Orange and Poppyseed Cake

 

It's Ross's birthday! 

Which means it's time to make a cake other than chocolate - and it better be good cause he's a chef and may potentially judge me. haha.

This years offering was a great find on taste.com.au

ORANGE AND POPPYSEED CAKE

50g butter

1 tbsp finely grated orange rind

• 1 cup caster sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup self-raising flour
• 2 tbsp poppyseeds
• 1/3 cup reduced-fat milk
• 
  
• Method:
• Preheat oven to 180°C/160°C fan-forced. Grease and line tins
• Place butter, orange rind, sugar, eggs, flour, poppyseeds and milk in a bowl and stir to combine.
• Spoon into tins and bake for 35-40 mins. 
• Dust with icing sugar and serve - OR
• 
  
• Icing:
• 55g cream cheese
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 1 cup icing sugar
• Beat cream cheese and butter until smooth, then add vanilla and icing sugar.

Amazing with the icing, we loved it! But seriously had no idea there would be no orange juice in it! Just rind?! Okay... but it was still more than orangey enough. Weird!

 Definitely a tradition I'll keep up, I am sure there are plenty of non chocolate cakes I can make it through in the years to come. 

Happy Birthday Ross!

Primary Graduates 2022

These awesome kids are off to youth in a few short weeks! Because Christmas Day is a Sunday this year and we don't have classes, we celebrated them today with a little send off. Each of them had to give a little talk about what they loved in Primary and what they are looking forward to in the youth program. There was some very random answers which made it even more amusing.

I will 100% miss having my mini in Primary, she was so good at crowd control and telling people to shut up haha, but was also amazing at knowing all the answers, encouraging the smaller kids to speak up and most of all, singing. She knew the words and would sing loudly! What are we going to do without her? My baby girl is off! 

Mia's Birthday

'

Happy Birthday to our beautiful friend Mia! I love any excuse to make a cake, so this one was a vanilla cake with buttercream icing and some little decorations. Mia is always smiling and happy so I thought sunshine yellow was a perfect fit.

With rainbows and flowers 

We went for a swim at The Vines Resort pool first then enjoyed cake afterwards. A great afternoon!

❤

Dance Concert Professional Shots

One of the most wonderful parts of the dance concert is having the chance to relive it all over again when the photographs become available for purchase - and then one last time when the video is sent out. I love looking through the shots and although they are very expensive, I always get a few... and may have gone a little crazy this year.

I loved this lyrical troupe dance so much. It was so graceful and emotional.

I 100% cried when Maddie was lifted up, almost as if she was flying above the others. I'm such a sook.

So, so beautiful!

Their senior ballet class this year performed a routine where the younger girls were waiters. They had giggled so much about the costumes and eventually suggested to their teacher that she get them moustaches. It was too cute for words. Our first year without a tutu or flowy skirt, but I thought this dance was amazing with such a good story.

Little waiter Madeline.

Dancing with your best friends is always the best part.

Jazz troupe was just the most powerful epic dance and I am so sad that it will only ever be done once and never make it to competitions. They just absolutely owned the stage and I loved every second of it.

Our girl, constantly front and center.

She's just an absolute doll.

I just love this photo of her and Madison, it is everything you need to know about them, when it comes to dance, they will not be separated or beaten, at anything. haha.

Madeline took on a second jazz class this year with some of the older girls and loved it. Sub-senior Jazz. This dance was awesome. So glad she decided to do it.

She is amazing! I could seriously watch her all the time.

I showed a few of these shots to Jakes mum afterwards and we had a laugh together, apparently he had been bragging the day after the concert to anyone that would listen about how awesome his girlfriend was is and how she had won a trophy at the concert and so on. Yep. We know. She's pretty amazing! So proud to be her mum. ❤

Alexander is 4!

FOUR YEARS OLD! 

How I've actually managed to keep this one alive is a mystery to me. He is fun, full of giggles and the cuddliest. I must admit that him being 3cms from me at all times is not always my favourite thing, but we roll with it.

He loved opening his presents yesterday

 including this gorgeous personalised Alex blanket

and of course more Bluey clothes. Just for something different. Haha.

I love his whacky sense of humour and hearing his little laugh.

But most of all his little smile 😍

There are always plenty of Alex selfies on my camera roll, including this one which was definitely worth preserving.

He's our little nutter and we wouldn't change him for anything.

So, so loved by his big sister - and he would follow her anywhere she wanted to go.

The cutest little man. Our Alexander James. ❤

Happy birthday to my littlest love! 

Troupe Saturdays

Yesterday was our big troupe day with all the troupes performing during one session. Big day, lots of changes and lots of running around... but honestly so much easier when it's all done at once.

First up we had the girls lyrical troupe (Missing the Mark by Aquilo) which is one of my favourite dances they have ever done. I get emotional every time Maddie is lifted high above the other girls near the end, it's just so pretty! They were awarded second place for it.

Our troupe girls ❤

Next up - Contemporary troupe performing to Take it to the heart by Odette, getting them another second place... notice a trend anyone? 

They have been dancing so well together, so it's really wonderful to see them scoring so well in comps.

Last dance for the day was their Jazz Troupe - with those damn raincoats one last time... thank goodness we can retire them now, we all hate them with a passion haha. 

How about that, another second place! Imagine that.

Their jazz troupe has a few extra people, which makes it a lot more fun on stage, there was a lot of laughs backstage beforehand. They love to mess about and make noise.

Our favourite girls with Miss Amelie, who has choreographed all these dances and been here with the troupes for a long time now. We are so grateful for her, she is seriously the best.

Maddie also had our friend Ari from church come along to watch her which was the actual best. She is a dancer as well and I know Maddie really looks up to her and loved having here there.

Of course dance comps just aren't normal without these three causing a ruckus. They laugh and laugh and laugh. I am so glad we have such a wonderful bunch from being a part of dancing. ❤

 

A long awaited haircut

Joseph loves to have long hair. He is not at all a fan of short hair and as a mum, I get that, I understand and I am fine with that, as long as he looks after it.

He was not. His hair was not being washed nearly often enough. He was twirling pieces around his fingers (you can see in the pic the piece he was twirling haha) and he was certainly not brushing it! So today was haircut time.

As you can see, this is going to be much cooler (which was actually his first comment, oh my goodness mum! I didn't realise how hot it was having all that hair haha) easier to look after, and not in his eyes.

He certainly looks handsome with a nice fresh cut. Maybe we can try again with the long hair once he's ready to look after it.