Tasty Tuesday - More Honey Goodness

Last week for Tasty Tuesday I talked about my yummy Mother Earth Honey and a couple of savoury goodies I'd whipped up with it.

This week we made some sweet goodies with the honey, and believe it or not there's another Honeyfied special coming your way next week.

The first recipe we made this week is an old favourite of mine that I have to periodically forget about otherwise I would literally be the size of a house. This stuff is super easy to make and delicious.

Honey Bubble Bars
125g Butter
2T Honey
1 Cup White sugar
3 1/2 cups of rice bubbles cereal

It's really this easy!

Grease a 20x30 tin. Place butter, sugar and honey into a saucepan and heat until it boils. Turn down the heat and remain boiling for 5 minutes. Remove from heat, stir in rice bubbles and pour into your prepared tin. Leave to set. Mark into slices.When completely set, remove from tin and cut along the marks you have made.

YUM!

The second recipe we made I would have to tote as fairly healthy - Honey Yoghurt Berry Pops. Greek yoghurt, berries, honey... it's a pretty healthy treat I think. Leah LOVES them.

You can find the recipe for these delicious treats here.

Don't forget to join us next week for the last installment of our Honey special - more recipes and some honey tips.
xox

Silent...Monday

Better late than never I say!

Weekly 10 - 20th - 27th August

I'm starting to think I might need a break or an 'easy week' soon. Loving the productivity, but needing some 'Kate time'.  Let's see how I went this week.

1. Sell kitchen items that I no longer need. Wednesday
I sold most of the stuff in the basket. The last two items I'll keep working on.

2. Make 52 list headers. Printed Wednesday
And I decided that I would print these out and hand-write them rather than type them, so much more personal that way.

3. Put photos into baby books. Thursday

4. Organise bathroom cupboards and towel cupboard. Finished Monday

The reason for all this movement (my poor husband is going mental with me moving things into different places, bless him) was because my little girl, who's never given me any reason to lock away anything in her three short years has begun to get into things she shouldn't be, the medicine drawers in particular - only to get plasters at this stage, but I don't wanna chance it.  I needed to move things up, out of her way, so I could feel safe that she can't get into things that she shouldn't be when she's left to play in her rooms. These changes have put my mind at ease.

5. Clean out and organise the laundry cupboard. Finished Tuesday
Same old story, hoarding too many half bottles of stuff. Time for a clean out!

6. Throw away yucky nail polishes. Sunday
I threw away a couple of old hardened bottles and even came across these cute stickers that I hadn't used. Luckily my nails were void of nail polish for once!

7. Get Damien to put up curtain railing that I broke (whoops!). Monday

8. Go for 2 long walks with Andrea. Tuesday & Thursday

9. Weed vege garden.  Tuesday
Here's the before and after...now what to plant?

10. Spray paint other pots for herb garden. Wednesday

 

Phew! Still feeling like I'm getting so much done, but think it might be time for a 'Kate time' week. I can still do the Weekly 10, but just make the things more about relaxing and quality time rather than productivity. OR at least less big jobs! Maybe next time. I've tried to include a few of those sorts of things in this week's list also though. Here it is...

 

1. Type up advent calendar activities, print out and complete making the advent calendar.

2. Wrap Christmas presents that I've already bought and make a list of what I'm still to buy.

3. Blog! Schedule 10 posts for future weeks (on top of what needs to be done for this week.

4. Play (and possibly clock) 'Dream Team'.

5. Organise new cute recipe folder (Thanks Nicola <3)

6. Make Willow's 6 week doctors appointment.

7. Do Willow's 1 month photo and Leah's 2st month of 3 photo.

8. Look through Leah's big girl and book boxes.

9. List things I still need for baby books and begin to gather these.

10. Do something fun with the family.

Things I'm Loving

"Every week may not be good, but there is something good in every week"

I love taking photos. I'm so happy that I've kept up traditions and that my motivation hasn't dropped off for this because of the fulfilling feeling I get through comparing things now and seeing the changes in Leah is just awesome. I hope my girls appreciate it when they grow up - I know their 21st birthday party photo boards will!

UNICORNS! 'Nuff said

Loving seeing this relationship continue to develop. We have the most amazing dog in the world. As much as I go on about how silly and naughty is he really is just so lovely. Don't let anyone tell you that Rotties aren't family dogs. If they try to argue, show them this blog - it's a plethora or 'baby + dog = love' photos.

Love that it's not just me...

Loving giving a purpose to our new bag. People have been really wonderful when giving Willow presents and also getting something for Leah. It's been lovely for her. This owl bag was one such present. Leah has a backpack for daycare already and this one was just too nice for that anyway. We decided to make it our library bag. We head to the library to enjoy the puzzles and swap over our book every two weeks and it was the perfect size for what we wanted. Woo hoo!

Oh, and speaking of libraries... I absolutely adoooored my big girl helping to pick out some books for my little girl. She also loves 'reading' them to her.

I've loved the small reprieve in our weather this week. Although there's been some crazy stormy stuff early on in the week and some mad winds, I've been able to get out and weed parts of my garden and spray paint some pots as well. Come on sun - you can keep doing it! I can almost smell summer.

What are you loving this week?

xox

Three Year Old Thursday - Cooking and baking

Icing and decorating cookies or cupcake is such an easy little activity and it yields some yummy bits and pieces after the fact. I really like the 'Mrs Rogers Sprinkles' style range of decorations as there's some variety in what you get.

My girl loves baking. If she so much as hears a slight sound in the kitchen she rushes in from whatever she's doing and asks, 'Are you making mumma? I can help you'. Mostly helping just comes in the form of her sitting on her chair or the bench and chatting to us about what we're doing, but give her half a chance and she's getting amongst the action too. She loves mixing and whisking and she digs trying new things out.

I grew up helping my mum out in the kitchen and I know that that's where my love of cooking and baking came from. Leah loves helping out in the kitchen so naturally that I have to foster it. I'm hoping that in a few years I'll be able to kick back with a good book while she makes us dinner every night!

A month or so ago I came across this little gem on Pinterest. Little Miss 3 is working her way through mastering the 2-5 list and even likes to do some of the things in the 'Young Cook'.

When I came across the list Leah was already doing many of the things on the 'Preschool' section but I just hadn't thought about letting her do any cutting. I then came across this cute little set on Amazon and am having to keep myself from buying anything else made by the same label.

We've cut up lots of things with them so far - potatoes, apples, cheese, butter - they're great! When they arrived I wondered how something that didn't seem very sharp could cut things very well - but they're awesome.

So I implore you - let your little ones into the kitchen. It's not as scary as you might think and there's so much learning going on when you're chugging away at the bench - think maths and measurement, vocabulary building (steam, heat, chill, hotter, colder, mix, whisk...the list goes on) and of course the all important learning of how to make you dinner in a few years time!

Words for Wednesday

Yes! <3

Tasty Tuesday - Savoury Honey Special

I have been given some Mother Earth goodies to make some yummy recipes with.

I don't often cook with honey. I actually didn't even have any in the house before this lovely selection was delivered. It's not that I don't like honey, it's just not something I use much. So imagine my delight when I found so many recipes and uses for honey when I did a wee search. I found both sweet and savoury recipes, and used in different ways than I could think of off the top of my head. I found that honey is often used to sweeten recipes where sugar might not be used, as a healthy option. And I also found some old favourites even I'd forgotten about - I'll share that one next week.

So over the next few weeks my Tasty Tuesdays (and my kitchen!) is going to be taken over by Honey. Beginning this week with Sunday night's dinner - Honey Mustard Chicken and Honey Roasted Carrots.

Honey Mustard Mozzarella Chicken - Recipe can be found here.

Honey Roasted Carrots - Recipe can be found here.

Be sure to check back over the next few weeks as this is the first in a 3 part honey special. Lots of yummy goodies and tips and tricks for using honey.

xox

Weekly 10: 20 - 27 September

“It is not enough to be busy... The question is: what are we busy about?”

1. Do Willow's calendar page photo. Friday

2. Get month photo dots ready, find or make? Tuesday
So pretty.

3. Clean out other cupboards in the kitchen. Saturday

I'm feeling very organised in this area of my house now. Only took me a year in this house to do it! And yes, before you ask, the games cupboard is in the kicthen/family room area, so was also tackled. Leah is SO happy that she can get to the board games now. She's had them out a few times by herself.

4. Get baby book photos of a memory stick ready for printing. If I'm really clever I will print them AND put them in the books. Saturday
They're all ready to go and putting them in the books is securely on next week's Weekly 10 list.

5. iPad reformat. Tuesday

SO grumpy about this. We had an issue with the iPad where the sound wasn't working on some apps. After I reformatted the problem was still there so decided to do some googling and reading about others that have had the same issue and the fix was stupidly easy. AND I now have to reorganise all my apps back where I want them. Sigh. lol.

6. Spray paint pots and get ready for potting next week - weed, buy potting mix and plants. Friday

I did this all around the wrong way, hence the spray painting I'm leaving until next week's weekly 10. I have although cleaned up the pots that were there AND planted some new herbs and veges. Gold! Now to keep them alive...

7. READ! Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

I finished my book on Wednesday morning, just in time for book club, but it was postponed until next week - doh! Oh well, feeling very organised now. Great book too ('Nineteen minutes' Jodi Picoult) . I always left reading until all my other jobs were done but once I started reading I didn't want to stop. Are all Jodi's books like that? I've read 5 of them and every single one is.

8. Complete advent calendar. Friday
All ideas are written down ready to go. Now I just need to type them out.

9. Make Lemon Curd cake. Sunday
You can even get the recipe for it if you click the image below:

10. Look for (and make) recipes with the 'Mother Earth' honey ready for the blog posts. Friday
I'm happy to cross this one off. I've not yet made anything with the honey yet, but I have bought ingredients and found a multitude of recipes to use. Keep your eyes peels for Tasty Tuesday next week.

I've had an incredibly busy week including visiting a school, grocery shopping (yes, this is huge without a husband, but with an infant, visiting my workplace to show off a bubba, a tongue tie mini surgery appointment and my other normal 'round the house' craziness. I like scheduling things like 'Read', but I also feel like it's not getting anything done. I have to keep telling myself that my reading is important, if for no other reason that it is a '30 before 30' goal to read 30 books!

And here we are for next week...

1. Sell kitchen items that I no longer need.

2. Make 52 list headers.

3. Put photos into baby books.

4. Organise bathroom cupboards and towel cupboard.

5. Clean out and organise the laundry cupboard.

6. Throw away yucky nail polishes.

7. Get Damien to put up curtain railing that I broke (whoops!).

8. Go for 2 long walks with Andrea.

9. Weed vege garden.

10. Spray paint other pots for herb garden.

Things I'm Loving

"Every week may not be good but there is something good in every week."

I need to begin by saying that I love my husband more and more with every coming day *obligatory vomit*. That man is a keeper. I had a tough end of the week last week with Willow having some tummy problems and not sleep which made for a very tearful bubba - and mumma! Solution? Dadda. He took over on Saturday, sent me out for lunch and shopping with my friends, and I came back a new mumma. What a champ he is. Love you hunny <3

I love snapping away and finding cute little faces like this on my camera...

And this on my phone...

Loving cupcake dates with my big girl.

Love recording Ellen when it's on and then watching it when I sit down to feed my wee girl. I love that woman. I'm either laughin my head off, or goofy smiling or happy crying. She's great! Nicki Minaj was a guest this week and cracks me up. Have a laugh!

Loving selfies!

Giggled my head off at these two pics I saw scrolling instagram this week.

Loved recieving my shutterfly.com book of Leah's third year this week. A lot of hardwork and love go into these books and I'm loving seeing them accumulate now. I now have two on the go at the same time... hard yakka!

And lastly... love, love love these guys <3

What are you loving this week?

xox