Colin's birthday

It's Colin's birthday in two weeks time but lots of his friends are going away, so we had the party tonight. And it had to rain and blow and be cold when we were having a bbq! meat and potato bake ... 2.5kgs of potatoes!

Colin and Phil at the bbq cooking

More meat cooking

Birthday boy cooking

BBQ fondue!

Strawberries, bananas and marshmallows for the fondue

Dipped in white chocolate

 Cake batter ready to be cooked 

Iced and decorated

from the top

Happy Birthday chocolate

Inside

 

A slice .. and yes, it really was blue and white!

1st December

My first blog post was on 1st December 2005 and was all about .... Advent Calendars! Here it is Seven years of blogging and with the introduction of Facebook, I haven't blogged as much. I think I will remedy that. So here are this year's Advent calendars. They would not let me take a photo of them holding their Advent calendars, and I think Colin was pleased, but Ross was not impressed! Too bad

I have a friend Karen in Auckland who has been through the same trauma as I have over the last couple of years. I "met" her in mid-December last year and together we have laughed and cried through the year. This is what she sent me today! Made me feel so special

Paper bags for my Mom

I am going away in December/ January so I have made a simple paper bag with a little gift in it for my Mom for each day that I am away. Here's all the bags in a box

All bags laid out to see

A couple of close-ups

 

Including the cards I made

"Bubbles" for 31st December

Playing cards I had made

Top view

I am hoping that someone at the residence where she lives will be able to give her a bag each day

Chess board cake

Today's experiment - I bought the cake pans and decided that today was a good day to try it out. My normal cake recipe; I just think that I over-cooked the cake slightly

 Butter cream icing to sandwich the three layers together and stick the chocolate fingers around the outside

Whipped ganache spread over the top and piped

A view from the side

A slice

The inside

I can see all sorts of combinations here - pinks, blues, colours .....

It was quite easy to do once I worked out how I was using the pans

And some great goodies to be won

My friend Hilary runs Scrap it Simple in Christchurch. She is so very creative and has just got to her 400th blog post so is offering a wonderful prize - go and look here: http://scrapbookngfromtheheart.blogspot.co.nz/2012/11/my-400th-blog-post-giveaway.html

A month of catch up

In October, a few trees fell on to SH1 which meant that all the pine trees at school had to come down. This photo shows the before

And this photo shows the view from my deck with all the trees down

 Colin and I did a catering job - here's one of the two groaning tables!

 A selcection of sweet treats

 Sandwiches, mini blinis with salmon and some crudites

 Hot savouries

So we worked really hard and were "all caked out" but there was plenty of food that tasted good


I also decided to make a Rainbow Cake - this is the outside - covered in white icing. The original icing I had on was a complete mess and I had to scrape it all off and start again

 The inside - it looks fantastic when cut

In other news, we are well in to exams with only three weeks of school left. Then I have two weeks to Christmas and a lovely holiday!

Cake Basics Class

Today I did a cake decorating class. I have wanted to learn how to work with fondant and today I had my opportunity. First thing we did was make bows. Mine was supposed to be a pale green but I didn't realise how little of the colouring I needed

 That meant I ended up with green hands too!

 Next step was to cover the cake in butter icing. The teacher suggested that we do a first layer, chill in the fridge and then do a second layer

 Pink fondant! Again, I used a bit more colour and ended up with a rather bright pink fondant

 As my hands show!

 Placing the stripes

 The finished cake - roses, butterflies and glitter!

I really enjoyed this class and can see myself using fondant quite a lot - even for cupcakes!

My Weight Loss

I know some people have already seen these photos but here they are again

Me on the ferry to Waiheke Island in 2010

 The same top today 16.5kgs lighter

Actually when I look at myself in that 2010 photo I can't beleive how big I was!

Daffodil Express

Four friends and I headed out last Sunday to Carterton on the Daffodil Express. Fundraising for daffodil Day (cancer) and also Plunket and St John's Ambulance

 We caught a bus to the daffodil farm - naughty girls at the back of the bus!

 A bunch of 24 daffodils for $4!

 In front of a flowering magnolia

 In front of the steam engine

 Me!

What a great day we had with lots of laughs!

Used to be two days of celebration

Yesterday should have been my 20th wedding anniversary. I couldn't sit in the one hour staff meeting at the beginning of the day, but once I started teaching it got better. All three of us went to the dentist in the afternoon with no treatments necessary! Then I had dinner with a friend last night. By the time I got home around 9.30pm I was exhausted emotionally

Then today Ross 18! When did he get to be so old? Makes me feel really older! One of his friends said he would get a chocolate mousse cake, so I suggested that they come for take aways as well. It was all a surprise to Ross and a lovely evening

His friends waiting for him

Ross arrives home to find his friends in his room

Eating Noodle Canteen take-aways

Chocolate mousse cake made specially for Ross

Birthday boy!

Tomorrow August exams start. Ross is studying; Colin is watching You Tube videos! Argh!!

Catch up

It's been school holidays and I have had a good time. Sometimes I go back thinking "Well, that was a waste of two weeks" because I have had nothing to show for it.

I have had lunch out with friends. I went to movies with a friend - Salmon Fishing in the Yemen- fabulous movie!

I have done some scrapping and filed many l/os that have been lying around. I have finished some UFOs which I will file today. I have packed some page kits for next week's scrapping.

I had an awesome seafood lunch with a friend

I did some alterations to some of my trousers - took them in 8cms! yes, I have lost 12kgs and feeling fantastic and very proud of myself

I have put the electricity, gas and telephone accounts in my number - go me!

Emotionally, I am still up and down because I did not ask for this. And I'm dreading next month as it should have been my 20th Wedding Anniversary

The weather today is dreadful, so I am going to catch up on some blog reading