Heidi’s Baking Fun Challenge – Puddings and Desserts

Puddings and desserts is the theme for this fortnight’s challenge at Heidi’s Fortnightly Baking Fun Challenge!  I decided to make my famous ‘Lemon Sponge Puddings’!  I am mad about lemon...the smell and taste is delicious - add it to a dessert and it is absolutely wonderful!

Here is my recipe:

Lemon Sponge Puddings

Makes 8

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cooking Time: 30 Minutes

2 Lemons, 1 sliced and 1 zested and juiced

100g butter

100g castor sugar

2 eggs

150g self-raising flour

1. Preheat oven to 180 degrees Celsius. Grease 8 timbale moulds or ramekins. Put a slice of lemon at the bottom of each. 2. Cream together butter and sugar, add the eggs one at a time, beating in between, then add flour with the lemon juice and zest. Mix and divide between the prepared moulds, filling each only halfway. 3. Turn out and serve with custard.

If I happen to make it into the top three recipes, then please would you hop over to Heidi’s blog and vote for me to win! Voting starts on Tuesday next week.

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne

My Week in Pictures - #1

Hello everyone, what a busy week our family had! I meant to do some more posts over the weekend, but we ran out of bandwidth, so we have just enjoyed a few days of ‘isolation’!

Here is what we did this week:

Nancy blew bubbles for the Three Blind Mice (Beth, Gabrielle and Rebekah).

We read stories.

Our ‘Mouse’s Favourite Book of the Week’ is ‘A Song for Jamela’ by Niki Daly. What an adorable story about Jamela and famous ‘Afro Idol’ Miss Bambi Chaka Chaka. When Miss Chaka Chaka comes to Aunt Beauty’s Hair Salon, young Jamela is asked to help...unfortunately something dreadful happens and Aunt Beauty makes a terrible mistake! Will Jamela be able help fix the problem without Miss Chaka Chaka noticing?

The younger girls also played a lot.

And helped me water the carrot patch! (Coming soon!)

We did ‘Time for Tots’ and made these adorable caterpillars!  Read more here.

Beth, Gabrielle and Nancy helped me make some ‘Time for Tots’ buttons using powder paint and the bathroom window!  They made handprints, I took the pictures and Nancy held up the background which was a white sheet...they turned out pretty well, what do you think?  Now all you have to do is right click on the image, ‘save as’ and use it as a picture on your side-bar so that you can show others you are a tot school lover!

We visited dear friends for tea...Nancy and Mom made a big lemon meringue pie for this occasion.

I spent the entire afternoon on a walk to take pictures of their amazing farm (coming soon).  Despite the fact that I shocked myself on the fence trying to take a picture of Miss Apple Pie (the cute pig:-), I thoroughly enjoyed myself and had a very relaxing time lying on the grass and doing...um...nothing...!

Don’t you love Beth’s new hairstyle? Freshly cut during the week and I think she looks more ‘Beth’ than ever!

I also read the following books this week:

What Katy Did

What Katy Did at School

And What Katy Did Next by Susan M. Coolidge

I’m no good at keeping resolutions, but here are a few random things I’d like to do/achieve in the week ahead:

Finish my ‘pouch style drawstring bag’ that is – oh, so trying my patience!

Post my #2 Sensational Sewing Challenge!

Take photos of baby guinea pigs that are leaving for the pet shop next week.

Be kind, loving, patient, gentle, self-controlled, etc, etc :D

Exciting Bit of News – six more weeks till new baby is born!!

What was YOUR week like? What did YOU achieve this week and what are your resolutions for the week ahead? Do YOU have an exciting bit of news? Please leave me a comment below!

Blessings for the week ahead,

Kelly-Anne

Time for Tots – Activity #12

Hello everyone!  It is time again for me to share my weekly tot activity with you!  But first I would like to show you all.......

...My new Tot School Sidebar buttons! These two adorable buttons are for you – they are for your blog’s sidebar. You can use either one of these buttons, top or bottom, if you want to – just right click on the picture and ‘save as’. Then you can upload it as a picture onto your blog if you would like to show off my ‘Time for Tots Link Up Party’ every week! The very top one is for your tot activity ideas so don’t forget to use it in your blog post for the link-up party! Read more here.

But now onto my weekly activity and that activity is...

Recycled Egg Box Caterpillars made in six fun and easy steps!

What you need:

A big egg box, cut into strips
Different coloured powder paints
Cold glue
Pipe cleaners of any colour, each one cut into three equal pieces
Googly eyes
Funky ribbon (optional)
Aprons for the tots and you!
Newspaper laid over the table

Step 1:  First paint the egg box strip your desired colours (be careful not put too much paint on your caterpillar or else it will become soggy and break!)

Paint it any way you like – plain green or multi-coloured to make it fancy!

Take your time to give it the finishing touches of an artist.

Step 2: ...Take a break at snack time to wait for your soggy caterpillars to dry in the sun...

...Read a story or two...

Step 3:  Using an awl, poke a hole through your caterpillar’s body for his/her legs.

Step 4:  Bend the pipe cleaners a little once putting them through the holes.

“It’s hard work”!  Rebekah age 2.

The legs should look like this underneath.

Step 5:  Poke another two holes on your friend’s (the caterpillar, that is) head.  Thread the pipe cleaner piece through to make feelers.

Step 6:  Glue two googly eyes onto your caterpillar’s face.

You’re done! Tie a bow in your favourite ribbon if you want to and give him/her a bow-tie!

Three gorgeous caterpillars made by the tots – Beth age seven, Gabrielle age four and Rebekah age two – Supervised by me, age fourteen:D

Go here to see the rest of my tot activities and those of others! I would love to see yours, too, so start linking up using your blog or email! The link up party is open all year!

‘To the tots’,

Kelly-Anne

August Favourite Photographs

Here a few of my favourite photographs that I took in the month of August.

I love this beautiful flower!

Beth and Snowflake.

This I took at the beach the other day – I love it!

My gorgeous guinea pig baby - Bagel

Entering this picture into Monday Moments – August Favourite.  This photo was also taken at the beach the other day.

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne

100% Loving Making Bags!

You can read here how I have started a monthly sewing challenge and my first theme is ‘bags’.  So that means I am also trying out different patterns as my examples.  However, even before I tried out a few of the bags I have set aside to make this month, I fell in love with making the ‘Just like Mommy’ purse which I found on Gluesticks.  I made two, one for Gabrielle and one for Rebekah.  But still I needed to do some more, so I made three more which will be stock for my future Shoppe!  I experimented with different colours and embellishments and here they are!

My favourite is the middle one with the felt flower! I didn’t think these bright colours would work as well as they did!

I am now working on a pink crushed velour pouch style drawstring bag which I hope to share with you before my challenge closes – you have till the 31 of August to enter your bags!

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne

Time for Tots – Activity #11

Yeah! After a tiny break to work on some more toddler activities for the upcoming season, I’m back with a whole lot of new ideas for things to do with tots! (Hope you like the new Tot School button?!)

Before I go on to my activity for this week, I’d like to announce that at the end of the Tot School year, five of my favourite activities will be listed on my blog and each finalist will receive a 'Tot School Champ' button for their blog. But...the 'Top of the Tot’s' will receive a 'Tot Box' filled with fun things to do with 1-5 year olds! So now start sharing those fun ideas with me using your blog and you could be a ‘Tot Champ’! Read more here .

How about having a Tot Tea Party this week with your Little Ones? That is what Gabrielle, Rebekah and I did one fine morning this week! We enjoyed Tot Tea under a shady tree and chatted about fun things...we had a glorious morning and Nancy and Rebekah had made Mini Melting Moments with icing and sprinkles on the top!

Mommy bought them a new plastic tea set so we (Gabrielle and Rebekah) had tea in style! I was the photographer slash supervisor, but enjoyed it (almost) as much as they did!

Tea time for Rebekah age two, Gabrielle age four and me age fourteen...

Pouring the tea...

Putting in the sugar – rainbow sugar crystals, excuse me!

Pouring in the milk...

 And stirring!

Tea time! ...But wait! We forgot the biscuits!

 

 

Finally, after much pouring and stirring we enjoyed tea!

Oh yum...see the pink finger?  Yup, definitely a ‘biscuit thief’!

And – we are off again!  ANOTHER cup of tea for Madam Rebekah!

...Sip...

...Slurp (gulp!)

...Savour every moment!

...And tea time might be over...

 

I didn’t say quite over...don’t look so worried Madam Rebekah!

Now, when you have little sisters enjoying tea and biscuits like real ladies, do you think you would stand by and watch...? I didn’t think so...Nancy and Beth made a tea table for themselves! Now, we have school, chores and things to do, but help! We cannot miss out on all the toddler fun! Oh, no! Dear me!

They played ‘tea for ladies’.

...“More tea, darling?”

I hope you enjoyed my tot activity this week…and yes, don’t forget the ‘ladies tea party’:) I hope you are encouraged to have fun with your tots, I know they will love and enjoy having you make a fuss of them at tea time! An interesting thing to remember about doing things with little ones is that, once you have ‘filled up their little tanks’, as my mother’s good friend always says, you will be surprised how easy they will be! They will go off and do something on their own for a little while leaving you to do what you want to do for an hour or so! Another helpful and wonderful thing is having more than one tot…yes, sometimes there can be ‘double trouble’ but generally on the whole, they should get along fine and play nicely together!

Remember to share your ideas with me in the ‘Tot School’ page. Please go there for more information and to see the rest of my activities and those of others who shared their toddler fun with me!

‘To the tots’

Kelly-Anne