It's beginning to feel a lot like Christmas...

December has arrived with a Ho, ho, ho!  Last weekend, we had an exhausting two full days of Kid's Christmas Parties.  Much bouncing on Castles, climbing, riding ponies and race cars and everything in between.  Plus the visit to Santa for a gift and a hug.  I live for December.  The magic of Christmas and Santa just makes me smile.

Of course it isn't always smiles and joy.  It's also summer.  So it's hot, and sticky and we still dress up and do the "Winter Wonderland" thing on occasion. So everyone is exhausted after an hour or so.  I've had one of those weekends.  One with Christmasy plans abound, but for a short time.  I wasn't at my best, but then neither were they.  A bit of guilt that with the fun, they'll also remember my angry face or worse the way I shout when I'm not best pleased.


Saturday we headed off on a bus to Auckland for our annual (4th year in a row) visit to Smith & Caughey's to see Santa and his enchanted forest.  S&M have a fantastic window display every year and so it's my #1 start of December activity.  

 

The bus trip to Auckland was not too bad.  Audra refused to sleep and things were a bit squashed.  I think next year I may drive to Manukau and then travel from there instead.  Would be a shorter trip on the bus for us then.  Once we got onto Queen Street it was a quick walk up to S&M.  The whole way there though I did need to keep reminding Leandra to stay with me.  No fear, that girl. 

Once we got to S&M, I knew the line was going to be long.  So we decided to just go and see the shop windows first.  They were amazing, as always and based on Grandma's Kiwi Christmas by Helen McKinlay and Craig Smith.  I read the story out loud for the girls as we visited each scene.  At one point I had stopped reading and Leandra turned back to me, saying "read it, read it".  It was nice to know she appreciated this part of the ritual and though she was flitting everywhere, the story was important to her.

After the story we joined the queue for the enchanted forest.  It was a long wait but Leandra and Audra made a few friends in the queue and they played fairly happily with each other.  Once we got up to see Santa, Leandra was so excited and she told Santa all about her soft toy dog and Audra too.  Audra was not quite sure about the bearded man and so unfortunately, many of her photos involved her in full cry.  Once her sister joined her for some photos, she was fine but there was not a smile in sight!

Later we were joined by my friend Bridget and we got to meet her baby.  Leandra is besotted with all babies, and so Sophie got some extra attention.  Even Audra was fascinated by the smaller human.  We had a great time wandering through Albert Park and back to the bus stop.  But by the end I was exhausted and looking forward to sitting on the bus.  Little did I know, it would be an hour and a half late.  When it arrived the air conditioning wasn't working and so I sat in the bus with two exhausted children sweating and uncomfortable and grizzling because of it.  Then as we came into town, the bus broke down.  The driver wasn't even sure he could open the door because the electrics had gone!

Thankfully the doors were opened, and we escaped to the cool night air.  Then and only then, I was finally able to laugh.  The sight of Doug and the car coming to the rescue made me smile broadly and then we looked to see if anyone else needed a lift.  We took a guy over to the Uni and he was so thankful as he thought he had an hour long hike to make before our offer.  It felt good to help.

We got home and ate dinner and the girls managed to get to bed just before 10pm.  Leandra was up with the birds on Sunday.  I couldn't believe it.  Audra was up not much later.  I was so thankful for the extra sleep that Doug let me have.  Later this afternoon, I took the girls into town for the Santa parade.  We set up along the road, for prime viewing.  Then Leandra started to play up.  I ended up putting her in a timeout and we lost our spot.



Wow! Wee!

It wasn't until the parade got to us, that I remembered the reasons we go to these things.  Leandra stood up on the stroller, and hugged into me excited to see each float.  Audra was in my arms and all I could hear was "Weee!" as the dancers twirled and "WOW!" as drums were beat and costumed sights astounded her.  A streamer cannon went off with a loud bang, which resulted in huge fat tears.  But she was quickly consoled and back into the fun of the parade.  I hope that they remember today and yesterday, for all the fun had.  I know I will forget the tantrums (both theirs and mine) until we are in it again next year. 

Funky Monkeys!

Christmas Craft - Pipe Cleaner Wreaths

The other day I saw a picture on Facebook which inspired me to make these Christmas Pipe Cleaner Wreaths.  I wanted something fun, but easy to do with Leandra during Audra's Saturday afternoon nap.  First thing was first though, we went to our local craft shop and selected some pipe cleaners.  They had all sorts there, but we went for tinsel ones for a real Christmas look.

We then picked over the clearance glass beads.  These two bags of beads were $1 each.  I was hoping for a better selection of colours, but I wasn't prepared to pay more than one dollar a packet, so this is what we ended up with:

 

 

I got Leandra to pop the beads into a bowl.  That way, they were easy to grab, when we needed.  Plus they couldn't roll away all over the floor.  Even though Audra is in bed asleep, we need to be thinking of her safety - which means making sure clean up is a breeze.

 

 

 

I picked a gold pipe cleaner to start with, and started to thread on beads with approximately 2 centimetres between each bead. I alternated green and blue until I had about 5 centimetres at each end. 

 

Then I bent the pipe cleaner into a circle shape, and twisted the ends to make this circle.  With the ends, I made two loops so it looked like a little bow at the top.

 

 

Here is Leandra working on one.  You can see that it was relatively easy to thread the beads onto the pipe cleaners.  A couple didn't fit on, but we just moved to the next bead in that case:

 

 

Here is an angel creation of Leandra's because she thought my wreaths were a bit boring after the first one.  I love that she is so creative, and doesn't always follow the activity goal.  It can be frustrating at times, but I know it will serve her well as an adult.

 

I also love that she managed to line the gold pipe cleaner up with the two bead eyes so well on the angel's head.  She is amazing!

 

 

 

 

Here are my finished wreaths awaiting their fate.  These are great as a Christmas tree decoration, but I thought of two other uses for them.

 

The first idea that came to me was, as a napkin ring.  It would make a lovely little table favour for your guests.

 

 

Another idea I had was adding these to the front of hand-made Christmas cards.  Or you could add them to a gift tag on your Christmas parcels. 

 

Dress Up - The Power of Pretend

I've always enjoyed playing dress up.  When I started in my first full time job, I was delighted to have mufti and theme days to fuel the cosplay fire.  I don't tend to go all out these days, but I still like to participate.  I like to bring elements together, making things where possible but otherwise creating something of my own to be used over and over again in different ways.

This year for my birthday I had a Mad Scienctist themed party.  Once I set the theme I was online within moments, looking up costume ideas and food things.  It's so inspiring to pick something a bit different and to make it fun.  For me, my role as a mum has definitely coloured how I choose to party these days as well.  I would much rather a nice selection of dessert goodies, costumes and laughs than drinking all night long. Having kids is really just a great excuse to regress!

I ended up buying a real lab coat from a uniform shop in town.  I couldn't find a costume one that suited the idea in my head anywhere.  Having a real lab coat is just so cool.  Plus I'm sure I'll end up getting a lot of use out of it for dress ups and if Leandra and I happen to continue our science clips on Youtube. To the lab coat, I added some welding goggles I picked up online as well.  I already had a selection of cute dresses to go under the lab coat.  I thought preppy science chic.  A friend describes them as my dominatrix dresses.  When I protested, she re-named them the "strict librarian look". Apparently I can't escape that "look".

Here I am in my costume on the night of my party:

Here is me with my Audra or the "Surgeon General" as I nicknamed her on the night:

And here is my family:

 

 

After my party, Halloween was next up.  I decided to wear the same costume to work, with another dress under it.  I left work early that day, and stopped by the school to surprise Leandra.  She was very excited to see The Scientist in her classroom.  I took her and Audra to Treats at the Park in Nawton that evening.  A great community event we were introduced to last year.  For $2, each kid gets to visit different stations and collect treats and then there is entertainment and bouncy castles as well.  What more could a kid ask for?  Bouncing around high on sugar pretending to be whatever you want to be? Yes, Please!

Best costumes I saw last night:

• A teenage mutant ninja turtle where mum had taken one of those oval tinfoil roasting dishes, and sprayed it green for a turtle shell over black pants and black skivvy.  Plus a cardboard orange mask. 
• Medusa, where mum had weaved rubber snakes through the girl's hair and then sprayed it all green.

 
Leandra is very much looking forward to the next wacky hair day now.

My Mad Science Cookies

Whenever I see a beautifully decorated sugar cookie, I always feel so inspired.  So when I was planning my latest birthday party with a Mad Science theme, I wanted to give this cookie art form a go.  As this was my first attempt, I had images in my head of the beautiful cookies I was going to make and a much smaller dose of reality that I've never done this before. 

The recipe I used for my sugar cookie dough was as follows:

Ingredients
100 grams of butter, softened
1/2 a cup of icing sugar
1 egg
1/2 a teaspoon of vanilla extract or essence (optional)
1/2 a teaspoon of baking powder
1/2 a teaspoon of salt
1 and a 1/2 cups of plain flour

Instructions
1. Cream the butter and sugar together
2. Beat the egg into the butter/sugar mix with the vanilla
3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet and lightly mix together until it looks like breadcrumbs
4. Push the dough together until it forms a ball
5. Wrap the dough in plastic wrap and leave in the fridge overnight

 

6. When the dough has chilled, pre-heat the oven to 180 degrees C (350 degrees F).  Then either cut the dough into 1cm thick slices or roll it out on a floured board.
7. Cut appropriate shapes into the dough and bake the shape in an oven for 8 - 10 minutes or until golden on the edges of the cookie.

I originally did the dough with a white sugar which was fine.  But I ran out of white sugar after the first batch, and found icing sugar was a good alternative.  The cookie is smoother with the icing sugar. 

Also rolling out the dough on the board with flour was fine, but after a while I found the dough was getting over-worked.  So what I did, was chill the dough in a shape that allowed me to slice the dough into disks. I then used the cookie cutter on the disks.  This worked well and I didn't over-work the dough.

Decorating the cookies was the fun part. 

Icing
3/4 cup of icing sugar
1- 2 tablespoon of water
colouring to tint

In a bowl, mix the icing sugar with water until it forms a paste.  Add colouring to tint the icing paste ready to "paint" your cookie with.   Imagine the paste's consistency being a bit like clover honey, soft and easy to spread, but not runny.

Once your cookie is cooled, you can pick it up and add some icing.  You don't need a lot.  I used a teaspoon and added about 5 ml of the icing to the top of the cookie.  I then used the back of the spoon to move the icing around, coating the top of the cookie.  I scrapped off any excess afterwards, especially around the edges of the cookie.  I guess if you wanted a tidy look, you could pipe the shape outline and then use something finer to move the icing around, like a toothpick.  But I found it wasn't needed and once the icing settled and dried, most of the imperfections were gone.

Caution - the next part may offend - gross cookie alert!

Dissected Frog Cookie

I cut the dough into this fun frog shape.  I then coated the cookie with a pastel green tinted icing.  I found this great berry flavoured fruit leather.  I cut a bowtie shape out of the leather in order to look like the skin flaps of a dissection.  I attached the bowtie to the wet icing.  Then I selected a fun looking gummy organ.  I had hearts and lungs which looked quite freakishly realistic.  I used a dab of icing to glue the organ to the fruit leather and WAH-LA Dissected Frog anyone?

Lab Mice

Using a cute mouse shaped cookie cutter, I made a selection of lab mice.  These were fairly straight forward.  I coated the top with a white icing paste and then added a dab of red writing icing for the mouse's eye.

Beakers of Doom

This was a Wilton cookie cutter from the Halloween range they have.  I used the beaker shape, and painted the top to represent the glass, I used another colour for the potion in the bottom of the beaker.  I added some cachous to represent the bubbles coming out of the potion and then used writing icing to add the measurement marks on the flask.  I was really happy with how these came out.

Thanks for reading along.  Hope you enjoyed my cookie creations as much as I enjoyed making them.

Introducing Flax and Leaf

It's been a while since my last blog post.  Though I said that life would likely get in the way of my sitting to write this, I still feel like I'm letting this new creative outlet down.  Funny how human that is. 


As previously discussed in this blog, my eldest daughter loves birds. She reads about them, whether fiction or non-fiction and uses birds in all her creative play.  For the past 6 months she has been wishing on anything at hand (dandelion puffs, first stars, fairy wands), that she could have 100 birds of her very own.  Of course, 100 birds is a little over the top.  But it was her fondest wish to own birds of her own and so when a deal came up on a kitset aviary, we decided to get it. 


Last weekend, in order to round out her school holiday break, we pulled the kitset out of its box.  With the help of a family friend, and Daddy, Leandra was able to build her aviary.  We then set it out on the deck and went to the pet shop to pick out her birds.  Two Zebra Finches called Flax and Leaf.  As I type that I can hear my own voice sing-songing those words!  If you clicky click on the youtube link, you'll understand why.

My daughter is one with Nature in a way I wish I could be.  The birds' names are a reflection of this.  I wonder if it's a good reflection of future grandchildren's names as well.  Perhaps.  For the moment, she is 6.  Wonderful 6.  The world is full of wonder.  She is full of awesome.  And now, she has two birds and dreams of a massive free-flight aviary on a patch of land, where she will live in a caravan with the birds all the days of her life, writing, drawing and giving tours of her aviary. 

Girls Only Weekend

After a difficult week of sickness (Moore girls all struck down with the same nasty cold), we had a girl's only weekend to look forward to.  Doug had a pre-planned overnight motorbike ride, and I didn't want to spoil that for him.  I wasn't sure how I would go on Saturday because Friday I had a complete backslide which resulted in a 7 hour nap followed by another 9 hours sleep overnight.  But thankfully by Saturday morning I was feeling 90% so we happily waved him off on his trip and got down to some girlie weekend fun.



Saturday consisted of hot baths, jimmy jams, popcorn and movies.  The perfect way to vege-out with the girls.  Sunday needed to be more of the same so I decided we would start the day with a special breakfast -  muffin tray pancakes.  I found the idea for these on Pinterest, but I adapted the recipe a little bit due to the ingredients I had. 



You Will Need:

• 1 1/2 cups of self raising flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 1 tablespoon of sugar
• 1 1/4 cups of milk
• 1 big egg - I used a size 8, but a size 7 would do
• 3 tablespoons of oil

Optional

• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon of nutmeg

Mix the ingredients together in a jug and then put them aside in the fridge overnight.  In the morning, when you want pancakes, get your standard muffin tray and put butter into the bottom of each shallow.  Pop this into a warm oven until it's melted. 


I took the tray out then, and used a pastry brush to get all the edges coated in butter as well.  Then I poured a small amount of batter into each shallow.


From here, you can add whatever additions you like.  Frozen berries, chocolate chips or drops, or maybe a small dollop of jam.  Pop the tray back into the oven for about 20 minutes (or until they are puffed up, golden and cooked through).  Take them out and serve them with maple syrup or lemon and sugar.  We did chocolate drop ones, but I reckon a berry one would be delicious.  Another variation could be with some banana pulp and cooked bacon pieces.

If you make too many, I'm sure they would freeze pretty well too.  Now my kids have happy full tummies.  I feel great because I got some baking done this weekend (my personal stress reliever).  And it's toddler nap time! 

Edit:  I recently took the frozen left overs out and reheated them.  They were excellent, so the recipe definitely freezes well.  Thanks for reading along!

Since the bird survey a few weekends ago, we certainly have taken a deeper interest in the wonders of the local birdlife.  Last weekend, we made a trip to Hamilton Zoo.


We visited parts of the zoo we don't always explore.  A mild Autumn and Winter so far yielded ducklings, which waddled over our feet on the path to the Zoo's Wetlands.  Once we reached the main Wetlands boardwalk, we saw swans in white and black.



In the free-flight aviary we were very lucky to see a duck.  These are usually hiding in the water below the look out posts, but this time Leandra was able to go right up to one to say "hello". 


I was excited to hear Tui calls close by.  When I looked up, this is the sight that greeted me.  I could have reached out to touch him, he was so close.  What a wonder!


Since our last zoo visit, Audra had suddenly become interested in the creatures around her as well.  There were lots of smiles, and pointing.  She made a lovely little friend in the free-flight aviary too.  He even landed on her head at one point, much to her amusement.

This weekend, we took a few bags of whole grain bread down to the Lake and took a walk around looking for more birds.  We met some Canadian Geese, Australian Coots, Ducks, Pukeko as well as Pigeons and Sparrows. As we walked, we collected feathers.  We even managed some Pukeko feathers which are black with a vibrant blue tip. 

Audra had never fed birds before, so it was a learning curve for her.  When I first handed her the bread, she thought it was a snack and happily tucked into it (lucky I bought fresh bread!).  After watching Leandra and I break pieces off to give to the birds, she got right into it.  Her aim and strength of throwing was not great, but the intent was there which was amazing to see.


Leandra was in her element, feeding the ducks in the water and the Pigeons on the boardwalks.  Any time with birds is a good time for her.  For me, it's about embracing what makes her heart sing.  Engaging her in learning through an interest - but also building those family memories.  I remember so clearly days spent with my own parents, a picnic, stories of their childhood, feeding ducks, collecting cicada shells.  I share that with my own children too.

After walking for a wee bit Audra decided it was nap time, and Leandra set herself up an art table at a park bench.  She made a paper bird and attached the feathers with sticky tape.  She asked me to video this and made an Art Attack style clip to share as well. 

And here is the video.  Its 5 minutes long and she talks solidly right through it. Be aware that you aren't going to learn much about how to make a paper bird....:

June/July National Garden Bird Survey

Every year around the end of June/start of July, Landcare Research has a Garden Bird survey.  This is where, for an hour you go and observe your garden and what birds appear in the time period.  Then you visit their website and record your findings.  Its Nation-wide and for us it's a little bit of science and fun mixed together:



http://www.landcareresearch.co.nz/science/plants-animals-fungi/animals/birds/garden-bird-surveys


Today was the last day to complete the survey for 2013 and so I got us ready.  I cut up thick slices of apple and halved some mandarins.  Then we set about making giant fruit kebabs on bamboo stakes.  These were for the Tuis and the Silvereyes or Waxeyes that often visit our garden. Then we took pieces of white bread, spread it with some smooth peanut butter and sprinkled wild bird seed mix on top.  These were fairy bread for the other birds that like to hang out in our garden, like the Black birds and House Sparrows.  The Silvereyes also happen to like seeds and peanut butter, though I wasn't aware of that when we placed the fairy bread out on the picnic table. 


Although it was a beautiful day outside, it was chilly so we went inside the house to allow the birds the freedom to explore their new bird café. It took about 40 minutes for all of our garden birds to re-settle and stop being so skittish.  We watched and we counted the birds as they arrived.  At any one time I could only count up to 8 House Sparrows.  Once the Sparrows relaxed and started to enjoy the seed, then we noticed Silvereyes starting to glide in as well.  Five Silvereyes fed on the seeds alongside the Sparrows and no one went near the fruit. 

Towards the end of the survey time, our two Black birds joined the garden party (Mr & Mrs) and our lone Fantail who loves to flit around our garden looking for bugs.  It's much later in the day now, and I find myself checking in on our garden party every now and then.  I have Silvereyes hanging off the bamboo stakes now, drinking from the mandarin halves and eating chunks of apple.  I have Black birds and a Song Thrush enjoying the fairy bird along with an army of Sparrows. 

I love this time of year, because for the next wee while I will be hyper-aware of my surroundings.  I will note every bird I see, especially the unusual.  It makes me feel one with nature during the duller months of the year, which can't be a bad thing!


Lastly, check out cheeky Audra! So excited to be a part of the Moore girls' Bird Café adventure!