Lets play a game

The kids were going through the cupboards the other day and found this.....

They wanted to know what it was then wanted to play it of course.  I tried a few excuses to fob them off as it's a bit old for them but in the end I decided the best way was to have a game and when they soon lost interest, we could put it away again.

First we had to choose our characters.  Was it to be Aragorn, Frodo, Legolas, Gimli, Gandalf or Galadriel?

Then we made our way around Middle Earth instead of London so it's all the way from Bag End to Mount Doom in this version of Monopoly.

It's now a few days since the game was unearthed from the cupboard and the interest hasn't waned.  I'd say it's probably increased in fact but then that could be because my six year old daughter is whipping my butt in most of the games we play.  The shame!

She keeps landing on and buying the Horses and Staff's (rail stations and utilities in the original version).  After she's bought them I seem to do nothing but land on them and so have been going broke quickly.

At least the Lord of the Rings version has a twist if you wish to use it.  It has The One Ring which moves around the board on all the Middle Earth Territories each time the Eye of Sauron is rolled on the dice. 

One of the dice has a red eye on it instead of a number 1 as you can see in the below picture.  There's a few other rules for when the ring is on a space which you land on but the most important for us lately is that when the ring finally lands on Mount Doom, the game is over.

This helps make it go a bit quicker for the kids and we don't get fully into all the bartering and mortgaging you can get into with a LONG game of Monopoly. 

As for Master M, he loves it too but that's mainly so he can roll the dice.  That's all he likes doing so we give him a token but no money.  He just moves his token about the board when it's his turn and doesn't buy anything or have to pay rent etc.

When he gets bored and runs off, we leave his token there and he then keeps going from where he was when he decides he wants to play again. (If he rolls the eye then we do move the ring.. he likes that bit too).

Hope you're all having a fantastic week.

xx Susan

MY unltimate comfort food

We all have some kind of comfort food and for everyone it differs because of how it tastes, how it makes us feel or more importantly I think in comfort food.......the memories it evokes.

My ultimate comfort food is chicken and polenta.

This meal evokes wonderful memories of growing up for me.

You see, both my Grandfather's passed away before I was born and by the time I was old enough to start remembering, one of my Grandmother's had a special friend.

His name was Fiorenzo and he was originally from a small town in the northern mountains of Italy called Sondrio.

When we used to visit them occasionally on a weekend, I always remember this dish.  We probably didn't have it as often as I think we did but it made such an impression on me that I can't think of anything else that we may have eaten.

My version is probably much easier than Grandmas and Fiorenzo's ever was as I always seem to cook my chicken in the slow cooker.  Most of the time I use my own tried and true tomato based sauce recipe which I use when I cook pasta or nearly anything needing a tomato based sauce. 

When I'm pushed for time or having a meltdown moment, then I just pour in a jar of bought pasta sauce. (These or indeed any other kind of simmer sauces go so well in a slow cooker).

As for the polenta, I cheat cooking it these days too so I make it in the microwave and not on the stove top.  It's soooooo much easier and much less messy and I refuse to cook polenta any other way.....even if that means I offend my brother because I didn't cook it in a BLACK pot. (Fiorenzo ALWAYS used to tell us that you could only cook polenta in a black pot....I'm sure he chuckled many times when he said this.)

To feed our family of four, I put one cup of polenta, two teaspoons of chicken stock and a good pinch of mixed herbs in the bottom portion of my Tupperware stack cooker.   Any good size microwave safe container or bowl is perfect though, especially anything designed to cook rice.

I then pour in 1 litre (4 cups) of boiling water, give it a stir and cook in the microwave for 16 minutes on HIGH (1000w), stirring at least once.  (I cook for 8 minutes, stir then cook for anther 8 minutes).

Then comes the HIGH in fat portion of the polenta to make a nice, creamy polenta dish.  I usually grate plenty of cheese (a minimum of 1 cup) and chop up a about 60grams of real butter to mix through the cooked polenta and let it all melt through.

Mozzarella is the traditional cheese for this dish but I often mix my cheeses up.  As I've always got some kind of cheddar or tasty cheese then this usually forms the bulk of the grated cheese mix but as I usually have parmesan in the fridge then I'll always add this in as well.

This time I also had a Trilby trio of cheeses in the fridge which included roasted olive, vintage and smoked so I grated some of that too.

Once the polenta is cooked, I let it stand in the microwave for a few minutes then stir the cheeses and butter through until it's all melted and looking like a big, yellow creamy mush.

I usually get two forks and rip apart the chicken in the slow cooker before taking the bones out.  It's so much easier when dishing it out and I don't have the kids trying to eat the hot chicken bones with their dinner.

...and the result once my family has finished dinner.  NO more polenta.  The kidlettes and Daddy all had seconds and were looking for more so I'm glad I only made one lot of polenta.  There's always still plenty of chicken leftover so it's usually polenta again for the next night's dinner (which is why I don't cook it very often as we truly would all be the size of houses) or sometimes I'll cook up pasta to have with it.

I'm never as popular around the house when I don't cook up a second lot of polenta though.

So there is my ULTIMATE comfort food and one I indulge in only occasionally as it makes my family appreciate it all the more too.

Hubby had never had it before we got married either and he was an instant convert the first time I ever made it.

I'd love to hear what your comfort foods are too.

xx Susan

This post is in memory of my Grandmother Joyce who passed away when I was 5 months pregnant with Little Miss R...

.....and Fiorenzo who is no longer with us either.

You are both thought of often and I miss you.

Easter Sunday

Easter Sunday began quite early in our household.

The Easter Bunny visited around 5 am and I seem to be the only person who heard him zipping around the house and the backyard. 

Lucky he delivered at that time because Little Miss R, who has been sleeping in until around 7am lately, just had to get up to go to the toilet just before 6am.

I heard her wandering around then she came in to tell me (with big excited saucer eyes) that the Easter Bunny had been.

The hunt was then on....

After the kids were sugared up early in the morning and then I did lots of scrambling to get things ready, we headed off to Caloundra to spend the day with Lovely Hubby's family.

We haven't all been together for a few years and as his brother is in the Navy and has been serving in the Middle East for the last 6 months or more, it was fantastic to see everyone again.

As we got closer to Caloundra we thought we were in for a wet day but thank goodness the few showers cleared and it ended up being such a gorgeous day.

Our kidlettes and their cousins had a great time playing together and splashing around in the water.  In fact we had a bit of a difficult time getting them out of the water for lunch.

After lunch and a bit of a fish some of the family left as they had other commitments so Hubby's brother's family, my Mother-In-Law and our family changed locations for some hopefully better fishing and play.

We found a spot that's designed just for fishing with a public jetty with seats made for just that purpose.

It was the most beautiful day and I loved my vantage point, sitting under the pandanas palms and looking straight into the mouth of the passage with Bulcock beach and one of the main areas of Caloundra to the left and the very tip of Bribie Island the sandy tip on the right.

Right in front of us was a bit of a beach where the kids could play and paddle and we could all fish if we wanted to.

By this late in the afternoon everyone was getting pretty tired but we were all happy to relax so while all the other adults were happy down at the water either fishing or playing with the kids, I decided to enjoy a bit of 'me' time in a beautiful spot.

It was such a wonderful day.

I hope you have all had a lovely Easter weekend no matter what you did or didn't do.

xx Susan

Easter Saturday

The Easter weekend has been pretty good for us.

Good Friday was a bit of an up and down day for the kids and myself.  It was the end of the first week of the school holidays where I had them 24 hours a day for myself.  Lets just say there were a LOT of boundaries pushed by Friday and I was elated to see Lovely Hubby return home about 5pm that afternoon.

Saturday morning seemed all about getting odd jobs done and getting stuff done but late Saturday afternoon it was all about FUN!

We headed over to my sister Sandra and her husband Jeff's place Saturday afternoon for a bonfire and barbeque night.

Master M and Little Miss R had a lovely time helping find plenty of sticks and branches to add to the bonfire pile in the backyard.

Thank goodness we weren't around when the snakes were shedding these skins.....

We were also extremely fortunate that it was the end of a gorgeous day and such a lovely early evening.

The scrap pile was ready to go.....

....and once lit took pretty quickly (mainly because of the dry palm fronds).

It quickly got bigger......

....and bigger.......

....and bigger still.

Then once it died down it was time to toast some marshmallows. 

The rest of the evening was wonderful.  Good company, good food and a relaxed and happy time with people we love dearly.

xx Susan

Indoor cubbies and camping out

First you need sheets or tablecoths that cover the whole table and way down to the floor on nearly all sides.

Put two dining chairs a small width apart and place a cushion from the lounge on top of the chairs. (or even just a pillow....the kidlettes had already pulled the lounge apart so that's what we used.)

This becomes the 'entrance to the cave'. 

...and so quite a long time of kidlette happiness at playing cubby houses under the dining table happens.  This makes Mummy happy too.

Packing it all up so we could eat dinner at the table was not such a happy moment.

I also decided that while the kids could have a camp out in the lounge room over the school holidays as we aren't going away in our beloved camper trailer.

They each got to have their own cubby which we made out of sheets and blankets draped over furniture.  I'm sure everyone has made these before, I know that my brother, sister and I used to make them when we were kids and had so much fun.

Mattresses were then placed into their cubby with all their toys that just had to join them.

The cubby's ended up being opposite each other and each of them could lay in their beds and watch the tv.  This was an important requirement as we were having a special picnic in the lounge room for dinner and a movie night to make it all that much more fun.

It was such a fun night and even though they stayed up later than usual, they still were asleep fairly early.  (I think the excitement wore them out!)

They also both slept REALLY well and didn't wake up until 7am the next day which is absolutely amazing!

I think we'll have to have lounge camp outs at least once every school holidays.

xx Susan

I have finished some projects

I truly have got a couple of sewing projects finished by the start of school holidays.   The first is a tunic shirt for me.

This is a LONG story but I will cut it short a bit.  I like tunic type shirts and I was looking for the perfect pattern.  I finally found it, took my measurements and made it to suit but found it was so HUGE on me it wasn't funny.

Used myself as a pincushion and pinned, tucked and squished it up all over until it felt much better.

Then I made my own pattern from that now very horrid looking shirt.

I'm much happier with the result, even if it's a boring, basic colour but I was using scrap material to make a prototype as you probably could call it.  I'm happy with most of it although it did need some kind of embellishment.

 

This time it was with some of the stitches on my new sewing machine.

I did the same stitch around the hem, around the neck and around the bottom of the sleeves.  It makes the whole tunic look so much better and I'm happier wearing it now.  It is only a muck about the house shirt and NOT one I would be going out in.  I will work on the pattern though.

The other thing I have finished is this dress for Little Miss R.  It's a 'Miss Molly' design from The Handmade Dress, and I'm pretty happy with this one too. 

Little Miss R loves it which is what counts but I know I could make it so much better.

I nearly didn't attach the ribbon between the skirt and the yoke because I thought it looked fine as it was and attaching the ribbon was a little bit too scarey for my skills.

I'm so glad that I made myself give it a go because it was fairly easy to do (even though I did make a number of mistakes), and it really does finish the dress off.

The biggest problem with my new hobby of sewing is that I have to iron.  Now my iron has been in hibernation for YEARS and if anything needed ironing, then it didn't even come close to being in this house.  So much so that my four year old son had no idea what an iron was until a couple of months ago as he'd never seen one before.

Now I really have to iron as anyone that sews knows that an iron is essential to being able to sew properly. 

The sacrifices we make for our hobbies.

Over the school holidays I've also been making some things with the kidlettes.  We've had a lot of fun with beads making bracelets and necklaces.

The other crafty goodness I've started doing over the school holidays is embroidery.  It's not as easy to get any sewing done with two very active kids around the place so I've been doing more crochet and having a go at embroidery.  They can easily be done in the lounge or outside wherever the kidlettes are as they like me to be near them.

I started off doing this small daisy circle which I thought was cute and would get me used to some basic stitches.  I think it's worked out quite well and I'm very happy with it.  My French knots were a problem though and really DIDN'T work out until I went to this site and saw a fabulous video tutorial and I've got it all worked out now. Yay!

Will I never cease to astound, astonish and just plain stupefy my family and friends by my current habits.

xx Susan.

How could I forget the tea party?

Before the school holidays my parents went away for a couple of weeks. That meant that I picked up my nephew with Little Miss R of an afternoon and he spent a couple of hours at our place each day.

I was sorting through my photos when I had a brief chance the other day and found this....

Little Miss R and Nephew J had mysteriously disappeared.  I could hear tinkling and giggling so I followed the sound.

There they were, in our entry way, behind the curtain, having a tea party with Little Miss R's little pink and white polka dot ceramic tea set. 

It was so sweet!