A moment of solitude

Yesterday I needed a moment to myself. A moment of quiet. A moment to take stock.

Around here, it can never be longer than a moment. There isn't enough time for longer than a moment! Even as I type this Im being used as a climbing post.

So yesterday, this is where I took my time out.

I was in the middle of cleaning off the trampoline and I had alook around and realised just how beautiful it is in our backyard.



I lay down on the tramp, and looked up at this... I just lay there for ages and reminded myself how lucky we are to have a home. Our own home too. This is the lucky country, and we have our own little slice of it.

My children have a safe place to play without me 

helicopter-ing over them. A safe place to explore, to grow and mature into wonderful young men. 

 This area (without the boys!) is so very peaceful. This was taken at about 3pm, the sun was flickering through the leaves of the many trees. It was so gorgeous. The whole area has a foliage canopy developing above it, so the boys aren't in the direct scorching Queensland sun to play.


In all of it, I realised just how blessed I am.

.... and how much I really need to buy a hammock!

The hardest working other half

My hubby's work ethic is something that should be documented. He is the hardest working man I know. He will work when he is sick, when he is tired, when he is hungover (lol!). He has a chronically bad back, and he's knee's are giving him grief - yet he will still put his hand up to do overtime.

Now I know he loves his job, but its all for the money ;) Still, tonight his work ethic has truly humbled me.

Here I am at home with our boys, having a relaxing evening. Where was he? Off just over an hour away from home, about to start some overtime work - even though he has just did his full day of work, starting at 7am. Tonight he worked from 5pm to 11.45pm. Almost a full extra days work he worked tonight!! Then to have to get in his car and drive an hour plus to get home.

I've been watching his movements thanks to Google latitude, and now he is only 12minutes from home.

Even though he has just worked a 17 hour day, he will get up early and get back to work tomorrow morning. Correction! This morning now!

Babe, you never cease to amaze me. I know I never tell you enough, but thank you. Thank you for working so hard to support us. I will forever be grateful for your sacrifices.

I love you.

Chicken and Bacon Carbonara pasta bake

Pasta bakes in this house seem to go further and fill tummy's more than just a pasta alone, so here is tonights dinner

Serves - 3 adult serves + 2 little kid serves.

Ingredients

1 chicken breast diced

1 onion diced

2-3 bacon rashes diced

2-3 cloves of garlic

200ml thickened cream

1 cup shredded cheese

sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.

300g pasta (I used up large and small shells)

Method

Put pasta onto cook (I cook ours in a rice steamer in the microwave)

In a pan, cook the onion, chicken and bacon. Add garlic

When the chicken is cooked through, mix through cream.

Mix the chicken and pasta together and place in a oven safe dish.

sprinkle cheese over the top, and top off with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese.

Bake for 20min - or until cheese has browned.

Take out and let rest for 10min.

Enjoy!

End of school routine

Today is G's first day of school holidays. Even though this is our first experience with school holidays - I want to get myself into a strong routine each holidays so that I'm prepared for the next term. Better to do everything at the start of the holidays instead of leaving it to the last minute!

To do:

• Wash school shoes
• Wash sneakers
• Soak school shirts
• Soak white socks
• Wash lunch bag
• Wash spare clothes and re-bag
• Wash school bag

We asked his teacher for a list of their sight words to work on over the holidays as well. We won't pushing the issue, but I think it will greatly help him to continue the learning over the break.

I haven't got much planned, other than some crafts and a couple of park visits. G's favourite past time is a mix of TV, computer and the DS, so I'll be letting him a veg out. I've got him Cloudy with a chance of meatballs, fantastic Mr Fox and UP to watch over the break too. 

What are some other movie suggestions?

Happy holidays everyone!

Birthday's really have changed!

Wednesday was my birthday... Happy birthday to me! It was a wonderful day, filled with joy from the cooked breakfast from Hubby and my cuddles from my beautiful boys.

But crikey my birthdays have changed since I was a child!

I share my birthday with my parents wedding anniversary. Dad used to joke about how the day was THEIR anniversary 1st, and my birthday second - but then act the opposite. All of my birthdays had happy memories attached, I never felt that my birthday wasn't special or important. It must have been quite a tightrope for them to keep the romance alive for their wedding anniversary and celebrate a child's birthday at the same time. No date night, but family dinners.
When my father died 2 years ago, this all changed. My birthday has this huge chunk of sadness attached to it. I spend alot of my birthday wondering how my mum is coping. This year was slightly easer to deal with for me, but I'm sure my Mum still struggled. My Dad was a very special man.

Smile and breathe Bekky.

There is another dramatic change in my birthdays since I was a child... My job doesn't stop for my birthday. I still have to cook, clean and look after the boys. Its never ending! I know that if I was in the workforce then I would have also had to go out to work and come home to all my other jobs!

All in all, I had a wonderful birthday this year!

Beef Cakes

As I said earlier, here is my recipe for tonight's dinner, Beef Cakes

A little history first...
Beef cakes came about from my love of dinners that I can throw in the oven and walk away.  The night that Beef Cakes were born, I had mince out, but couldn't be bothered to stand at the stove and cook rissoles, or wait around for a meatloaf to cook. So I decided to make mini meatloaves in muffin trays. I figured the principle was the same - it would just be shorter in cooking time.
The name Beef Cakes was because its what G called them when he saw me take them out of the oven, because of the muffin trays. LOL.

Ingredients
500g of Beef mince (although this would also work with Lamb or chicken)
1 small onion diced
a good dash of Tomato sauce
a good dash of Barbecue sauce
a good dash of Worcestershire sauce
1-2 cloves of garlic
1 tsp minced ginger
1 egg

Bonus extras: (anything within reason works here)
1/2 - 1 grated zucchini

I've put in grated potato, carrots, pumpkin etc previously. Anything you want to use up and hide from kids - this is a great recipe to do it!

Method


1. Preheat oven to 180c (fan forced)
2. Grease a 6 cup muffin tray, or a 12-24 cup cupcake tray
3. Mix all ingredients together in a bowl.
4. Put the mix into the trays and into the oven.
5. Bake for 20-25min, or until the tops have turned a healthy cooked brown.

Serve with mashed potato and veggies. Or like us tonight, with packet pasta!! Simple and easy meal.

What to do today

I'm a huge fan of lists, and since I need to get things done this week I'd better plan properly.

Major things that need sorting this week
Laundry
Bathroom
Front door
Patio

Today's list
Washing up
Oven
Strip pillow cases and such and wash
Do nit treatment (this wasn't on my list earlier. I check the boys hair regularly because G's class continually gets them. So I checked last night - and as usual clean as a whistle. But while waiting for G's teacher this morning, I noticed A had one in his hair. I think I know the exact moment he got it to. Not happy Jan. $25 out of pocket and more washing to be done!) Just need J and G to do their's when they get home.
Organise Laundry
Vacuum
Mop
Bring washing in
Remake beds
Dinner

Belated meal planning.

In all fairness, the actual meal plan itself wasn't belated, just my posting of it.

I used to meal plan a lot, but over the past 2 years I've slacked off but since following The Organised Housewife, I have got back into it. I find it makes me less lazy as I get my meat out in the mornings to defrost, so when dinner time comes - my cheap side can't flake out and buy takeaway. I can't bring myself to waste food.

So here is our fortnight meal plan, minus a few days....

Monday

Beef Cakes

Tuesday

Pies

Wednesday

Veal Tortellini

Thursday

G' Choice (read: takeaway)

Friday

Chicken Tenders

Saturday

Takeaway or eggs on toast

Sunday

Beef Strogganoff

Monday

Carbonara pasta bake 

Tuesday

Spagetti

Wednesday

Pies

I'll come back and link to recipes later.

Sunday baking...

Since G started school almost 12 weeks ago, Sunday has been my baking day. I use it to prep for the week ahead. I make all his lunches and freeze them. I make cakes, slices, popcorn and other treats and pack them all into individual portion sizes ready for a quick throw in the lunch box on school mornings.
The blessing is that this means I also do my hubby's lunches at the same time. I've slacked off in that dept. since having A, but now he always gets a home packed lunch.

This is the last week before holidays, and is cut short by a day. I've decided to let him have tuckshop on his last day, which means I only had to bake for 3 days instead of the usual 5.

Today's menu was:

Lemon cake

Cheese and onion crackers

I've also put on the roast lamb for tonight's dinner, made 2 pairs of long pants for G for school, stripped G's bed and hung out a load of washing!

Today was a productive day!

Parent Teacher Interviews spell panic...

... Well at least for me they do.

Yesterday was G's first ever Parent Teacher interview, and Im about to let you in on a secret that will probably make me sound like the worlds worst mother.

...I was expecting him to be at the bottom of his class.

I went in, with the full belief I would be told that he was struggling, that he needed help, that he wasn't smart.

or more to the point, that I had failed him.

I tried to do flash cards in his toddler years. I tried to encourage him to write. I did all the things that I thought 'good' mum's would do with their children preparing them for school. But G was never into it. He'd be over it in 5 seconds flat and Im not one to push. So we spent our time doing thing that made us happy (which was mainly ABC on the TV...!).
With his speech delays (which, yes something I also feel is my fault, but thats a whole other post!), I just expected to be told that as sweet as he is, he's not all that bright.

Horrible. I know.

Mother's should be the ones believing their kids are the biggest and brightest stars. Don't get me wrong, I love my boy as much as I love a good poo chicken knock knock joke, I just had the bar set pretty low for him.

So turns out that I was wrong. I haven't failed him (woo!).

I'm not sure where he sits in the class 'rankings' (even if there is such a thing in Prep!), but he is far from the lowest. Even factoring in being one of the youngest students, and having a speech delay - he is doing really really well.

So whats he doing well...? He can write his own name, he can recognise 4 out of the 8 sight words they have learnt thus far (I kept saying 10 yesterday, turns out Mummy can't count!). Average for the class is 1 or none. He can sight letters up to 5 (thanks ABC2 and 3!).

He struggles with counting past 7, but found that isn't all that unusual... and he is only 4, when the majority of the class have already turned 5.

His speech has been reviewed as his teacher put in a referral for the speech therapist thats on staff, so we will find out more on that soon. But he has come along in leaps and bounds since starting 11 weeks ago.

My baby is no longer a baby, but a big smart school boy.... *sniff*

Maiden Voyage

Mission statement:  

(Because being a SAHM is a full-time job/company unto itself!)

My mission with this blog is to keep myself motivated and focused. To entertain and keep a log of my life as it is now, as I know it will all change all too quickly. 

I know my days are filled with joy and happiness, by blogging them, I hope to remind myself when days are more filled with stress and backache.