A long time ago... in a land far far away

Will and I are having a long weekend this weekend! Woo hoo! Call it what you will... Mini Break, Mini Vacay etc.. we have rented a house at Nelson Bay with a bunch of friends from work so we're going to spend the weekend lolling in the pool, BBQing, swimming at the beach, watching DVDs, taking walks along the bay foreshore and just chillin and having fun together. You may have heard me talk of my cool friends before, we all met at work, and although we have all moved to different shifts or back to study or left completely, we are still really good friends and hang out together a fair bit. I love that!! There will be 9 of us so it'll be the party house of fun!!

This does mean for you that there wont be any new posts for a couple of days :( try not to cry please, I'll be back Sunday!!

In the mean time I will leave you with this Christmas page I did about all the festive baking I did this year. I had so much fun trying out new recipes and got some that will remain all year favourites (like the almond roca which is so moorish and you can't get enough of- trust me, this is torture when you're diabetic!! But I still love to make it {wink}). I wrapped up little parcels for my friends that included a gingerbread cupcake, tiny Banana loaf and a bunch of almond roca. Oh so good!! The Pumpkin pies I made were totally delicious too :) YUMMMYYYYY!! Will was so happy to clean up all the left over pie for a few days after the Christmas parties! He says "I don't do chocolate" so I'm always on the look out for cool sweets recipes that he will like, and the pie was a winner!! I finally used another one of my cool Christmas bottle caps on this page, how long since you've seen one of those?! Lol!! But I think they are so cool, so I squished one on this page!! It makes all the pages around it in the album really bumpy though. The Christmas "Collection" on the journalling spot is a good way to use up all the little Christmas themed stuff I had hanging around on my desk! I like them all togther :)

See you soon!

:) C

Relaxation Day... Oh Yeah!!

Boy was I so happy to finally have some time at home today for a "Relaxation Day!!" Church was on early today so we could watch a satellite link of the Archbishop speaking (who would have though Church would get so technologically advanced?!) then I was free the WHOLE day til 6pm when I had a friend's dinner. Seeing as it was gonna be another stinker of a day I changed into tiny shorts and a singlet top and prepared for a fun fun day!!

I put on my "Band of Brothers" DVDs, which I just LOVE, that Willy gave me for my birthday. Am I the only chick who scrapbooks to war movies? Probably. The last time I scrapped "The Guns of Navverone" was on, which I quite enjoyed also! I finished 2 pages that I was so pleased with and just chilled out the whole day. Happy happy happy me.

This first page I'm posting was the one I did yesterday (see, I promised I would post it!) I don't do Christmas pages very often. Don't get me wrong-I LOVE Christmas- I have HEAPS of Christmas papers and decorations and yet I don't remember the last time I did a Christmas page! I think everything gets over Christmassed for me. You know, there are so many busy decorations in the pics or the colours are all wrong for my papers, or I hate my Christmas papers (the usual excuses!) Well this year I broke the mold by making this page yesterday!! I love these papers and they went so well with Christmas! Finally, it looks as though there was a Christmas once in my life!! Lol.. I promise I will try to make more Christmas LO's this year. Ok, well I'll try to make another one at least. Heheh, good enough promise.

The second page is from our Road Trip/Beach Holiday in Oct. I found it rather weird to eat Pippi's at a Chinese Restaurant- I mean, these were things we used to dig up on holidays! I didn't know they were worth so much ($60/kg FYI!) I told the story of always digging them up at Darlington Park and the next week when we were on hols there Willy was so happy to find one! He had held it for ages and I was like "It's probably still alive you know" so we put it in the shallows and after about a minute the slimy "tongue" appeared, it upended and dug straight down into the sand really fast!! Will was totally amazed! We dug it straight back up again (nothing like torturing a Pippi!) and I video-ed it digging back down again on my camera. So cute!! I asked if he wanted to eat it but he wasn't interested after seeing it in it's natural habitat. I think he understood why they tasted so gritty when it sucked in the sea water and squirted it out it's top end!! No Pippi was harmed in the making of this page (we left it alone after digging it up twice!)

The other page from today I'll leave for another post (it's another big week at work and I want to be able to post something during the week!)

:) C

Merry Merry.. still...

Hi all!

Is Christmas over already? Wow, that was so quick! I still am putting on my Christmas lights and lighting all my Christmas Candles for a couple of days yet.. I love Christmas and want to hang on to it! I had a lovely time at Mum and Dad's, even though it was only Will and I, Aunty Julie and Uncle Daryl and Mum and Dad! Actually, I ended up eating 4 Christmas dinners (Chamber's Family Christmas, Kingman family Christmas, Work Christmas dinner and actual real Christmas Day lunch!) spoilt {grinning!} Needless to say, with all the Christmas busy-ness and lots of food, I think I am a little bit "Festively Plump", time for a run! Run Fatty Run {slapping backside and trotting around the room}!

So to give you an insight on how my Christmas was.. here is the heads up... There are a few important things that happen on Christmas day, the same every year..

1. Wake up early for Church (the earliest possible service so we can be back early to open presents and for the meat to go on!)

2. Choose a seat on the lounge (in our Childhood home Felicity and I used to fight over who got to sit on the seat closest to the tree- the "prize" seat I guess! We eventually just took turns- referring to last years pics to remember who sat where!) and have your presents piled around you.

3. Eat a massive baked lunch on the "good China", usually 2 meats (this year Pork and Chicken), lots of baked veggies, gravy, Crackling {smacking lips in memory!} Bon Bons and you have to wear the hat that comes in the Bon Bons, and Apple Tease to drink. Look how full my plate is! And I ate every bite {holding tummy in painful memory!}

4. Pudding! Mum usually makes the pudding (when I was growing up I always knew Christmas was near when the pudding was wrapped in calico, hanging over the back of a chair in the breakfast room! That chair always weighed a tonne cos of the pudding and was constantly falling back under the weight if you brushed past it!), however I guess time was short this year and we had {gasp} store-bought pudding! It's ok Mum, it was still delicious.

5. Afternoon Nap. Lol, always happens!

So I had a great Christmas! How about the rest of you? I hope you stayed happy and safe with no family dramas!

:) C

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!

Feliz Navidad, Melakaliki Maka, Frohe Weinachten, Xin Dan Fai Lock (thanks Willy!), Bon Natale, Happy Birthday Jesus, MERRY CHRISTMAS!!
I hope you are having a great day!! And I hope Santa found you and brought you lots of cool stuff! Mum gave me directions not to run over Santa on our way down to Wollongong last night!! We didn't, thankfully :) although I think I did see him hovering over Olympic Park with Rudolph's blinking nose.. but it could have been a Helicopter!
It was up early for us, 7:30 church, fried ham and poached eggs for breakfast then present opening. Its only Will and I here with Mum and Dad at the moment, my Aunty and Uncle are coming for lunch soon, so it's a very very small Christmas for us!! It's so strange coming from a big family, to have such a small Christmas! We had a big one last year though, so it's ok. It's overcast and a bit windy here though, I thought it was Summer in Australia?!
I'll upload some pics later when I can..
The thing about a small Christmas is that... there's nothing to do now! We were up early for church and present opening didn't take too long.. we're a bit old to have gotten toys for Christmas (although I am still partial to a bit of Lego!) and we're waiting for our delicious Christmas lunch so now what?! Will is playing my Nintendo DS (last year's present!) and I am blogging! We are watching National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation though! Love it!
Merry Christmas!
:) C

Baking Bonanza!

I added to my Baking Bonanza yesterday by making Gingerbread Cupcakes, Mini Banana Loaves and another lot of Almond Roca, all in 2 hours. Happy days {punching the air with fist}. Needless to say when I finally got home from work at 12:30am I was totally spent!! And went straight to bed!

The Gingerbread cupcake recipe is from the Martha Stewart website, which has heaps of great recipes. She is a pretty good mentor- apart from the whole "going to jail" thing. Maybe I'll skip that part for my life! I love her magazine too, so many pretty things. Especially the Wedding mag which I may purchase sometime in the future... ok, I'm off topic now.. back to baking.. The cupcakes are DELICIOUS!! Although how could they be anything else when they contain a whole cup of butter, a cup of golden syrup and cinnamon/cloves/nutmeg etc! I did have a tiny disaster though: just as I stood up from putting them in the oven I saw the eggs sitting on the bench. And if they're sitting on the bench, they're not in the cupcakes. D'OH!! I quickly whipped the cakes out of the oven, emptied all the cases back into a bowl and added the eggs, mixed, then got fresh cases and filled them and put them back in the oven. Phew!! {relief!} they worked out! And Fliss, I left one without eggs to see how it was, and it was just as nice! So I'll make them for you sometime with Macadamia oil and no eggs. See if you like them! I didn't have time to ice them fully (and I hate icing anyway, too much sugar, frosting is soo much nicer) so I used a white fudge pen to draw pics on top. I don't think gingerbread really needs icing anyway. I wrapped them up for my friends with a mini banana loaf and a handful of Almond Roca each and gave them out at work yesterday. I think they were all pretty pleased! I got a message from one guy this morning to say they'd eaten theirs for breakfast and they were delicious! Cool!

Will and I are off to Mum and Dad's after work, so a Merry Christmas to you all, have a great day tomorrow, celebrating with your family and friends!

:) C

Only 2 sleeps til Christmas!

Wow, how time has flown this year! Can you believe it is only 2 sleeps til Christmas? No, me neither!

At Saturday night's extended family Christmas dinner we did Secret Santa between us cousins. We do it every year cos there are so many of us, and so many with kids and on a tight budget so there is no way you can buy for everyone! Our budget is usually $20-$30 and you choose a couple to buy for "out of the hat" so to speak. This year I got my youngest cousin closest in age to me, Gareth and his beautiful GF Amy. They live up in the Blue Mountains and Amy is a massive hot chocolate lover so I decided to put together a "Snowman Soup" pack for them to enjoy, just in case they get a white Christmas up there! (It's not totally impossible with our weird weather! It's supposed to be summer.. what happened to our usual 35 degrees?) My Snowman Soup pack consisted of a big tin of Ghiradelli Premium Hot Choc (I bought Ghirardelli chocs in San Francisco 2 years ago when I went and they were superb!!) mini marshmallows wrapped up as "Snowman Soup Croutons", Candy Canes as "Snowman Soup Stirrers", 2 of the biggest mugs I could find, some Lindt Snowmen chocs and Lebkuchen (yummy glazed German Gingerbread- not pictured) and that's the Snowman Soup Pack!

I think they really liked it! I didn't have much time to make the labels for the croutons, soup and stirrers cos of all my OT, next time I make it I'll be a bit less busy (I hope!) and will have more time to decorate the tags cos I had so many more ideas for them!

But it turned out really cool and I was happy! What did Will and I get I hear you ask? I got some really funky Tupperware green translucent serving bowls which are cool and very useful (and I love Tupperware but don't own much!) and Will got a "bucket seat" for fishing which is a big plastic plank with a groove to fit over a bucket (cool invention! Those fishermen think of everything!) and a fish weighing scale and ruler. He's stoked with his gifts too!

Merry Christmas! I'm off to buy food for more Christmas cooking.. watch out Martha!!

:) C

Move over Martha Stewart....

Move over Martha Stewart... Mrs Claus the Cook is here!
I have been baking up a mini-storm in my kitchen the last couple of days in my awesome new Apron from Big W. I love it! {hehe, giggling at self}. It is the perfect kitchen wear and I even put it on this arvo just to wash up in. Lol. Pity no-one but me is here to enjoy it! (Yes Mum, before you say it, I realise this is my fake smile, but I was concentrating on getting myself in the frame! It's hard to take a pic of yourself full length in the mirror!)

I have been a bit behind the times this December. I don't know what has happened with all my time, but Christmas is almost here and I only just dug out my Christmas earrings! Today I pulled out my Christmas Mugs and tea towels.. {sigh} I will have to keep them out til my birthday just to make it worth while!!

So... as for Martha.. I was cooking Pumpkin Pies and Almond Roca for my extended family Christmas Dinner last night. I hadn't made Pumpkin Pies before, and they turned out pretty delicious! I absolutely love all the Christmas themed foods in America; I love Cinnamon and all those sweet spices and when I visited the US 2 years ago {sob sob.. I can't believe it's been that long!} I loved the Pumpkin bread, gingerbread cookies, Pumpkin Pie, Pecan tarts etc etc. So this year I decided to have a go. And also cos I found an English recipe for Pumpkin Pie which made it easier cos the American recipes called for Canned Pumpkin and "Pumpkin Spice" which they don't sell here in Australia. [Incidently.. FYI Pumpkin Spice is similar to our Mixed Spice, so I use that in recipes when they call for Pumpkin Spice.] Anywho.. they are yummy! And we only cut one at the dinner so I have another one for my immediate family Christmas dinner tomorrow night (this year I get 3 Christmas dinners, aren't I lucky!!)

The Almond Roca was also delicious, although I couldn't eat much cos it's total sugar overload! It's basically Almond Brittle (like Peanut brittle) with chunks of white and dark choc on the top. Delicious and very morish. Did I mention Delicious? And fairly easy to make, although you need a candy thermometer and I did panic cos the sugar started to burn to the bottom of the pot (despite my best stirring efforts) cos my stove is total crap, hence I thought I had ruined the whole thing. Turns out I didn't cos it managed to set hard and taste delicious! High Five {slap!}. I am going to make it for my work friends too, cos I know they'll love it. It's on my to-do list (with a million other things.. yet here I am blogging. Don't say I never spend time with you!)

And then, after all my efforts cooking and cleaning etc.. it's time for a cup of Hot Milo in my favourite Christmas Mugs (which live in a box labelled by Mum as "Gorgeous Christmas Mugs" so I know who to leave them to in my will!). Hope your Christmas is turning out not too busy and you still have time to cook and enjoy it! I am burning a scented candle called "Gingerbread Santa" and it is totally Delicious!! I wish I could eat it. And it (togther with sitting around in my Mrs Claus apron) has filled me with the Christmas Spirit!

:) C

Card Crazy Christmas

Here are my Christmas Cards for this year! Yes, I am one of those slack people I talked about, not having sent out all my cards yet. I've managed to send 5! The hardest part is finding time to write on them all :) I like to write something a bit personalised, so then that takes extra time.

I don't usually make cards as bright as these, but I made a card in SU's Green Galore recently and realised it was really funky and cool and so decided that should be the colour scheme for my Christmas Cards. So along with Real Red and White, they turned out really nice! I used the SU wheel "All About Christmas" for the wording, some cute Christmas coloured ribbon and the new SU Scallop Square punch for the little stamped image and it was done! I varied the little image so I didn't get too bored making the cards :) And there are 4 different types of Christmas Ribbon too. This means no 2 people got exactly the same card (I think, anyway {pondering})...

BTW, I now have 4 cards on my Christmas Card string.. YAY!!

:) C

Sad, So Sad...

Is it because my friends are from traditionally non-Christian countries, or just that everyone is a bit behind this year? (Yeah, that includes me cos I've only sent out 5 cards!) I have only the one Christmas Card and it's Dec 12!! I find that very sad {sigh}. I even bought this cute little string of Santa's washing to hang the cards from and so far.. just the one. And of course, its from Yvette.. Little Miss Organised! Good on you!! {clapping hands in the general direction of Canberra!} I don't have a 6yr old to look after and I haven't finished mine yet! Lol. I sent out 5 to my immediate family cos I realised I'm going away for a long weekend and I'm already getting behind!
So here, sharing the string of Santa's washing, clipped on to his pyjama shirt, is my one lonely Christmas Card. At least you get a quick look at some more of my Christmas deco's sitting on the shelf!
:) C

More Christmas Cards...

Oh, time is slipping away.... Christmas is only 14 sleeps away! Luckily I have done most of my shopping and don't need to hit the shops very much.. they are crazy busy!! Have you noticed? Lol.

I made some more Christmas cards with my 3D stickers the other day (I packaged them up before I remembered to take the pics, if you were wondering why they're so shiny!) I love this Christmas paper that's not really Christmas paper! It's so pretty! The angular scalloped white piece is done with my Martha Stewart border punch Alicia brought back from America, I love the different look it gives compared to my threading water punch.

By the way... I counted my 3D sticker packets (remember my previous post where I said I had mountains of them?!!), well I have 150 of them! What?! Yes, 150!! I will endeavour to use more of them up so they're not hanging around in my stash! That's way too many stickers! Do you know anyone who has more than me?
:) C

Christmas Spirit

I just realised I haven't posted a pic of my Christmas Tree and Decorations yet!! Where is my Christmas Spirit? Lol. It's here, it's just hiding behind lots of work and busy-ness! :)

Here is my tree! Yes, it is the size of your average household dog, but once I placed it on the stool it actually rose to almost inconceivable heights (about 2cm above my head). I do love all my decorations, they mean things (where I got them or who gave them to me) and I also have some beautiful glass baubles that I adore cos they aren't "cheap" decorations! Amongst my favourites are some very cute little "Mickey Mouse Head" shaped baubles that made the journey back from Disney World 2 years ago :), a woven straw star that came from the Christkindl Markt in Munich 10 years ago (YES MUM, IT'S BEEN 10 YEARS!! Can you believe it?!), a bauble from Mum and Dad that says "Daughters are a blessing" (luckily they remembered to give us all one, and didn't miss out on one daughter, that would have been some hint!) and 3 gorgeous little glitter filled glass snowmen that came from Target last year. Ahh... so many memories! Feel free to admire the Pink Chicken behind the Christmas Tree. It was supposed to be for Mum for Mother's Day but I put it up there in the mean time and he made his home there, so there he has stayed. Mum did admire him when she visited! I said he would come to her house one day, but for now he stays with me {grins and waves to chicken- ok it's really late and I'm in the dillusional tired state!}

The most brilliant thing about my new TV unit is the massive wooden bench I now have to display some crap, {achem} cool Christmas stuff, on! The candle holders are big flat glass snowflakes, OOhhh I love them! How I wish it snowed in Australia at Christmas Time!!

My newest decoration is this cute tall skinny tin tree that Mum gave me for helping out at her sale. I love that it doesn't stand up straight, imperfection is reality. Wow, I have a lot of Christmas stuff. I think I have inherited that hoarding trait off Mum (and I mean that in the nicest way Mum, I love all my stuff!) And you can never have enough, cos Christmas comes every year!

:) C