11th Anniversary in Russell

Our anniversary this year turned into a family holiday with all 6 of us and all of us loved every minute of it....well almost every minute....after my hubby and I got over our festering little tiff that had been bubbling away for a few day. 

Straight into togs...typical

The Russell Cottages where we stayed were a dream. Definitely a place to recommend to others and go back to for sure

To make it a holiday to remember we decided to pay an arm and a leg to take the kids horse riding, and even though it turned out to be pretty average, drizzly weather, it was still a big hit

11.5 years since we were here (give or take).
Where my man first declared 'I love you'.....in the carpark of Woolworths in Kaikohe. So romantic

Despite running a tad late for church in Awarua, we made a quick stop so Bob could jump out and have a photo at the Hundertwasser toilets in Kawakawa. When I was teaching in her room before the end of term we did a monday madness about famous artists and Hundertwasser was one of them. Pretty cool to see one of his real life creations. I love it when learning comes to life.

The day before we went away Seth had a sickie morning....a nice big vomit in the morning, followed by a big sleep then a good ol' gummy bear tally chart.

Where has the time gone? I can't believe we've been married for 11 years. I know that's kind of a drop in the ocean against 32 years or 48 years or 66 years, but still. 11 years is pretty darn cool and although it's far from easy some days, I'd choose my guy over and over again. My one and only xxx

The girl's kids market experience

Last weekend the big girls had their first taste of what it takes to make and sell a product. They did really well but they both agree on one thing....'we're never doing that again!' Haha

They think it was quite a hard way to earn money...thanks to their Dad for hiking the hourly rate and making anything less than $50 for a couple of hours work seem like it's not worth it. Nah actually it's not usually that much, depends how generous he's feeling!

They really did such a great job and as it turns out, their interests and personalities really compliment eachother. Ella was the stronger crafter and Faith was the stronger seller.

The night before....

Aren't they cool?!?!?! We made 50 necklaces and 30 make your own kids. The potential sales would come to $200 if they sold everything at the price they wanted.

Pretty boring when you don't make any sales for a while

This critter stayed pretty close by me for all of half an hour then for the other 2.5 hours she fluttered around all of the other stalls and ended up getting her face painted (a girl was doing it for $1 but Dalls got it done for free)

Scored those clippy princess shoes for free too (only to lose them a few hours later at a party!)

Kiss that money box girl! She wanted to put it all out on the table and count it but I told her that was pretty bad manners so she had to wait till we got in the car. With a few before and after sales added, they made about $130 (I think that included my $7 I put in for change at the start)

Then on Monday Ella nagged her head off until we finally headed off down to Kmart with their money in their own little ziplock baggie. They were allowed to take $35 each. Ella bought denim shorts for $17 so she's still got quite a lot of left. Faith bought a box of lego for $29.

So proud of my girls for getting out there and participating and actually darn proud of myself for getting out there and participating too! It's totally not my thing but I really wanted them to do it.
Something we can chalk up in the memory banks of their childhood.

My Lasagne

Lasagne has always and probably always will be one of my favourite dinners. I think I make it a pretty standard way but if my girls ever want to make it just like me....here's how I do it.

Ingredients

500g Prime or Premium Beef Mince
1 chopped onion
6 chopped mushrooms
1/2 chopped capsicum (any colour)
1 can pasta sauce (any flavour)

Cheese Sauce

125g butter
4-5 tbsp flour
1 & 1/2 - 2C milk
1 & 1/2 C grated cheese

Cook mincey stuff in the pan with a touch of oil.

While that's cooking, melt butter in a medium sized saucepan. Add flour and whisk together. Slowly add milk and keep mixing so it stays smooth while thickening. Add cheese and mix until all melted.

Start layering the lasagne in a square dish. I use my standard white square one that I use at least every week for one dinner or other.

It doesn't really matter how the layering is done but I generally do it like this (note: the lasagne doesn't need to be cooked beforehand. It goes in raw/uncooked, straight from the packet)

Bottom to top
Mince
Cheese sauce
Lasagne Pasta
Mince
Cheese sauce
Lasagne Pasta
Mince
Cheese sauce
Lasagne Pasta
Mince
Cheese sauce
Grated Cheese on top

Cook at 180 for about 40 minutes. You can tell by looking at the top and putting a knife in for when it's all cooked (the pasta should be all soft and cooked)

Because it comes right up to the very top of the dish I always put it on a baking tray incase little bits ooze over the sides

Serve hot, but not too hot (I've burnt my mouth many times with my over eager hungry-ness)....and with a generous portion of sour cream of course.

Now that I've typed this up, I think I've earned myself a second portion of this winner!

Banana Choc Chunk Muffins

I've tried so many banana choc muffins over the years and this random find on the internet this arvo is my favourite so far. It might have been helped by the fact that I used chunks of chocolate rather than the usual fairly lame chocolate chips.

Banana Choc Chunk Muffins

3 cups all-purpose flour

1 & 1/3 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking soda

2 large eggs

3 mashed ripe bananas

150g butter, melted

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

200g cup dark baking chocolate (in chunks)

Makes 28-ish

Preheat oven to 180. In a large bowl, mix flour, sugar & baking soda. In another bowl, whisk egg, bananas, melted butter and vanilla until blended. Add to flour mixture; stir just until moistened. Fold in chocolate chunks. The mixture is really thick and quite sticky

Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full. Bake 15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in centre comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Serve warm.

They look like two different recipes but that's cause I accidentally left the darker ones in for about 3 minutes longer. I thought I might have wrecked them but we liked the darker and lighter ones equally

Tonight for FHE we didn't really do anything cause Joe was still up at school with Seth and Ella installing 2 new netball hoops. With Firi and Pups we  organised our library books into 2 piles (keepers and returns). I just had to take a pic of how the girls arranged the books to start off with. Faith just frisbeed them out of the box so we could see all of the titles, Dalls came along and lined them all up so they were in neat rows....typical girls