Play mat quilt for my baby boy!

I started this quilt for my baby boy when I was pregnant. He is now 5 months old and I have finally finished the quilt! Just in time for when he will find it interesting! He is not quite sitting and not quite crawling so hopefully he will have some fun with it for tummy time before he learns to crawl and everything "over there" will be more interesting!!!

I was inspired and followed most of the instructions from Anna Maria Horner's Handmade Beginnings but I decided that instead of coloured fabric, I would have raw edge applique images under the flaps. I love it! Hopefully my baby boy will too! Will find out tomorrow! :)

Raw edge applique of the car. This shape was from one of Kellie Wulsohn's patterns.

Applique plane that I drew from random images.

Flaps shut

Finished quilt! Unfortunately the lighting doesn't do the quilt any favours... I really should have taken this in daylight but I just finished it and wanted to post a photo up immediately!

Strawberries!

Our veggie patch is starting to produce! I just picked about a punnet of strawberries and there is more left for tomorrow!

Healthy but yummy muffins

My husband usually loves my home cooking but he hasn't been able to have any for the past couple of weeks as he is on a diet. To make him feel better I decided to bake something he could eat! I had baked healthy muffins before and had been decidedly unimpressed with the tasteless results! So I set out to create something that was healthy, somewhat diet friendly but still tasted nice. Here is the result! I was really quite impressed with it, they need a better name though as the best I could come up with so far are honey fruit yoghurt muffins. Hope you like them!

1 1/4 cup wholemeal flour
1/4 cup almond meal
1/2t cinnamon
1/2 cup bran (I used all bran)
1/4 cup rolled oats
1 banana
Lots of berries (I used 3-4 handfuls of frozen silvenberries which are similar to blackberries)
1 egg
1 150g tub of yoghurt (I used vaalia strawberry low fat yoghurt)
50g butter
1 1/2t baking powder

Preheat oven to 200deg
Whisk egg
Melt honey and butter together
Mix all ingredients
Spoon into patty cases in muffin tin, I used a cupcake size muffin tin.
Bake until just cooked through when tested (I cooked for 12-15mins then used the grill to just brown the top so that they didn't dry out)

Veggie garden

My husband has been busy over the last couple of weeks setting up our veggie garden! Last year we trialled a couple of ways to set it up including bed size, watering plan and how the veggies were planted in the garden beds and we have put our learnings into the first of the beds for the vege patch and this is the result! It looks fabulous and I can't wait for the corn and potatoes!

Paid Parental Leave Rant

Ok so deep down I'm really thankful that we have the paid parental leave but I'm even more thankful that I'm not relying on it to pay my mortgage!!!! I have to have a rant about the bureaucracy involved! 
So I dutifully submitted my claim (twice since you have to fill out the paper form and the online form which are virtually the same). Then the family assistance office has 21 days to process it, to make it easy lets call this 3 weeks rather than worrying about if they are working days or not. Of course they take the full 3 weeks to process. Then my employer has 14 days to accept or decline, call it 2 weeks. Of course the payroll representative of my employer chooses to accept on the 14th day because "I didn't want to log in more often than I had to". This same payroll representative indicated to me that the family assistance office then takes about 3 weeks to pay my employer then and only then will my employer pay me. 8 weeks of the 18 weeks of paid parental leave is up before I get paid a cent!!! 
Can you sense the frustration??? I feel for those out there who are relying on these payments to pay their bills/rent/mortgage!
I think I will have to laugh or I'll go around the bend!

Christmas Pudding

I love Christmas pudding! This recipe is one I've developed from a few different recipes with my favourite ingredients and without my least favourite ingredient, peel. Its very flexible so add the fruit you like best!

1.5kg of dried fruit (I add approx 750g raisins, 250g sultanas, 250g currants, 250g pitted prunes and a pack of glace cherries)

brandy

315g butter

250g sugar

1t mixed spice

1/2t nutmeg

250g plain flour

6 eggs

300ml milk

250g breadcrumbs (fresh not stale)

1 apple

Soak fruit in brandy for 2-3 days (I often soak the fruit for a week),

Blend butter into the dry ingredients (except the breadcrumbs),

Beat the eggs together with the milk,

Make the breadcrumbs and grate the apple,

Add the dry ingredients and breadcrumbs to the fruit and then the milk and eggs,

Place mixture in pudding bowls and boil for as long as you can on the day of making (atleast 4 hours) and atleast 1 hour on the day of eating.

The puddings can be boiled and stored in pudding bowls or in fowlers vacola jars (I'm lucky enough to have some number 28 jars which are perfect for puddings!) 

Whats wrong with this picture???

I came home to find one escapee steer wandering in the driveway! He was having a lovely time! He looked a little lost without his mates though! He calmly (after one jump kick of protest) wandered back to the paddock...  

and patiently waited for me to open the gate for him to return to his mates!