Things I'm Loving 20.1.12

Our names in letters
How's this for a cool crafty gift? It came with love all the way from the lovely Nikki from Life's Wonderful Happenings in London for our boys. Might just have to pin this one to Pinterest for future gift ideas!

Pohutukawa
I love this time of the year. Drive through any coastal town around NZ, and you'll see a myriad of shades of red   on each different tree. I'm a little bit gutted that our trees at home don't seem to be doing much - a true sign of a summer that hasn't been much chop so far, so I'll just have to make do with enjoying my photos from more glorious specimens captured on our recent travels up north.

Jotta A 
The voice of an angel. This twelve year old boy has been compared to Michael Jackson and has been singing on Brazil's You've Got Talent. He has a totally amazing vocal range, can pretty much sing in ANY key, and I'm sure we could be hearing a lot more of him in the future.



Scooter boy
Someone is desperate to be like his older brother. Determined, and just a bit of practice and he's off and racing. Next challenge, the running bike, although his legs probably do still need to grow a couple of centimetres!



Downton Abbey
I'm probably a bit behind the 8-ball on this one, but if you haven't already been totally transfixed by this series, you must must must watch it. We were given Season 1 & 2 for Christmas, and have done an intensive over the Christmas holidays. The drama, the characters, the costumes, the grand houses. Even hubby has been completely enchanted. It won a Golden Globe this week, fully deserved me thinks!

When crafting next calls
I love it when I get gifts thoughtfully given. This was my lovely Christmas present from my bro Sam & his lovely Alesha (although I'm pretty sure Alesha had more to do with it than he did!). You can just see a glitter glue stick peeking out there, yuss...just the excuse I need to join the hot glue gun club!

Back in time
When we journeyed through Italy in 2002, it became more than just a place of interest. Forever it will be the place where two hearts decided that life was meant to be lived together. I have my lovely engagement ring to show for it, and my rather Swatch crazed husband then dragged me into every Swatch store in Italy while we looked for that perfect engagement gift for him. Enter the Sergio Garcia Swatch, which he wore religiously until the rubber connectors on the strap corroded over time. Off and on, he's searched over the years for a replacement strap, but it was only recently that he found a dude in Italy selling them (and with much improved metal connectors not rubber). It's nice to see it on your wrist again, baby, to bring back the memories of those sweet innocent days of our young love under the Tuscan spring sun.

Homemade Gnocchi
Did I ever tell you my hubby was clever?! Well he is.

Boys will be boys
Daddy had been eyeing up these motorised Nerf ThunderStrike water pistols for a few weeks and had been dying to buy them for the boys. When they went on sale after Christmas, he could resist no longer. I have to admit they are pretty cool, apart from having to remind the chilluns that they are OUTDOOR toys only after a few wayward shots!



Love Where You Live

So I've created a linky button for my Love Where You Live series. Do ya like it? Simone's already hooked up her quintessential Kiwi Summer post Just Down The Road. When you next share something you love about where you live, why not link on up!




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And that my friends is that. The weekend is nearly here. It's a long one here in Wellington, yeeha! Here's hoping for some warm still weather for more crazy water fights and scootering. I'm off to enjoy!

Scary Hair

The undeniable proof that GHD's were invented just for me...

Au Natural...i.e. this is what my hair does of its own accord after a swim at the pool, or anytime it gets wet for that matter...

I debated with myself showing these in public, since I don't think I would choose to leave the house looking like this! Mind you this is equally as bad, broadcasting my bad hair days on the world wide web for all to see. I swear my hair gets more unruly and unmanageable by the year.

Oh GHD's, you are a love affair of nine years and counting...

A shower and one 20 minute session later....

Thank you GHDs. Normality is restored.

Recipe: Orange Poppyseed Cake

After yesterday's rant, I think it would be productive to think up creative ways to enjoy delicious food but being sensible at the same time.

So without further ado, I hereby award thee the title of easiest-tastiest-good-for-me cake ever.

Now I'm not necessarily saying you're the tastiest cake ever, but you are most certainly the easiest/tastiest/low-fat cake ever. The second time Mark made you (partly so I could blog all about you), it took him under 10 minutes from woe to go to whip you up for a quick stint in the oven. Which is PDQ (pretty darn quick) if you ask me!

And, of course, you're low in points so healthy too. I really can't find a single thing to fault you!

Ingredients:
Olive oil spray
125g low fat canola spread
1/2 cup caster sugar
2 eggs
1/2 cup low-fat apricot (or plain) yoghurt
2 tsp grated orange rind
2 tsp poppy seeds
1 cup self-raising flour

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Spray a 20cm round cake tin with oil, line base and sides with non-stick baking paper.

Combine the canola spread and sugar in the small bowl of an electric mixer, beat until creamy.

Add the eggs,  one at a time, beating until combined in between additions.

Add the yoghurt, rind and poppyseeds, mix until combined.

Add the flour, mix for only a few seconds until just combined.

Spread into cake tin. Bake for 40 minutes or until golden and firm in the centre.

Stand 5 minutes before turning out onto a cake rack to cool.

Oo la la, go on, taste and see how delectable this really is!

Serves: 8 or 16 depending on slice size
Points per serve: 3.5 or 2.

For more tasty recipes, visit here.

This......or that.....

I'm need of some serious motivation. I think I thought getting back on the Weight Watchers wagon would be a breeze, the weight would drop off, and in a few short weeks, I'd be back to that magic weight that my body seems to like to hover around (that is, when I don't mistreat it and feed it with eons of chocolate and lollies, as was the case in the latter half of last year).

I was feeling really positive when I stepped on the scales for the weekly weigh-in Monday tonight, knowing that I had been within my points all of the previous week AND that I'd stepped up a bit on my normal exercise regime. So you can imagine my annoyance when the scales were 700g heavier. Grrrrr. I don't recall that happening once last time we did this journey.

So I'm in need of a bit of a self pep talk. Telling myself it will be worth it and I can do it. That it's a blip and I need to keep my eyes on the long-term goal. Getting back into good habits. Seeing chocolate and lollies as treats not a daily/nightly indulgence.

Despite the setback, I am going to grit my teeth and carry on.

Enjoying tasty and filling meals such as these for just 3 points (ignoring the loner meat patty on the side that is not part of it!). I didn't even miss not having any cheese on my burger, the flavour of the mustard and gherkins (both zero points) more than made up for it.

That big plateful sure looks a lot compared to that one little chocolate bar...at 5 points.

Or I could eat all this for 5 points....(although I might have a bit of a stomach ache if it was all in one go mind you!)

Compared to that one little chocolate bar at 5 points...

Or I could eat all this for 5 points...(although I reckon my tongue would be glued to the roof of my mouth after 10 packets in a row!)

Or that one little chocolate bar for 5 points.....

I could eat all this (once you include the milk) for 5 points....

Or just that one little chocolate bar at 5 points...

It's gotta be worth it in the end right?!

Thus ends my pep talk. I'm hoping for a much better result next week!

Is someone going potty?

I can already hear some tongue-in-cheek replies to that question about to roll off your lips. So before you start on my mental health, today we're here to talk about an altogether different kind of potty.

The kind that makes a two-year old dance with excitement upon using said receptacle (although I tell I small white lie as I actually mean the big hole in the floor not the little pretend one that kids sometimes start out with). The dancing with excitement is because he knows he's about to get a sticker and a chocolate mnm (very apt in our case of course!) for doing a wee in the toilet.

We started out on this journey the day after getting back from our holiday, not really too sure how it would go but feeling (more like hoping) the time would be right. But also knowing that Mr. M's personality is pretty different to his older brother's. Noah = malleable and would do anything to please, Mylo = not so much.

So we started out cold turkey in undies on Day 1 into undies with some very frequent reminders from mum and dad to 'let us know if you need to go for a wee'. This was us trying to follow the principles of the 'how to get your child trained in 3 days' book I had been lent by the head teacher at daycare.

Well we managed a few wees (1 mnm) and even a poo (2 mnms) on the toilet over the course of the next three days amongst a fair few accidents all over the house to go with it. The poor kid was cooped up at home, not allowed to leave the house but he didn't really seem to mind or notice (which I think was an advantage having been away for nearly 2 weeks before that, he was quite happy just hanging out).

After Day 3, we didn't really feel as if we could see much progress and every 'let us know if you need a wee, Mylo' was met by an 'OK' and then five minutes later we'd have a waterfall all over the floor. And if we ever asked him if he needed to go, it would, without fail, be met with a definite 'NO' despite the fact he might be (at the very same time) straining to fill his undies with something of the brown variety.

So we changed tack the following day, instigating a sticker chart for anytime he even tried to go, and set an alarm to go off every half an hour. On only about the third time I went to pull down his undies for a timed wee but was met with an 'but I've got poos, Mum'. Choice. And that was not the only code brown of the day.

We persevered through Saturday and Sunday with the timed toilet trips, sometimes with nothing to show for it but a sticker, but other times hearing the joyful sound of a tinkle in the toilet.

So it was with more than a little apprehension that we sent him back to daycare on Monday, wondering how on earth the first day would pan out, and hoping that it wouldn't be an epic fail, and we'd have to give up on the whole idea.

At this point, I must stop and extol the virtues of having a fantastic daycare, and an awesome bunch of teachers who are super encouraging and supportive and who totally embraced assisting us through the process. Which was a good thing, as Day 1 brought mixed success, there were quite a few wees on the toilet but also 3 wee accidents and a code brown (gah!) too.

But here is where our story takes a turn......

We'll never know what it was, perhaps a sudden firing of a neuron in the brain overnight or something like it, but Mylo woke up on Tuesday morning, asked Dad to take him to the toilet twice before they left for daycare, and proceeded to have 3 totally accident free days from there on in (even managing one poo on the toilet at daycare during that time).

We have been completely amazed (in a nice way) at the sudden transition from complete unawareness and reluctance to even sit on the toilet to this in a week and a half. Pleasantly surprised, as little Mr's personality is such that I really wondered if we would have a long battle on our hands. But on the other hand it appears there is much to be said for consistency, encouragement, praise, focus, and perseverance.

On about Day 3 of the journey, I went back and read the fantastic posts that Angela-Noelle of Striking Keys wrote on the subject mid-last year. I would totally encourage you to do the same if you are heading down this path in the not-so-distant future. They really gave me hope that he would get there, and that the smallest of victories is worth celebrating. You can find them here:

Toilet Training: Mental Exhaustion
Toilet Training: Our Strategies
Toilet Training: Appendix A
Toilet  Training: Months Later

But just so you don't think I'm totally skiting about how well Mylo has made the transition and how we have it all in the bag (or all in the toilet as the case may be), I have a final story for you.

I took the boys grocery shopping Friday morning, and I made sure we ALL went to the toilet before leaving the house, and we all went again whilst out at Pak n Save (despite the fact I'm not a big fan of supermarket toilets). And again, no accidents all day. That was until I took them both out to Kilbirnie pool that afternoon. He did wear a swimming nappy in the pool (it's early days and I sure don't want to be the one responsible for closing a busy regional aquatic centre during school holidays due to a...what do they call it...oh yeah....faecal incident. So I was smart on one front, but I should have insisted after we were all changed afterwards that we all do a wee before coming home.  I was kind of going on the assumption that being in the water all that time, any need for a wee would have come and merely been captured in said swimming nappy.

But apparently not. So there was a mother of all floods for me to deal with when we got home, a boy who got sheepishly out of the car with a dripping wet bottom half, a soaked toddler seat, the volume of it meant it had even heavily soaked the actual seat of the car underneath. I guess that'll learn me.

So for now, I'll accept this is a journey. We'll win some days and we'll lose some. And through it all, I will...

Thanks Angela-Noelle for the great freebie!

Things I'm Loving 31.1.12

Honeysuckle
Did you ever suck the nectar out of honeysuckle when you were a kid? I showed it to Noah last week, and he was so intrigued he then wanted to bring home a whole bunch of flowers for Dad and Mylo to try too. I distinctly remember there being a bush at school at primary school and at lunchtimes we'd sneak off  (no this isn't turning into a dirty story!) to go see what goodness we could suck out of the flowers.

What are you like?!
The boys happily entertaining themselves pretending to be Daddy last week. In case, you think their faces look a little odd, that's the remains of some pretty botched up tiger face painting by yours truly!

What are you like again?
Funny glasses straws - things like this always bring out the best in people in front of the camera I find!

Shh! Our new secret Ingredient
This stuff is out.of.this.world. Unbelievable. You have just gotta gotta gotta get your hands on some. So far we've coated it on prawns and BBQ corn, but I can imagine it would be just as lush with chicken or even roast potatoes. We found ours at Moore Wilsons, but you could find it at any specialty food/grocers store I'm guessing, or I found it here online. This particular flavour (sweet) is not at all spicy, although there are two other flavours (spicy/bittersweet) if that's how you roll. Man it takes food enjoyment to a whole other level, and thanks to Andrea and Andrew for the introduction!

Icecream - the good old fashioned way
Isn't this the coolest gift? The boys christened it last weekend and were beside themselves with excitement trying to decide which combo of sprinkles and sauce to have on their icecreams. Thanks Andrea and Andrew (again!), a sure fire winner!

Tasty at 1.5 points
The New Year has started with a strict health regime, and we are back to counting Weight Watcher points like we did this time 2 years ago, a necessary undertaking since we've been a bit slack on healthy eating this past year. It's probably only 3kg which might not sound much, but it's still 3kg I didn't have this time last year....so some creativity is being required on a day-to-day basis to think 'low-fat, healthy AND tasty' in the dinner and lunch department. After 4 straight days eating salads for lunch last week whilst still on holiday, I was a bit OVER IT, so this vogel and bruschetta combo was simply a little slice of heaven for me. It is amazing how much more you appreciate and savour food when you're absolutely hanging out for each mealtime!

Rotary clothesline
I love the idea of having a rotary clothesline. We always had one growing up but I sure didn't appreciate the usefulness and loveliness of it until now, and there is something soothing about watching the clothes gently spinning in the breeze. Unfortunately in our little section, we only have room for a stationary line between 2 posts, which doesn't even get that much of a workout in our Wellington climate. Oh and that crisp linen smell clothes get when they have dried outside, well it sure beats the non-existent smell they get drying on a clotheshorse over 2 days inside!

Put to bed....
I couldn't help but churn out a few more of those delightful DIY paper ball ornaments last week to finish off the centrepiece of the mosaic bowl we have on the dining room table. And now I can happily put my Christmas crafting genes into hibernation for a few months I think, and hubby sighs in relief after I've taken over several rooms in the house with all the creating and creations!

Chalk it up mummy
I spotted this Punch Buggy while on a solo early morning walk on the walkway in New Plymouth last week. I just love how rustic it looks. And score one point for my spotting, yussss! As you can see, despite the passing of a year, the game is still a firm family favourite and we even have Mylo spotting them and shouting out 'Punch Buggy' all on his own now!

Of course, being never short of words I have still more loving I could blog on about, but given the size of this list already, I think I might just have to save some up for next week!

What things are you loving so far this year?

Happy weekend all!

Recipe: Mongolian Beef & Rice

What's one sure-fire sign of a winner? A recipe book page splattered with many a night of cooking on it!

This is a deliciously rich and tasty meal which is quick enough for us to make, even on a rushed mid-week evening.

Ingredients:
Beef or lamb sliced thinly
Veges for stir-frying
1 tsp five-spice powder
2 tsp sugar
1 Tbsp cornflour
1/3 cup light soy sauce
1 Tbsp black bean sauce
1 clove garlic crushed or 1 tsp easy garlic
1 1/2 Tbsp rice vinegar or wine
1 egg beaten lightly
1/3 cup beef stock
1/4 tsp of sesame oil

Place meat in a large bowl with five-spice, sugar, cornflour, soy sauce, black bean sauce, garlic, rice vinegar/wine and egg.

Cover and refrigerate for at least 10 minutes.

While meat is marinading, stir-fry veges in wok and then put aside.

Drain lamb over small bowl, but keep the marinade. Heat oil in wok and stir-fry lamb until browned in tender.

Add in remaining marinade, stock and stir over heat until mixture thickens.

Serve with rice, and enjoy!

For more of our favourite recipes, visit here.

Love Where You Live {Eyes Wide Open}

The grass isn't always greener. The sky isn't always bluer. Sometimes it just takes fresh eyes to see it.

This is the beginning of a new journey. One which I hope you will join me on.

It's called Loving Where You Live. Embracing all that is beautiful and worth loving in the right here, right now.

All this beauty is within five minutes walk of my own home. But it's the first time I've ever truly stopped and really seen it.

I admit that I often despair of Wellington's weather. Just yesterday a nasty southerly storm reminiscent of mid-winter blew through and sent temperatures here plummeting. And on any other normal summer day, when the rest of the country is basking in sunshine and balmy temperatures, Wellington is more often than not a few degrees colder and always a good deal windier. I think this is why I so enjoy the times when we travel out of town, up country to warmer climes where I shed layers of clothing like a snake shedding its skin. It's fair to say that the sun is warmer, and the wind is gentler elsewhere.

But reality hits each time we return home. I find myself questioning why, why, why we live in this place when the lure of warmer, more settled places beckon only a few miles down the road. I question it even more when I'm sitting here and the tapping of these keys on the keyboard are more than drowned out by the raging wind buffeting the house.

So I definitely need to be reminded about the beauty that lies here. The reasons why we choose to live here. What there is to love about this amazing, vibrant city. Often, perhaps always, I need to be reminded.

So this is me, opening my eyes. Seeing with eyes wide open.

The hills and steep walkways that beg for energetic legs.

Winding roads that lead ever higher.

Houses perched on hillsides seeking out any solace of sun they can find.

Quiet streets play the grand entrance to unexplored hideaways.

Short histories lived inside these walls by most world standards but colourful histories nonetheless.

And to think that all this loveliness was just waiting to be discovered. No more than a stone's throw from home. I would normally have hurried on by and not taken a second glance, had I not been returning on a walk from town with my camera, alone,  and with a few extra minutes up my sleeve before my presence was required back at home.

Have you opened your eyes lately to see the beauty that is around you? Instead of looking over the fence towards greener pastures wishing you there, why not begin by looking closely in your own field? You might just be surprised at what you find.

I'm going to make a concerted effort to open my eyes and consciously Love Where I Live this year. And I hope I might be able to inspire you to do the same.