zara's birthday cake

how lucky am i?! i got another chance to go wild and decorate a fun chocolate overload cake for one of our friend marks girls. i used my go to chocolate cake and icing recipe which you can find here, it is an absolute winner.

it's such an easy cake to make too and comes out just right, time after time.

cover with chocolate cream cheese icing and then go crazy with toppings

including these chocolate lollipops i made after buying a mould on ebay during lockdown earlier this year. i am certain it's going to come in handy a lot in the future.

thankfully my mother-in-law has a stack of chocolate always on hand at her place. i popped in, chose some nice goodies, including some clinkers (to add a pop of colour!) and had the best time decorating it and tipping coloured sprinkles about the place. so fun!

happy birthday miss zara. we love you! 

stitching for the babies

sometimes i like to sew. i find stitching back and forth creating words or an image quite therapeutic. in december one of my friends from church had a baby and i decided i would make a little sampler of his name for his room - and it only took me three months to get around to it - and less than three hours to finish it hahah. add a cute coloured edge frame from our local reject shop and ta-dah! i thought it was sweet. 

then our adorable next door neighbours had a baby this week. a long awaited rainbow baby who will be very loved! i thought what the heck - let's do another one... 

so baby april got one too. i loved making them - hopefully their mums liked them too. 

another doll

my best friend jen is due to have her baby next month... and she's having a girl. i swore i was never making another one of these dolls ever again (worst pattern ever... i am thinking i'll set fire to it now that this one is done!) unless jen decided to have another baby and that baby was a girl... well... jen is having another baby and that baby is a girl. so supervised by mum, i got to work yet again - and here is the end result! this one is in fun shades of blue and is yet unnamed.

jen, please don't have another girl. i'll kill you... but congratulations, this beautiful doll is coming to live at your house :)

scrunchies!

i tell you no lies. i asked my 16 year old niece what she wanted for her birthday and she replied, oh some scrunchies would be nice please! scrunchies? really? those things we used to wear in our hair when we were in primary school, oh i don't know 28 odd years ago? what the heck. apparently they are all the rage again, so... i looked up online the easiest way to make them (here's a great tutorial!), got our my trusty sewing machine and got to work.

madeline instantly decided she needed some too, then another friend put in her order... and we ended up making 28 of them over the weekend. 

i loved all the colours and picking fabrics, not so much the turning (always a pain, i remember doing it for my mum when she would make them for me, so i got madeline onto that quick smart!) but we got quicker as we went along, so i'll definitely be making more for my friends who are dropping unsubtle hints about wanting them (ew gross, i won't be wearing any you fashion victims) and madeline's friends.

scrunchie maker, out! 

christmas goodie trays

it's become tradition, since doug started at western power in 2012 that i've followed in my mothers footsteps and spoiled the boys that he works with (and other friends and family) with goodie trays. somehow every year i've made it happen, when maddie was a toddler, when i was pregnant with joseph and now with a teeny newborn... after getting it done this time, i feel invincible! (until my baby walks up and wants a feed in the middle of the night haha)

so... without further ado, may i present this years efforts:

sante biscuits (recipe here)

brownies (recipe here)

chocolate caramel slice (recipe here)

chocolate rocky road (recipe here)*

popcorn and seed brittle (recipe here)

white chocolate rocky road (recipe here)

caramel fudge (recipe here)

chocolate truffles (recipe here)

apricot and white chocolate slice *new this year!* (recipe here)

apricot and white chocolate slice

250g packet scotch finger biscuits (crushed in a food processor)

1 cup chopped dried apricots

1 cup desiccated coconut

395g can condensed milk

100g chopped butter

50g melted white chocolate

method: 

Lightly grease and line an 18 x 28cm slice pan with baking paper. 

In a large bowl, combine biscuit crumbs, apricots and coconut. 

Combine condensed milk and butter in a medium saucepan. 

Stir over low heat for 4-5 minutes, until smooth. 

Pour over dry ingredients and mix well. 

Press mixture firmly into prepared pan. 

Chill until firm. 

Drizzle top with chocolate. 

Chill until set.

(note - at the suggestion of my lovely cousin who sent me this recipe, add half a packet of white choc chips to the mix. delish!! this will definitely be a regular from here on in)

merry christmas everyone! be on the lookout for your trays (if you think you're cool or special enough! haha) and enjoy!

***********************

*this time i used a packet of coles brand honeycomb whirls instead of twix's and threw in some chopped jelly lollies

school ready

it's school time in just 8 days (but who's counting, oh me for sure! my kids are squabbling and it is time...) and i am ready to go! mum came over for the day and whipped up a library bag for joseph, cars of course. 

finished an art smock for madeline...

and then made a new library bag for madeline (she's over the frozen one that poor mum made and then hand embroidered her name into last year. sigh)

i spent the day labelling pencils and books and packing everything ready to go for next week and i am pleased to report that we are done and dusted.

now to work out how i'll cope with my baby at school next year. thank goodness it's only five days a fortnight. i don't know what i'd do with myself otherwise! i'll let you know how we go! 

a doll for isabel

never, ever again. until the next one of course. baby isabel has arrived and i (stupidly) decided she needed a handmade doll as a "welcome to the earth" present. i have made this pattern once before (see here) and it went pretty well, with no major issues... but this time i wanted to ditch the doll and set fire to the pattern! hopefully she will love it... but i would be lying if i said that a lot of love went into it. more like a lot of cursing and anger haha.

but may i present the yet unnamed doll i finally managed to turn out for miss isabel. please feel free to offer name suggestions in the comments... but mark my words it will be a long time before i attempt another... if ever! augh.

rocky road cake

what do you do when you ask your friends almost 11 year old the day before his birthday what his favourite cake is (so you can make him one obviously) and he replies "rocky road". what the actual heck do you do? where do you go from there? i'll tell you what you do... you make something up pronto!

one white wings chocolate cake mix (yes, i admit, i completely cheated. you know why? because i had one in the cupboard and it was getting close to the expiry date!) split between two tins and baked. when cool, a layer of strawberry jam and whipped cream between the layers...

chocolate icing (included in the box) made and spread on the top, with cream rosettes piped onto the top around the edge. then... the rocky road! i melted chocolate chips in a glass bowl over boiling water and then mixed with marshmallows, chopped peanuts and desiccated coconut before tipping into a lined pan to cool in the fridge. when cold, i hacked it into pieces and then made a very messy, uneven stack in the middle of the cake. i loved it,..

and so did the birthday boy! his face was priceless, he looked like he had won the lottery. turns out spending time in the kitchen is sometimes worth every minute! 

happy birthday zion, we love you! ♥

christmas goody trays

voila! finished for another year and ready for the boys at western power to enjoy today! it's become a wonderful christmas tradition for us and i can honestly say i love making them as much as the boys love to eat them.

this year consisted of:

jelly slice

chocolate truffles

fudge

choc chip cookies

white chocolate gingerbread rocky road

brownies

clinker slice and

salted caramel toffee

recipes can be found here and here for the others, except for the gingerbread rocky road which i made up as i went along. it was basically: the remains of a broken gingerbread igloo,one bag of 4 colour pascall marshmallows and one and a half bags of coles white chocolate melts, melted on a low setting in the microwave and all mixed together. sounds random i know, but it was delicious!

merry christmas to our wp boys! ♥

school christmas gifts

it has been madeline's first year of school this year and i wanted to make sure i did something nice for all the kids in her class at the end of the year. browsing instagram (as i do a lot), i came across a gorgeous page who made cute as classroom gifts, at glittergluedesigns. i especially loved her reindeer lollipop holders and snapped up a set for maddie's class here. i was so pleased with how cute they turned out.

madeline has had two particularly close friends this year also and after hearing about them day in and day out, i wanted to give them a little something too, so grabbed some cute little necklaces from lovisa and made these cards to attach them to using the free app "red stamp" on my iphone. i loved how they turned out and according to charlotte and isabellas mums, they loved them too. oh to be 5 again. it seems like the greatest thing in the world! ♥

a wedding gift made with love

as i posted about a few days back, my beautiful friend aniwa and her husband myron got married last week. we have become very close and share a wonderful friendship and love for the gospel. 

my dad performed their marriage ceremony and i was asked to do a reading at the wedding, so i chose something that spoke of the purpose of marriage within the gospel and the importance of being together as husband and wife. but then, what to give as a gift? i found the perfect solution, in having my reading placed over a beautiful photo of them that I'd snapped at the wedding. my new found friend from lemons that are pink in the uk was only too happy to oblige in making one up and i was thrilled with the results!

♥♥♥

The First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly declared more than 20 years ago in the Family Proclamation, that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children.

The first commandment that God gave to Adam and Eve was as husband and wife, that they would have a solemn responsibility to love and care for each other and for their children.

The family is ordained of God. Marriage between man and woman is essential to His eternal plan. Happiness in family life is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion and work.

In True to the Faith it also says: If you are married, remember that the friendship and love between you and your spouse should be your most cherished earthly relationship… Remember that marriage, in its truest sense, is a partnership of equals, with neither person exercising dominion over the other, but with each encouraging, comforting and helping the other.

♥♥♥

and clearly they loved it too...

happy days are ahead m & a, this is just the beginning. i love you both!

the annaliah doll

today i made a doll. all by myself! i went to mums to for supervision, so that there was no way i could mess it up but i was pleasantly surprised that i actually managed it! years ago i purchased the pattern for the "elsie" doll from candy kirby designs (before their dolls were available to purchase, the pattern was available) and finally had a really good occasion to use it, to make a doll for a special little girl in our ward. miss annaliah is having heart surgery in a matter of weeks and i wanted to give her something special to take with her.

it was so much fun and i am thrilled to pieces that i managed to get it done, especially all the little details like stitching on her face and adding a little lace collar...

here she is ready to stuff...

and her little mary janes!

and as a little finishing touch i found a ceramic heart button in mums sewing room and drew some little stitches on, so that she really is just like miss annaliah. i can't wait to see her face when i give her to her this weekend ♥

a labour of love

miss madeline received a pretty fancy gift today... from aunty jen. a cross stitch done and personalised just for her. jen has spent months stitching this for madeline, and all i can say is wow! i certainly don't know if i would have the patience to sit and stitch this masterpiece. thanks jen! we love it! xx