love it all.

x

Find more weekend point & shoot fun over at Fat Mum Slim's. 

Salt Dough Pumpkins

Ok, Halloween stuff will be over soon. But we just had so much fun I thought I'd share another thing we did.

I love salt dough {but my current recipe isn't that flash, anyone have a great one they could share?}

I used our pumpkin cookie cutter {same one I used for the iced sugar cookies for the party} and made these little pumpkins. I just coloured the dough orange with some food colouring, and made a little bit of it brown too for the pumpkin stems. 

We made quite a few of these, and there was still some dough left over so of course Master 3 got to do some creating of his own. 

 Before putting them in the oven I used the larger end of a wooden skewer to make a hole so that I could thread the pumpkin with some twine to make a necklace.

I love it when I let him go wild with his imagination and watching him create is such a joy. He had a ball decorating the little pumpkins and in the end I think he made 5 all by himself. This one was my favourite, such a cute face. It was his 'pumpkin medal'. He made the face all on his own.

I drew faces on them with a normal black permanent marker. I feel this looked better than trying to 'draw' the face into the dough before baking. They looked really nice just plain too!

This is such a fun and project and you can do anything with salt dough! We use it for almost every occasion it is that versatile. Every year we make Christmas decorations and have made easter egg shapes, too. I will be making more of these next year to hang around the house as Halloween decorations.

And then also with my pumpkin cookie cutter I made this little guy to accompany Master 3's lunch that day. You can have so much fun with an inexpensive cookie cutter!

Halloween Buffet Table

It's taken me a while to get back here to post photos of our Halloween Buffet Table. 

We had about 15 kids here {kids from my son's Kindy class and some of their siblings + my 2 stepkiddos} for Halloween. All the little kiddies were 4 and under!

For most of them this was their first taste of Halloween fun! I think some parents were a little apprehensive, thinking it would be all scary and gory. Most didn't know that you can dress your child in anything! It doesn't have to be scary, a witch, vampire or grim reaper. I think that made it a lot more acceptable, just a costume party with a lot of pumpkins, spiders and a few friendly ghosts thrown in. The kids had a ball, all the food was gone, and the parents all seemed happy. I am so glad it all went well!

I took some photos of the Buffet Table before the crowd arrived. Some changes were made after these photos, with the addition of some super cute dairy and egg free cupcakes a friend brought and a gorgeous platter another friend made filled with orange carrot sticks and fresh blue berries in the shape and design of a jack-o-lantern face. She also provided very cool stickers for the drinks with labels like "Spider Venom" and "Sulphuric Elixir" to stick on bottles of juice. She bought them in America {she is from there} and they were such a highlight to the table. Of course the kids didn't understand, nor notice, it was just a nice touch for the parents. 

I also sadly don't have many photos of the actual party and of the kids dressed up. I guess when the crowd arrive it was just so full on that photos just didn't happen which is so sad. We had great costumes here, with my son being a chef and my daughter a lady bug. We had a couple of super cute witches, a dinosaur, a wizard, a princess and a Buzz Lightyear too! 

This was our table, you've probably seen all of these ideas before, but I had so much fun and loved being inspired by all the fabulous ideas floating around the web.

On the right we have a self serve "Terrifying Treats" bar. We had orange ears, orange and brown M&M's, Peanut Butter Cups and Hershey's kisses, witchety grubs, black cats, candy corn and some ghost marshmallows. The ghost marshmallows were so easy, I just drew faces on them with edible black pen. I didn't put any sweets or treats in the take home goodie bags so that the parents could pick and choose and decide how much was going to go home with them.

We had cute pumpkin iced sugar cookies

Spinach, mushroom and leek quiches

Corn, cheese and chive muffins. The cute toppers are from the Shindig Halloween Printable pack I bought. I used these little circles on the party cups too.

These were so easy and so cute. I can't remember where I've seen them, but they are a popular way to jazz up and halloween-ify some favourite party treats. I used preservative free, gluten free, reduced fat sausages and they tasted so good.

And the most popular item on the Halloween Buffet Table; Oreo Cookie Pops.

Bakerella introduced me to using Oreos and cream cheese to make Oreo Truffles. Cake pops are really popular too, using candy melts to coat them. But I didn't want to mess around with something new, and thought the Oreo Truffles could be made bigger, and stuck on a stick, and dipped in coloured chocolate for ease {candy melts aren't easy to find here in Australia, and when you do find them they are a little pricey!} 

So these are just oreo cookie pops, dipped in white chocolate and orange coloured white chocolate. My edible pen didn't work well for making the faces, so I used black{ish} coloured chocolate to make the faces. That was probably the most tedious part, but I love things like that and enjoyed it!

Aren't they cute!? They were SO.YUMMY. You can see a tutorial on how I make oreo pops here.

We also had some mini cupcakes. This was the first time I've attempted to swirl my frosting on. Wow, how easy is it! I coloured some sugar green and sprinkled it on for a nice touch.

The kids all went home with a little goodie bag. They were filled with a few simple things, a Halloween pencil, some chalk tied with orange ribbon, a spider ring and a small little pumpkin bucket. Parents filled the bags with sweets from the "Terrifying Treats" bar on the buffet before they left.

 I had so much fun putting this party together. I am so happy the kids had a blast! 

x