On Saturday the rain fell heavy and the sound of a courier van on the drive-way was greeted with great excitement. Sophie ran to the door to collect a parcel addressed to her, proudly saying, ‘It’s for me, see, it says S O P H I E!’ Inside was the cooking set she’d won from […]
Baking
Sophie’s sandwiches
Sophie would like to share her latest creation in the kitchen with you. All that’s required is plenty of bread, an assortment of cookie cutters and some scrumptious spreads, fillings & a sprinkling of 100’s & 1000’s! Here’s her fancy jam sandwiches (it’s amazing how much bread we go through when cookie cutters are involved!)… […]
Vlog Bake with Sophie
She’s the girl with the wooden spoon, forever thumbing the recipe books for something new to stir up. The biggest obstacle to her cooking success is a kitchen sized for an adult. She drags a chair around the kitchen floor from cooker to cupboard, from fridge to microwave, from the sink to the pantry. What […]
Alvin!!!!! Movie Birthday Party for Charlotte
Alvin and the Chipmunks 2 was in the house Saturday night for Charlotte’s 7th Birthday celebrations! The countdown for the movie party started days before. Fairy lights twinkled away the mid-winter gloom and balloons were strung up north, south, east and west. Goodie bags stocked, balloons stuffed with lollies and attached to elastic bands for […]
Chocolate cake to combat cabin fever
Sophie woke with a cold on Tuesday morning. It was one of those mornings when finding a positive reason to get out of bed wasn’t easy. Howling southerlies ripped through the beams of the house. Like most Kiwi houses, we have a metal roof which makes the sound of rain and hail feel primitively close. […]
Cooking with Charlotte: Chocolate cobweb cookies
Charlotte’s had a busy week at school and done brilliantly, considering she’s got a bit of a cold, even earning an ‘Outstanding’ certificate for giving 100% effort to all she does at school. She really didn’t seem ‘A1’ this morning so a rest day was definitely in order. She has been learning about procedures in […]
Cooking with Sophie: Butterfly cakes
Sophie whipped up some delicious butterfly cakes yesterday. The recipe and instructions follow. The biggest lesson we learned was DOUBLE the recipe! The recipe we followed was supposed to make 8 cakes, but we managed to make only 6. They must have used mini paper cake cases to make 8! We used muffin cake cases, […]
Sophie’s Super Energy Charged Car Cookies
She loves to bake does our Sophie (as much as she likes to eat!). On Sunday she whipped up some ANZAC biscuits and today, after only 8 hour’s sleep (see below!), she made these car cookies… So, little Miss Sophie, despite not being ‘A1’ was up chattering till 9pm last night and was awake before […]
Marzipan Toadstools
Christmas Eve 2009
It’s here! The children have been asleep for hours and went without wanting stories and much earlier than normal (Charli even tidied her room!). They have been incredibly excited and there is so much magic in the air. We have (I have) spent most of the day making a ginger-bread house… The girls started off […]
Tiny fairy cakes & a Labour weekend BBQ with friends
This Labour weekend we enjoyed the wonderful company of Steph and Francis (multi-talented nannies, early child-hood educators, superb baby-sitters and house-sitters). They stopped by for a BBQ on Sunday ‘avo along with an old friend of ours, John, who has recently returned to Welly for a while. John brought his son, Billy, with him. Billy […]
Kindi Fair Sizzles
The sausages were sizzling at Sophie’s Kindi Fair this morning. Dan and another Dad did a fabulous job of stoking the BBQ and selling around 300 bangers in the course of the morning. Thankfully the rain held off, with only a few drizzles, and no gale force winds to contend with. They could really have […]
Happy Baking Monday
Sophie and I started the week by baking a simple fruit cake from our trusty Be-Ro recipe book. I love the smell of baking and the house is now filled with the most wonderful, wholesome aroma. We gave this cake a big thumbs up for simplicity to make, little mess to clean up afterwards and, […]
Birthday Boy!
Last Thursday was Dan’s Birthday and having been out the Saturday before for some dance action, it was more about the simple delights of celebrating for the love of it! The girls are of an age when Birthdays equate to party, cake, candles and balloons. Needless to say; they were excited. Charli didn’t really want […]