Heidi's Baking Challenge - Puddings and Desserts

Hello everyone! I am entering Heidi’s baking challenge on behalf of my lovely mother, Hazel! Heidi-Mari decided to extend her current challenge for another two weeks and she is offering the winner a PRIZE! You have another day left to enter your puddings and desserts before the challenge closes. Please go here to enter!

My mother made us a delicious rice pudding for after dinner last night. We have made all sorts of rice puddings before, but this one is by far the best of them all.

Rice Pudding

Serves 6

180ml uncooked rice

125ml water

750ml rice milk

60ml raisins

5ml nutmeg

1ml ground cloves

2 extra large free-range eggs, separated

125ml cream

60ml sugar

2ml vanilla essence

Preheat oven to 160 degrees Celsius. Boil the rice until all the water has been absorbed. Add the milk and raisins and simmer until the rice is tender and most of the milk has been absorbed. Cool. Mix the nutmeg and the cloves with the egg yolks, cream and sugar. Add the vanilla essence and mix well with the rice mixture. Whisk the egg whites until stiff peaks are formed and fold into rice mixture. Pour into greased oven dish and bake for 40-60 minutes or until set. Serve hot with custard.

I like this pudding so much as it has very little sugar in it.  If my Mom makes it into the top three recipes, then please would you hop over to Heidi’s blog and vote for her?! Voting starts on Tuesday, 20th of September.

Have a great weekend,

Kelly-Anne

A Beautiful Day at the Beach and Forest

On Thursday dear friends of ours called and asked us if we would like to take a trip to the beach and then head to the forest for a picnic lunch the next day? Of course we said yes! As Dad was at work, it was just us girls who went on this outing and, to bless Mommy, Nancy and I looked after the younger ones so she could stay home and rest. Only 25 sleeps or so till Baby is born and as you can imagine, Mom is very tired and in desperate need of a rest!

We were ready by 9:30am on Wednesday morning – chores all done (we try NEVER to leave chores undone!) and animals fed. Although it rained a little during the night, the morning dawned bright and clear, which we were very thankful for.

We first went to Buffalo Bay, near Knysna for an hour or so as it was low tide. The girls discovered amazing things hidden inbetween the rocks and enjoyed running around on the nearly empty beach!

Gabrielle and Beth love looking for shells in the beautiful rock pools.

I took some pictures of the waves crashing on the rocks – I love this one and I'm entering it into Livin' My Life 4 Jesus Photo Challenge for 'Anything'.

We saw seagulls (lots of them :) and even a little octopus!

The girls were very brave, swimming and playing in the rock pools!

Gabrielle splashed...

...And Rebekah just went for a walk...

I love taking pictures of footprints in the sand and this one is amazing with the sea in the background!

On the way to the forest, I asked to stop the car at a bridge where I wanted to get a few photos.

We lunched at Jubilee Creek which is the sweetest creek in the middle of the forest!  We went there years ago when we first lived in Knysna and Gabrielle was a baby...nothing much has changed since and it is still beautiful!

The explorers – Beth and Nancy.

Lunch was soup and yummy rolls!

Beth (trying:) to cross the stream.

While the other girls explored, I went on a walk which was so beautiful!

There are some really beautiful plants growing along the path I walked on...

When I got back, they had been swimming and by then were very cold!

...So, it was time to go home!

Kelly-Anne

Time for Tots - Actiivity #14

Hello everyone! It’s time for my weekly tot activity! I meant to post it on Tuesday, but I got side-tracked with Miss Gabrielle’s spring photo shoot!

The little ones are learning about the letter M so we made ‘Macaroni Necklaces’!

You Will Need:

Macaroni noodles

Craft paint of your choice

String

Paint tubs

Paint brushes

Aprons

Spaghetti noodles stuck into playdoh (to thread your painted noodles onto to dry properly).

Lay newspaper over the table and give each tot a separate paint tub, paintbrushes, noodle dryer and a container to put their own macaroni noodles in to avoid conflict!

Step 1:  Paint the noodles your desired colour...

Step 2:  leave them to dry on your homemade noodle dryer.

It is hard work painting such a small noodle, but the tots will love it!

Don’t worry if they mix up the colours and start painting the noodles some weird brown colour – I did and it didn’t help, they just kept right on making ‘new colours’!

Step 3:  Once the noodles have dried, take them off the dryer and thread them onto a piece of string long enough to fit over their heads when the ends are tied together.

You or your mom will have to help the very small tots!

Step 4:  When you have created a colourful necklace, tie the ends together and...

You’re done!!!

Beautiful jewellery handmade by the tots – Beth age seven, Gabrielle age four and Rebekah age two.

Don’t forget to link up YOUR activities in the Tot School page, here! You have the rest of the year join in the Time for Tots fun. I post a weekly tot activity on my blog, but if you have any new ideas then I’d love to see them anytime!

Have a fun-filled day further ~

 

‘To the tots’,

Kelly-Anne

Gabrielle||Spring Photo Session

This afternoon I took a few spring pictures of my second youngest sister, Gabrielle age four.  She put on her new, very colourful dress and I snapped away!  To add some interest to her pictures, I gave her two green balloons to hold, which you will see below!

This is my favourite one of her and I’m entering it into Monday Moments photo contest for 'Two of a Kind'.

Don’t you just love her dress?

I quite like this picture, too!

She got rather annoyed with me after a while...I was enjoying myself, but my model wasn’t: D!

This is a typical ‘Gabrielle’ face...too cute!

Which photograph of Miss Gabrielle do you like the most?

Blessings,

Kelly-Anne

Our Week in Pictures #3

I really cannot believe another week has passed and it is time to show you what we did this week again!  It is now only four weeks till New Baby is due – it seems too close to believe.  We had quite a productive week cleaning up and organizing a new routine for school and chores and I think it will work much better.  But, now for our week pictures:

I prepared a really yummy lunch of spinach and cheese muffins with a garnish of tomato, red cabbage, olives, avocado pear and red cabbage.  Everybody loved these and you can find the recipe here.

Gabrielle and Rebekah played together and were really very cute!

I sorted out our courtyard garden for my mother.  It really looks lovely now!  You can read more about it here.

We visited friends for supper and the girls played with ball guns – it kept them busy for most of the evening, phew!

I love this picture.

I discovered some more amazing and beautiful flowers...

The sky and the clouds were incredible early one morning!  We now find with the sun rising earlier and the weather being warmer, everyone (almost) is up and awake at about 6am or 6:30am when Dad usually leaves for work.

We also organized...

...And sorted out the schoolroom/Nancy and my bedroom.  It looks really nice now and it is going to be wonderful working in there.  However, a ready hand needs to be kept on it so I am ‘in charge’ of doing a quick clean up at the end of the day.  We moved our sewing table and sewing things into our room too, so now I can sew at night and not bother anybody (or be bothered...:)

We did ‘Time for Tots’…

…And acted cute! The tots and I made paper bag kites and you can read more about it here.

Oh, and by the way their ‘Mouse’s favourite book of the week’ is ‘The Most Precious Thing’. Little Bear finds a beautiful blue stone one morning and says she is sure this stone is the most precious thing in the whole world, but Mommy Bear says there is an even more precious thing than that beautiful blue stone! It takes Little Bear a long time to search for it, but eventually finds out what the most precious thing is…!

I read a few more of the Chronicles of Narnia books this week when it was afternoon naptime. I really enjoy the peace and quiet of naptime and when you’re really tired, it comes as such a pleasure!

Days Till Our New Baby Brother/Sister is Born!!!

How was YOUR week? What did YOU do/achieve?

Blessings for the week ahead,

Kelly-Anne