Chocolate Truffles

After spending yesterday at the hospital with Elly (she had an allergic reaction to something - we still don't know what! Thankfully she is well again now - hives are gone and tongue doesn't feel 'funny and fuzzy' anymore) I had to find something quick and easy to make last night, to take to a catch-up and play date with friends today.

These truffles were just the thing - four ingredients (and I added Milo for extra crunch and flavour) and no cooking required! I'd love to hear variations on the recipe, as I think it could be very adaptable to a lot of tastes and flavours. I'm thinking of adding a bit of Peppermint Essence next time. There definitely will be a next time! (Chocolate truffles seem to be the perfect antidote for a worried and/or stressed-out Mum - of which I was both yesterday!)

Christmas Day 2010

What a beautiful day! I hope you had a Merry Christmas too!

The girls woke at 6am to discover stockings full of toys at the end of their beds and then spent another two hours opening the 'big toys' under the tree, stopping to play in-between. Elly was so excited about it all, she was bouncing from one corner of the room to the other, wondering what to do about it all! It was very funny.

Then it was to Mimi & Poppy's house for the Big Christmas Breakfast; bacon, eggs, sausages, grilled tomatos, mushrooms, onions, croissants with ham & cheese and the annual Christmas Fruit Platter;

This has become a bit of a {rather funny} tradition in my family. My younger brother Greg has a friend who owns a big fruit shop down the road from my parents house. When my Mum found out they made big fruit platters a few years ago, she ordered one for Christmas Day.

Well, it was such a hit and she enjoyed having a great, big plate of fresh fruit in the house for days afterwards, that soon she was ordering an enormous fruit platter (at great expense!) every single week.

Greg's friend must have been the one putting the platters together, because he took Greg aside one day and said 'Look, these fruit platters are for special occassions! Can't your Mum cut fruit?!?!'

{If only he knew our mother... She swears there was a fruit bowl in our house when we were growing up, but neither me, nor my brothers ever saw it. haha}

My brother's fiance Emma is a super creative gal and made these sweet little Reindeer ornaments out of pegs, which she placed on everyone's plates;

As well as these Reindeer Candy Canes;

So cute!

The decorative theme was reindeers this year;

Here are the girls, with presents from Mimi and Poppy piled high;

My parents asked me for some ideas for the girls' Christmas presents. I suggested a few things [this] or [that] or [this] or [that]... and they very generously bought ALL of them and more (One present would have been more than enough!). Not to mention all the beautiful presents from Aunties AND Uncles AND the Kris Kringle gifts from Santa.

Elly was very excited to see Santa walked past the window and ran outside to squeal in delight at him ringing his bell;

Livvie was slightly more suspicious, asking Mimi, 'Is that Poppy in there?'...

...to a resounding 'No! Of course not!' from everyone gathered. (Dad, this might signal the last year of Santa making a personal appearance on Christmas morning!)

Afterwards, it was on to lunch at our place, with Nick's family;

We had a traditional lunch with ham, turkey with cranberry sauce, potatoes, sweet potatoes, greens and two salads. Nicks Mum made a beautiful pudding and Ice cream cake for dessert;

I was supposed to make a trifle, but um....totally forgot about it the night before! So I whipped up another Choc Ripple cake in the morning, this time topped with Milo and Turkish Delight;

Nick finally got a chance to play with his the girls new train set;

Then it was time for an afternoon swim with cousins and a play with the new pool toys;

And lots of jumping on the new trampoline for Nick and the girls;

Then at 5pm, we exchanged yet more gifts with Nick's family and...

Needless to say, we were all exhausted after such a big day!

It was wonderful;

Christmas Eve Lunch

Today we hosted a Christmas Eve lunch for our best buddies from Edinburgh. Livvie stood on the window-sill all morning, peering out, anxiously awaiting their arrival!

That was, when she wasn't sneaking snowballs from the table;

We did a BBQ lunch with some big salads followed by Choc Ripple Cake;

Simple Aussie Fare!

Nick went to high school with Jason and we stayed with Jason and Gillian when we lived in Scotland about 6 years ago. We have had lots of good times with these two....

Like enjoying meals together when they were both Vegan and I was on a gluten-free diet. Tricky but it can be done! Gillian cooked a beautiful nut-roast that Christmas and it was one of the best meals I have ever had!

Enjoying pints in a pub one night and a man opening up his trenchcoat to reveal rows of cheese for sale, the packets stapled to the lining of his coat! (I am still confused about this).

Me being so excited about seeing my first snow-fall, I convinced Nick to run outside with me, where I promptly threw myself on the ground to make Snow Angels in (what I had forgotten was) the sludge and grime of Edinburgh sidewalks! I also managed to lock ourselves out of our apartment (in all the excitement) that night and had to ring our agent, whilst dripping wet with said sludge.

Going to a party with Jason & Gillian and meeting a crazy Australian lady with a voice like a truck driver, who had just bought a castle in Romania for the change in her back pocket (or thereabouts)

Me insulting the Prime Minister of Scotland. I had no idea he was called the First Minister, so when he called and asked to speak to my senior, and kept referring to himself as the First Minister, I kept asking him, 'The First Minister of what?!?!?! ' Oops!

Visiting huge, beautiful, historic castles in neighbouring towns... only to find them closed for the day! It's ok, we found some pubs where we could drown our sorrows...

Jason and Gillian were the first friends we shared news of our engagement with. We have shared many celebratory drinks together and hope to join them again for cocktails in town next week to reminisce some more.

Jason & Gillian are mad keen cyclists - they rode through Italy last year!

I wanted to make them a present, so...

I made them napkins with bicycles all over them;

I was so excited about finding the fabric, after phone calls and trips all over Sydney and was really keen to sew them up, I cut the first two fine and then cut the wrong length of fabric and didn't have enough fabric left for a set of four! Grrrr

So two napkins and some Christmas ornaments to take home;

We had such a great day today!

Can't wait to see them again next week, before they fly home on New Years Eve...

2 days 'til Christmas...

Yippee!

Wrapped

Last year I left all the wrapping of presents until late on Christmas Eve, which was not very smart and very stressful and tiring. This year I am slightly more organised and wrapped all the girls presents last night and tackled all the extended family gifts today. The girls were keen to help, of course...

...once they had stuck some elephant trunks on their faces first!

(Elly vowed she would 'Neber Eber' take hers off!)

We started with brown paper, tied up with string, because, well... that is one of my favourite things! And in our house, it feels like it has been The Year of the Paper Doily, so we used lots of those today too;

As well as these die-cut butterflies from a great little paper-craft store I found by chance yesterday;

I could have spent hours in there looking at all the stamps, inks, borders, die cuts, etc but unfortunately, the girls were just as excited as me and could not keep their hands to themselves. I must have said 'Please don't touch!' and 'Put that down!' at least 100 times in the five minutes we were there. I also picked up a packet of pre-cut paper squares in a range of prints;

The squares were hole-punched by my little 'helpers' (and hinderers!) at home and became gift tags for our presents. Luckily the packet had the same number of squares as I had gifts to wrap... phew!

Soon the girls became engrossed in wrapping some of their little toys to put under the tree for each other (it was very cute) and making their own gift tags out of some folder labels I had spare. That kept them busy... and me busy... for a good two hours of cutting, pasting, fiddling ...and it was fun!

David Jones Christmas Windows

Last night we took the girls to see the windows at David Jones in town. David Jones, for those who don't know, is a department store (not only Australia's oldest department store - established in 1838 - but the oldest department store in the world still trading under its original name!) famous for their Christmas window displays.

My photos definitely do not do it justice. Almost every figure moves in time with the Christmas music and every window has a different scene and different carols playing. The best way to describe it is enchanting.

The details are just divine. Look at the monks ringing their bells;

Then look below their feet at the little mice ringing their own bells underneath the floorboards and below that, the church goers assembled in front of the priest and the stained glass windows;

Incredible! I also loved this scene, set in The Rocks, Sydney.

All the figures in the windows remind me of the puppets in the Christmas specials that used to be on TV when I was a child.

David Jones also have a staff choir that performs daily at 9am for half an hour, up until Christmas Eve. It is definitely worth visiting the Elizabeth Street store to see the windows, and if you go in the morning, you could catch the live choir singing too. Beautiful!

We also made sure we saw the Martin Place Christmas Tree;

"The most iconic Christmas tree in the City. The Martin Place Christmas tree is 21 metres high and includes 58,000 LED lights, more than 300 stars and a 1500mm seven pointed shimmering tree top star"

I must admit it made me a bit nostaglic for New York;

I love NY at Christmas time (or anytime)

We got a blurry family photo underneath the 'Love' banner;

Awww. The girls then ran around in a whirl of Christmas excitement;

Afterwards they fell asleep only minutes into the car ride home and we had a bit of...

Garden Gnome Birthday Party

Today we celebrated a little friend's 1st birthday at his Garden Gnome themed party. His grandmother made his cake, which I thought was absolutely adorable!

An upside-down toadstool cake!

Also impressive (and very yummy) were these chocolate toadstools;

I only wish I took more pictures.... of his grandparents beautiful garden, which was a magical woodlands setting with stepping stones, miniature garden furniture for the children and two {real} Tawny Frogmouths watching the party from their perch in a tree!

Humpty Dumpty Cake

It is a tradition on my husband's side of the family, that 3rd birthdays are always celebrated with a homemade Humpty Dumpty birthday cake. Our nephew turned 3 yesterday and this was the gorgeous cake his grandmother made for him. Poor Humpty fell off his wall a little early, thus the chocolate smudge on his chin!

I have kept my older daughter's Humpty Dumpty (the face hand-drawn by her grandfather) from her cake at her Nursery Rhymes 3rd Birthday Party last year... and next year it is my younger daughter's turn for a Humpty Dumpty cake!

It's such a sweet and simple cake to make, the children love reciting the nursery rhyme (they are at the perfect age where they know all the words and they're not too shy to sing!) and the birthday child gets the honour of knocking Humpty off his wall, or in Joshua's case yesterday, sending his little top hat flying!

He's back!

It's so nice to welcome home Nick, after he's been away on business. There is always an air of excitement in the house (we count down the hours and I, the minutes!). And yesterday, there was the smell of freshly-made scones;

There is always something tucked in his bag for me, a little gift he has picked up on his travels. Last time it was a new watch, this time...

...it was these delicious goodies from Jugiong (population 200!). Even better than the Olives and the Relish from Long Track Pantry - that beautiful ribbon! T'was the night before Christmas...

Felt Pudding Ornaments

As a summer thunderstorm rocked our house this afternoon, I was stitching some more decorations for our tree. I think Rachael's mini puddings last weekend inspired me!

You can find a great step-by-step tutorial for these ornaments at Bugs and Fishes. I added some white sequins (which seem to reflect a lot of pink!);

And a different red button for each one;

This one is my fave;

I found this little red button in an old sewing tin my grandmother gave me.