lite 'n easy christmas party

every year dougs mums work puts on a christmas party for the kids (and grandkids) of the workers, so naturally we get an invite. normally this is planned weeks in advance, but this year was thrown together last minute due to a couple of issues at their workplace.

never mind that! we still had a good time, the kids did a kids exercise program in the work gym, then did arts and crafts in the board room, before getting a little lunch pack to take home.

and as though they knew it would make madeline's life 100% better than any other normal day - hooray! there was a face painter! i wish i could upload a video here to show you, but the painter did such a good job - when she raised her eyebrows up and down, it looked as though the gingerbread man was flapping about. we could not stop laughing!

no matter where these kids go - they will find some fun... thanks for the day out lite n easy! 

schools out for summer!

wellllll... that's a wrap on the 2019 school year. just six weeks of summer holidays ahead of us with the nuggets. they love their school (as do we!) and feel so blessed with the amazing teachers the two of them have had. this year was no exception and i felt so sad saying goodbye to them today. the only consolation is knowing that we will be back next year, and they will all still be here.

here's an outtake, love this shot - it just captures their personalities perfectly. joseph the grumble bum and madeline high on life.

joseph just wanted to get home, but madeline was happy to pose for a photo with her teacher miss stone. she is the best and i hope that we still see a lot of her.

and this photo arrived through the classroom app later this afternoon. so cute! i know the kids will all miss their teachers... bring on next year! 

christmas baking

it's lucky this baking got done this year to be honest... i have delayed it over and over, dougs dad is in hospital - and it just felt like it was all too much to actually get it done... but i persisted and pushed through and the western power boys got their treats! yay!

it's been a while since i have shared all the recipes on one post - so stay tuned, they are all following...

merry christmas boys! 

top left: brownies

top right: peanut choc chip cookies

second row: mars bar slice

third row left: fudge 

third row right: salted cracker toffee slice

fourth row: apricot and white chocolate slice

fifth row: chocolate rocky road

sixth row: chocolate truffles

bottom row: white chocolate rocky road

Brownies

200g butter

2 cups packed brown sugar

1/2 cup cocoa

1 teaspoon vanilla essence

1 cup plain flour

2 eggs

1. grease a 20 x 30cm tin, pre-heat oven to 180 deg cel

2. melt butter in a big saucepan on a very low heat, add brown sugar, allow to melt a bit and mix together. do not boil!!

3. add cocoa and vanilla, stir very well

4. take off heat, sift in flour, stir it in

5. add eggs, beat in really well

6. spread mixture evenly in tin, bake for 20 - 25 mins

Peanut choc chip cookies

125g softened butter

1/4 cup peanut butter (crunchy or smooth doesn't matter...)

3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar

1 egg

1 1/2 cups plain flour

1/2 teaspoon bi-carb soda

1/2 cup unsalted peanuts

1/2 cup choc chips

1. preheat oven to 180 deg celcius, cover oven trays with baking paper

2. beat butter, peanut butter, sugar and egg in bowl with electric mixer until smooth. stir in flour and soda, then nuts and choc chips

3. roll small balls of mixture and place on trays, flatten slightly with fork

4. bake for 12 minutes, then cool on trays

Mars bar slice

50g butter

1 tablespoon golden syrup

200g (ish) Mars bars (use the fake ones! They totally work) finely chopped 

3 cups rice bubbles

200g milk chocolate

20g copha

1. Grease and line the base and side of a slice tray

2. Combine the butter, golden syrup and 3/4 of the Mars bars in a medium saucepan over low heat. Cook, stirring with a wooden spoon, for 5 minutes or until Mars bars and butter melt and mixture is smooth. Remove from heat.

3. Place the rice bubbles and remaining Mars bar in a large bowl. Add the Mars bar mixture and stir until well combined. Spoon into the prepared pan and use the back of a spoon to smooth the surface. Set aside to cool completely.

4. Place the chocolate and copha in a heatproof bowl over a saucepan half-filled with simmering water, stir until chocolate melts. Pour chocolate over the top of the slice to evenly coat. Set aside until to set. Cut into squares to serve.

Caramel fudge

125g chopped butter

395g can sweetened condensed milk

2 tbsp golden syrup

1 cup brown sugar

3/4 cup white choc chips

1. grease and line metal dish

2. in a saucepan, stir butter, condensed milk, golden syrup and sugar together over a low heat until simmering (and sugar is melted!) stir constantly for 10 minutes until slightly thickened and golden brown

3. remove from heat, add choc chips and until mixture is smooth and chocolate is completely melted

4. pour into dish and refrigerate until set. slice with a hot knife into small squares.

Salted cracker toffee slice

1 cup salted butter

1 cup firmly packed brown sugar

2 cups choc chips

premium crackers

unsalted peanuts

1. Preheat oven to 180 deg celcius, line a baking dish (i used a lasagne sized one...) with baking paper then grease the inside of the paper well.

2. Lay a flat layer of crackers on the paper

3. Melt sugar and butter in a saucepan until boiling. Reduce heat and simmer uncovered for about 5 minutes, until it thickens and sugar is dissolved. Pour this mixture over the crackers and spread to coat evenly.

4. Bake for 8-10 mins, until toffee is bubbly, then remove pan from oven and allow to sit for 3-5 minutes.

5. Sprinkle choc chips over, allow them to soften and melt and then spread them into an even layer. Sprinkle peanuts (optional!) over top and top with ground salt to create a sweet salty flavour.

6. Set in fridge then cut into slices.

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

1/2 packet white chocolate chips

50g melted white chocolate

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

2. In a large bowl, combine biscuit crumbs, white chocolate chips, apricots and coconut. 

3. Combine condensed milk and butter in a medium saucepan. 

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

5. Pour over dry ingredients and mix well. 

6. Press mixture firmly into prepared pan. 

7. Chill until firm. 

8. Drizzle top with cholate, then chill again until set.

Milk chocolate rocky road

500g melted milk chocolate

1 cup shredded coconut

1 cup chopped peanuts

1 bag pink and white marshmallows (halved)

1pkt coles honeycomb squiggle biscuits (chopped)

1 pkt party mix lollies

1. Melt chocolate on a low heat in microwave for short intervals until completely melted and smooth.

2. Mix all ingredients into melted chocolate and pour into prepared tray, refrigerate until just set and then cut into bite sized pieces. 

(really the sky is the limit, you can add pretty much anything you want... glace cherries, any kind of nuts, honeycomb, biscuit chunks... let your imagination run wild!)

Chocolate truffles

1 can sweetened condensed milk

2 tablespoons cocoa

1 pkt (250g) milk arrowroot biscuits

2 cups desiccated coconut

1. Crush biscuits finely in a food processor

2. Add to milk and cocoa and mix well

3. Take teaspoon sized amounts and roll into balls

4. Roll in coconut

5. Place on baking paper in fridge to set

White chocolate rocky road

2 x bags white chocolate melts

1 x bag  marshmallows (cut into pieces)

1 x bag lolly bananas

1 x bag lolly raspberries (cut into pieces)

1/2 cup desiccated coconut

1/2 packet gingernut biscuits (chopped into pieces)

1. Melt chocolate melts in low in microwave

2. Add chopped lollies, biscuits and coconut, stir well to mix

3. Pour into greased lined pan and place in fridge to set

(As with the other rocky road recipe, this is totally a make it up as you go recipe, add anything you want (within reason) and it works!)

christmas talk

i was super complimented to be asked to speak on the sunday before christmas sunday. i love christmas and everything about it so i was definitely up for this one. growing up on a farm in the australian bush, i have so many wonderful memories of "aussie christmas" but one of the ones i love the most was one christmas when one of the senior missionary couples from america came to breakfast and mum decorated the table and house with blue gum everywhere. it smelled and looked amazing and i have been obsessed with aussie christmas ever since. i wouldn't want it any other way. this year mum made me (and various friends of mine) this gorgeous bush wreath and i love it. it has just made my christmas! anyway... back to my talk - here we go!

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Good afternoon brothers and sisters. I’ve been asked to speak today about how we bring Christ into our home during the Christmas season. When Brother Dowe called me a few weeks ago with my assignment, he said, “you’re a Christmas person aren’t you?” Mate, I am literally a Christmas person. Born just before Christmas and everything. You can’t get more Christmassy than that. With all those combined Birthday and Christmas presents I’ve had? It’s in my blood. You know what they say, “All I want for Christmas is for someone to remember my December birthday.” As a child, my mother would wait until after my birthday to put the Christmas tree up so I didn’t have to celebrate “Birthmas”, but now I have children of my own, it’s up on the first day of December. I just can’t feel festive or excited until there is a tree in my lounge room, twinkling with lights.

As a small child, we would go and select an appropriate tree (well, really more part of a tree) from somewhere on our property, hack it off and bring it home to plant it in a bucket where we would decorate it. To this day I associate the smell of eucalyptus with Christmas because of these trees. We would water the tree each day which of course didn’t do much… it always died within a few days after Christmas was over. Come to think of it, maybe that was mums reason for not having the tree up before my birthday!

My favourite part of the decorating though, was when mum would pull out the black tin that held our family nativity. She would allow me to unwrap each piece from their paper and place them just how I wanted them (don’t get any ideas kids!) in the stable my father had built. To me this was the real start of Christmas and the thing I looked forward to the most. I have no doubt this stemmed my adult obsession of nativity scenes. To me they are the best kind of decoration as they are what Christmas is about. There are plenty of those sets in our home.

I was raised in a home where Christmas was celebrated in a beautiful manner. Everything we did was centred on Christ and giving. As President Thomas S Monson taught in the 2012 Christmas Devotional “Finding the real joy of Christmas comes not in the hurrying and the scurrying to get more done, nor is it found in the purchasing of gifts. We find real joy when we make the Saviour the focus of the season.”

My all-time favourite Christmas memory is sitting outside on the verandah one hot Christmas eve, with my parents and the youngest of my brothers, I am fairly certain the two older ones were on their missions at the time. We sat with candles burning and sang the Christmas carols from the hymn book one by one. There was no fanfare, no gifts, just a family, sitting together in the still.

Jeffrey R Holland said, “Shepherds would soon arrive and later, wise men from the east. Later yet the memory of that night would bring Santa Claus and Frosty and Rudolph. But first and forever there was just a little family, without toys or trees and tinsel. With a family – that’s how Christmas began.” To us all of us that follow Christ that family is still and always will be, the most important part of Christmas.

So how do we ensure Christ is at the center of Christmas in our home? Each year we do things that remind us of the birth of Christ, the first and most wonderful gift. Christmas is the spirit of giving without the thought of getting. 

Each year we have an advent calendar. But not a chocolate one (although yes we have those too), one that has a scripture and something we can do to bring us closer to Christ each day. For example, doing something kind for a neighbor, singing carols as a family, giving food to a charity, one year we packed a box for a solider on active duty… The best part of this type of advent calendar is that it will allow you to go about doing good each day, just as the Saviour did. When actively seeking one thing each day in the lead up to Christmas, you become more focused, allowing you to see other opportunities to serve right in front of you. The Light the World initiative the church introduced a few years ago is the same sort of thing and brings love both in our families and those we come in contact with. 

Watching the First Presidency Christmas Devotional has always been something we’ve done in our home since we were married. As new parents we watched it after putting the children to bed as we wrapped gifts. Now we attempt to watch it with the children (not always successfully) so they can enjoy the festive stories and beautiful music that are shared.

We go to the Road to Bethlehem each year to watch the Christmas story acted out. This experience is especially wonderful for children to enable them to see what we believe, played out in front of their eyes. Instead of hearing the story read from a book – they have the opportunity to see and recognize each person that they have heard about.

On Christmas Eve, we watch the nativity video before the children goto bed, then in the morning, we read the Christmas story found in Luke chapter 2 before opening our gifts.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed a bit of a recurring theme here? I keep coming back to the story of the nativity over and over. Why? Because that is what Christmas is all about. Over 2000 years ago an angel appeared to a young engaged woman called Mary to tell her that she would bear a child. The son of God. She meekly accepted his words by saying, “behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word.” Joseph was also told of this miracle that would occur by an angel who told him not to be afraid to take her as his wife. It is obvious to see that Mary was a virtuous and faithful woman chosen by the Lord to bear His son. Joseph a righteous man had also chosen her to be his wife. They were prepared for the coming of the son of God by their faith.

Shepherds were also alerted of the arrival of the Saviour. These Shepherds lived a simple and righteous life. They were dedicated to caring for their sheep, with a  great love for them and I would assume for others. The angel spoke to them and although they were afraid, they followed his instructions and went to see the baby.

Perhaps the best prepared for his arrival were the wise men. The wise men were well respected and educated men. They had wealth and servants and knew of prophecies that had been made concerning this Saviour who would come. They had studied the skies and the words of ancient prophets who foretold his arrival. They watched and waited for many years knowing the signs that would be given.

So each of these people was prepared to meet the Saviour, but how can we be like the wise men and prepare beforehand? To be ready to receive Christ into our homes and lives this Christmas? They had read and studied and were ready to meet him. Are we? I love that Christmas quote that says “wise men still seek Him”. Are we prepared to welcome Him into our homes as we celebrate His birth?

President Thomas S. Monson said, “When we keep the spirit of Christmas, we keep the spirit of Christ, for the Christmas spirit is the Christ spirit. It will block out all the distractions around us, which can diminish Christmas and swallow up its true meaning. Christmas is what we make of it. Despite all the distractions, we can see to it that Christ is at the center of our celebration. If we have not already done so, we can establish Christmas traditions for ourselves and for our families which will help us capture and keep the spirit of Christ. There is no better time than now, this very Christmas season, for all of us to rededicate ourselves to the principles taught by Jesus Christ.”

As members of the church we can focus our attention on the Savior and inspire others to do the same. He is the true reason for the season. In a world where people no longer do good “just because” we can make a difference and be the people who do. Smile a little brighter, give a little more, show more patience, be a peacemaker and avoid contention and show love as Christ did. Not just at Christmas, but always. By doing these things and sharing them with our children, we will raise them to love the Saviour, by showing that we love him. We will help build a generation to follow us, who grow in faith and continue to walk the covenant path.

Our celebration of Christmas should be a reflection of the love and selflessness taught by the Saviour. Giving, not getting, brings the Christmas spirit. We feel more kindly one to another. We reach out in love to help those less fortunate. Our hearts are softened. Enemies are forgiven, friends remembered, and God obeyed. The spirit of Christmas illuminates the picture window of the soul, and we look out upon the world’s busy life and become more interested in people than in things. To catch the real meaning of the spirit of Christmas, we need only drop the last syllable, and it becomes the Spirit of Christ.

The Saviour loved all men. Not just those who loved him, but all men. Is there someone we could love more? Someone with whom we have disagreed? Someone who just isn’t our favourite? Is this season the time to make amends? To start anew? Service is the greatest act there is. By truly serving one another, we will forget ourselves and our troubles and become closer to the Saviour than we ever thought possible, for His was the greatest example of service.

May we give as the Saviour gave. To give of oneself is a holy gift. We give as a remembrance of all the Saviour has given. May we also give gifts that have eternal value, along with our gifts that eventually break or are forgotten. How much better the world would be if we all gave gifts of understanding and compassion, of service and friendship, of kindness and gentleness.

Because He came to earth, we have a perfect example to follow. As we strive to become more like Him, we will have joy and happiness in our lives and peace each day of the year. It is His example, which if followed, stirs within us more kindness and love, more respect and concern for others. Because He came, there is meaning to our mortal existence. Because He came, we know how to reach out to those in trouble or in distress, wherever they may be. Because He came, death has lost its sting, the grave its victory. We will live again because He came. Because He came and paid for our sins, we have the opportunity to gain eternal life. Because He came, we are gathered to worship Him in bonds of  unity and love.

May His precious Spirit be with us, and may He ever be the center of our celebrations and indeed of our very lives.  I am forever grateful for the Saviour, born so many years ago and for the blessed lives we enjoy within the safety of this His restored church.

May I leave you with a poem written by Christina Rosetti?

What can I give Him,

Poor as I am?

If I were a shepherd

I would bring a lamb.

If I were a Wise Man

I would do my part,

Yet what can I give Him?

Give my heart.

In the name of Jesus Christ Amen.

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in other not so festive news, the doctors told steve there is not much else they can try and asked if dougs sister can come home to spend time with steve as it looks as though it may be the end. she arrived this week. of course we are pleased to have her here, but are sad that its for that reason. we are hoping for a christmas miracle, but things are looking pretty bleak. 

honour bee

what . the . heck

i did it!!!! i actually managed to get my honour bee before time ran out!! i am so freaking proud of myself, because i honestly was convinced that it couldn't be done in the time i had left. when i finished my personal progress in october, that left me ten weeks to read the entire book of mormon again and complete 40 hours of service. aughhhh. but. i got to work. not only did i get it done, i got it done 2 weeks ahead of schedule and did 35 hours! wheeeee. anything can be done if you put your mind to it - and you'll be amazed at how quickly you can get through the book of mormon if you just let your phone read it to you non stop every night once the kids are in bed whilst cleaning up, doing the dishes, folding the washing...

so proud! i feel like i have accomplished something huge and i am just super stoked. ❤

p&c christmas gifts

i'm a firm believer that hand made treats are the way to nearly everyones heart. so when at our last p&c (parents and citizens - school fundraising and decision making committee, not sure if they have the same thing in other countries, but they are at every school here in australia) meeting the ladies discussed a gift for the school staff from us, i shot down their suggestion of a few bought chocolates in a bag and offered to make fudge pieces for the entire school staff.

5 trays (and two disasters that had to be remade in the middle of the night) later, we had 96 pieces of fudge cut and bagged, ready to be tied off with the labels i made on canva - and bags of chocolate crinkle cookies made by one of the other mums. 

i am so proud of our efforts - and so chuffed that they looked so good! madeline's teacher met me after school to tell me she had rushed up to the office to get hers when she heard i had made them, what a huge compliment. the p&c haw truly made a difference to the school, what a blessing it has been to be a part of it.

alex is fourteen months

baby alexander is now fourteen months old...

during the last month...

-he hands things to you when you ask, but then wants it to be passed back straight away

-when we say ta, he’ll hand anyone whatever he is holding

-he is saying hiii and byyyye

-he has started to stand balance for a while

-he took a few steps on the spot first

-he took his first few tottering steps 27th november to poppy

-he started walking!

baby a, you are truly loved