Knitted dish cloth

Yay, I finally started to knit a dish cloth today! Since I did baking yesterday I gave myself some free time and sat down to knit. And I can tell you that it feels so good to have done some knitting. My goal for today is to finish the dish cloth and show you all tomorrow.

What are you knitting at the moment?

Baking day today

It's about time that I did some baking in our house. I have been abit slack lately and haven't baked any homemade goodies. So I jumped online and headed over to sallysbakingaddiction. Sally has some fantastic yummy recipes. There are cookies, slices, cupcakes and more!

For my baking day today I choose to make the very vanilla cupcakes, rolo stuffed peanut butter cookies and ultimate fudge brownies with peanut butter chips. When I made the fudge brownies I didn't have any peanut butter chips so I used white choc chips instead.

Very Vanilla Cupcakes 

Rolo Stuffed Peanut Butter Cookies

Ultimate Fudge Brownies with White Choc Chips

Did you do any baking today? I would love to know what goodies you are baking at home.

Sunday morning craft with the kids

I decided to make Sunday morning a "no electronic games" time. That means no ipods, no playstation, no nintendo ds, no computer and no playing on mums ipad. During the week we have a rule that there is no playing on these devices. If you have homework then you are allowed on the computer. On Friday night and the weekend we let them play on their games but still limit the amount of time.

It has a been awhile since the kids and I have done some crafting activities so I thought I would try it out on Sunday morning. There are some great kids activities on Pinterest. I found one to get our Sunday morning craft time started. There were a few links to this activity so I will just put the link to the one I used which was
contact paper rose windows.

We traced a plate on some black paper. Try to not use a thick paper as it will be to hard to cut when folded. Once traced you can cut out the circle.

Next fold it in half then fold it in half again. If you can fold it again then go ahead but make sure that its not too thick so you won't be able to cut it.

You can start to cut out shapes on the folded sides. Get creative and cut some different size shapes!

Once your shapes are cut out then place your circle on a piece of contact and pat all around the circle so its on the contact nicely. I liked the idea of using the contact as it held down the pieces of paper quite well and there was no glue that needed to dry.

I made a pile of coloured tissue paper and some coloured cellophane. I just cut it in pieces and if the kids needed a smaller size they just used their scissors to make smaller pieces.

Once they had finished decorating their windows I put another piece of contact on the back where they had stuck all the paper. Then you cut around the circle and you are finished!

The kids really enjoyed making the windows that we made another one! All their fantastic coloured windows are proudly displayed on their bedroom windows. And it does look very nice when the sun shines through them. 

I hope to make the Sunday morning craft with the kids a regular activity and post it on my blog. There is a huge assortment of kids activities to choose from on Pinterest. I really enjoyed spending the time with them.

Already choosing what to do for this Sunday. Looking forward to the next Sunday craft!

Mood Board Challenge 3

Here is my entry for the Mood Board Challenge 3. I finally finished it before I lost any daylight so I could take some photos.

Water tank and Ikea (and Gastro)

Unfortunately the lovely Gastro bug came to visit our house this week. It hit my hubby and two kids. So far noone else has been affected, cross fingers! So, hubby and three kids were home yesterday, one child and hubby recovering from gastro and our older two had a day off as it was report writing day for the teachers. Hubby was feeling better so we decided to head out and look at a water tank for the backyard. And since we were in the area of Ikea we dropped in to have a look at some shelving for the boys room and shelving for my crafting goodies. I was going to take a few photos of some of the new things Ikea has in store but my hubby pointed out a sign upon entry that "NO PHOTOGRAPHY IS ALLOWED". Oh well, no photos to show of our trip for the day. We did buy some shelving though so I will post some photos of them once they are all in place.

Today is catch up day with washing and some house cleaning. I am trying to finish a project for the mood board challenge 3. Competition closes tonight. My little miss has a birthday party to go to soon so I am going to make a birthday card and will enter that in. I will post a photo of the finished card on my blog later today.

Hope you have a great weekend!

Yummy curried sausages recipe and raspberry choc chunk cookies

This curried sausage dish is always a hit with the kids. It's easy to prepare and is a great budget recipe. Our recipe has been adapted from the original recipe by Jennifer Cheung for Kidspot.

Yummy curried sausages recipe

Ingredients:

12 plain sausages
2 tbsp oil
1 onion, diced
3 carrots, diced
4 medium potatoes, diced
2 tbsp Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp tomato paste
1½ tsp curry powder
2 tbsp brown sugar
3 cups water
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup frozen or tinned corn
3 tbsp jam (any type except for marmalade)

Method:

Cook sausages and when they are all cooked, slice then set aside.
Saute onion, carrot and potato for 10 mins.
Add curry powder, brown sugar, Worcestershire sauce and tomato paste.
Cook for 2 mins. Add water and stir.
Add sausages to the pan and add corn and peas.
Bring to the boil and simmer for 20 mins. It will thicken when its left to simmer. Stir occasionally.
Stir in jam.
Serve with rice.

Serves 8-10

Notes:

We cooked the sausages outside on the bbq. It saved having oil spitting on our stove inside. Easier to clean up aswell.

Raspberry choc chunk cookies

Yesterday over at retromummy Corrie posted a raspberry and chocolate chunk cookies recipe. I definitely had to give that recipe a go. The kids needed something for their lunchboxes so it was perfect timing! The cookies turned out great and are very delicious. Thanks Corrie for a great recipe.

What to write about on my blog?

I decided to do a blog so I could write about what we do as a family and get to know all the other bloggers out there. I love reading other peoples blogs and following what they do in day to day life. But now I am starting to wonder what I can put on my post for the day as I don't do much. My days are mostly filled with doing washing, tidying the house, cooking for the kids lunchboxes and deciding on what to have for dinner that night.

I don't do heaps of knitting or sewing. I do love buying fabric though and have started a little collection. When I will use the fabric to make something I don't know. I know basic sewing and knitting. I own a sewing machine and my hubby bought me an overlocker for my birthday 2 years ago. And I hate to say this but its still in its box. I would really love to open it up and use it. I do handmade cards and gifts whenever there is a birthday coming up. So I dabble in a little bit of crafting.

I love sitting at my computer and browsing the internet whether its reading blogs or finding fabric and crafting supplies on etsy. Love my phone, computer and ipad!

I was reading Down to Earth blog this morning and her post for today was blogs give us a voice. It was interesting to read and it made me realise that I can blog about my day to day things (I will give it a go), even if it is doing the washing.

I never really took alot of photos before. But now by doing this blog I am taking photos nearly everyday and I am really enjoying it. I probably don't take fantastic photos or my writing about things isn't in top notch journalist form but I am learning along the way and I hope to improve my skills. Hey I'm just a mum along with my hubby living life with our five kids and enjoying every moment of it.