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Make It Perfect

Make It Perfect

.Christmas 2009.

Christmas just seems to get more and more fun the older my children get. Every year they “get it” a bit more and are extra excited. This year Oscar was really excited…lucky for us he isn’t a 4:30am waker, like some other children I know (YUCK!) and we got a lovely sleep in until 7:30am on Christmas morning!

The celebrations begin on Christmas Eve for our family. We seem to have this habit of making special holidays drag on as long as we can (Easter Bunny visits our home for four days over the Easter weekend!). A few years ago we decided to have our hot roast meal on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day. It works out really well, means that we can spend Christmas Eve together as a family and also that there isn’t as much hot, busy cooking and cleaning to do on Christmas Day and we can all relax and enjoy it a bit more.

This year was a quiet Christmas for us, just Mum & Dad, Ty & Cade and our clan. It was nice though, I think Christmas is fun as long as you have kids around! We had our yummy roast turkey and ham meal on Christmas Eve and were totally and utterly stuffed for the rest of the night. Each year on Christmas Eve, Santa drives around our town on the back of a fire engine with carols blaring and throws lollies at the people waiting in the street. Lil thought this was the best thing ever and I think if this is all that happened for Christmas she would have been very happy! She has not stopped talking about how “Santa got my lollies” ever since! Check out Ty and Cade in the photo below – they had just spotted Santa coming up the street…yes, they are 19 and 22!!
Poor old Dad has warped sense of taste since being on new medication for his removed thyroid. Everything tastes metallic to him, but that didn’t stop him getting excited about the big pav for dessert!
We woke up to a glorious Christmas day…sun streaming through the windows, we’ve had some yucky weather for Christmas the last few years so it was really nice to enjoy the day this year. Oscar and Lil were so excited to open their presents from Santa in the morning. We have a tradition of the kids opening the presents from Santa when we all get up and then waiting until around lunch time to open the presents from everyone else under the tree – yep, spreading out the fun again…
Mum, Dad and the boys came around for a gourmet breakfast – have you ever seen white raspberries? Check them out! They taste exactly the same as red ones, just a different colour. They reminded me a bit of maggots, but are really yummy!
I was a mean Mum and after we had read the Christmas story I made the kids sit in front of the tree for a photo! Oscar was not impressed!!! He had waited so patiently all morning though, I can’t blame him!
Lil gave us a great Christmas present and has been toilet training on and off for the last couple of weeks. I held out buying her undies (yes, she wore Oscars!) though because I knew she would be really happy to open some on Christmas day – and she was! She has been really good and going to the toilet for the last 4 days – YAY! Hope she keeps it up, will be great to only have one in nappies!
Check out the t-shirt that Ty bought for Cade…go Twilight!
Oscar is crazy about all things Lego at the moment and was so happy to get three little sets. He it totally into building things and always chooses lego, train tracks, duplo, etc. over any other toys to play with.
And I had to post a picture of Lil with her Giddy-Up horse…she loves it and look at her new gold shoes (I really want a pair for me!) she will not take them off and stops to stare at them every couple of minutes! So completely cute!! Oscar likes his horse too but wouldn’t open it up when it was present time. I asked him why not and he said it was because he already knew what it was and told me it was a horse. I asked him how he knew and he said “because I saw it on your blog” – WHAT THE?! Apparently he was walking by the computer when I was writing the blog post about them – I didn’t even know that he knew what a blog was!!
After the presents we went down to the beach for a swim and a play, then home for the little ones to have a nap. Followed by an early dinner of cold meats, prawns, salads, cheeses, dips, breads, fruit and other yummy goodies! It was such a fun day – definitely goes too fast, but I guess it wouldn’t be as exciting if Christmas came more than once a year! We are lucky to have Jaron home for a bit over a week now so really looking forward to enjoying some fun activities together as a family.

December 27, 2009
Make It Perfect

.Recipe Monday.

Sharing the recipes I used to make our Christmas treats this year…there is still time to do some Christmas cooking if you haven’t already!!

Oreo Truffles
I shared this recipe a couple of weeks ago – see it here

Peppermint Balls
This recipe came from One Crafty Mama’s blog. She makes hers in a log shape, but I had a go at rolling the mixture into balls and they turned out really well.

3/4 tin condensed milk
1 packet chocolate ripple biscuits
1 large bag of peppermints (the hard, powdery kind of ones – XXX, oddfellows, etc…I used homebrand!)
1 Tbs cocoa
Coconut

Crush the biscuits with a rolling pin or in a food processor.
Crush the peppermints into little pieces. (I tried doing this in the food processor but they were too hard and wouldn’t break into pieces so ended up wrapping them in a tea towel and going outside and banging them with a hammer on the concrete like Melissa suggests – such a good idea!!)
Mix condensed milk, crushed biscuits, crushed peppermints and cocoa together.
Wet your hands slightly and roll the mixture into balls, then roll in coconut and place in the fridge to firm.

No Bake Apricot Balls
This recipe also came from One Crafty Mama. We used to make similar balls growing up, but without the biscuits so they were very sweet. The biscuits were a nice addition and helped them to set better too.

1 tin condensed milk
1 cup finely chopped dried apricots
1 packet milk arrowroot biscuits, crushed
Cococnut

Mix condensed milk, apricots and biscuits together.
Roll into small balls then roll in coconut.
Place in the fridge to firm.

Homemade Marshmallow
Don’t be scared to try making these…they are super easy and delicious!

1 1/2 cups caster sugar
2/3 cup hot water
2 Tbs gelatine
2/3 cup cold water
1 tsp vanilla essence
2 cups coconut

Grease and line a large slice tin.
Place sugar and hot water in saucepan and cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until sugar dissolves and syrup is clear.
Place gelatine in a bowl and our over cold water. Use a hand whisk to combine. Pour gelatine mixture into hot sugar syrup and cook, stirring constantly, until the gelatine has dissolved and mixture is clear. Set aside to cool to room temperature.
Pour cooled mixture into a large bowl and use electric beaters on high to beat for 5-10 minutes or until the mixture is very thick. Add the vanilla and beat to combine.
Pour into prepared pan and leave in a cool place to set. Once set (about 1 hour) use a wet knife to cut into squares.
To toast coconut, heat a clean, dry frying pan over medium-high heat. Add coconut and cook, stirring constantly until coconut is golden.
Place toasted coconut in a bowl and add toss squares of marshmallow through the coconut to coat.

December 20, 2009
Make It Perfect

.Countdown to Christmas #20.

Tonight was our traditional “Gingerbread House” making night. We like the cheats version…using Milk Coffee biscuits. Not as tasty as gingerbread but much easier for me to prepare and the kids don’t like gingerbread so I would be annoyed at all of the wastage if we were to make traditional houses! These are good too because they are mini so it means that everyone can make (and eat!!) their own.

I’m excited about this…I was reading this blog earlier in the week about their experience making gingerbread houses out of biscuits and discovered an AWESOME tip… if you have made these houses before you will know that it is a bit of a tedious task getting the biscuits to stand in proper formation using only icing. Walls falling down and roofs caving in are not fun when you have anxious children waiting to get into decorating! So, this year I made up a little bit of toffee mix and while it was still bubbling hot and runny (be careful!) dipped the sides of each biscuit into the syrup before joining them together. PERFECT! I told Carli about it and she did the same thing yesterday and was just as excited about the results. I highly recommend it. We used royal icing to decorate but once the houses are all stuck together with toffee you could use melted chocolate or regular icing. To make the toffee mixture I placed 1 cup of water and 2 cups of sugar in a saucepan and let it boil for about 10 minutes. Test a little bit of syrup by dropping it on the stainless steel sink or a plate or something else that is cool and if it sets then you are ready to roll!
Of course the lollies are the highlight for the kids! I like to control the amount of lollies they have and give them each an assortment to use rather than just open all of the bags and let them go crazy. (Mean Mum!)And Jaron couldn’t follow the crowd this year, check out his award-winning architectural masterpiece! There was lot of precise biscuit measuring and cutting for this one…and the toffee was a breeze to help it stick together easily!

December 20, 2009
Make It Perfect

.Christmas Sewing: Giddy-Up!.

I said before that I have been doing lots of sewing lately, ready for Christmas. All of the other gifts are going to have to wait until after the 25th to be shared, but I can show you what I have just finished for Oscar and Lil…

A “Giddy-Up” horse each using a new Melly & Me pattern! You know how you see a pattern and know that you just have to make one? It was like that with this pattern. I thought it would be a long shot trying to get two of them finished the week before Christmas but they were pretty straight forward to put together. I think they took me three nights of sewing after the kids had gone to bed.

This one is Oscar’s….
And this one for Lil…
Pretty cute, huh? I’m really pleased with how they turned out – now the problem will be trying to work out how to wrap them…
SUPPLIES
Oscar’s horse:
Head – Amy Butler Midwest Modern, Garden Maze in Mustard
Pole/Ears – Heather Ross Lightning Bugs, Polka Dots in Orange/Brown
Reins – Prints Charming, Starburst in Aqua
Mane – As Above + Amy Butler Midwest Modern 2, Honeycomb in Forest
Lil’s horse:
Head – Amy Butler Love, Sunspots in Tangerine
Pole/Ears – Amy Butler Midwest Modern 2, Garden Maze in Red
Reins – Heather Bailey Bijoux, Tiled Primrose in Yellow
Mane – As Above + Sandi Henderson Farmers Market, Henna Garden in Pink + Amy Butler Daisy Chain, Daisy Bouquet in Turquoise

December 19, 2009
Make It Perfect

.Countdown to Christmas #16 & #17.

Wednesday and Thursday found us baking up a Christmas Storm! There were a couple of people that I wanted to give treats to for Christmas and the kids are giving these to their teachers at church also. We were supposed to deliver them this week…but it didn’t happen so will give them out this weekend.

I am in love with bakers twine at the moment. Such cool stuff and a great way to jazz up a plain brown paper wrapped present. The red and white is perfect for Christmas…I want to invest in some other colours too.

We made four treats and wrapped a few of each in clear cellophane. There are some strong flavours in the treats and I didn’t want them to mix. Then we put all four individually wrapped treats in each present.

All ready for delivery…SUPPLIES:
Brown paper from supermarket
Home made gift tags
Bakers Twine from here
(Will share recipes on Monday…)

December 19, 2009