Loving my girls

This weekend is girls only in our house.  Hubby and the big boy have gone to visit Gran in Raglan and have some father and son time (including test driving a new Range Rover Evoke - just incase we win lotto!).

Today we started off with our sunday baking.  Bear made cupcakes, pretty much by herself - just a little help from mum and big sister.

Then a little later we all did some decorating

And Junior Masterchef Emma chose to make afghans, getting her hands in and doing it all by herself

We also took the dog to our beautiful beach and again I feel so very lucky to chosen this amazing place to live

And then to see the girls playing cards by themselves was just so cool.  It is so neat to see them growing up.

I really am so very very lucky to call these two mine.

Barbs x.

Linking in with Loving over at MnM's

For the love of Cooking

We are a foodie house, of that there is no doubt.

One of our favourite TV programmes is Master Chef.   And we are all about having masterchef  challenges and that extends to the kids as well.

As I am little out of sorts at the moment, the family has had to take over the cooking duties and this morning I asked Emma to make something for morning tea.  She chose Hokey Pokey Biscuits from the good old Edmonds Cook Book.

Cookie Baker

Emma did a great job, Hubby said they were the best home made cookies he had had in a long time.  Miss Emma was most pleased and asked if she had made the next round! Maybe this MasterChef addiction is a getting a little out of hand.

Here is the recipe she used.

125g Olivani

1/2 Cup Sugar

1 Tbsp golden Syrup

1 Tbsp Oat Milk

1 1/2 Cups plain flour

1 tsp baking soda

Preheat oven to 180C

Combine Olivani, sugar, golden syrup and milk in a saucepan and heat until the olivani has melted and the mixture starts to come to the boil.  Stir all the time.

Remove from heat and allow to cool for about 10 minutes.

Sift in the flour and baking soda and then mix well.

Roll into small balls and place on ungreased cold oven trays.  Flatten with a fork.

Bake for about 15 minutes or until golden brown.

I so hope the MasterChef franchise realise what they have started here.  And please please let them bring Junior MasterChef to our shores - I have 3 kids who would love to try out!

LOVING

There has been a lot to love this week.

The girls competed in their school cross country and did fantastically well.  Bear came first in 7 year old girls (beating her arch rival who pipped her at the post last year!).  And she won with shoe laces that come undone which she refused to stop and do up in case she got beaten.  And she is the littlest in her year as well, but she will never let that stop her.  She has shear determination to win.

Bear's triumphant win!

Miss Emma did extremely well too, finishing a close second.  These two girls have placed in the top five consistently for the last three years - that has got to bode well for the future.  They are off to interschool in a couple of weeks.  Last year Emma came 11th so she is determined to finish inside the top 10 this year.

Also Friday saw the start of our schools centenary celebrations with a special assembly and all the kids and teachers dressed up in outfits from 100 years ago.

The assembly had ex pupils speak at it, the oldest 2 had been there 75 years ago in the 1930's.  It was a fantastic effort.  Some very clever mum's baked and decorated about 400 cupcakes to celebrate and each child got one at the end of the assembly.

Then yesterday Emma got to go the birthday party of the century - well at least of the decade.  As her friends start turning 10 birthday parties seem to take on a new meaning.  This amazing mum spent 6 months planning her daughters party, making everything from scratch herself and hiring out and decorating a local venue to the max. The whole hall was decorated in pink and zebra stripes with framed pictures, balloons and as many sweet things as you can imagine.  Hair dressers doing hair and others painting nails and doing make up.  It was A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. As I didn't have my camera with me at drop off (Oh for an i-phone) and it was all in clean up mode by pick up time, I cant show any pictures of how awesome the party looked but her is a snippet of it - some of the awesome things Em brought home in her party bag. 

Every Girls dream party!

Emma proud as punch

Fantastic hair do

the other side

This family went all out for their Daughter's birthday.  Emma was buzzing for hours afterwards (unfortunately the party went till 8pm so it was a very late night!).  And so now the planning for her party (in August) is starting - watch this space.....

And really just loving that this girl invited her.  Emma has missed out on so many parties and even though there were so many things she couldn't eat there (and to be honest I kinda freaked out about the chopped nuts for cupcake toppings), Emma had a blast and loved every minute of it.  So a big thanks to that family for making my girl feel special.

Linking in with Things I'm Loving

Barbs x.