Night out

My parents were staying for the weekend so Mr Miller and I made the most of it. We had a couple of free tickets for the movies so we decided to use them and go out for dinner as well. It was so nice to get dressed up and go somewhere without the kiddies. We went to Mud at 6.00. We had  Confit chicken, couscous, peppers, spec, basil & mint and the special Trevalla can't remember what else it had but they were both soo yummy I forgot to take a photo. We shared our meals like we always do. We also had dessert I had the Mud, caramel ice cream, honeycomb and Mr Miller had Pear frangipane, vanilla parfait, this we didn't share (c: We surprisingly found things to talk about other than the kiddies. Mr Miller talked about the decor and what we could do to our bedroom, and I was looking around at other people and their attire. Our meal came so quickly that we were finished by 7.30, and the movie didn't start til 9.20. We were going to go home for a little while but decided to go to Mr Miller's parents shop has he had to buy some tickets for them online. After that we went to get our tickets, the person looked at our "free tickets " and the fine print said not to be used after 5.00pm on a Saturday!! So  we thought about going home as we were so tired. But decided we might as well while we had the chance, so it was 40.00 to see Prometheus 3D (which I didn't really want to see) But there wasn't much else on. While we waited for 9.20 to come around we went to Morty's and had a hot chocolate. We were finally able to go in, the people behind us were very annoying and kept kicking/bumping my chair. I should have turned around and said something but I thought moving to the other side of Mr Miller would have sent him the message, but throughout the movie I could still feel him doing it. Grrr. I struggled to stay awake and had to close my eyes a few times. I am glad I was wearing the glasses. The movie didn't finish til sometime after 11.30 and we didn't get home til 12ish the latest I have gone to bed in a long time. I didn't think the movie was too bad, but Mr Miller who wanted to go and see it said it wasn't that good. But it was just nice to go out and be with each other.

Melting Moments

Melting Moments

• 1 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup icing sugar
• 1 1/2 cups plain flour
• 1/2 cup custard powder

Cream butter and sugar. Gradually add sifted flour and custard powder to the butter and sugar. Stir until combined. Mixture will be crumbly. Roll mixture into balls. Place on a lined or greased baking tray and press lightly with a fork (you can pipe them too (see picture) to make even prettier).
Bake at 150 degrees for 10 minutes or until a pale golden colour. When cool, join together with icing or cream.

Pizza Night

 Friday 22nd July
Tonight we had Nanna Sue, Poppa, Nanna Rob, Poppy Pete, Unle Doug and Kate come for tea. We had a Home-made pizza night...

First Pizza was a garlic pizza with garlic infused olive oil sea salt and parmesan cheese.

Next pizza was a caramilised pumpkin pizza

40g unsalted butter

1/2 butternut pumpkin, cut into 1cm cubes

1/2 cup (125ml) chicken or vegetable stock

1 tbs dark brown sugar

100g baby spinach leaves

125g Taleggio cheese, sliced

1 tsp thyme leaves, chopped  

Olive oil, to drizzle

1. Heat the butter in a large frypan over low heat, add the pumpkin and cook gently, stirring occasionally, until just tender. Add stock, 1/4 cup water and the sugar, then bring to a simmer and cook for 5 minutes or until most of the liquid has evaporated and pumpkin has caramelised. Add the spinach and stir until just wilted.
2. Preheat the oven to 200°C.
3. Scatter pizza bases with pumpkin mixture, top with Taleggio and thyme, then drizzle with oil. Bake for 10 minutes or until base is crisp and cheese is bubbling. Cut into wedges to serve.

Chicken mango pizza

• BBQ pizza sauce
• Mango chutney
• 3 Chicken thigh fillets
• 2 mushrooms thinly sliced
• Can of mango's sliced
• 1 avocado sliced
• Mozzarella cheese

Cook thigh fillets until brown
Spread base of pizza with BBQ sauce
Put dollops of mango chutney on top of sauce
Scatter remaining ingredients, except the avocado, on the pizza and cook for 10 min putting the avocado on to heat through in the last 2 min of cooking.
Cut into wedges to serve.

The next pizza was a basic tomato pizza sauce with cherry tomato, pineapple, ham, mozzarella and mixed herbs.


The last pizza was a seafood pizza

Spread base sparingly with basil pesto, scatter slices of roasted capsicum, cooked prawns, raw scallops, raw slices of salmon, bocconcini cheese and dill. Drizzle with garlic infused olive oil and cook until scallops are just cooked.
Cut into wedges to serve.

Not the best photos but we were in a hurry to serve them nice and hot.

My 2 Cheeky Monkeys

Love my 2 Boys...

....and I hope they continue to enjoy being brothers.

Jackisms

Funny quotes Jack says

Jack often says funny, cute, ammusing and sometimes even disturbing things. I wanted somewhere to write them all (as I always forget what he has said) They may not be funny to others but I want a collection to show him when he is older

Of course he has said a lot more funny quotes since before now but I am documenting them from now

15/6/2012
I don't want Dadda to get old and rusty like Mater
Watching Ice-age with the doona on him...The doona's not listening to me

17/6/2012
J found a pice of fluff/cotton on the floor, he said this is my friend, i keep him. I said to Mr Miller, I think it's time to get him a pet. Mr Miller said to J we might get you a goldfish, J said just a small piece so I can feed it to my spider.

21/6/2012
Fix me mum, my mouth is all spicy...(oops I bought angus beef sausages with cracked pepper)

25/6/2012
Jack went to the dentist today and told Mr Miller "I was very patient"


26/6/2012
I was putting a t-shirt on Jack that was a bit small, he said "I'ts too small, my muscles don't fit in it"

26/6/2012
We made some cupcakes, Jack was eating one after dinner "I like muffins...Mummy you are the muffin man"

1/07/2012
Lying in Jack's bed I said do you need to go to the toilet J says no i'm just moving my doodle up and down Why I ask He says it's just getting it's exercise

still lying in bed with him he says Aargh there's a big bottom sticking out from your body.

1/7/2012
After Jack went to bed he yells out, I went down to him and he said I don't know what to do in bed, I said go to sleep...he said bed makes me boring....5 minutes later he yells out MUM I will just lie here with my eyes open, I say ok Jack, otherwise it could have gone on for ages!! Didn't hear from him again.


4/7
J fell off the couch quite hard i looked at him and the look on his face made me almost laugh and i raised my eyebrows he said don't watch, look at the computer. Why I ask? Cause Mummies aren't allowed to look at people in danger.

11/7
Jacks says "I like the cold...I'm not scared of the cold...It's sooo cold it makes my feet warm."


15/7/2012
Jack was sitting at his table having lunch wriggling around, Me-"can you sit still please" Jack "I can't sit still" Me-"why not?" Jack- "cause I'm real"

5/9/2012
J. I don't like school
M. Why not
J. ...
M. Why do we go to school
J. To learn
M. To learn to become what?
J. A dinosaur (c:

24/9/2012
Jack came into the bathroom crying (I could tell he had hurt his nose-it was all red)
J. I hurt my nose
M. What did you do?
J. I hurt it on the doona
M. I don't think so, doonas are soft
J. I put Charlies toys under it.

24/9/2012
M. Where is the remote?
J. Charlie ate it

Cubby House

Cubby Houses

I fondly remember through my childhood re-arranging furniture with my sister and using blankets to make cubby houses, it seems Jack has a love for this also-I suspect all children do.
I remember being a bit older than Jack and making them ourselves, whereas he gets me or Mr Miller to make them. His seem to be a bit more extravagant than ours as he wants windows, doors and rooms.
 Sometimes he spends a long time in them role-playing and putting toys in there and using his torch other times he goes in then out and that's it and those are the times I have probably spent the most time making them!!

Destroyed cubby house

The 'garden' outside his cubby

Creative Mess

Jack spent the morning jumping around the loungeroom, with the end of his toy vacuum cleaner 'pewing'- "I'm not shooting mum, I'm pewing" Finally I had had enough and got an art experience out for him.
I don't know why I actually thought he would sit nicely (without a smock) and hold the tray and roll the golf balls around and around watching them, while Charlie sat in his high chair sucking pear through his mesh bag(c: So I could think about tea, check facebook, look on pinterest for Charlie's first birthday ideas (early I know) It lasted 3 minutes until his hands were in it and it was all over his top...oh well he had fun and actually spent quite a while doing it. And even though he only dropped the paint container on the floor once I think next time we will do it outside, with a smock or starkers with a bucket of warm water to wash him down(c:

From this...

...To this 

Long Weekend

After Mr Miller had taken Jack to the Rail Model Expo, I thought it would be a nice idea to go to Don River Railway and ride on a big train...J didn't want to do that, saying I've already been on a train in Melbourne. (when he was 2years and 10 months)
J has always been a bit scared/anxious about new experiences and I was a bit skeptical about going to Melbourne...planes, trams, sky bus etc. But he surprised me and was really good, he even seemed to enjoy being on them. I think not talking about it too much helped as he didn't have long to think about it.
So as it was a long weekend, Mr Miller suggested going to a cave and J was really interested and wanted to do that.
After Charlie's sleep and a feed we headed off with too much in the boot-my theory is if you don't have it you will need it.
As soon as we left J started with the "are we there yet?" Mr Miller gave him the Nav Man to hold, he kept repeating what it was saying then when we were on the highway he went quiet for a while. We stopped at Chudleigh Honey Farm. It's a lovely 'shop' where you can taste and buy honey, watch the bees behind glass and learn about bees.

Really bad bed hair

I was surprised J didn't ask for anything so we bought him Bumble Bee $6.95

 (I thought that was a good price)

We then went to Mole Creek and got our tickets we had 20 minutes to spare, we had some lunch and put on some extra clothes.

Charlie was in the Baby Bjorn.There were many people doing the tour, both boys were very good in the cave. Charlie eventually fell asleep. J had fun looking at all the different things in the cave, he thought they looked like dinosaur teeth, he didn't even care when they turned the lights off so we could see the glow worms.

Charlie woke up towards the end of the tour about 12.45, he was due for a bottle at 1 so it was good timing. Mr Miller heated his bottle up on his pocket rocket stove.

After his bottle we headed to Westbury for ice-cream. J found a Lightning Mqueen pencil, pad, sticker pad in the car, he peeled all the stickers off and put them on his trousers. It kept him occupied all the way to Westbury.

Charlie kept reaching and grabbing my ice-cream and trying to lick it-he had a tiny taste

Jack with his 'vamilla' ice-cream

It was a lovely family day(c:

Rail Model Expo

Mr Miller, Poppy Pete and Jack went to the Rail Model Expo at St Ailbes Hall Launceston.

Written by Jack:

We looked at all the trains

One was made out of Lego

My favourite was the Thomas remote control one

That one is a camper one



This one's a Thomas one, There was a train going round and round, it was a remote control one.

This one is a Thomas one too

That's me remote controlling it

This ones a boat one, it was a good one cause it's a ferry

Chocolate ripple cake

I really need to stop cooking or I will never lose weight!!
As there was left over cream, ganache and raspberries from Mr Miller's birthday cake and a packet of choc ripple biscuits in the pantry I couldn't resist making this. The cream has the ganache folded through it. Mmm it was a lot nicer than his cake.

An Overview of May

During May we have been very busy with...

Lots of craft

Bubbles on the balcony

Watching the diggers

Lots of cooking-these are white choc coated bananas with sprinkles

Helping Dadda in the garden

Agfest

Lots of Brotherly Love xxx

Fun at Kids Paradise with friends

Swimming at the Aquatic Centre

Visiting cousins

Mother's Day

Lots of cuddles

And Silliness

Stories with Dadda

Fun outside with musical instruments

Home-made marble run

Visit from Nanna and Poppa

Fire cracker night

Fun at the park with friends

A visit to the museum

 First solids

What a fun month we had with lost of love, laughter and fun. (and a few tantrums)