Pizza and a Raspberry Tart

Well keeping with the tradition when we have the Missionaries for dinner we had another trat from Masterchef tonight! We made the pizza base from the friday night master class and they were good. We made our own toppings with mozzarella, capsicum, shredded ham, pineapple, chorizo, hot salami and some herbs and spices. The Pizza was good and very filling! Then for desert we had the Raspberry Tart which was REALLY GOOD! I am going to be a little sad when they finish the show in a few weeks as I have come to really learn and enjoy learning new techniques and ways to cook things I haven't tried before. I must say that sometime this week I will be making the date and lemon scones which looked really good from this Fridays just gone master class.

My mum has come to stay with us for a few days, it has been a while as she had a hip replacment earlier in the year and then it took her a while to recover and after everything is right she was able to come and stay. Yesterday we went and did some retail therapy shopping, for Will it was more food therapy as I took him a selection of food to keep him entertained as we looked for good specials. Once we had had enough bargain hunting we decided to go and take Will to Maccas for a play and some lunch. He had heas of fun as their was not many kids their. He even enjoyed a yummy happy meal and then a babycinio. I loved the cute little choccie milk mouth he had from drinking it. Today we did some grocery shopping, boring, and then tomorrow we will get Ryan to look after the kids while we check out the toy sale at Myer and Toyworld, just hoping that some of you girls have left us some toys when we get their!

Pizza Dough Recipe

Hey Bride here is the easy Pizza dough recipe that tastes really good. I must say that until this recipe we would just buy the pizza bases from the shop as it tasted heaps better but this is has changed all that!

1 1/2 cups warm water
7g dry yeast (as they say on Master chef the yeast has to be exact!)
1 1/2 Tbs olive oil
400g plain flour
130g semolina
2 tsp salt
Extra flour for dusting

1. Put water, yeast, and oil in a bowl and whisk to dissolve yeast. Put flour, semolina, and salt on an electric mixer with the dough hook attached and pour in the yeast mixture on medium speed until dough comes together and is wet and silky. Increase speed and mix for 5 minutes.
2. Turn out dough into lightly oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and stand in a warm place until dough has doubled in size. Gently punch down the dough with your fists, then divide into portions required, we usally make 4 pizzas with the mix, but you can make more or less. Lightly dust with flour and punch the dough out to make your base.

The you can add whatever you like, I usally put tomato paste with garlic throug it first, then I add my meat, capsicum, mushrooms, olives, cheese and pineapple.

Our family Saturday

On Saturday we decided to go as a family to the new launceston Aquatic centr. William and I had been but Ryan and the girls hadn't. I made a strict request that we get their early as I found William didn't like it as much when their was too many kids. As a result we got their just after 9 and it was great as their was not many people. William had heaps more fun this time as he even braved the play equpiment that they had! He was still a little unsure about the BIG bucket of water that came down every now and then. The ids had so much of a good time that we actually stayed longer than we were planning. Unfortunately Charlotte couoldn't get in and swim this time as for some unknown reason her big toe nail fell off the other day and as a result it is very touchy and we don't really wnat to get it wet at the moment. Hopefully next time she can enjoy the hydro pool, she did enjoy herself though as she was in a very warm place nad even managed to have a little nap.

After our little swim we went and did some shopping. We ended up at Meadow Mews where the kids got a shake n dog from Wendy as well as ride on the Thomas the Tank Engine that was there. Even Amelia got in on the ride. We love our weekends, the only problem is that they always go far too quick! At least we can look forward to the next one!

Happy Birthday

On Thursday it was Ryan's birthday and apart from having to go to work he did tell me he had a good day! He requested me to make a sponge cake for his birthday cake and this is what he got!

I also asked him what he would like me to make for dinner and he asked for homemade pizza. We have found the best pizza dough and it is so easy! So we gave the kids theirs then later on had our's. I have given him an IOU for a date night out this week as my Mum is coming up to stay for a few days, it will be nice to have her up as well as nice to have a night out with Ryan, as it has been a while!

Lunch with Daddy!

On Monday it was the last day of the school holidays and seeing it was a lovely day I decided that we would take a drive out to Beaconsfield and have lunch with Ryan. Opposite the mine is a little park that we went to. I made some mini chicken quiches and sammies for the kids and we sat in the car and ate them while we enjoyed the lovely sun shine streming through the window. Once we finished we let the kids have a play on the equipment. They had a great time, even though it was a little cool, but we stayed their for about an hour before we got back in the car and drove home, we did do the scenic trip home and went along Rosvears which was really pretty. I really like this time of year, apart from it being sooooo cold, I really like the colours that are around of the landscape. If only we could have some warmth I would be even happier!!!!

Tea with the Missionaries

Well we have had the missionaries from both ward for dinner over the last two night as we can only have them on weekends as our weeks are just so busy. We found out that the guys fro East didn't have a tea appointement when they came over for haircuts on Saturday so we asked if they wanted to come as well and of course they said YES! Maybe it was because we told them what was on the menu. Saturday we had homemade burgers with homemade chips and for desert we had chocolate ecclairs, thanks to Masterchef for the recipe that they showed on Friday in MasterClass. On Sunday we had Pumpkin, Carrot and Corriander Soup, with a slow cooker beef dish and the lemon Diva cupcakes (however I did slightly tweek on the Masterchef recipe) with a lemon curd inside and a cream cheese icing.

So after dinner the boys decided to have an arm wrestle competition and I must say it was pretty funny watching Elder Martin trying to beat Ryan, and then Elder Merryl took him on and then Josh Polley! No wonder the poor guy felt like he had gorilla arms after. Of course we had a few extra missionaries to give the running comentary on the rounds as well as our own live film crew!

More Cakes

Well I have been busy again over the last few days with making a cake order. This one is a little different to my usual ones as I have done the leaf decoration. I must say that I do like to effect that you can get with the leaves. It is rather easy to do just melt some chocolate and then using a paint brush paint the chocolate onto some leaves, let them set then pull the leaf off. Easy peasy. This cake is for a a guy at Ryan's work who's wife is having a birthday this weekend. I was told that they love white chocoate and dark chocolate, so with this in mind I made a dark chocolate mud cake with a white chocolate gnash and then a dark chocolate collar. Sometimes I feel ripped off as I would love to have a taste but don't want to have a full cake sitting in my house as I have no will power and would sit and eat all of it. I must confess that the white gnache is really good as I made a bit too much so have had a little sample of it. I have decided that I am going to make some Lemon Diva cupcakes that Julie made from Masterchef last week, however instead of following the recipe they used using Self Raising Flour I am planning to use my own recipe with plain flour as I found they did rise a bit too much to what I like and the spilt out all over the cases. I think that the white chocolate gnash will actually go really nice on them. Yum Yum Yum!

Queen's Birthday Outing

Well on Monday we decided to go on a little family drive as it was a public holiday for teh Queen's Birthday, which is really wiered that we have a holiday for the Queens birthday and the people in the UK don't! We are just a culture of people who love their holidays!

The original plan was that we would drive up to Longford, have lunch then drive out to Campbell Town to visit the lolly shop as I have heard heaps about it BUT never been their. Well as always happens when you have plans things change and the firls change happened when we missed to turn off the highway to Longford, so we thought we would take the next turn which was the Carrick turnoff. We followed the road til be got to Bracknell and then were faced with a choice stick to out plans to go to Longford OR drive to Lifey Falls! Well we decided to drive to Liffey falls as we have necer been their before. Well after what was a VERY LONG 26km, I think that someone may have made a slight error in their measurments as it felt a lot longer than other 26km dries we have been on. So anyway we got to the destination and went on one of the walk BUT only went half way as we had Charlotte in her chair and it seemed to be getting a bit more downhill and we thought that it may be a bit hard to push her back up again. We did however get some excellent shots of the water and some of the great plants that were around.

The Road map was our friend!

Some of the pretty scnes we saw on our drive.Amelia and Charlotte were excited.
William was our little entertainment man! He sang some great songs for us on our road trip.
What is that asks Ryan
The kids and I at the tree stump. William was playing catch me if you can and we were lucky that he even stood here for this photo.
All about Liffey falls.

The lovely abstratc art work.
Daddy and William moment.

Some of teh interesting sites we saw growing on the trees.

This was avery unusual trype of fungus growing, we thought it was really pretty, not sure of the name however and I have not seen one before but their were a few lying around the place.

The lovely falls!

So after our lovely walk we hopped back in the car and went on what our original plan was and drove to Campbell town to visit the lolly shop. I didn't realise that they did ice cream as well so we ended up having ice cream and lollies. I was very excited to see that they had Hersheys in many varieties even some I have not seen before so I brought myself a couple to try. Another blownout was these things called milkies, similar to redskins but not around like they used to be when I was a kid! I brought one and shared it with the kids and boy did it bring back memories of when I was young and would go to the shop on my bike and get myself some. I have made a rule that anyone who wants to come and visit us and passes through Campbell Town will need as a mater of importance be expected to stop and pick up some lollies before they come and visit as it is always nice to give gifts when you visit people!

Our Friday

Well on friday most of our family were getting over the gastro bug! Will had it early in the week then came alright for a day then seemed to get it again. So on Thursday Ryan, Will and I were all feeling very sorry for ourselves! Ryan asked work on the Thursday if he could take the Friday off as a holiday so that we could all chill out and get some rest, which they said yes to so on Friday we all had a BIG sleep in and then got ourselves ready to face the day. We were feeling not too bad by the afternoon so we decided to go into town and take some Library books back that were a bit overdue. We also checked out a few bike shops as I am looking for a bike as I have been riding Ryan's and it is realy old and the gears are a bit stuffed and it is really hard to get up hills as the gears don't get into the gear properly

One of the other things we did on Friday was to delvier a few Avon brochures to my cutomers and on the lawn of one house we went to we saw this mushrooms. Ryan tells me that they are called magic muchies and that some silly people boil them up and then get high off them, which can make them VERY sick. I just thought that the colour's were pretty and unusual to see as well as the shapes were very pretty too.

Multi Stake Beehive Overnighter!

Last night Amelia went to the Multi Stake Beehive overnighter at Sarahs house, who just lives a few streets away. Amelia was really excited to go all day and had a little trouble with the concept of time as for her it seemed the day went really slow! She had to take her scriptures and wear pjs. Even though it was a sleepover we decided that it might be better is she came home to sleep and then go back early the next morning. I heard from Felicity that she had a GREAT evening with helping make pizza, hanging out with the girls and getting involved in games. To read more check out Lisa Kings blog for all the mad happenings and photos from the evening. Felicity dropped her off around 9.30pm and picked her up again around 7.30am the next morning. I heard that pancakes were a BIG hit for breakfast! From how she was today I am sure she had a great time as everytime we ask her about the activity she gets excited. Thanks to the Stake Young Women leaders for involving Amelia, as well as a BIG thanks to Felicity for taking her under her wing and picking and dropping her off. ALSO thanks to the beehives for making Amelia's time fun as I heard that you girls were very helpful with helping out.
Amelia showing off her cool High School Musical Pj's she wore last night.

Family Visits!

Well Yvette and Adam had planned a little holiday to come over and visit from Melbourne as it has been a while since they caught up with everyone down here in Tassie. They flew into Launceston and went to Stay with the Crossin family in Port Sorell for a few days and then they came to stay with us for a night. Scott was stuck back in Melbourne and his work was a little quiet so they gave him the week off at short notice so he decided to tag along and he flew into Hobart on Tuesday. He was going to catch the bus to Launceston Yesterday BUT after a slight hiccup in the time Yvette was given he realised that he would have to wait another few hours. So Ryan's mum and Dad decided that it was great duck weather and they might take a nice drive and come up for dinner then go back home that evening!!!! We did say that next time they need to be better prepared and to back at least medications so that they can stya the night next time they do something strange like that. At the moment Roger is not allowed to drive for health reasons so Janet was the designated driver, I did hear that they got back in one piece so that was a good thing. Earlier in the days as the weather was rather yucky and it was not a great idea to go outsie we decided to take the kids to Kids Paradise and they had heaps of FUN!

Ryan and Scott decided to take themselves to the movies to see Angels and Demons and I heard they both really enjoyed it. Yvette and I did the childminding and watched the movie Bride Wars. We decided to get a girl movie as both of our other halves never really enjoy watching chic flicks! It was really good, however Yvette fell asleep through it and woke up every now and again. I think that's what happens when you have a holidays jam packed with plenty to do you crash at night in a warm room with the lights low!

This morning we took them to the bus and they are on their way to Hobart were they will catch up with more family and a few friends for a play date. I reckon they will enjoy going home to have their official rest holiday! We look forward to catching up with them when they come over at Christmas time for a little longer next time.

These two had heaps of fun together!

What great posers they are!

Our Sick Little Man

Well last night was rather a busy night as we had a sick little boy up and down for most of it. I must say we are pretty lucky as he doesn't get sick a whole lot BUT when he does he sure does! Last night we heard him moaning and then he had a huge power chuck! Lucky that Ryan and I are very organised and work well as a team as we had William and the bed sorted and fixed in a blink! I must say that I used to be really bad at coping with spew BUT since having kids I am getting better at dealing with it. Although I can not deal when other people apart from my kids do it, I can't even cope when Ryan is sick I still have to block me ears or I might be joining him as I have a very weak tummy.
Today he has so far kept down gastrolite stuff, but it is not staying in the other end! (Proberly too much info but oh well). As I write this he has coned me into giving him some Wiggle biscuits this might be a test.

Today he has just sat in the beanbag and watched some telly calling out to me when he wants a cuddle or when he want me to carry him somewhere.