from somewhere in my imagination

It's All About the Little Moments - Point + Shoot

This weekend was something of an emotional one.

We drove to Adelaide Thursday afternoon to be there in time for the baseball on Thursday night and Sebastian's first school transition visit on Friday morning.  In the drizzling rain we didn't quite manage a photo of the boy.  He looks so grown up in his school shirt.  I had a few big gulp, nearly teary moments during our one hour visit.

Friday night was more baseball.  My red boots made it through the day with me as the mumvember challenge had to drop the mum uniform and wear something you wouldn't normally.  Heels were the obvious choice for me.

Saturday morning we enjoyed a breakfast out with mum and my sister sam and her family.  It was lovely (and kind of funny) seeing mum lined up on the banquette with all but one of her grandchildren.

I dared lil to wear her 'geek' glasses for the whole day, she pulled it off.  Funny girl.

After breakfast we headed to the park for a play.  A friend of Lil's was there too and the kids all climbed 'the tree'.  You can just see Lil dangling from the canopy.  I love this big old Moreton Bay Fig.  I used to climb it when I was a kid too, I love it that my kids are climbing it now.

During breakfast Steven rang his mum to organise a time to visit at the hospital.  Here begins a story of how words can get lost in translation.  My father in law had said 'they are discharging me because there is nothing they can do'...the all important 'over the weekend' was left off...I took Steven up to the hospital to sit with his dad until his mum got there.  His dad has been diagnosed with a secondary brain tumor following his diagnosis and treatment for cancer of the oesophagus 12 months ago.  Cancer sucks.

Saturday night we rounded out our weekend of baseball watching with a double header.  I suspect it's only a matter of time before Sebastian starts offering autographs of his own. 

It was really cool watching him throwing and catching with another (older) kid during the break between games.  The other kid was fantastically encouraging and supportive of him.

Sebastian tried the geek glasses on for size.

We finished off our weekend with a detour to visit Steven's parents on our way home.  The kids posed with santa on their front verandah.

Now we are home for 4 sleeps before we turn around and do it all again, but next time we have Sebastian's birthday, a market for Green Dandelion and the Foo Fighters concert added in.

Madness. 

I'm linking up with Point + Shoot for the first time in ages!  Why don't you link up too sharing some of your little moments from the weekend.

Happy Monday,

Tatum xx

In the Morning I'm Making Waffles

I love that line when Donkey invade Shreks house in the swamp for the first time.

Whenever I make a weekend breakfast of waffles, I deliver the line donkey style, I can't help it.

Steven has been away since Thursday and on Saturday morning the kids and I had waffles.  For the first time ever, after a good 6 years of waffle making, I topped them with berries (a mix of fresh strawberries + frozen raspberries & blueberries) together with maple syrup + whipped cream and man did it ever just take them somewhere else.  We often make waffles in preference to pancakes because the waffle maker requires much less attention than cooking pancakes in the frying pan.

My tried and true recipe makes 9 or 10 waffles , so we usually end up having to share on our second round...but that's fine...when I've made more 2 each has just been too many!

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups SR flour

1 1/2 Tbs sugar

1 1/2 cups buttermilk

125g butter, melted

2 eggs

Method

Whisk wet ingredients into dry.  Splodge a big dollop into the centre of the waffle maker, spread a bit, you don't need to go all the way to the edges and cook until done.

They are best served straight to the table as they come out of the waffle maker, they soften when left in the oven while you make the whole batch...that said noone actually complains ;)

Saturday we spent the entore day hanging out at home.  Each of us kind of doing our own thing.  I cleaned a bit, cooked, played, watched movies & even sewed a little bit.  Just floating around the house with the kids was lovely.

Sunday morning the kids woke up late but for the most part were on the tired and grumpy side.  I dropped Lil at a friends house and headed to the park with the other 3.  Who would have thought going to the park would have been such a trial.

Charlotte and S weren't so happy with me because 'dad gets us hot chips when we go to the park' + Sebastian had his heart set on one of his friends coming with us for him to play with.  He ended up staying in the car refusing to get out the whole time.  He cried the whole way home, and for 3 laps of the block because I refused to actually go home unless he stopped crying.  Why?  He wanted to play at the park of course!  We had similar tears over dinner becuse he wanted burritos not spaghetti.  Eventually he ate and fell asleep fairly promptly.

Charlotte just plain didn't want to go to the park.  She was grumpy because Lil wasn't there.

J was the only one keen on the idea.  We did plenty of swinging, some sliding and a spot of see sawing.  It seems that J has a bit of 'Lil style' going on.  She insisted on the skirt.  Ever since she spied it in the clothes I unpacked from the US earlier in the week she has wanted to wear it.  The first time she put it on she twirled and twirled and twirled until she fell over.  Too cute.  Lil was completely responsible for the socks, such a Lil thing to do!

I was hoping that the park would tire her out so that she would actually go to sleep at a reasonable time.  Unfortunately not, she finally gave in around 10...I'd started the bedtime routine for her around 6.30.  Joy.

So that was out weekend.  We are all really looking forward to having Steven home tonight.  This is the first time he has travelled interstate for a mine rescue competition and he sounded pretty pleased with how the even went when I spoke to him before the dinner last night.  I guess I'll find out when I talk to him this morning.

Hope that you had a lovely weekend.  I love that spring is here!

I'm linking up with Sunny + Scout for Point + Shoot.  Looking forward to checking out what others have been up to!

Tatum xx

 

 

You Say Tomato...

Sunday morning saw us at our local (in Adelaide) car boot sale stocking up on Fruit and Veg before heading home.  Included in our haul was a 10kg box of tomatoes for $10.

So upon arriving home after the 6 hour drive what else was there to do but make pasta sauce!  It was a perfect end to the weekend.

I think we'll be eating lots of pasta over the next couple of weeks...I've ended up with about 7 Litres of pasta sauce...and it is delicious, Steven and I had some last night for dinner.

Tatum's Car Boot Pasta Sauce

Ingredients

10kg box of tomatoes, washed and green stalks removed

3 red onions

2 garlic bulbs

5-10 small red chillies (omit if you aren't keen on chilli)

Olive Oil

Red Wine Vinegar

Freshly ground Salt & Pepper

2 Tbs sugar

about 5 stems of thyme, tied with kitchen string

Method

Heat Oven to about 150C

Cover 3 large baking trays with baking paper then with halved tomatoes, cut side up.  Drizzle with vinegar and olive oil and grind on pepper and salt.

Cut the top off the garlic bulbs to expose the cloves, pop into a space on the baking trays, drizzle with olive oil and grind on some more salt.

Slide the trays into the oven and roast for about an hour, removing the garlic after about 30-40 minutes when the cloves are starting to ooze out.  You don't want to overcook the garlic because it will get bitter.

While the tomoatoes are cooking in the oven get started on the rest of the sauce.

Skin and roughly chop the onions

Heat about 2-3 Tbs olive oil in the base of a stock pot.  Add your onions and reduce heat to low.

As the onions start to cook quarter your tomatoes (or eighths if they are big ones, our were only small) and throw them in the pot as you cut them.

I had a helper for tomato chopping.  He has become very interested in cooking and definitely more interested in vegetables since they have been cooking from their own kindy vegie garden. 

The crazy excitement over the spanakopita he got from the greek lady for breakfast yesterday morning made me smile.  Who knew a small boy could love spinach quite that much!

Keep adding tomatoes until your pot is nearing full, you will still need space to add the tomatoes from out of the oven but you will also loose some liquid to evaporation as the sauce cooks.

Cut the stalk off your chillies, halve them lengthways and add to the pot together with your tied up bunch of thyme.  When you take the garlic out of the oven squeeze the caramelised cloves into the pot.  Yum.

When the tomatoes in the oven are nearly done grab your stick blender and whizz up your sauce.  Slide in the tomatoes a tray at a time and whizz again after addition.  You want to get all the juice/oil/vinegar off the trays.

Pop it back on the stove to simmer for a little bit longer.  For me it was for the time it took to cook some pasta.

Ideally you can now pop it into some sterilised bottles/jars but I don't have any so I'll be putting it into tupperware containers and freezing.  If you are making this and have some basil poke a stalk of fresh basil into each jar before you tip in the sauce.

Last night Steven and I ate it as it was with penne and lots of good grated and shaved parmasen cheese.  Tonight I'll be making a chicken pasta.  Happy Days.

I'm linking up my little Sunday tomato adventure with point + shoot.

Hope that you had a lovely weekend!

Tatum xx