Find of the Week.

I've decided to start a "Find of the Week" post. As we have found some pretty decent things lately! Could be anything from a new recipe, something from the shops or craft activity, so pretty much anything!

Today I have 3!!

Mine first, I found some spare re-chargeable batteries for the camera, hence the good photo's below! They were in one of Cowboys toys!! So I've charged them up and testing them out for the day, hopefully they last!


Now onto Ben's finds from when we went shopping the other day.

We love Spaghetti bolognaise, its something i know the boys will eat. And i can hide veggies in it. On the weekend i put homegrown eggplant in it. They didn't even bat and eyelid and ate pretty much their whole bowl full! So anyway to make it cheaper is great for us. I usually make it from scratch, tin tomatoes, herbs extra sauce etc, instead of buying the $2 something jars of pasta sauce.

But Ben found this at our local Aldi.



It is a little bit more than a plain tin of tomatoes in cost but much cheaper than the jar of pasta sauce and i don't have to add as much into it with herbs etc, so makes it cheaper all round! beauty!


Now the next item, i wasn't sure about when Ben purchased it. I didn't think it was going to fit our toaster.




A nice no fuss snack or sometimes easy dinner are toasted sandwiches. This little baby makes it so much easier, make the sandwich put it in the pocket then put it in the toaster. Cooked just as good as in a pan or sandwich toaster. The pockets are re-usable up to 50 times! Love it!

Have you had any good finds this week?

Gloomy.

The last couple of days have not only been pretty yukky weather wise, but I and the boys have been a little glum. Mine is my own fault for not going to bed early... But the boys I've had trouble working out. Today I checked blue eyes teeth, he has his 2 bottom second molars coming in. That's his problem sorted and understood. But cowboy I have no idea what's going on. Whinge, arguing, tantrum throwing, naughty. Sounds like a normal 4 year old!! He has been really good lately though. But come to think of it, he started this funny business when he started playing games on the laptop.. Too much visual stimulation i think. Great that is going to be fun to try and cut down. Anyone want to step in for me, I've had enough arguing for one day!

So we have been indoors the last couple of days and i guess cabin fever isn't helping our situation. Not much is getting done besides the arguments.. I took the boys to the shops this morning. All they wanted was a treat and to get home, great. They spent the whole hour yes just an hour, complaining that they wanted to go home! Not the fun outing i thought it was going to be. But i confined them to a trolley (love those things) and ignored them and persisted. Whilst getting my eyebrows done the lovely lady gave them a balloon each to keep them occupied, quietest 5 minutes i had all morning!


Now onto something better! Saturday nights dinner!

Ben got some Red Claw (fresh water yabbies/crayfish)what ever you want to call them) from a work mate. Ben marinated them and cooked them up 2 different ways. I'm not into seafood, don't mind prawns but can't eat too many. So i was pleasantly surprised at how much i liked these. I made hash browns to go with. I tell you they were almost as good as the macca's hash browns. They were beautiful, and a huge hit the boys!



Marinated Red Claw at the top and in the middle, yummy hash browns on the bottom of the plate!

I'm only working Friday this week, maybe Thursday if it gets busy. So i have some extra time to do some things around the house, if the weather fines up MOTHER NATURE!! lol

This Saturday we are going to Australia Zoo with Ben's work social club. We all can't wait. We've wanted to go for so so long and its only an hour away from us. But price's to get in etc are expensive, but through the work social club so so much cheaper so it was a must!! So we will have a lot of happy snaps to show (if we have some camera batteries that is!! Still waiting for them to turn up in the mail)

Anyway I should go do something productive!

Here is the recipe for the hash browns.
5 medium potatoes, peeled and grated
1 egg
1 tablespoon of plain flour
salt and pepper
oil to fry in

Method
Combine all ingredients.
use tablespoon amounts into pour into oil
fry each side until crisp and golden
drain on paper towel.


And the recipe for the muesli bars from the other day :-)

1 cup oats
1 cup sultana's (optional, i used half a cup of chocolate melts)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup self raising flour
1/2 cup coconut
125g butter
2 tablespoons honey.

Mix dry ingredients together
Melt honey and butter in a pan on stove.
Mix melted ingredients in with dry.
pour into slice/lamington tray
cook in an 180c oven for 10-15minutes
cut into squares or bars when warm.

Grass Heads and Playing.

The boys Grass heads they made at Granny's 2 weeks ago, are doing fantastic. Just about time for them to have a hair cut!




The other day, I had a little play around with my nails. I practiced with my acrylic on a fake hand i have, to see how i would go mixing and letting it cure. I did better than i thought. So that is a major plus! I then decided to paint my own nails, I got in my kit a pale pink polish that i thought i would use in a french tip way. I really like the result, and again did better than i thought with only needing to put a small amount on.



The results of painting my nails.


Below is a photo of cowboy, playing on our laptop... He turns 4 in August and already wants to use the laptop and play games on it, like daddy does!




He does really well, his hand eye co-ordination is amazing and his memory for where we select the games in the program list, blows my mind. I let him go by himself for 5 minutes and he had all 4 games out he is allowed to play and shrunk the boxes and put them all in a corner on the screen so he could see all of them at the same time..

Can't imagine the types of new technology our next generation is going to discover/invent if this is what a nearly 4 year old can do!

We are having a fairly quiet weekend, I will try take some good photo's on my phone of how our veg gardens are doing for my next post!

Hope your weekend has started as well as ours! :-)

Mummy thought wrong!

I've been trying to find an easy, no fuss receipe for muslei bars. For my wonderful boys to eat. I thought I was on to a winner today. The new found receipe only had a handful of ingredients, which can be substituted for others if wanting too. And the method for making was easy as.

Cowboy loves porridge, so thought the oats in his bars would suit.




This photo was taken off my phone, and my phone decided to crop the photo for me?! But you can tell they look pretty darn yummy.

Oats, desicated coconut, s/r flour, choc chips, honey and butter.


We had the taste test 10 minutes ago.

Blue eyes and myself enjoyed ours..

Cowboy had only taken a couple of bites, and protested ~ mummy i only like my muslei bars with honey and choc chips. NO uncle toby's (oats!)

Will see how he goes over the next week, as there are heaps and we don't go shopping until next week. (they are the only muslei type bars we have in the cupboard) Fingers crossed he is just pulling a 4 yr old moment. Which reminds me his birthday is in a couple of weeks! He turns 4 on the 8th August. I need to get cracking and find him a bicycle for his birthday!

I'm Impressed!

First of all, our camera batteries have died. So wont have as many photo's until we get some newies, which i'm not impressed about..

BUT...

What I am Impressed with is READING!

A dear friend of mine and Ben's and her wonderful husband, have loaned us some books to read. We are in the normal stickyness of just running around chasing our tails paying bills with no money left for what we want to do, or work towards. (our dream house and property, jobs etc).

So Mrs Bates delivered to us 4 books to choose from and a movie version of The Secret. Ben and I have chosen different books to read. I had to do a little pushing, but I'm pretty sure Ben agree's with me. We need to get something sorted so we can get our lives sitting where we want them.

Ben is reading You were born rich by Bob Proctor - And he seems to be really liking it. When he picked me up from work the other afternoon, he mentioned to me that he can't go past the chapter he is up to, until we sit down and organise ourselves as to how the chapter suggest's. Which I'm really excited about, him getting so excited with the idea's and plans he is reading about!

My book is The success principles by Jack Canfield - Me who was never really a book worm (Ben is) chose the biggest book to read, oh dear what have i got my self in for! But I can't stop thinking about, oh I wonder what the next chapter has in it.. And if i don't get to read during the day i have to read before i go to bed to get my fix! I am so really impressed with myself, I'm just taking it a chapter at a time, not pushing myself. I started on Monday and now I'm up to chapter 8, for most other people they would have almost finished the book by now. But as i said i'm not a book worm so i think i'm doing a pretty decent job. I'm also still really interested in it. Every chapter has some sort of idea or plan that sticks with me. When Ben and i sit down to talk about it, it sounds like we are 2 kids talking about getting lollies or something, we get that excited lol!

I'm also Impressed with how well our new routine is going, everything is slotting into place. I seem to work every friday and either a tuesday or wednesday. Sometimes a thursday, like this week just gone whilst my boss had a training course in Brisbane I recieved an extra day of work. Fine by me more money in my pocket!

Tomorrow (sunday) we have 2 markets to attend. One in town that our above dear friends are attending with their chocolates and spices they are making themselves yum yum! And Ben's mum (granny) is going to the Goomboorian markets to sell her bath products yum again! We will also be stocking up on some fresh veg, nothing better (besides out of your own garden) than from the markets!

Hope your all having a wonderful weekend! We are!!

Electricity

Last week, we recieved another letter in the mail from our electricity provider. Letting us know that the rates will be going up again.

If we had the money we would go out straight away and buy some solar panels, but we don't :(

Our next house will have solar! I can't wait for that!

But for now, I am researching other electricity companies and their rates to see if we can get a better deal with some one else.

If anyone has any helpful tips or knowledge on cheaper companies please post me a comment! :)

We had a wonderful weekend, the boys had a blast staying at Granny and Pa's and we enjoyed being able to watch some scary movies! lol

Hope you all had a good weekend aswell :)

Our Dream.

Our Dream....

Is to one day have a view like this from our back deck.



This is Ben's dad and step-mum's property. 40 acres of bliss!

When we were looking to purchase a house 2 years ago, we really wanted a house on acres. But at that time it was way too expensive for us. So we purchased our current house in town, with a decent sized back yard for the dog and boys to play in. But we still have that huge desire to own a much bigger back yard! It will happen, we just need to get our bums into gear, do what we can afford to, to this house - finish off projects!!!! Pay some debts off!! Then see what is possible!

In addition to one day owning our acres further in the future is to be as self sufficient as possible. It will too one day happen with good planing!


We had an excellent time up at Ben's dad's, a bit of fishing and lots of play time!




There are 2 creeks in the area Baffle creek and Deep water creek, I'm pretty sure this is Deep water creek!



The boys having a blast in the dirt! lol

Another week has flown past! We are now planning to stay home as much as possible over the next few months, save some mula and finish some jobs/projects! The boys are off to Granny and Pa's for a sleep over tonight, they are very excited, it's only just gone past lunch and cowboy keeps asking if its time to go yet!! They will have a blast.. Not to mention we will too. We are having a movie night with some friends, it will be great to sit and not be interrupted during a movie and it be an adult movie!! Hope you've all had a great week and weekend! I posted a video of cowboy pretending to be a Kookaburra, we had at least 5 in the back trees this morning having a great sing - a - long, if only there wasn't other house and street noise's around as well, would have been P E R F E C T!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANNY XO

It's Granny's Birthday today, seeing as we are going away this weekend, we had both Granny and Pa over for dinner last night. And the boys and I made Granny a special birthday cake!





Cowboy wanted to make a barbie cake, but I'm not that clever, so this was the result with some help from store bought decorations!




The boys of course had to help Granny blow out the candle!


Hope you have a great Birthday Granny! xxoo


And I hope everyone else has a good weekend aswell. We are off the Baffle Creek!

Talk to you all sooon :-)