Frustrating!!!

Just to show you what kind of day I'm having..... As i sat down to re-rejuvenate and have a cuppa and a slice of the most amazing banana bread (picture below). My tea bag burst... as i poured my tea into another cup, i burnt my fingers by spilling my hot tea everywhere. Then accidentally put too much milk in making for a milky cold tea. Something I'm not too fond of. But i do not have the energy to re-do the whole process, so i am making do. At least my banana bread taste wonderful!






I got the recipe for this bread off best recipe's.com. And it simply is the best recipe. So easy and so yummy! (i will post the recipe at the end)


This week has not started so well. Last week was such a great week. And we had such a great weekend. Now we've gone into a slump.. Frustrating YES!!!

Ben is currently sleeping in bed with the flu.. Blue eyes is sleeping off his last 2 nights of tossing and turning. Although last night i worked out what was wrong when he told me mouth and grabbed it like he was in pain. Which means his 2nd molars are on there way.. Cowboy is just being cowboy and wanting to eat us out of house and home... (I have no idea how we will survive when they are both teenagers, my gosh they eat enough now..). They both seem to have extra energy, or maybe I'm just lacking alot of it.. And are into and on top of everything...

I am really looking forward to when everything evens out... And blue eye's sleeps all night every night.. It won't be until after his 2nd molars, so hopefully they come through fast not much pain and NO TEMPS!!

On top we have normal frustrating items, bills, winter items needed to be purchased etc (I'm sure you get my drift)..
And finally, at the end of last year i started studying a course by correspondence. Nail technology. I'm currently waiting on my kit so i can start practicing manicure and pedicures on my wonderful friends and family... But it hasn't arrived. I've called my teacher/tutor whatever you would like to call her and asked for it twice.. and it is not here yet.. Very frustrating. I've completed the theory for this module and just want to get into doing it, but i don't want to keep calling and hounding her. I understand people get busy, but I'm paying for the course and need utensils to finish it...

Any who, this morning i did go and see one of my close friends for a cuppa. She has just returned from completing a course on chocolate making. And brought home all her goodies!! mmmm best part of the day right there!! Cuppa, chocolate and a great friend, Perfect! And she sent me home with a goodie box!! All the chocolates are wonderful and oh so yummy! She's going to start her own specialized chocolate business, mmmm chocolate!!

Well i should try and find some motivation and get some things done while blue eyes is tucked up in bed... And hope for a better day tomorrow.. Fingers crossed :)


Very Simple Banana Bread

Ingredients

2 1/2 cups Self raising flour
3/4 cup brown sugar
1 cup milk
2 tablespoon margarine
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
3 ripe bananas. mashed

Method

Preheat oven to 180C
Combine all ingredients, mix with a wooden spoon until all is completely moist.
Put in tin. ( i used my bread tin, but you can also use muffin tin for muffins)
Cooking time on recipe says 30-40, but mixture is very moist and took close to an hour in my oven. But well worth the wait!

Afternoon Tea for the Birthday BOY!

Yesterday afternoon, we had the grandparents, great grandparents and cousins my brother and his partner around for afternoon tea. Nice and simple. We love having parties for the boys, but sometimes they get out of hand and we end up having almost everyone we know around to celebrate. So this year we are keeping it nice and simple. The same goes for the presents to be purchased for the boys as well.. I asked for presents this year to be clothing, linen, kitchen utensils. Anything that needs replacing alot. Instead of filling up the toy room again! I was very please when blue eyes received some winter clothing and towels. He did get a toy from his Aunty and Uncle, but it is a learning toy! He loves it as well as the clothing, he's tried them all on almost twice!!

All the kids had a ball playing and eating, the boys are still a little tired today from it!!

Here are some photo's from the afternoon.






The cake, my wonderful boys helped me with including Ben!!






Getting a group kiddie photo for the Grandma's!






Cutting up the goodies to eat!





MMMMM Cake!!





Playing with Pa.

We had a wonderful afternoon, exactly what we were after!

I promise i will try and not get emotional, BUT our baby does turn 2 tomorrow...

Blogger is being nice today and loading photo's fast, so I've put in a few extra than originally planned!

Our blue eyes turns 2 tomorrow. Although he hasn't been a baby for quite awhile, to me and most of our family he is still our little baby. His age does however finally catch up to the attitude he holds. Very independent to say the least! But also very very cheeky! So here are a few of my favourite photo's. Some i will put captions on, but most are there for you to enjoy!





Of course only a few minutes old, and a couple of days early i might add!









This is one of my all time favourites of the boys together. Ben captured this, and we haven't been able to get another one like it, i love it!








He became very good at his reversing skills!









Very excited at his first few steps!



Now the next 2 photo's are from a weekend that we will never forget. There is another photo on our laptop somewhere of him in the shower which shows just how much the convulsions knocked him, makes me very teary when i see it. These photo's are from Easter weekend last year, he is trying to put on a brave face. But i can still see how yukky he was feeling after having 2 hospital trips..













Beach Bum!!









Always has to help lick the beaters after I've mixed up a cake mixture!!



Happy Birthday to our wonderful little blue eyes, life is definitely a bag of all sorts with you in our life, but that's what makes us love you so much. Wouldn't change it for the world!! xoxo

One visitor i do NOT like.

I do not like spiders on the best of days... I have a fear of them... It's not as bad as it use to be, but its still there.

Whilst in the sandpit with the boys this morning, We flipped the slide for their jungle gym, and my cowboys yells out "arr". He dropped the slide and made dash for cover... (can you tell the fear he has picked up from me about spiders!!)





This is what he found, the dreaded RED BACK! I forgot to put something down next to it, to show its size. It's the biggest I've seen.... I do not like them hanging around our house! It would have been in between half the size of a 5c piece and the full size of it, that's its bum anyway! So the jungle gym is off limits, I've sprayed it, but will get Ben to give it another check and probably another spray just to make sure!




After getting rid of the spider, the boys then spent the next 10 minutes or so hiding out in the laundry.. They understand spiders are not to be messed with. I'm glad that's one of the things they have listened to within all my ranting and raving to them lol

It's almost time for my blue eyes to have his nap, and while he is sleeping , i am going to have a shower... Wash my hair, well wash everywhere and get the itchy feeling away that lingers with me... Yes that is how much i do not like spiders!!!

Helpful little hands!

Out of nowhere last night a cyclone hit our house..... It mainly concentrated on the TOY room!!!!





This is the wonderful help the boys gave me last night, instead of packing up, they pulled everything out of the toy box!! They must have known something, I've been wanting to clean it out for a couple of months and put things back were they belong and not an all in jumble in the biggest toy box. But like alot of things i keep putting it off!







You can see the bottom!! This was a blanket box. Ben built this with his grandfather when he was a teenager. We did have blankets in it until the toy explosion happened last year! It fits alot of crap... eerrrr.... i mean TOYS in it!!

So my job today while my little blue eyed helping monster is asleep is to tidy it all up!!





But of course the boys love having nothing, well very little in the box so they can sit in it. They've been boating, driving and even building a house in it this morning. Maybe i should get rid of the toys and just keep the box, they seem to like playing with it more than all the toys now sitting on the floor!


Well off i go.... Can you tell i'm looking forward to it... :-)

Food, Food - Glorious FOOD!

I forgot to take a photo of the latest eggplant picked yesterday by Ben and the boys, so instead i took photo's of what we made it into!

For dinner last night we had, Sausage, Eggplant and Tomato Casserole. It is a slow cooker recipe, so it was suppose to be cooked for a few hours. But being that i had to cook the sausages before putting it in the oven (or slow cooker) It didn't really matter that i only cooked it for 30 Min's in the oven. The Eggplant and Tomato mixture also had to be cooked on the stove top as well, so i let it simmer on there for longer before putting it all the oven. With all the added herbs the house was smelling so yummy. The boys stayed down in the bar with Ben to watch the end of the footy. So i turned the radio on and up!! And enjoyed some much needed kitchen time, to myself!



The end result, The boys don't like as many flavours and added extra chunky bits in there dinner, so they got a sausage each and some mash potato!




A close up of our dinner, That is home made bread as an added extra to dunk in the juices left on the plate!! mmmm IT was SO yummy!


After having such a great time cooking yesterday, and not wanting to get out of bed this morning... I decided to do some more cooking to brighten my day!




I did a bit more than i original intended too!

I made 2 loaves of basil and garlic bread, a baked custard, a small batch of shortbread. And finally i got a recipe for chocolate yogo from Ben's cousin, from Tara Brae Farm (She's on my list of blogs i watch!) It is really good, so easy to make and oh so yummy. The boys have already had a couple of serves today. So I'm not sure how long it will last!

I still have more to do today, but having a spell right now, so i dont keel over!! after my rest i have to organise some things i sold on ebay to sell and do some cleaning! So time for me to go. :)

Perfect sunday afternoon.

Last weekend our favourite game started, Rugby League(football)!! As we only have free to air television, we only watch the Friday night games and Sunday afternoon game. We love our Sunday afternoon footy. Nibbles are done and ready to go for the footy to start!




Our Avocado Dip and biscuits. YUM.




This is Ben's team the Parramatta Eels, he has gone for them since he was a young fella!




I have always watched the footy, but never really supported a team, besides Queensland during origin time. But since doing a family tipping competition, i have chosen a team. And this is their logo, the North Queensland Cowboys!!

I'm not very good at our tipping comp, but i have fun! Our boys also have their input and say which team they back at winning each week. They love it just as much as the rest of us!

Well it's about to start so i better get down to the bar to watch it with my boys!