Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!

 A great time was had by all seeing the supercalifragilisticexpialidocious Mary Poppins!
(hope your family had fun too Saminda)
BB was entranced and LL was throughly engrossed and would occassionally break out in excited babble about the story line.  Brett was thoroughly happy with all the set pieces flying in and out and all the lighting queues.  (He worked briefly at QPAC forever ago on lighting crew)  I loved the story, the singing and the dancing and how well it translated to the stage. 

Lots and lots of families were there enjoying the show, so there was a great feeling. 
A wonderful memory for our family.

Back to school

Yes, they've been back at school two weeks and I'm just getting around to the obligatory first day picture.

 Box Boy is in year 3 this year!  One of the girls from his class last year called him over to ask him, "When's the last time you had a hair cut?"  Funny that it bothered her. He alternates between liking his hair long and hating his hair touching his collar. 
He is happy with his class and his teachers.  His room is full of books, so he should be happy. He gets to learn violin at school this year and has been selected to be a part of a group designing a web page for their maths revision.

Lego Lad is in year 6 and is happy with to find himself with several of his friends.  He and Miss T are happy little chatterboxes together.  Lucky she likes Star Wars. He had a maths and spelling test on his first day, but wasn't too bothered.  He is excited about learning French this year and has been worried about whether it would stop raining long enough for the class to do a science project about melting different foods.  Despite lots and lots of rain, it did stop raining long enough.

Wishing everyone a wonderful year of learning, whatever your age!

Happy Australia Day

Happy Australia Day to everybody.
This photo was taken at Bargara last week, but it could have been today at the local beach where they spent many hours puttering and splashing about. 
It is so good that the boys seem to be getting better at enjoying the sand and sea and even a little bit of surf. 
Very Australian of them.

Turtle boys

I knew they were mad keen on turtles.  Maybe they're just mad.
Here they are having a turtley good time at Bargara (near Bundaberg) to finish off the school holidays.

Pretty cool park with a great view of the ocean.

One of the main attractions to coming to Bargara is to visit near by turtle nesting spot, Mon Repos.
So one night after dark we got to see a real Loggerhead turtle mama doing her thing. 

She clambered up the beach, onto a sand dune, cleared some vegetation and dug her hole pretty deep with her back flippers.  This impressive lady laid a clutch of around 100 eggs that night, her fourth time for the season. 
It's sad to realise that of her 400 baby turtles that the odds aren't good for any of them to reach to adulthood.  The rangers think it's about 1 in 1000 eggs that make it to maturity.  The work that is done there is important but much needs to be done around the world for their protection. (netting, foxes, boats, pollution etc)
LL and BB were disappointed to not see hatchlings (the weather's been too cold) but cheered up when I reminded them they had seen lots of baby turtles (just in their shells).
And they got to stay up till midnight.
Turtle Power!

Banana Icecream

Box Boy got a kid's icecream maker for Christmas.   I think the icecream maker is not exactly the best, it's more like a frosty mug with a motor, but it may just be we need some patience and change things slightly to optimise it's capabilities.Like follow the instructions. Go figure.
We've made strawberry and mango icecream so far and when Box Boy had a friend to visit he asked for banana icecream. I already had some frozen bananas and I think that helped speed the process up.

A Banana Icecream Recipe sans IceCream Maker
3 bananas
100 g sugar
375 mls milk

I blitzed up the frozen bananas in the food processor and then added the milk and sugar.  It already looked creamy and yummy.  Box Boy and I had a taste and thought it tasted just like a really yummy thick smoothie. I think you could get away with less sugar.
If our icecream maker base was frozen at this stage, I would have churned it for 20-30 minutes and I think all would be well.  (we would need to do it in two batches for this volume) Of course the icecream maker base wasn't frozen, so I poured the mix into a plastic container and froze it for a couple of hours and then threw it back in the food processor to help it not be too icy. Hmm, how is this using the icecream maker? Back into the freezer.
You can repeat this process of mixing a few times to stop it being too icy, but I normally forget or don't leave enough time and it ends up quite difficult to scoop. I think you can begin to see why we haven't given the ice cream maker a proper chance.
But this time I remembered.  I used the whipping attachment for the food processor and spun it around for a few minutes.  It seemed to increase in volume.  Then it went back in the freezer.
I was pleased that I did the extra step and it did make a difference.  It's different to store bought icecream and an interesting banana colour but it was easier to scoop than without having done this extra step.

Here's another banana icecream recipe that's even easier and is dairy free.  I really like it.  The others don't think it's proper icecream and leave it for me.  Lucky me!
Blitz a banana. Freeze it. Eat it.
Or
Blitz a frozen banana and eat a soft serve version straight away.
Or
Add a few teaspoons of nutella or chocolate powder to it for a choc banana version.

The last version came about because I saw a recipe that said to add 1 cup of nutella to 2 bananas.  That's a whole small jar!  A bit to expensive to my way of thinking. 
It's such a nice thing to have the bananas finally become cheap enough again following the cyclone last year that I can start to mess around with banana recipes.  I bet the banana farmers are even more glad.

Happy New Year

 Happy New Year to you all! Hope that you have had an enjoyable Christmas period.
A good time was had in the Lego/Box  household. 
And yet, there has also been some whinging prior and after Christmas that has been getting on parental nerves.
On Christmas Day there was a Santa mix up that resulted in some anguish for Lego Lad.  "I didn't get enough Lego!"
There was a lot of it's just not fair comments going on that were totally not grounded in reality.

Then there was the incident in the park when one of the short people made quite a scene (in company) because we dared to bring along a flavoured soft drink he didn't like and NO he did not want to drink water or be a part of our family.  He wanted us to buy the soft drink he wanted. NOW.
They don't proclaim that they are bored but they do protest mightily if they have to leave the house for mundane purposes.
I have seen this on Pinterest (sorry don't know original source) and it goes along with a conversation about first world problems I had with a knowledgeable friend following the soft drink incident.

It's not just the boys, I know I'm guilty too of a lack of contentment at times.

We have so much to be thankful for.

Gingerbread house party

Last year we had so much fun making mini gingerbread houses with friends that we decided to do it again this year.

We got together with the Aussie Half Dozen and the G family early in the school holidays to make some yummy treats.

This time we decided to concentrate on the assembly.  We prepared the gingerbread pieces ahead of time (the kids making gingerbread was not quite so much fun last year) and the two families brought the sweet shop along with them.  If only I could count!

I used the gingerbread recipe from this Christmas lesson. It makes quite a hard gingerbread but I liked the taste. Our Sunday school did an Edible Christmas lesson this year and it was lots of fun.  What I like about this gingerbread is that it doesn't use that much butter/margarine and it was simple.  Something to consider when making several batches.  The recipe makes 2 mini gingerbread houses or whatever shape you decide to make with it.

Gingerbread Recipe

This mixture can be made the day before it is needed and can be kept in the fridge for weeks. The dough is easier to work with if you let it rest.
Melt together 2 tablespoons margarine with 1/2 cup brown sugar and 4 tablespoons golden syrup in a microwave.
In a large bowl put 2 cups plain flour, 1 teaspoon bicarb soda, 1 teaspoon ground ginger, 1 teaspoon mixed spice.  Add melted mixture and 2 tablespoons milk and stir until combined.  Put in the fridge until needed.  Then roll out on floured board, cut out shapes about 1/2 cm thick and bake for 12-15 minutes in a moderate oven. 

The results?  All the kids were justifiably proud of their creations.

 

clean and simple design by Box Boy

 

Jelly bean door, lamp, wreath and path by Lego Lad

Possum's designer eye with the holly

Snow men, palm trees, wreaths and lots of icing!

(sorry if I missed any of the girls - my memory isn't that good)

We just might have to do it again next Christmas!  

Wishing you and your family a blessed Christmas celebration.