We had a lovely Christmas, with a Friends & Family BBQ at our home on Christmas eve, followed by a lovely buffet lunch at Villa Italiana at the Casino for Lunch, and a Family BBQ at my Nan's for Dinner!

Boxing Day was just as lovely, with a lovely cold 'Leftover' spread for Lunch with our friends the Wades, and another BBQ Dinner at Broc's Mum's!

A few snaps from the last few days, more to follow later...

Troy opening his present from Uncle Broc & Aunty Annette

Lateena gets just what she wanted!

Boys and their toys!

Abby with their Bumble Ball

Pussum unwrapping the Kong Kickeroo

Daisy knows just what to do with it...

After-food Bliss

Christmas Recipes will go up soon - I promise!

 
A Very Merry Christmas to all!!

I hope you are having a fantastic day, wherever you are, and whoever you are with!

Eat, Drink, Be Merry and Stay Safe!

With Love,
Annette, Broc, Harry, Abby, Pussum, Daisy,
Mr Lizard and The Fish

xoxox

I have been a busy little elf, baking and icing away the last couple of days to create yummy treats for our friends and family.  I will be posting recipes and photos of my creations after Christmas, as I want them to be a surprise for the recipients!

One that I will share with you is Peanut Brittle.  It's really quite easy to make, but does take some forethought and patience.  I first found this particular recipe about five years ago, and kept it as it worked perfectly first go!
Peanut Brittle on Food.com

All of the things I've created are definitely keepers, and I will make them again next year - starting our own Christmas Traditions!!

Creating amazing and special foods for the people I love gives me a real warm, fuzzy feeling.

What food-related Christmas traditions are there in your household?
Do you make treats and cakes as a family?
Is there a special dish you always serve on Christmas Day?

Happy Baking!

I wanted to share with you this picture of Abby.  She stood like this for about four minutes, just vacantly staring into space.  I wonder what she was watching?  It was almost like she forgot she wasn't actually laying down!

Yesterday I was lucky enough to have my Niece, Brittany here with me for the day again!

After a quick rush in to town to get my nails done (they look very Christmassy!), we came home and started making salt dough ornaments!  They're so easy and so much fun...

The basic recipe is Half a cup of Salt, Half a cup of Water, and One cup of Plain Flour.

Mix the Flour and Salt together in a bowl, and slowly add in the Water, mixing with your hands to form a dough.  Add extra Water in small amounts if your dough is too dry, or extra Flour if it is too wet, then...

You have to knead the dough for about 10 minutes, until it's nice and soft!

After your dough is nice and smooth, you can put a little Vegetable Oil on your hands to stop the dough from drying out.

Then roll it out flat...

And cut out any shape you like!!!

Don't forget to poke holes so you can hang your ornaments on the tree!

I had seen on a TV show where they used the microwave to dry them out quicker.  We tried this with little success, so put the rest in a low oven for about half an hour, turning twice.

Once they're mostly dried out, paint and decorate them any way you want!  We used Watercolor paints, Glitter, Glitter Glue and Nailpolish on ours.

Drying off.  Half Bamboo Skewers made it really easy to hold onto the ornaments while decorating

Thanks to Kirstie's Homemade Christmas for the Salt Dough idea!

Yesterday we had our Niece Brittany (ten) and our eldest Nephew, Braedyn (seven) for the day!

What to do with two bored kids on a rainy day in December?  Why, make Christmas cards of course!

Craft in Progress with Abby supervising in the background, and the cat on the table!

It was really lovely to see them let their creativity flow and create these beautiful cards for friends and family.


We decorated the envelopes too!

Inside of Braedyn's card

You can make cards with pretty much anything - they only thing that is a must is Imagination!!

More craft on the cards today... after I get my nails done of course!

Updated: Added Pictures


We awoke to a gloriously sunny, calm morning - what a horrible day to leave!

A drive down to Bicheno, with a beach stop along the way to feel my toes squidge through the sand.  We made our way to the Sealife Centre, which no longer has an aquarium, but does have a lovely gift store and restaurant.  We continued on to the Blowhole.  Even on a calm day, it didn't dissapoint!



The abundance and variety of sealife inhabiting the rocks around the Blowhole area was just fascinating!  Seaweeds, starfish, molluscs, crabs - even a freshwater pool in the rocks near the car park with resident frogs!!



We managed to spend quite some time wandering around on the rocks down there, then headed back to the Sealife Centre for some lunch.  I was gobsmacked by the view as I pulled up again in the carpark:


We chose the Sea Life Special to share for lunch - and wow!  What a feast.



I decided I just had to brave the water before leaving the coast behind, and was rewarded with watching a large school of fish feed just in front of me.



All in all, I had a lovely trip away with my Mum.  All the places we visited were absolutely fantastic, but the highlight was definitely our trip to East Coast Natureworld!  If you're passing through or near Bicheno, do yourself a favor and go visit!

Woke up this morning to the sound of rain, and the waves crashing in the distance.  Ahh...

First up, we drove out to St Helens Point, and walked along Beer Barrel Beach, and took in the scenery, plants and wildlife...

Pretty sure these guys thought I was there to eat them!

This little guy had attitude.

We stopped off in St Helens for some lovely lunch at the Village Store and More cafe - Mum describes the soup with accompanying sourdough bread as 'just sensational', and my over-sized sausage roll was pretty damn good too!  We checked in at the Tourist Information Centre to see exactly how far away our next destination was, and happened upon the St Helens History room.  If you're in St Helens, it's certainly worth a look - even if you're not really into history, there's bound to be something in there to interest you!

Then a drive out to the Pyengana Dairy Company to sample some yummies from their cafe, and their cheese of course!

On the return drive, we couldn't resist doing the Halls Falls walk (11km short of The Blue Tier when heading out of Pyengana), and boy am I glad we made the slight detour...



Back at the hotel after a long day of trekking and sightseeing, we had a 'leftover buffet' of Leavenbank Potato Sourdough, fetta-stuffed peppers and chilli mussels from Pasini's, fresh tomatoes, parsley, Smoked Salmon, Pyengana 'Devilish cheese and Eureka Farm Tomato Chutney.  Mmmm.....


Homeward bound tomorrow, with a stop in Bicheno to check out the Sealife Centre and have some lunch.  See you tomorrow!

Awoke this morning to a perfect, calm sunny day - Wow!!

So today, we took a trip down to Bicheno to visit the Natureworld Wildlife Park.  I took LOTS of photos, but have only selected a few to put up here.

Not a lot of blogging from me again - I'm still pretty sick, typical for a holiday right?! - but again, the pictures tell their own story.

I so cute!

Duuude...

Beautiful Fallow Deer

I pissed off the Emu, making funny noises at him - this is him all puffed up!

Might make a trip to the Bicheno Sealife Centre tomorrow, or maybe a drive up to St Helens and Binalong Bay - who knows!

Well, here I am, safe and sound in Scamander!
I'm here for 3 nights, having a well-deserved break with my dear Mummy. After arriving late yesterday afternoon, we took a long stroll to check out our immediate area around the Scamander Beach Resort Hotel, and take some photos of course!

Enough from me, I think the photos themselves speak volumes about how gorgeous this place is.

Part of the view from our room on the Second Floor

Random driftwood structures on the beach - they looked amazing

Breakwater at the river inlet

Managed a snap of Mum - Shhh, don't tell her!  Looking South along the beach

Seaweed - Close up!

Little tiny sand goby

Little bitty Invertebrate of some description

Looking back to the bridge, out hotel on the left

Today we're off to the wildlife park in Bicheno, and for a bit of a look around. Yep, more pictures there!!

Broc, Harry and I had a fantastic day with all our friends - furry and human - at the end of year bash for the TDTC today!

Bobby, Nala and Harry

Seeing so many people come along to have a laugh, and dressing their dogs (and themselves!) up for the occasion was a real hoot.

Holly in her trendy red Christmas shirt!

There were a couple of doggy games - the Bone & Spoon Race and Musical Squares, as well as photos with Santa Claus, we all had a play with some of the agility equipment, lovely food, and general Merriment all-around.

Nala enjoys some Mutt Muffins

Denver gets his lean on with Glenn

Denver gets his lean on some more!

Group Shot

And there were Encouragement Awards!!  Alexander and Bobby got one...

Alexander and Bobby recieving their award

And Kelly, Gerard and Lucy too!

Kelly and Lucy recieve their award!

So to all my Dog Training friends, don't forget to practice, and see you all in the New Year!!  No doubt Tanya will have some more photos up later, and I'm sure Sean will put up some of his shots on the TDTC website too.

Edit:  No award for Harry, but he and 2 other doggies won the Fancy Dress competition, and I forgot to mention last week... We scored 140/150 in our test, and will be starting the new year in Grade 3!