'Fudgy Chocolate Balls' - with hidden green things

Our littlest won't eat anything green, especially not vegetables. I struggle to get nuts into her when she needs some sugar-free energy, and of course she won't eat seeds, ESPECIALLY not pumpkin seeds.

So when I was at Coles recently and spotted a bag of 'Trail Mix' packed with all sorts of good-for-you things and only one not-so-good thing: the dried cranberries have some sugar in them (but there were no preservatives-hallelujah!) I came up with a SUPER quick and easy way to hide all the good and green seedy bits:

I chucked the whole bag of Trail Mix into the Thermomix (a food processor would be just as good), whizzed it all together on speed 9, added 1/4 - 1/3 cup of cocoa powder and a dash of water to moisten the mixture and rolled these fudgy delights into energy balls for my ever-hungry girls. Win!

I recently made another batch with a slightly healthier trail mix from Aldi and added some dates for extra sweetening. Not AS popular with our little sweet tooth but she would eat them over plain nuts any day.

For a quick and easy gluten, egg and dairy free treat for the kids stock up on:

-Packets of trail mix or any nuts/seeds mix

-Quality pure Cocoa powder

-(dates/sultanas if your mix is fruit-free)

*Oh and coconut to roll the balls in (sulphar-free if possible)

Sadly they are not for me as they are not fructose-free. I make sure I'm stocked up on these yummy simple almond chia cookies for the perfect accompaniment to my tea.

xoxo

Thoughts on turning 8

Eight years ago today I held a teeny tiny angel in my arms. Our first. She was perfect

Today she is tall and mature and cheeky and resilient and too much like me.

Unlike with her little sister, I've never had a problem with her getting older. We sent her to school at the age of four because apparently 'she was ready'. She is always after a challenge, she likes to know everything and analyse everything. She is as intense in personality as her eyes are blue. She is passionate and extroverted. She is polite, particular and 'perfect' (in public at least). Her love language is quality AND quantity time. She craves, needs. wants it all. A whole day playing games with her would fill her cup nicely, until tomorrow.

She loves animals and her grandparents.  She can sing and she is clever. She loves to make things and to have pretty things.

She is eight today and wishes she was nine. I'd quite like her to slow down now, to keep her innocence for longer.  She has already begun to pay too much attention to her hair or clothes in the morning. It must be about now that they become all too aware of themselves, their bodies, their face and how it feels to be 'in their skin'. It's scary.

Sometimes she turns into someone who is not my little angel. For 30 minutes or an hour she is uncontrollable, angry, bursting with the insufferable unfairness of life. She yells and cries and can't let it go, can't be reasoned with. Sometimes she knows she is being unreasonable but can't help herself and she is becoming aware of the pain it is to have one of these over anxious complicated female minds. She's not perfect, she is like the rest of us.  She can no more be perfect than I can love her perfectly( although I try) We both need Someone other to love us and accept us perfectly.

She's just started talking to me about sex, telling me she knows what it is and sounding smug when she describes it to me as 'married people cuddling with no clothes on.' Blake and I may have to close our door from now on. *blush*  She can stop now I think, stop at age eight. I tell both our girls that growing is a punishable act in this house and they'll be sent to their rooms if I catch them at it. Lucky for them they seem to grow while sleeping.

And they won't stop. Sigh. Next year they'll walk together to school and that thought makes me not want to think anymore today.....

Happy Birthday to our beautiful Malya Hope.

xoxo

A weekend by the sea

No words necessary to describe the relief at having our man back for a whole weekend of family fun.

xoxo

The privileged two

 Our two girls are the most spoilt children I know.

Not literally spoilt as in 'ruined' or 'spoilt rotten'. How often we use the term with or without the 'rotten' after it without realising what it really means. If one of the girls is given a treat or gift I say 'aren't you spoilt?' What I mean is 'aren't you special (or loved)?'

So let me clarify, our girls are the most spoilt {special, loved and privileged} children I know. I'm biased of course. I hope you think the same of your little people.

I've always been so careful not to really spoil them. We don't buy lots of 'things' for them, especially plastic things. We have always been happy with pre-loved or hand-me-downs. We've managed (up until christmas just passed) to keep them 'latest free', latest technology, latest plastic collectables....etc.  Up until now its been elastics and hopscotch and paddle pools and fun with the hose, climbing trees is our favourite, collecting treasures and creating things with what we have.

But what makes them privileged is that they get to spend much of their time at my parents hobby farm 15 minutes from where we live.

Here they learn to grow things and cuddle baby goats and chickens and even ducks, cows and frogs!  There's an old quirky cubby and playground and old bikes to ride. But best of all there are Grandma and Granddad who love them and welcome them anytime for any amount of time (almost).  Grandma has oodles of patience and is ready to teach and watch and share things with the girls and with each of their 9 cousins.  She is always cooking or baking or gardening or sewing. She makes fresh goats fetta and extracts honey from her bees and when Granddad isn't at work he's milking and feeding working on new projects.

I often lament my time not spent there when busyness, energy or routine restrict it. I'll often go a month without getting down to the Mount Duneed property for a cuddle of the goats and a wander. Mum or Dad will always show me a latest addition (or sadly, subtraction) in the paddocks or a burst of growth in the veggie patches.  Its rejuvenating and inspiring, and each new season brings something different to enjoy.

I have vague memories of visiting my Oma and Opa in Tasmania when we were small and watching Opa milk his cow and drinking it for breakfast. I remember playing in a big sloping field with long grass and wild daisys and walking through long dry grass with my cousin and yelling a lot to ward off snakes.  

Our girls' memories will be just as special but far less fleeting as they grow up so close to their wonderful, almost self-sufficient Grandparents.

xoxo

A week of beginnings

So its finally begun! City on a Hill Geelong has started with an excited small group made up of young families, singles, young marrieds and others meeting together to hear from the word, to sing and to pray together. We are a small bunch for now but for that I am thankful. It wont take long for us to grow into the 3 figure numbers and to need a building to meet in rather than our own homes, which for now are cosy and intimate. 

 Its taken over two years for the much talked about Acts 29 plant to kick off in Geelong and we have been excited from the start, with our good friends the Feavers nearby, equally as excited as us and just as eager for our Pastor family The Grills' to finish up at the Kapooka Army Base in NSW where Andrew was Chaplain, hurry on over to the US for training ad holiday time and finally get their butts down to Geelong to 'get this party started'.  

We are all aware that church planting is FAR from a big party.  So we are all glad that the beginning few months will involve mainly prayer, prayer, and more prayer. 

Our wonderful church for the past two years has been super supportive of us and we've made some lifelong friends who are also a major source of support as we move on to where we feel led.

.........

Almost as big a deal is that little Harper Grace started 4 yr old Kindy this week. My baby is getting ready for school! So when our Malya Hope headed off to her first day of grade 3 (the third beginning for the week) we celebrated the first day of the last year of being day-time buddies with a movie in bed followed by our first icecream date.

Genuine choc-mint flavoured happiness right there!

When big sis is away, with her iphone I will play...

I found time to work on the first rug for the 'new' abode.....

..... and be creative with their hair (and mine).

Our beautiful Miss 7 came home on Friday afternoon all aglow with happiness and confidence, telling us about her new friends and how she has the 'best classroom in the school' and how much fun grade 3 is......

And though I'm weary from the earlier mornings, new church meetings, and all the newness-of-everything angst on behalf of my littles, I can only feel glad and thankful for exciting new beginnings, knowing His hand is on it all.

xoxo

Oh BTW the reno peek IS coming, only they wouldn't let me in with my trusty iphone camera this week as the floors were drying! 

Recovering from all the ‘getting’

Our seven year old daughter is tired. She is still getting over a big fourth term of grade 2, an ear infection and the excitement of Christmas.  So I’ve been gracious with her moods and lack luster attitude. I’ve been somewhat patient with her competitiveness with her sister and unwillingness to be kind for kind’s sake. And we have been waiting patiently for both girls to settle into the holiday routine and be friends again.  

But enough is enough.

We have four weeks of school holidays to go and with the magic of Christmas behind us, the wonderful distraction of Jesus’ birthday month all but forgotten for another year, I’m sensing the need for a new focus.

So while we continue to move from place to place for another month or so we are going to spend each day being grateful.

All four of us will write down on a piece of paper something we are thankful for each evening and put the folded strips into our ‘Grateful Jar’. Each morning we’ll have turns at reaching in for a piece to leave on the bench so we can all aim to be thankful for that one thing for the day.  At some point during the day we’ll read a verse or passage from the bible that will help us along the journey and ultimately to remind us where to direct our gratitude because..

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

James 1:17

I’m hoping that by changing the focus from what they got or what they might still get these holidays to what they already have, they might be far more content.

There are loads of beautiful quotes out there to encourage us all to give thanks. But I feel that only the bible can teach true gratitude.  What I mean is that if my family were taken from me, my home, car and possessions stripped away and I had no friends left in the world and NOTHING to be thankful for on earth (not even a bent crochet hook or a pretty tree to look at), I would still be grateful, despite being miserable.  Only because of Jesus, my only eternal gift.

It is actually pretty easy to be grateful for family and things and beauty. I hope our family can learn to live more gratefully. I hope our jar can be filled to the brim by the time school starts again.

When we were children we were grateful to those who filled our stockings at Christmas time. Why are we not grateful to God for filling our stockings with legs?  

 -G.K Chesterton

xoxo

'Start each day with a grateful heart' - [source]

Its a family thing

“The homemaker has the ultimate career. All other careers exist for one purpose only - and that is to support the ultimate career. ” 
― C.S. Lewis

Oh how I love my little family.  

I have the perfect job as wife and mummy. Somehow I find time to dream and create and to learn endlessly along the way.  For someone who has been through several long years of illness and hence periods without employment, I've been blessed to land THE best job around!

Theres me, my amazing, teeny tiny bit younger-than-me husband Blake (five years difference is nothing) , our firstborn Miss 7, and our little cutie Miss 4. We've been married almost ten years, have lived in Cairns together where we lived the holiday lifestyle and adopted some more grandparents for the girls, and are back, settled in Geelong, loathing the cold weather but loving the support from family and the feeling of being grounded, for now.

They still think they live in Cairns, barefoot and beautiful.  

 He and I in our favourite Victorian haunt, Daylesford.

                                  Girls being kids

                     We love to camp! And Indented Head is the perfect spot for pitching our tent, collecting shells, riding bikes, swimming in the ocean, staying dirty for a week and eating icecream.

                               He with Miss 3 (then)

                                          New Dad, almost 7 years ago x

Thats them. My favourite people on earth, my little circle of joy. Oh there is room for more though, probably no more pregnancies (after having two looong sick ones and longer recoveries) but we'd love to adopt a child or two if we can. It'd be so easy to settle and find comfort in us, with grateful hearts of course, but wouldn't it be great to share what we have with a child who otherwise wouldn't have had it......? Maybe. Only in His will.

In the meantime, I'm keeping my day job!!