Busy with Busy Bags

Posted in activities for little people, busy bags, craft, make by beingomma

If you are the mother of a toddler you know keeping little hands and minds busy is a daily challenge. I invited some friends over for some busy bag fun this week. All the bags are designed to be re-used time and again. Great for the doctor’s waiting room, in the car or a rainy day. You will find two links to creative busy bag sites at the bottom of this post

Build a Rainbow

Magnetic Board

Dinosaur Stamping

Matching & Counting

Build a Snake

Washing Line with Felt Clothing

Colour Matching

Finger Puppets

Build a Picture

Minu test driving his first busy bag activity

Looking good mummy

I plan to keep a couple of these in my bag for Minu when we are out and about and he needs something to keep those little hands busy. For more busy bag ideas try here and here. It is raining today, a great day to test drive these fantastic creations! :) Happy days.

Have your kids got a favourite rainy day activity?

14May2013

Wholehearted Wednesday

Posted in IBD, rambles, wholehearted wednesday by beingomma

At 17 I started having difficulty pooping. Yep this is one of those types of posts…. Lorne and her toilet talk… Again. I hid my ordeal and told myself everything was a-ok. Well for those of you reading this who have spent more than an hour in the same room as me in the last 15 years know that I was wrong… Oh so very wrong. The painful poop turned into mission impossible poop, then bloody poop, then if I don’t stop pooping I may-poop-out-my-inards poop. A colonoscopy left me with a label Crohn’s Disease – at that time a label was all it was. I had no idea what that disease was or why I had it or why no one could fix me. I still don’t know why I have it but I do know plenty about it. I am the girl you talk to about your poop, your bowel sounds and most importantly where to find a public toilet anywhere between here and your destination. I kid you not. If there a public toilet about I can scout it out in record time, store it in my brain file titled when you gotta go, you gotta go and recall location and most importantly whether or not you should just find a tree cleanliness status on demand.

My cousin says he ends up talking about the toilet whenever he is around me….

My best friend knows if I let myself in and sprint like an Olympic runner toward her bathroom she should just ignore me.

She and my mother know that sedatives do entertaining things to my mouth and brain……and nasal passages.

My husband knows I like the soft toilet paper, the three ply embossed stuff and that if there is a natural disaster we are good to go on the toilet paper supply front.

Our family knows I don’t eat while traveling and that if I disappear I am in the nearest restroom, I will return… Eventually. And I may just have come up with a genius idea… Again.

Of all the things I now know – Crohn’s is part of me but not the whole, laughter is my best medicine, there is no justifiable reason to pass sandpaper off as toilet paper and
my heart for people walking round in a faulty body is the best thing to come of all of this.

World Inflammatory Bowel Disease(IBD) Day is May 19th, this Sunday. I will be wearing purple (our awareness colour) to the local Crohn’s and Colitis Support Group meeting talking all things bowels with people who, just like me, never imagined a disease like this would be theirs……

6May2013

Mainly Monday

Posted in rambles by beingomma

We joined Minu’s cousin at a Mainly Music session. Minu sure does love to move and today’s parachute song was his favourite song. If only you could have seen the big grin on that face as he shook with all he had.

Minu is taking a well earned nap and I am enjoying a quiet wee cup of tea while both the boys are in the land of Zzzzz.

4May2013

Birthday Eats

Posted in eats, by beingomma

We do things in twos round here and birthdays are no exception. Two birthdays to celebrate this weekend. Baby sister is working which means it is down to the the remaining two sisters to design and make the birthday eats.

I scored the sweets

Given the abundance of pumpkin here it was bound to involve pumpkin to some degree. Having been introduced to pumpkin pie by a housemate some years back I thought I just might give my own a try.

The pastry was store bought, I know cheat alert! Being my first time baking pastry blind I wasn’t brave enough to go wild and make that too. The filling was super easy, and now know just how easy I’ll try my own crust next time. Yes, I am fairly sure there will be a next time.

I partnered the pie with two side dishes – vanilla cream and licorice ice cream.

Pumpkin Pie (2 pies)

350g (2 sheets) sweet short pastry

2 cups cooked pumpkin purée (650grams)

3 eggs

1 1/2 cups cream

3/4 cup dark muscovado sugar

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp allspice

1/4 cup pecans to decorate

Preheat oven to 200C. Line a 24cm flan pan with pastry and bake blind for 10 minutes, remove weights and cook for a further 3 to 5 minutes until pastry is a pale golden colour. Reduce heat to 170C
Place pumpkin, eggs, cream, sugar, cinnamon and ginger, allspice in a bowl and beat until smooth.
Pour filling into pastry case, decorate with pecans and bake for 25 minutes or until filling is just set. Allow to cool before slicing.
dust with icing sugar to serve

Our mother likes to bake and is one of those talents souls that can mix a bit of that with a bit of this and come up with a plate of happiness. My recent favorite was her black boy peach upside down cake – not too sweet and oh so pretty in colour.

I racked my brain for days about what flavour cake I hadn’t seen her bake for us. Then I got an email with a picture of a rainbow cake. BINGO. Rainbow cake it is….

This is a recipe that needs time, lots of it AND patience, lots of it AND a supermarket near by for when your white chocolate ganache doesn’t thicken and you need more ingredient ASAP. I had a few issues with a purple cake that just didn’t want to cook but it was a fun process and to see the birthday girl’s happy face made my day. The icing is tried and trusted butter cream.

Dear white chocolate ganache we shall meet again….you shall not defeat me! What happened to the runny ganache…..? I put it in a jug and called it white chocolate sauce, happy days .

1May2013

Purple Passion

Posted in rambles by beingomma

Last year I planted a tiny wee passionfruit plant in the garden. A beautiful vine now graces the back fence and for the first time we are harvesting purple passionfruit. Oh how excited am I! Seriously this gardening success is our most yummiest and exotic. I am salivating as I think of those little purple gems.

Passionfruit are full of beta-carotene, vitamin c, fiber, magnesium and rich in antioxidants. The New Zealand season peaks about now so if you are in this part of the world keep an eye out at your green grocer/supermarket for these wee gems.

how do you eat your passionfruit?