Biscuits a-plenty!

I have found the perfect biscuit recipe for Mamas... You can split the mix once it's ready and flavour it with...anything really - ginger, sprinkles, chocolate chips, raisins, lavender...

I imagine, not being a mother of school children, that this would be an awesome lunchbox baking trick.

500g butter
1 cup sugar
4 1/2 cups flour
6 tbsp condensed milk
vanilla esc.
4 tsp baking powder

cream the butter and sugar...add the condensed milk and vanilla...mix in the dry ingredients. This is when you split and flavour or put some in the freezer.
This batch I have done choc chippie, raspberry essence and coconut and sprinkles (flatten the top into hundreds and thousands).
Roll into walnut size balls and put on a baking tray.
Bake for around 20mins at 160 degrees C.

this is a half batch...made about 30(ish)!

Christmas for the Mr...

So the Mr has been coveting deco arm chairs for a while now... Eventually we hope to turn what is currently my sister's room into a space in which he can counsel clients from home. It's pretty much perfect for it - outside door, parking space, own bathroom. Anyway, this chair would go in there one day but for now it will grace our lounge and will be more than big enough for Daddy/Ellie bedtime stories.

 

I found it on trademe so now am hunting for fabric to recover it (and possibly the foot stool depending on the condition). I'm pretty sure he'll be STOKED...just thinking of a big reveal plan for Christmas morn! 

Will keep you updated on project progress...

Birthday birthday...

So we have been convinced up until this point that we were going to get Elanor a kune kune for her upcoming 3rd birthday...like these guy...

ohmygosh couldn't you just eat them up! Not literally, of course. We thought it'd 1. be a cool gift 2. be a good way to teach her about caring for animals and why we as a family don't eat them and 3. be like a little dog and they'd be the best of friends forever and ever! But....as Jason quite rightly said last night, the thought of bringing in something else that we (because it will be all on us for a few years) have to be responsible for, with the "sleep situation" and everything else seems...well...a bit mad! So the piggy may have to wait until next year. Or, if I get my way, until Christmas, because we all know Maggie will be sleeping like a champ by then har har har...

Now we're stuck as to what to get her, as we'd be so set on a pig...thinking caps ON!

Miss Maggie SIX(!)Months...

Maggie is 6 months old...where has it gone?? This month we had a guest spot in Miss Rosemary's chair on our trip to Wellington. Good chair. Very good chair! Maggie has been watching us eat intently and has been licking a variety of foods (including the pictured carrot). She has begun a love affair with Farley's rusks...mine still continues to this day...shame! Sleeping-wise she is getting worse and worse, but we'll focus on the cute smushyness and not the feed me every hour in the night-ness. It's official - she's mobile! Getting around in an army crawl style but she is getting up there on fours so stair-gate at the ready! We are all enjoying being four (mostly!) and are looking forward to getting amongst some sunshine and embracing the changes in and around us.

I guess we're on the slow decline (!) to Christmas now, but we have two birthdays before then - mine and Ellie's. Well, three because my Dad's is on Saturday too. Cake ahoy!

another no-cry sleep update...

no cry? NO cry?! Is this even possible? At the moment I would tell you not. Maggie seems inconsolable when she wakes up every hour or so, until I feed her that is.
We have been going with the book but I guess we have to "re-evaluate our plan" and try again....?
I am getting seriously over it but what can you do?
Remaining fluid and going with it is hard when all you want to do is rest your weary head for more than an hour and, to be honest, I thought we'd have it "sorted" by now. It's true, no to babies are the same...not even ones that came from the same belly, made from the same parts. Oh well...

no-cry sleep solution update...

I was going to do an update yesterday morning but after the cussing awful sleep Sunday night, I thought I'd wait!
It is going quite well, I guess. We are down to waking every 3 hours now so about 3 times a night. I must say it was hard at first, not feeding her every time she woke but then I realized she wasn't actually hungry because she went (almost) straight back to sleep after a cuddle or a pat.
I am guilty of, if she doesn't go straight back to sleep, giving in and feeding her back to sleep. Which must be fine with me because I'm doing it - if that makes sense.

So for now...this is good.
We truly were spoilt with the first babe sleep-wise. We were thinking the other day that when Elanor was about this age we went to our friends' wedding...and someone else fed her a bottle of expressed milk and put her to bed for the night. Craziness! Not so with this one...and apart from the tiredness, I don't mind all tht much that she seems to need me a little bit more.