Easter Trees

Five years ago we were in Lebanon celebrating a Greek Orthodox Easter with my Father's family. Every house we visited had one of these beautiful Easter trees on display.
We couldn't help but be captivated by this beautiful tradition. The hand-painted hanging eggs, the hand-dyed eggs for cracking at Easter Sunday lunch and the hand made mamul, Easter biscuits with walnuts and dates for nibbling with coffee when visiting over the season.

My mother bought home some treasures from that special Easter and continues the tradition each year in her home. This year she had a special helper.

The Rooster has noticed that the shops are full of bunnies and eggs but as yet, has no idea that these shiny foil wrappings contain chocolate. He has decided that he might like to have an Easter egg hunt with his friends after reading Peter Rabbit and the Egg Hunt, a truly beautiful story book. He thinks that he might like to find 10 eggs in his garden just like Peter Rabbit.

A magical Monday meal

Not usually one to blog food but tonight's dinner was too noteworthy to let pass. At 6.20 we had the littlies fed but were yet to think of something for ourselves. We had a huge pumpkin from our fruit and vege co-op just begging to be used for pumpkin soup.

So while the kids thrashed out their last bit of energy before winding down for bed, I peeled and chopped and roasted the pumpkin and a few onions all ready to be blitzed into soup. Stuck to the fridge was a recipe for olive and basil bread that I wrote down from someones blog. Apologies to that blogger for not crediting her. I was browsing blog land late one night and stumbled across it and jotted it down never thinking I would ever get around to trying it. So, if you recognise this recipe as posted elsewhere let me know.

Anyway, I threw that together taking all of 5 minutes and it was delicious. Saying that, Tools came down, saw it and asked had I made a cake too. He had some serious ground to make up considering I had whipped up an almost gourmet dinner in under 30 minutes and it was his suggestion that we shoot it and blog it.

Olive and Basil Bread.

1 cup of chopped olives

1 bunch of chopped basil

add this to

1 cup of wholemeal self-raising flour and

3 quarters of a cup of parmesan

also add

4 eggs

40 grams of butter

Cook in oven for 40 mins

Served fresh from the oven, it was perfect with the soup as it held together really well. I live in hope that my picky eating children will try it tomorrow for lunch. Wishful thinking.

Something Beautiful in my Backyard

This time eight years ago we moved up to the Blue Mountains and began the arduous task of searching for a house to buy. After many disappointing months we stumbled upon the house we now live in. We walked through the front door and straight out the back door and set our eyes on this.
The bush is a beautiful backdrop to our garden. It is full of birds during the day and possums, crickets and other creatures at night. Last spring we put the pond in and over the summer on those very hot evenings wallabies would venture up for a cool drink.

We have one other structure in our yard that worthy of a mention.

Tools made this beautiful cubby house for the Rooster for his birthday last year. As you can imagine, he was pretty chuffed. All his mates have a ball when they come over to play, leaving the mummies on the deck with the littler ones to enjoy the view and the peace and stillness of the bush.

Beyond pink and blue chose this weeks beautiful theme for Eyespy Sunday .

Learning to share

Sharing his home with Missy has been an enormous challenge for the Rooster. Don't get me wrong, the Rooster adores his little sister, but having a small person who touches his beloved trains, cars and lego stretches his patience and we all know that 3 year olds have very little of that to tap into.

Over time he has learnt that Mummy's love and kisses are infinite, that his train track can be rebuilt and that in the end, Missy only wants to hold his things for about 2 minutes until her tiny concentration span gets distracted someplace else. He has discovered that having a playmate around can be a lot of fun and that her small strong legs, coupled with her very strong will enables her to keep up with him no matter how hard he tries to evade her.

A couple of weekends ago we had got an unexpected sleep in. Sure we were up at 5.30 (the Rooster is still a dawn riser) but we dropped back off, waking at quarter to nine to the sound of chatter on the monitor. We stumbled downstairs to find our pair munching their way through a packet of Arrowroots. "Don't worry mummy, I gave Missy some breakfast too!" he said ever so proudly. The cot was strewn with her toys, the floor covered with his race track and there were crumbs everywhere. The next week it was some smarties cookies we had baked for a birthday party and last week it was sultanas. Our children our on the way to self-sufficiency.

Just tonight Daddy was setting up a new train track for our fella, and carefully laid out beside his train table was a neat little bridge and a small run of track that the Rooster had made for Ellie. I'd like to think that he made it in a spirit of sharing and not as a deterrent to the real thing. I'd like to think that he moving away from egocentricity and growing towards unselfishness.

Our two get up to mischief but it is derived from pure delight. They giggle and share jokes that their mother will never get. Their laughs are indistinguishable as is the sound of their cries. Their gender will motivate their growing interests, but I truly hope that they will grow up to be the greatest of mates.

My favourite colours

First there was green. All sorts of green in all sorts of shades. A lovely green lounge. Green tiles in the kitchen. Green towels in the bathroom. Green bush outside our windows. Sometimes I would come home from shopping and realise that I had unconsciously bought everything in green. T-shirts, jumpers skirts bags. It was all green.
The Rooster's favourite colour is green too. His favourite food is green pasta (read pesto pasta). When the Rooster was little we would step out and we would look ridiculously "mini me" in our greens. It was months (actually it was well in the second year) before I realised it and only after my mother pointed it out asking if my son had any shirts that weren't green.

Next it was red. That gorgeous watermelon, almost red but not quite pink.

Last March after having Missy I went to pick up a few things that weren't maternity and I came home with 3 tops all in the same colour. Again quite by accident and only discovering it when I arrived home. When doing laundry Missy and I have the same load and all our reds and watermelons and pinks get mixed up and tumble about together.

But my all time favourite colour.? Brown. Dark eyes. Dark hair. Chocolate. Old furniture. Puddles of mud. Great stomping boots. The colour of good coffee. A warm colour for winter and a cool summer shade. And the best thing about Brown? It goes perfectly with green and watermelon.

Thanks to a busy Cindy for hosting and to Amityvilleboronia for choosing this weeks theme.

The Magic of time out

A magical born-free moment yesterday. A chance to put on a pretty dress and take to the town with some girls to celebrate a birthday. 6 mummies with a combined knowledge of about a 100 years. One had young adults, one had teenagers. Three of us had toddlers. We had a 7 week bub with us who was an angel and of course the birthday girl who is a few weeks off having her second. Reason enough to make hay.

We had a giggle, shared stories and chewed the fat about some serious stuff. Tea was poured from silver pots and we ate off pretty china plates. When the food arrived it looked like this.
Tiny bite-sized, mouthfuls of deliciousness.

No mess to clean up. Mouths to wipe. Children to shush. Not a babicino in sight.

Motherhood is magical but those moments when you step away and take some time out, have their own magic.

The Magic of Macs (I mean March)

Magical moments today at work. Magical that my whole class of Year 9 's brought their discs in to use in class. Magical that every Mac worked today. Magical that the online assessment went off without a hitch. And a Magical coincidence that the Principal and AP dropped into my room after lunch today and happened upon something wonderful in my class room.

Win one, lose one.

Not alot of magic happening here last night. Our Missy lulled us into a false sense of sleeping confidence the night before. It was obviously a one-off, never to be repeated in the forseeable future, kind of event. Last night we were up, down, up, down all night long and awoke to find her hair plastered to her face because of all the SNOT that was pouring out her nose! At least we were up all night for good reason, that being that our littliest was sick.

Magic was happening in the Rooster's world though. He left his two favourite cars at the library this afternoon and an hour later they were where exactly where he left them. Had he put them down in the children's book area they would have been long gone. Instead, he left them on the chess board in the quiet reading section. The old folk reading the papers obviously had no interest in his cars (on closer inspection they would have noticed that these were collectors cars...yeah, der for bringing them out of the house, but you try arguing that point with a three and a half year old!).

Magical March is working in mysterious ways in our home. Hoping for some to be sprinkled on our slumbering children tonight.

Magical March

I think that Magical March may have sprinkled some of its special magic dust on our house last night.

Our Missy slept all the way through. Mummy slept all the way through. The Rooster slept in till nearly seven (and when he woke he told me that there was nothing in his dreams last night).

Ah-ha...this is what they mean when they say sleeping like a baby. It can't happen two nights in a row, can it?

Sweet dreams my Missy.

What makes me happy

Many many things.

My children. Their smiles, watching them play and grow and explore their worlds. Their warm bodies curled into mine in the early morning.

My beloved. Hearing him play with our children. Our conversations when we get each other. That I can still learn things from him after 12 years.

The simple things. A good cup of coffee. A sublimely beautiful piece of music. Trying something new and loving it. A good conversation. A great movie. A great lesson. Crisp clean sheets on a Sunday evening. A beautiful bunch of flowers. A card in the mail. Looking out and catching sight of something in the nature and knowing I was lucky to look at that exact moment.

Thanks once again to Cindy for hosting and to at Iris and Lily for choosing this weeks Happy theme.