Have not been to one of these in a long time...

The Happy Couple...

My friend Bec was having her Engagement Party last night and I was lucky enough to be invited. :) I went on my own as Russell didn't feel comfortable going. He didn't know her or Mark so wanted to stay home. He had the boys which was good too as Joshua was going through a little bit of withdrawals we think. Friday and Saturday he was rather teary and easy upset. Nothing was turning out right for him and he just didn't like himself at all... Best they stay home when that is going on.

I am glad that I was able to go out by myself. I am very thankful to Russell for doing things with the boys while I was gone. I got home just before 11pm which is a really, really late night for me. I was soooo tired driving home...

A wonderful time was had by everyone I reckon. Young and old alike. :)

Congratulations again Mark and Bec. :)

Cheers Damaris

Lizard...

Lizard visiting... now free :)

There I was going outside to feed some scraps to the chooks and ducks... I got the fright of my life as I went to go for the door handle when I saw this huge lizard. Have not seen a pretty one like that one so close in a while. You could see its heart beating and it was dashing from here to there... He got in from the bottom of the screen door as we have a hole in it from when mice chewed through it the first year we were here. Was a bit of a plague. They never got inside the house but they sure tried.

I tried to get it to go out by opening the screen door as I had the dogs inside. If there would have gotten ahold of it they would have eaten it...

It kept going down the screen so I quickly got the dogs to go in the laundry. Bribed them with food. hehe. Then I left the lizard under my painting table to settle. Joshua got home half an hour later and caught it. He let it go outside somewhere safe, thank goodness... a life saved. lol

Cheers Damaris

Now what??? Chook food indeed...

Don't ask how he got it home... :)

Timothy came home really excited yesterday. He bought out a heap of veggies that he had harvested at school and wanted to show me them. They were mostly white zucchinis. He had worked hard at maintaining them and loved to take whatever he could home.

He shares mostly though as there are way too many veggies for our little family of four. When he brought them home I thought straight away: "What am I going to do with them???" We are not able to eat them as we are on the Elimination Diet. This means that we would have to let it go bad. Most of them were too big to give away as they would not have any flavour in them either.

In the end I made sure I gave lots and lots of praise but this morning once Timothy had left for school I did chop it all up and fed it to the chooks. You should have seen them and the ducks. They loved it all and did not leave anything behind. :)

Apparently they are growing watermelon at the moment... We are not able to eat that one either. Oh well, we will see how we go by the time they are ripe. We could use one as a challenge I guess. :)

Cheers Damaris

Conversion from Apples to Pears...

Timothy's empty bowl of peeled pears...

Well I must admit I never ever thought it was possible... Timothy loves his apples. Green or red, don't matter. hehe He can have up to eight a day if I let him or if he sneaks them during the night. He was in effect addicted...

This I wanted to curb. And we have done it!!! With the Failsafe adventure that our family is on now since Sunday we started getting him used to having only soft pears (peeled) during the holidays. He took to it like fish in water I must say. He is allowed two a day and he knows that that is a strict rule of the Elimination Diet. I use pears in sorbet and try to make all things pear but not too much either. We are not reliant on fruit too much anyway. As the Fed Up book by Sue Dengate states... "Fruit isn't there for humans only it is actually a tree's sexual organ".

Timothy now usually has one peeled in the morning and one at night just before bed. Bit of a ritual. And a great one. I can't believe it but we did it. No more screeching for more apples. Yay!!!

Gotta be happy with that. :)

Cheers Damaris

No Technology Antics...

Bailey and Nova are very loved...

Gummy and Sunny all over Joshua.

Sunny trying to get some sleep :)

My boys have over the last year become rather resourceful when it comes to playing and doing things that don't include technology. Just what I am wanting to achieve. They are playing really nicely together more often than not as well.

Yesterday morning Timothy and I got up and before I had even gotten out of my bed Joshua told me the list of things he had done already... They were:

Made his bed, turned his night light off, made Timothy's bed (yes he had a nightmare and was in mine again), turned off Timothy's night light, let the dogs out and fed them, let the chooks and ducks out, shut the cockatiel up when he started making too much noise so not to wake me up... How excellent was that. All on his own without being asked. I told him a couple of times during the day how proud I was of him... He seemed to appreciate it. :)

Then later they took out Gummy and Sunny. That was nice. Gummy has all his flying feathers so kept bumping into windows... He was not learning. Sunny couldn't as hers were clipped but she was content to sleep on any one's shoulder. :)

All in all with all the riding around on bikes and friends that visited it was a most wonderful way to spend Pupil Free Day, our last day of the holidays.

Cheers Damaris

Best porridge...

This morning's Porridge... :)

I know I am very biased at the moment. All new this Thermomix business. But Bimby is fitting in very well into our little family.

Yesterday I made beautiful Buttermilk bread. Don't tell Russell. Think he wanted to do that recipe first as he had been the one to buy the Buttermilk in the first place. :) I made pikelets as well which went down a treat.

This morning Joshua asked for Porridge. Not one to shy from trying something new I got out the book, saw that it was failsafe and went for it. The end result was two servings of the most beautiful porridge I have ever tasted. So creamy as made just on A2 milk. He put Golden syrup on his and I put sugar on mine. How devine...

I can just imagine making this in the dead of winter when there is ice on the ground outside and just wanting to dive into it. :) What I love most though is that I put the ingredients into Bimby and had 8 minutes to do something else. I went outside and fed the chooks. As I was coming back to the house Joshua told me that it was done and beeping... How cool is that? No more standing at the stove.

Another thing I love is that even when we baked up a storm on Sunday making about 12 different recipes, that there was hardly any dishes in the sink all day long. Couple of spoons, one measuring cup. That sort of thing only. And I thought at first that it would be a pain to wash Bimby all the time but you don't really. It is just so easy. Wish I had of found it years ago... Well I knew about it about a year ago but wasn't game to even ask Russell about it due to the expense.

Best thing we have bought in a VERY long time...

Cheers Damaris

Timothy shines at the Warwick Show...

Timothy waiting for his number to be called. (21)

Timothy (second sheet from right) judging sheep...

No not literally... :) Last Friday and Saturday, Timothy was apart of the Warwick SHS team for the Sheep Pavilion. He had an absolute ball.

Friday he had to judge good and bad points of four Ewes. He had two minutes to look over, touch etc four girls and then put them in order of favourite to least favourite. No he didn't get any ribbons but then again he was the only one that had his first go and there were 52 students all up... We ended up leaving at just before 9pm and got home rather late. Straight to bed for both of us.

He had a ball doing it thought, did I say that already??? I was very proud of him and tried to suss out for him what he would have to do in advance. One thing about Aspy kids, they don't like to have things just thrown at them. New situations freaks them out, Timothy anyway. So when I got there I asked as many people as possible what would be happening. Then I would relay that to Timothy in a really simply termed way for him so that he could understand. Most of the time though he just wanted to touch and play with the sheep. He was in heaven. He loves the animals so much.

Saturday morning was an early start. I got him up at 5:15am and we were gone by 5:30am. Got to the showgrounds at 6am and were let in for free which was lovely. He got to the Cattle Pavilion as that was were they were having breakfast as a whole team. He could have had breakfast at home but then he would have missed that whole team experience and I wanted him to have that as much as possible. Breakfast was not quite ready when we got there so instead he started filling up buckets with feed for the cattle for Ms Cox, his Agricultural teacher. He was happy to be left and knew he could as a teacher what he should be doing next.

He lead sheep that morning, twice. They didn't do what he wanted. He had no previous experience but gave it a go. He was sad that he didn't have the experience as others that were in Year 9 got ribbons and he didn't. They were ribbons for the sheep though not the handlers. Was hard for him to understand that one as he couldn't see that.

I picked him up at 1pm as previously agreed. The lady at the gate again let me in without having to pay as I was only there to just pick up Timothy and there I met a boy that was seasoned... :) He had dirty jeans, from working hard and a huge smile on his face. He was very tired as he had not sat down all morning and was definitely ready to go home.

Once home I made sure he quickly had a shower as trust me, he stank... all those lovely animal smells. Oh what a weekend it has been for him. His teachers all thought he did great and even some of the kids were very encouraging... I hope he can keep going to Ag as he really loves it. At the SHS they only do it for one term though in Year 8, not that I have told him that yet... That will come. Tomorrow maybe. Must do it before he gets his new timetable or he will freak out. Don't want that...

Cheers Damaris