Memories of my childhood

Yes here it is a picture of me when I was 2 years old with our little cat and I just had to share it.  It's a scan of an old slide and the colour was a bit washed out so I just made it Black and White.  Apparently socks and sandals were in back then...

Making Anzac Biscuits

Yesterday Tanya from Suburban Jubliee posted a link to making Anzac Biscuits with both recipes for either "crunchy" or "chewy" biscuits.  In our household we love them all however James loves the crunchy version and Sienna loves the chewy version so there's always some discussion about what sort of Anzac biscuits I have baked for them when they come home from school.  I love any version however if I had to pick one, I would say the chewy version, maybe that's a girl thing I don't know.

Anyway it made me think back to our old house when I used to make Anzac Biscuits for Anzac Day with the kids when they were really small and so I dug up these cute looking memories from the archives.  James was 6 years old and Sienna had just turned 4.  Hard to believe they were ever that small.

Some light entertainment while the biscuits were baking.

Now it was Sienna's turn.

Yum...this is the best bit, time to eat them!!!

Some Interesting Internet Reads

Here's some interesting reads for you from around the internet I thought you might like however first of all I thought I would put in a couple of pictures of my kids at the beach this week visiting a good friend of ours.  James got his cast off when we got back from the beach so he did a bit of reading instead of swimming this time.  Sienna is jumping off the rocks in the middle pic.

For all those parents of young children here's a tip on helping to teach your child not to interrupt which would have been very helpful a few years ago for me.  My Mum used to say that if she was on the phone and didn't want to be interrupted by her young children (aka us...) she would keep a wet washer in her hand to wipe the toddlers face because we all know they usually don't like having their face clean so they will go and play somewhere while you finish your call.  Come to think of it I'm not sure if she used to actually do that or she read it somewhere but it makes sense to me.

How to Build a Better Sandwich.

Elise has been working on this Diary/Project Organizer/Planner for the past 6 months called "Get To Work Book".  The July 2015 to June 2016 will be out shortly and can be pre-ordered.  She is working on a January to December 2016 to also be available at the end of the year. I have been reading Elise's blog for many years now right back to when she was planning her DIY Wedding.  She is the Queen of getting projects completed so if you love being organized with your days and getting projects ticked off this will be a winner.

Making up my Home Made Laundry Powder this morning reminded me of this post about Revolutionizing the Washing Process.  I was sick of trying to find the recipe when I was ready to make it so I wrote it on the lid of the container using a permanent marker which makes it very easy.

Kate at Foxes Lane wrote about a friend's new book called "Snail Mail" and I have just ordered this for my kids which I think they will have lots of fun with.  Look out family and friends and I think Nanny & Pop in Melbourne will be the first on the mailing list.

The guys at Flow Hive Honey crowd raising have reached over $11M now...their original target was $70,000.  You just have to have that "one good idea" don't you however I'm sure the father and son duo are waking up each morning thinking, is this really happening.

Speaking of that one little thing....I still love looking at photos from "Dear Photograph" taking a picture of a picture from the past in the present.  They have now released a book as well.

Another photography site which is really cool is "Humans of New York" (aka HONY) and you can read about how it started here.

With the warmer days coming our way head over to my old post for the Sticky Date & Butterscotch Sauce recipe that I made last year thanks to "She Sows Seeds".

I made this Pork Belly recipe from Baby Mac's blog and it was the first time I've ever bought pork belly before and it was delicious.

Sienna made these little mexican "God's Eye" weaving with ice block sticks and a variegated wool which saves the hassle of changing colours for little kids.

GMO OMG

Last week I hired "GMO OMG" from the Video Store (yes it's still called the Video Store although they are going out of business fast like the drive in theaters I think.  Lucky for me ours seems to be still going strong).

I knew what this film would be about and on the one hand, I'm not surprized by it however, on the other hand you think OMG really!!!

Big corporations have power and money and basically get what they want by squashing out anyone who is not on their side.  I think when Jamie Oliver tried to get the School Canteens of America to serve real food and not frozen fast foods he was up against it as the companies who are in these systems make millions and therefore have a lot of money and power to try and keep it the way it's always been.

Monsanto is the GMO (Genetically Modified Organisms) seed distributor.  Monsanto ran their own testing for 3 months on rats to see if the seeds are safe and therefore the report is not independent and of course it is in their best interests to have a glowing report.  Another fellow not associated with Monsanto spent 2 years testing the GMO seeds on rats and all the rats developed these huge tumors.  Naturally Monsanto shot down the results saying he didn't use the rats that they used (however he used exactly the same rats).  You see where all of this is going.

The other not surprizing thing but shocking thing is that some executives jump from company to politics and back again (it has a name but I can't recall) so they can get things moving through policies with the interests of the seed company seriously how is this okay is beyond me.

I was fascinated by the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in the side of the mountain in Norway.

I, like the film maker, was shocked when his little son caught a trout upstream in nature that he figured would be GMO free but not so as the food these fish were fed was not GMO free and then they go and put the fish upstream in various places.  It makes it pretty hard when you think about it to try and eat GMO free.

We all can't be growing every piece of food item, running beef, sheep and chickens in our backyards but these GMO seeds are Round Up ready (or whatever the terminology was).  When the whole field of corn gets sprayed with round up to kill all other weeds naturally it goes onto the corn plant and while it won't kill or affect the corn plant (hence the GMO object)........guess what.....we as humans (well Americans) are eating food which has been sprayed with round up all over it.

I'm sure in Australia it's probably similar but don't quote me on that one.  It's great being educated on our food but when the fish is caught in a stream somewhere in it's natural environment and it is not GMO free.......where does one go from there.

There is just so much big business making money vs looking at the long term effects of peoples health.  It's a good movie, so get it out or see if your Library has a copy.  When will we learn that healthy people actually have less burden on society, doctors, hospitals etc. so isn't it in our best interests to start with food.

Has anyone else seen this documentary and what was your thoughts?

Around Here

We had a lovely Easter and ate too many Easter Eggs and I confess to eating too many because the actual big day but hey that's life and my addiction to chocolate.  I did make some healthy minestrone soup yesterday to give my body some healthy veggies to make up for it. 

Home made Minestrone Soup.

Afternoon light on my Lavender Bush

 From her doorway I saw Sienna on her bed drawing a scene from her book she was reading.

My sister (Aunty Lisa) made these little marshmallow bunnies for Easter.

Lindt Chocolate Bunnies from Nanny & Pop.

Sienna found this empty snack skin along the side fence curled amongst the vine.

 And the end of the snake...this freaked me out.

The Easter Bunny has been.

I loved what Sienna wrote in her card. Dear Easter Bunny this Easter I would like an Easter Bilby because I would like to support the Bilby now. Thank you from Sienna. (this girl melts my heart).

I made a delicious Quiche for dinner with loads of salad.

Around Here

Tomorrow is the last day of Term 1 and we already feel like it's holidays at our house.  Here's some things that have been going on around here.

This was James 2 weeks ago broke his collar bone on his left shoulder and broke his right wrist.  He was riding his bike on the way to school and hit the front brakes and went over the handle bars.  He was in a bad way when I picked him up from school.. He was in shock, shaking and in lots of pain and basically I spent the next 5 hours between the doctors and x-ray twice.

He came off his bike at 8.45 am and this photo below was taken at 2.45 pm.  We were laughing at how silly he looked with two slings.  He is down to one sling on one hand and other wrist in plaster.  He was looking a lot better than he was after it happened that's for sure.

Last year our local community got the Farmers Markets up and running as our first project and now we are on to re thinking our parks so this was the day you got to come and have your say about designing the park with a free sausage on the BBQ. 

This was Sienna on Monday as I had to pick her up from school as she got a vomiting bug and in fact vomiting every 30 minutes until 11.30 pm the poor thing.  She is now on the mend just in time for the holidays thankfully.  My nursing/mummy duties are in overtime around here.

Finally she was able to get some sleep on the couch cuddling her teddy bear named "chocolate".

I ordered Jodi's beautiful book which arrived early this morning and I've had a look through it and can't wait to get a cuppa and read through it all.

Nanny & Pop sent us an Easter Card and we always get a Lindt Chocolate Bunny from them as well.

Tuesday's are $1.00 DVD's so one for me an one for the kids....I needed the tissues but a happy and sad ending watching "The Best of Me".

It's free dress at school tomorrow so I made Sienna this beautiful little skirt today which she loves.

It's a double layer skirt with the top layer shorter than the bottom with a yellow bias binding for contrast.

Here's the little completed skirt on the hanger.