In which I question the wisdom of giving chocolate on a Christian holiday when gluttony is considered a sin...

Am I the only one who has trouble exercising self restraint at easter?  I feel like an alcoholic who has been gifted 10 bottles of vodka under the largely farcical notion that they hold some deeper religious significance.  If anyone needs me in the next few days I will be hiding in the walk in pantry consuming roughly my own body weight in cadbury mini eggs.

I used a Jamie Oliver recipe for my buns this year.  Nigella has consistently let me down the past few years (I suspect maybe she should stick to her talents of giving the camera alluring looks and decorating her kitchen with fairy lights rather than actually writing recipes).  I used half wholemeal flour and nuttlex instead of butter since it was good Friday and I couldn't go to the shops to buy ingredients.  They still tasted excellent.

Minty made easter cards and then got too tired to write on them.

I made some origami easter bunnies (instructions here).  Honestly these are quite time consuming and probably not worth the effort.  I planned to make more but couldn't be bothered.  Like mother like daughter.

Happy Easter

Me: what part of 'no more today' do you not understand?

Minty: the chocolate part

I coloured these eggs using tissue paper (I used this water-colour tissue paper but regular tissue paper should work as long as it's not colour fast).  You just wet little strips of the paper and wrap them around the egg.  Leave the eggs to dry for about 2 hours then take off the paper.  I rubbed a little oil on them to make them look glossy.

To create the ombre effect - I sat the eggs in a container so they were 1/4 covered in dye then added more water at 10minute intervals covering another quarter of the egg each time.

Happy Easter everyone!

Conversations with Minty...

Excerpts from my (mostly unsuccessful) attempt to tell Minty the story of Easter…

Minty: why do people still tell this story?

Me: it's one of the greatest stories of all time

Minty [concerned]: is it also the longest story?

Me: he had twelve best friends who were his followers

Minty: why did they, you know (gesturing behind herself) follow him?

Me: They didn't literally follow him around… I just meant... um… you know…  spiritually.

Me: Just outside Jerusalem there was a wooded hillside called the Mount of Olives.

Minty: hang on a minute, I have a question… why did he find olives in a pile? [gesturing a mound]

Me: did that make sense or not?

Minty: a little bit… sort of… actually a big bit not and a little bit yes

In which we gorge ourselves Catholic style...

 

Happy Shrove Tuesday everyone!  It is one of my favourite days of the year.  Although I'm not a practising Catholic anymore I still cling to the traditions as a way of marking out my days.  Shrove Tuesday is like one last hoorah, using up all the eggs and butter before the 40 days of lent.  I talked today with Minty about what lent means for us, a time of reflection, eating simply (honestly I am never voluntarily going to fast!!!) and working on bettering ourselves.  She decided she would work on not calling people 'idiots' anymore… instead she has resolved to call us all 'fools'.  As for me, Minty suggested I should work on not shouting so much.  I think that's probably a worthy goal!  We enjoyed our pancakes this morning, with freshly picked blackberries and a sprinkle of sugar.

Today's photos come from a little project we worked on this week.  We have been reading 'Silly Billy' by Anthony Browne.  It's a sweet story about a little boy who can't sleep because he worries too much.  His grandma suggests that he makes some worry dolls so that he can tell them his worries and get some sleep.  Minty was really taken with the idea of making her own worry dolls.  I did a bit of googling and there were plenty of complicated tutorials that I really didn't think the kids could manage.  Luckily I ended up stumbling across some mini wooden dolly pegs at the $2 shop, along with a cheap packet of cotton embroidery floss.  I gave these to the kids along with some fabric scraps and a black marker and let them get creative.  Both the kids really loved this activity and I think the dolls they made are very sweet.

 

The dolls (left to right): Violet, Teddy, Una, Bobby and Patrice.

Happy Easter!

I'm operating on very little sleep, so few words today.  I'll write a proper easter wrap up with more photos soon.  I hope you all had a fantastic weekend!

In which we bake cake eggs and I lose my mind...

Minty had a little friend visiting today and I had a whole schedule of easter activities planned to keep them busy.

I was feeling ultra organised so I made some soda bread to have on hand for snacks.  I sprinkled half with cheese and left the other half plain for our dairy intolerant guest.  I pulled it out of the oven and it looked delicious… and then I remembered I had used yoghurt as the liquid component in the bread… for a dairy intolerant guest… epic fail!  Sometimes I think my brain checks out and my body is just operating on auto-pilot.  Never mind, at least I enjoyed it for lunch with some fresh tomatoes.

 The first kid's activity was making easter cards.  I set up the table with an assortment of glitter, markers, rabbit templates, cotton wool, egg shapes cut from old wrapping paper and other odds and sods.  The girls lasted about five minutes before there was a massive fight over the only pink cotton ball.  The craft table was promptly abandoned.  The kids dressed themselves as monsters and disappeared out the back door to play in the cubby house.  I was left alone with my clearly unwanted easter activities.  Thankfully rejection is easier to take when it results in some time alone to get the housework done!

A few hours later and the girls were finally happy to take on another easter activity.  In a moment of madness we decided to make these cupcakes baked inside real eggshells.  Not exactly a project geared at four year olds but considering how difficult it was, they did a pretty good job. (for a detailed how-to check out this link) I poked the holes in the top of the eggs and the kids carefully emptied the yolk and whites into a bowl.  Remarkably they only smashed one egg during this process!  Then we washed them and soaked them in salt water for half an hour.  Then we regrouped and dyed the eggs.  Turi got a bit distressed at this stage since he wanted to manhandle all the dye and almost tipped a whole bowl of blue food dye onto the carpet as he tried to defend it from prying hands!!  We powered on.  We didn't follow a recipe for the cake batter since I was pretty short on ingredients and we were baking dairy free (I actually remembered this time!!) so we just winged it.  Possibly this wasn't the wisest approach but we weren't really shooting for perfection!

Next the girls filled each egg with cake batter using a piping bag.  Cake batter kind of went everywhere but I tried to suppress my A-type perfectionist personality in the interests of fun.  Into the oven for 10 minutes.  Most of the eggs had way too much cake batter in them and so cake batter exploded out the holes in a volcanic style eruption.  Where the cake batter touched the outside of the eggs the dye was rubbed off so they ended up looking like a bit of a dogs breakfast.  I don't think the kids cared though.  They were very proud of their creations and we packaged some up for our guest to give to her unsuspecting parents. 

So all in all a fun day was had despite a few hiccups.

And then in another moment of brain meltdown I forgot I hadn't changed the clock when daylight savings ended and put the kids to bed at 6pm instead of 7pm.

In which we hunt and feast...

I'm going to keep this short tonight so I can go and collapse in a sugar coma in front of the television.

We had a lovely easter, relaxing and visiting family.  The kids had a great time hunting for dyed eggs that 'easter bunny' had hidden around the garden.  (I didn't buy chocolate this year since it's near impossible to find fair trade around these parts and in any case we tend to end up with heaps from family and friends.)

Hope you all had a fantastic Easter!  

In which Friday is Good...

Minty and I got up at daybreak today and in recognition of Good Friday we decided to make some hot cross buns.  The Mr. rudely suggested we should just pop down to 'Bakers Delight' and buy some but when he finally tasted the fruits of our labour he had to eat his words along with the delicious bun!  These certainly aren't the most perfect looking buns and it is clear to the naked eye that a three year old assisted in their production but they are by fair the best tasting hot cross bun I've ever eaten.  We used Nigella's recipe from Feast (with a few adaptations).  They are more scone like than most hot cross buns I've had in the past but personally I think that's a good thing.

The kids look a bit worried in these pictures.  It was actually starting to rain, so shortly after this we relocated and took our morning tea inside the cubby house and everyone was a lot happier.

Hope you're all having a great start to the Easter weekend...

In which we spend a day at home and a watched phone doesn't ring...

Around our house today…

…eggs dyed for easter

…buttons ready to be sewn

...wishing the phone would ring whilst playing hard to get with the real estate agent

...playing tea parties

…more phone watching

…cranky overtired little people