Amos and Tilly

Amos and Tilly are great friends. They are in cahoots at Nat's Family Day Care and love music lessons too. Amos follows Tilly about and Tilly loves it!

Gardening

Since Tilly's Grandma came to stay Tilly has loved gardening. Here she is planting seedlings with her new gardening outfit from Janine

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I'm as Tall as You!

Uncle Matt came to stay. It was a real treat and Tilly loved hanging out with him. Look how tall he is!

Avocado

I was a bit worried this week that Kit was constipated. So I stopped shovelling the food down him and eased up a bit. We've had some avocado and the fig and plum puree today. He is just loving it and with two poos today we can try something new tomorrow - mmm what shall we have?

Family and Friend Trees

Tilly and I have started family and friend trees with photos of our nearest and dearest. A work in progress, it was lots of fun.

Fig Tart

Its fig time again. The lovely plump figs are just desperate to be eaten at this time of year. In the past we've made jam but this year with two babes that's not likely. So I made Sean Moran's fig cheesecake with a glaze of jam from last year. I didn't put enough jam on it, tasty but!!

Crafternoon 2#

This week we planted seeds. A bag of potting mix, some recycled milk cartons into pots, seedlings and lots of small gardening implements made for a delightful messy arvo. Thanks to Jane for hosting, and Alice and Jane for dinner. It was so lovely to see some Gail and Phoenix, mermaids, that we haven't seen for a while. I'm totally loving these Friday afternoons.

Ice Cream Kids

After our first crafternoon, Alice provided a special treat of a mini ice cream and the kiddettes loved it. They also posed nicely for this amazing photo (thanks Niall) before all going ballistic as the sugar highs hit!

Crafternoon

Alice offered to host our first crafternoon. Jane and Amanda provided the activities and Alice provided the food. It was a lot of fun and some fab pictures came out of it as well.

Tilly and Amos Create Masterpieces

Tilly and Amos have been having some fun playdates recently. Here they are enjoying painting and then a hard earned popsicle.

I look like my Uncle

My teenage 2 year old

Billie's Party

Billie had a fabulous party. She screamed with laughter, devoured her presents and blew out her candles with such gusto. A true petite party animal!

Tilly and Amos make Carrot, Banana and Sultana Muffins

My fabulous helpers tuck into their wares. After a hard afternoon's playing in the paddling pool, running and jumping all over the place and scootering galore, Tilly and Amos tucked into the muffins - yum yum!

Arkie's arrived!!

Arkie Nicola McConnachie has arrived. In true calm Caz style, Arkie was born five minutes after arriving at the hospital at 10.36 on the 1st March. Isn't she gorgeous!

I'm just loving the way our community is growing both with new borns to our original mermaids and new mums with their babes. Its been lovely to introduce the mermaids to Vanessa and Sam recently and having had a cup of tea with Amy, Quinn and Yeston today, was a delight.

Mermaids 2nd Birthday Party

We had a fab time celebrating the littleys 2nd birthdays. Some had parties of their own, others shared parties and some joined in the big communal mermaids party. Thanks to Margie who donated her house and a special mention to Freya, who had to put up with a bunch of older mother's clacking around for the morning. The cakes were divine, baked by Amanda and Jane and Cecelia arrived with bubbles for all. A real treat to see most of the group and celebrate in style.

Perforated Ear drum

Poor Mister Kit, he's had at least three colds and the last one resulted in a perforated ear drum. He was in so much pain he screamed all night. A very harrowing experience. It was quite a relief to hear that the pressure had built up and had burst his ear drum. This meant that he had returned to the happy smily baby that we had come to know and adore. However a second trip to the GP had me spinning a bit. The drum had healed but there was an infection behind it and so he has a bilateral glue ear. Our Dr doesn't think he will be able to hear much and we've to go back in three weeks. If the infection hasn't cleared then we will talk about a "plan B". A sharp contrast to Tilly, who didn't catch anything that floored her until after her first birthday.

Marvelous March: Kit's 5 months

Kit has started to eat some food. We've tried apple, rock melon and avocado - all a great success. He's been looking at food for ages and trying to swipe things off our plates and out of our hands as they go passed. The poor love has been looking longingly at our food for weeks now. So we gave it a go and he loved it!

Kit Rolling

Kit's rolling all over the shop. Enjoying it mostly. Getting a little frustrated that he can't roll back again, as am I when it happens in the middle of the night. He is loving exploring the world and giggling at lots of things, especially rasberries on his neck. He enjoys gazing at the trees in the back garden, listening to the rainforest music on the play gym, watching and laughing with his sister, greeting his daddy with a big smile after a day's work, kicking his legs in the bath and chewing his monkey.

No Fun February

After the gluttony of the christmas and holiday season, Silas and I usually decide to clean up our act a bit during February. We give up wheat, refined sugar, caffeine, alcohol and processed food. When we first did it we could only eat complex carbs, so no white rice or potatoes either. That was really quite hard. Silas is doing two weeks without dairy. I'm not going for that as I've got a real thing for milk and yoghurt and I'm breastfeeding a very hungry 4 month old. We are not so hard core this time round.

As usual the thought is much worse than the actual doing of it and we've had some delicious meals. I miss my cup of builders tea at the beginning of the day and in the afternoon. Sometimes lemon and ginger doesn't cut it. As we are allowed raw honey it means that there are a few sweet treats along the way as well. I've already posted about the Tahini Balls and here's a taster of our menu so far:-

Barbecue garlic prawns with green salad

Smoked Trout Kedgeree

Porcini Mushroom and Kale Risotto

Banana custard

Blueberry popsicles

Home made muesli with home made yoghurt

Asian blue eye cod and rice (Ta - Niall and Caz)

Home made macadamia pesto chicken with rosemary and garlic potatoes

Tahini Balls
Sardine and Borlotti Bean Soup
Rice Pudding
Chicken and Prawn Paella
Roast Chicken, Dutch Cream Potatoes and Carrots
Chick Pea Curry

Doesn't sound that bad - does it?

I've definitely lost weight - could be the breast feeding though. And I'm feeling healthier despite a fair bit of coldy fluyness about. Looking forward to a cool glass of wine though....

I've put the recipe for home made yoghurt below, its very simple and delicious and a money saver too, if you normally buy organic yoghurt.

Yoghurt

You will need a litre glass jar with a lid and a tea towel. We use the easyglo yoghurt making equipment but make our own in it.

1 tablespoon of yoghurt
1 litre of milk

Bring the litre of milk up to boiling point, but don't let it boil. Take it off the heat to cool down. Once you can put your finger in the milk and keep it there without getting burnt (not for faint hearted), mix the yoghurt with a bit of the milk in your jar and then add the rest of the milk. Put on lid tightly, wrap the tea towel around the jar and put it somewhere warm over night.

Voila! Yoghurt in the morning.

P.S. There are plenty of recipes that are more complicated or use thermometers but this works for me.

Spiced Peaches

Silas made some spiced peaches this week. The peaches came from lettuce deliver, a great organic food delivery service. They are family run and the service and produce is second to none. www.lettucedeliver.com.au/

Silas got the recipe from his brother, Jonathon, who in turn used an Elizabeth David recipe. I can't wait to to try them later in the autumn.