Christmas bakes and makes

So lots of ideas floating around in magazines and pinterest for Christmas crafting and baking.

First of all, I tried the popular way of doing reindeer cookies by using gingerbread men turned upside down . Here's a batch I made earlier ...



Since we can't hold of washi tape here in Queenstown I got hold of green masking tape instead! I originally did a star but Iain told me to take it down as it looked like star of David or something like that! So then thought about making a tree which I did first and then thought it looked too bare so added the candy canes!!

Bear Cake

So third child's first birthday, thought about just doing a plain cake for him, but don't think I could get away with that when he's older and looks back at the photos and sees what I made for his older brothers! I knew that I was going to make a bear cake for him as we call him Hudsey Bear. Originally I was going to do Paddington Bear, so had the cakes baked for that an oblong for the suitcase and two round cakes for the bear. Was still unsure what to do then, two days before his birthday party I came across bakeaboo cakes and she does amazing cakes which included bears!! So inspired me to try and do the same for Hudson.

Luckily the cakes were perfect to use to carve into a bear, enough for the body. I couldn't be bothered and also I think I didn't have enough ingredients to bake more cake, so decided to make cake out of Rice Krispies, which was perfect to get the shape right.

So here is my cake for our one year old.

Angry Birds Party

Brodie had an Angry Birds Party for his 6th birthday. We had lots of fun preparing for his party, I asked Iain to make a life sized slingshot a few weeks before which gave him plenty time to practice and tweak it before the party!

Here they are practicing in the back yard. I didn't get many pictures as took many videos instead!

Originally he was going to use my yoga stretch band for the sling! However it was too tricky to hold the ball in place so he went to the local hardware store and purchased some bunjy cord and that was the only purchase he made for the slingshot as everything else we had at home.

We had lots of cardboard boxes and the ones that weren't brown we covered in brown paper. The night before the party Iain did the preparation and decorated the boxes as I was too busy making the cake!

I already painted the angry birds balls beforehand so they were all ready to go! The balls were originally pink!

Here are photos from the party .

Here is the angry birds cake. I couldn't decide on what to do as there was so many ideas and up until the last night I was still looking for inspiration on the Internet!

Halloween Fingers!

I made fingers for a Halloween party using sausages!! I saw the idea when I googled images for Halloween food. It was so simple I just did 3 slits for the knuckles and carved the nails !! So easy!!

Sydney Marathon!

So back in May this year, Iain said there were some cheap deals going to Sydney in September, the same time the marathon was on he asked if I wanted to do it and I said why not!!
So dusted off my trainers and started running again, with no.3 son at 7 months old. As I was still breastfeeding I had to make sure I fed him first before I went running!!
The training was hard work as I depended on Iain to look after the boys so I could do and that meant after work and weekends. As it was over winter by the time he got home it was dark (and cold) so I easily talked myself out of it! Then with weekends there was always something up! However, got there in the end even though I didn't manage to do any programme I did as much as time would allow me and built up to a 32k run a month before the marathon.

When we got to Sydney I was enjoying myself at my brothers place with him three kids (yip a busy noisy house with us in it too!)

So got to the start early as my brother was doing the half marathon which started at 6am and I started at 7am! Gave baby no.3 a feed in the car to get some weight off me (haha!)!!!!

Off I ran I could go on about it but I went way faster than I expected! Finished it in 4 hours and 4 minutes!

Tin Cans: storing pens

I have been using tin cans for storing the boys coloured pens and pencils for a while now, all I did was remove the outside labels and taped (double sided) scrapbooking paper round them. I used various sizes to suit the different lengths of the pens.

Yesterday, it suddenly came to me that I should use wool. I have heaps of yarn for the knitting I haven't done!!

So here is one that I just simply wrapped with twine using a bit of glue and then carried on wrapping using wool. I found that with wool I didn't need to use glue just tucked it in and wrapped over the ends with the tool itself.

Ta da....

Lucky to live in such a beautiful place

Taking no.3 for a walk to get him to sleep while no.2 is playing at playcentre. Queenstown is so beautiful.