Easter Cookies

I remember as a kid being asked to mind things during the school holidays – the school goldfish was one or the time I brought home 2 school gerbils that quickly multiplied into more over a summer holidays, much to my Mother’s horror.
But a potato plant is a new one on me and that is exactly what arrived home with Caitlin, obviously news of my plant killing abilities haven’t filtered through to the school, so it has joined the music-loving Cress on the window sill and I hope I can keep it alive for the 2 weeks.
Caitlin’s school has a greenhouse now and a vegetable plot, they are growing lots of veg as part of a green schools program. I think it is a great idea and want a raised bed of my own now, hints have been dropped to the hubby, I have brought some strawberry plants and want to try my hand at spinach ( Cookie loves it ) and tomatoes and some other salad veggies would be great. I have already kept alive all my herbs so I am willing to go further with it now. I will let you know how many survive the experience !!
I scrapbooked again and I am so pleased I took a leaf out of Cathy Z’s book and used stuff from my blog as inspiration – the pictures from last week in fact. I did it for Rachel’s album which I have neglected recent.

In preparations for Easter this week we tried our hands at bunny cookies, shortbread and chocolate ones – they were yummy and I will definitely be making more, although the ears were a bit delicate and I will have to be more careful cutting them out.

The Easter egg cookies held up better and the girls liked them – they were chocolate chipped shortbread and didn’t last five minutes if I am honest. So they will definitely be made again this week.

I also wanted to make some crochet bunnies and finally found a pattern for egg cosies – aren’t they so cute ? And they were so quick to make, I finished these two during Earth Hour by candle light and the light of the battery powered laptop !
For Earth hour we joined in a switched the lights of for an hour with people around the world, I know people think it won’t help much but I also recycle, use the eco wash cycle on my washing machine and all those kind of things because I don’t want to think that I helped ruin the world for my kids, call me silly I don’t mind and anyway Caitlin thinks switching the lights off is fun.

Getting into the Spring feeling I was given these beautiful daffs from my hubby this weekend – daffodils make me smile.

Caitlin looking for things to do – it is going to be a long two weeks – begged me to make recycled crayons today, you collect all your old broken crayons from around the house and remove all the papers and break them into small pieces and place them in a cake tin and heat them at 65 degrees C for about 10 minutes or until melted fully.

Caitlin especially wanted to try a heart shaped crayon and it looked very cool when it came out of the tin. The things you do to keep them busy over the Easter holidays !!

I leave you with dessert from this evening – I made pineapple upside down cake and was so pleased with how it turned out and it was darn tasty too. I will pass on the recipe if anyone wants it as I made it up so to speak – it was vanilla sponge base with pineapple rings which I sprinkled brown sugar over the top and grilled to caramelize.

Pixel is gone :(

I start this post with a heavy heart because as of tonight this little guy has been missing for a week and try as we might to find him it isn’t looking good.
He went into the back garden as usual last Tuesday but slipped out of the side gate and just kept running it seems. We are so upset that he is gone and despite reporting it to the vets and the cat sanctuary and frequent searches of the area we have come up with nothing. I only hope that someone else has taken him in and loves him as much as we do.

We didn’t do much for Paddy’s day – hard to be celebratory when you are feeling down and Becca was off with her friends to so it was only the three of us.
I did manage to scrap a page about the parade year before though – I am always worried that layouts about Paddy’s day will end up looking twee !!

I reached for my trusted Basic Grey paper and the rub-ons are Laura Ashley velvet ones ( thanks Dave and Finn 🙂 ) They are very cool and work perfectly.

Talking of all things green it turns out that even though I hate Scream Metal music and Techno – Cress seems to love it. Becca is doing a science experiment for a school science fair thing, the basic premise of which is that music can influence the growth of Cress and which musics works best.
Each pupil doing the experiment had different types of music to play to the plants for 1/2 hour every day ( which is 1/2 hour too long in my books !!) Did we get indie or classical or something vaguely musical – nope Scream metal which is basically just screaming over bad metal music or Techno thump thump thumping is played to plants – I ask you !! This is the Techno plant – growing up a storm.

Rachel Ann has had a rough week too she has been a little off colour with a nasty little cough which of course kicks in at night keeping her and her poor mum awake but is not bad enough to stop her doing anything else. Her favourite thing to do at the moment is to read the “Tiger who came to tea” – she just loves the story and sometimes I have to read it two or three times a day.

And when you have a tired and cranky three year old to deal with you suck it up and read it – luckily I know it off by heart at this stage.

Lastly I leave you with a little bit of Easter – they are sneaking into the house and they are less cheeky than our bunny who is currently sitting on the sofa watching telly ( I kid you not !! )

Spring has Sprung

Spring has finally sprung and the sunny weather has brighten my heart and the heart of all the flowers too – the pansies in the planter went spring mad and were in full bloom.
We have been to the park more times this year than the whole of last summer because of the fine weather – we go with friends usually and have a ball.

I have been taking pictures like a loon mainly because Pioneer Lady was running a cat photography competition and well with two cats I had to have a go, didn’t I ? Turns out while lovely, my cats are wise to my camera skills – the eldest closes her eyes or turns her head away every time she hates the camera so I finally had to get her with my longest lens in a sneak attack.

As for the youngest he sees the camera light and attacks it – or wants to rub up against you in an affectionate manner. Only got him to pose because last week he went to the vet for a little operation which kept him quiet for a day or too.

I also decided to capture Cookie after all we can’t have the cats getting all the attention.
Cookie Monster as she is affectionately known is such a personality, for a bunny, she plays with you and demands attention and is so sweet in general. Love that bunny !

Tinsel our other bunny passed away – he unfortunately got the same illness as Cookie but he could not fight it like she could , Caitlin was devastated needless to say and I promised that we could do something to mark his passing. Now the frost has passed we planted some primroses and forget – me –nots and hyacinths. Caitlin picked the sign to mark the spot – quite fitting for a bunny I think.

On Mother’s day I was spoilt rotten with a lie in and tea in bed, not burnt breakfast like I used to serve up to my Mammy – sorry Mum !.
I rang my Mum that day too and she mentioned that I hadn’t made her card, it is true I always make one but this year time got away from me as every card I had tried to make this year a three year old had “helped ” with and things didn’t go well. I actually feel sad about it so again Sorry Mum, she deserves the effort as she is a fantastic person.

I also got a present from my kids of some chocolates and flowers I am a lucky Mum – my eldest actually brought something with her own money.

Last but not least I did another layout – using my round up from the blog picture of 2009. At this rate I might get a layout done once every month or so !!

The Birthday Week

Well that was a week and a half – last week was what I like to call BIRTHDAY WEEK for good reason it is a none stop party in our house.
First my baby girl, which I will have to stop referring to her as from now on, was ten.
Unfortunately she was feeling unwell, it was a Monday and also Becca was away in Derry on camp so it was a quite affair just her favourite dinner and specially made cake which she and I got covered in cream decorating.

As I said Becca was off in Derry doing all sorts of weird and wonderful activities until her own Birthday which was last Thursday when she became the grand old age of 15 .

She had requested pavlova instead of cake as usual and I was going to whip one up but truth be told the local bakery’s looked nicer and was actually cheaper than buying the ingredients, so I cheated big time.

I don’t think she minded either way as she too was feeling unwell the poor girls had a rough week considering it was birthday week.

On Friday Mam and Dad came up to see the girls and came baring gifts including these cute cupcake cases for me. I did take pictures during their visit but decided that to spare the blushes of my poor Dad who was attacked by his grandchildren yet again with all sorts of glittery make up and hair accessories and I would refrain from posting them – bet he is wishing he had grandsons now.

I also got these beautiful flowers from my husband which I think was bribing me not to use the pictures of him in much the same predicament as my dad !! And also because I took Caitlin and her friends up to the play center to celebrate her birthday leaving him in peace to watch the match .

Saturday afternoon Caitlin and her friends headed up to the local play center to finally celebrate the birthday that was a bit of a wash out on Monday – they had lots of boisterous fun and filled up with slushies and popcorn and I totally forgot to bring my camera !! That evening Caitlin had a sleepover and funnily after exhausting them in the afternoon they were relatively quiet that night.

My lovely hubby finally sorted out my printer woes and I did a layout – it has only been a few months !! I know it is a quirky hobby to have but I do love scrapbooking, I love mixing papers with pictures and telling a story.

And I love the colours turquoise and pink together 🙂

On Tuesday this week it was the littlest ones turn at a birthday as Rachel turned three.
She got a camera all of her own and wanted to head to the park with it, so of course we obliged.
She found it very funny to take pictures of Auntie Amber taking pictures of her.

She even went down the slide with it – sturdy camera is all I can say, could do with one myself.

She and I both took pictures of Jennie as she came down the slide at Rachel’s request.

That evening when people were back from school and work we had a little get together to celebrate the day and Rachel’s cake of chocolate , cream and marshmallows went down very well, it was all she wanted for her birthday besides a white teddy bear.

She blew her candles out and we played a noisy game of tumbling monkeys while listening to ABBA of all things.
We played until Missy could take no more and lay down on the sofa — tuckered out with all the excitement. I know how she feels it has been an exhausting few days.