my weekend away, alone...

so this past weekend, i enjoyed some time away all by myself (well not exactly, but without hubby and offspring)... an old friend was getting married, in coffs harbour, so i jetted off there with the brides mum and sister... 2 flights and who knows how many hours, the 3 of us had finally arrived on friday afternoon, checked in and hiked the half a km through the hilly resort with my 17 kg's of luggage, only to have the wrong kind of room, not a massive 2 bedroom villa, but a tiny motel room... so off i hiked back to reception, a fair amount of money later, we ended up in a beautiful 2 bedroom villa, sorted...

my big bed for 3 days, all to myself...

saturday was a very warm day (40 degrees), so that meant a last minute change of outfit... the wedding was so beautiful, the bride was gorgeous, the place was amazaing (a huge tuscan style villa/mansion)...

the beautiful bride and her father...

loving the coloursplash app on my new iPad

the bride and i

so a lovely wedding, a relaxing sunday in coffs harbour, of course including a visit to the big banana, monday was time to go home... monday morning brought a text message informing me that one of my flights had been cancelled (but which one - coffs to sydney or sydney to melbourne), so it turned out i was to be left in sydney (all alone, as everyone else made it onto other flights home) for 3 hours, which was not all bad, a phone call to an old school friend: "what are you doing tonight, want to have dinner with me at the airport???" and she did have dinner with me, which was fantastic because i hadn't seen her for ages.... so i finally arrived home at 11:30 on monday night, luckily i had tuesday off work...

my 2 year old having surgery...

2 weeks ago i received a letter in the mail saying that my 2.5 year old's surgery for grommets and adenoids had been booked in (after 9 months on the wait list)...

on wednesday my mum came to stay for the night, so thursday called for a spot of shopping... with christmas closing in on us, i thought dragging mum to cotton on kids for the last of elliot's christmas shopping seemed like a good idea... we were in there for over an hour and spent over $700 between us (she was buying chrissie pressies for all the other grandkids too)... while we were there, the hospital called for elliot's pre-addmission appointment, and all was going well until she told me that i could go into theatre with her until she was asleep, and then i burst into tears, i didn't realise how anxious i was feeling about the whole thing...

the hospital wait list in the city i live is quite long (yes, longer than the 9 months we waited), so we were on the wait list for regional hospitals... thursday after mum left, hubby and i packed the car up and were ready to drive the hour and half to the regional town where elliot's surgery was going to be...

we arrived late, had showers and headed off to bed for a good night sleep before her big day, to no avail... by the time i fell asleep it was after midnight, then i saw 1am, 3am, 4am and was wide awake at 5am, worst night sleep ever...

we arrived at the hospital at 8am on friday ready to go... the staff were so wonderful, we didn't have to wait at all, straight through for all the paperwork and meds to be done (luckily, because it's really difficult to tell a 2 year old that she can't have anything to eat or drink)... so once we were almost ready to go through to theatre, the nurse gave elliot some medication to calm her and so she wouldn't realise what was happening (they do this so if they have to have surgery again, they won't be freaked out by it), and that was the funniest thing, it was kind of like watching a drunk friend when they've hit that 'happy drunk' phase...

so off we go, i take elli down to theatre, and start crying on the way, once we're in there, i nurse her while they give her the gas until she's asleep, lay her on the table, give her a kiss, start crying again, and head to wait with my hubby until it's all over...

half hour later, everything was done, and all went perfectly... we went to recovery to wait for her to wake...

so sooki mum had nothing to worry about, after sleeping most of the day on friday recovering, saturday morning she was up and about like nothing had happened at all...

on the drive home from hospital

 

 

 

elliot was good as gold again today, so we had a great day out riding our bikes, doing washing and a little bit of baking... i made some more feta and sundried tomato tarts (i hardly got any of the last batch i made), i also made some cheese and spring onion twists, yum...

 

AND, have you tried the new caramel chips yet, like choc chips, but caramel, i used them and made some chocolate and caramel chip cookies, they are not photographed here as i had to hide them from the cookie monster (elliot)...

 

 

 

 

here is my cookie recipe (the easiest ever)

 

2 cups of self raising flour

1 cup sugar
4 oz. butter (softened)
1 egg
milk
whatever you want to put in them (choc chips, caramel chips, m&m's)
180 degree oven

mix flour and sugar
add in choc chips (or whatever you want to use)
add in butter and egg, mix
add milk as required to get the right texture (sticky)


either roll into balls or spoon onto lined baking trays, and bake for 15 minutes (should be golden brown)...
let them cook on the tray then move to a wire rack, they might look a bit under cooked when you take them out of the oven, but this will make them chewy, enjoy!!!

baking...

so what a lovely weekend we have had in our house, baking, baking and more baking... first up we started our friday evening with a quick supermarket trip to get some stuff to make macarons (by that i mean donna hay's macarons in a box - awesome)... instead of the ganache that comes with them, we made our own, RED SKIN ganache...

here are 2 of our red skin macarons

so that was friday...

saturday was the first saturday in ages that hubby didn't have to work, and the weather was awful, so we spent the morning visiting his grandparents at their farm, while we were there, i was flicking through magazines and found some great recipes to try, so i added all the ingredients to shop shop on my iPhone, and we stopped in at the supermarket again on our way home to get everything plus our weeks worth of groceries (i only like grocery shopping once a week)...

so once home, with the groceries away and the rain falling, a bit of couch time was in order while elliot had a bit of nap... so after her sleep, she was ready to go, my little masterchef, because i told her we were making smarties cookies... so doing a few things at once, we made smartie cookies, sausage rolls and feta & sundried tomato tarts, all very delicious, cookies are already almost gone, but have put the other food in the freezer, all portioned out for lunches...

feta and sundried tomato tarts

 

sausage rolls

 

 

GIANT smaries cookies

 

 

and as we were spending a quit night in, what better dinner than home made pizza...

 

 



 

 

but the thing i was looking forward to making the most was some cheese twists with puff pastry, but ran out of time (and sunday was too busy), thought i would make them today, forgetting i had to work, oh well, there's always next weekend...



my little helper

So my quilt is coming along, slowly but surely... I've cut out all the pieces, now trying to piece it together, it came with a pattern or you can try your own... I think I'll stick to the pattern it came with, although laying it out has proved rather difficult with a 2.5 year old rearranging the pieces when I'm not looking...

On another note I'm interested to know what you do at Christmas in regards to gift giving, who do you give them to, and how much do you spend???

arghhhhhhhh, please go to sleep...

so the past few days, little miss elliot has decided to play up at bed time... normally she is an angel, 8:00 is bed time, we read a few stories, walk her to her room, put her in bed, kiss her goodnight and leave the room, without another word or sound...

but the last few nights, it has not been so easy, we follow that same routine up until the 'leaving the room' part, she's crying and says she doesn't want to go to bed, and then she waits 5 minutes, and comes out to the lounge room... so, i take her back to bed and then she comes out to the lounge room, so i take her back to bed and then she comes out to the lounge room, and so on, you get the idea...

and tonight *sigh*, i figured she would be really really tired from her lack of sleep and being at daycare the last 2 days, i put her to bed at 7:45 while daddy wasn't home, and she was quiet, daddy got home, still she was quiet... BUT THEN, at 8:15, out she came and we did the same 'take her back again' for a while, that wasn't working so daddy cuddled her in bed for 5 minutes and she was asleep by 8:30...

BUT THEN, just after puberty blues finished (gee i love that show, so sad the season is over), out she came (arghhhhhhhhhh), so now (at 10:10) i have just put her in bed with daddy, and she will fall straight to sleep... i know that some will say it's bad parenting, but it's late and i'm tired too...