Little Red turns one.

So the wee monster turned one on Monday and we celebrated in style the day before. A great day was had by all, even Redford who took it all in his stride (and thoroughly enjoyed his piece of cake). The highlight? Putting him in the sailor suit that his Daddy wore 31 years ago when he turned one!


The feast! And all homemade! We had lamingtons, cheese straws, rice paper rolls, animal biscuits, pikelets...

and then there were pepperdews stuffed with brie, egg, ham and salmon sammies, mint truffles and lime and white chocolate rocky road. Yum!

We even had goody bags! No party is complete without goody bags.

But who could forget the most important part? The cake! Vanilla butter cake with vanilla buttercream icing. Mmmm!

There was plenty of bubbles for the adults....

Me and the birthday boy (who's not all too happy about wearing such a silly hat) x

Family photo! Daddy's not too happy about the hat either - "But I look simple!"

Opening presents, what a lucky wee boy our Redford was!

Cake time! A big happy birthday followed by the clap game.... which was pretty short seeing as though there was only one clap....

Redford wasted no time in munching down his piece of cake (we may have created a monster) with Daddy.

The infamous sailor suit!

Cuddles with Daddy - recreating the 1980 photo with the next generation.

Redford's actual birthday - his first fluffy (which went down a treat, particularly the marshmallows!)

Eyeing up the $350 wagon that he'd quite like for his next birthday. Dream on, buddy!

Holy heck! I'm IN the mirror! Admiring himself at Te Papa.

And to top off a lovely day, naked fun times with the balloons. Red thought all his birthday's had come at once.

Now it's Mummy and Daddy's time to celebrate! We crack open our bottle of 2008 Alana Estate Reisling Aperitif, bought waaaay back on our first trip away together. Bliss!

And thus concludes Redford's lovely birthday! Bring on number two, I say! I'm planning it already....


x

Counting down to the big O-N-E!!

So my baby boy is one in T minus four days!! I can't quite believe how fast yet slow this past year has gone. I find it absolutely incredible how much Redford has developed in such a short time. He's gone from a mewing, wide-eyed newborn to a grape guzzling, trolley pushing wee character and I love him more and more every day.


We're having his birthday party on Sunday which started off low key but has grown somewhat.... 


My favourite part has been concocting a scrummy menu for all the peeps to eat! We have cheerios and T sauce for the littlies (and for the oldies - who doesn't love a sneaky cheerio?), iced animal biscuits, cheese biscuits, lamingtons, brie and pepperdew bites, avocado, cucumber, ginger and coriander rice paper rolls, pikelets and finger sammies. All homemade (minus the cheerios)!


And of course, who can forget the main munch - the cake! I'm attempting a vanilla number 1 cake with butter cream icing and edible decorations. Oh, and there's take home bags - mint truffles and lime and white chocolate rocky road. Mmmm....


I promise pictures aplenty come Monday for onscreen drooling!


Now to work on a gift that Little Red will enjoy just as much as the paper it's wrapped in....

The magic pudding

Sometimes getting Redford to finish his dinner is like getting Nick to willingly do the vacuuming - near impossible. A lot of coercion is needed, including singing, many spoons, rice cakes, you name it, I've tried it. He does get there in the end but unfortunately he's half me and has inherited my incredibly short attention span and would rather twist in his highchair a little too Exorcist-ish for my liking and try rub his grubby hands on our nice new curtains.

Last night though, I hit the jackpot. We stumbled through his dinner (bolognaise, rice and kumara), with him getting more and more distracted and me getting more and more frustrated as the minutes went on. Dinner down, we moved onto pudding. I had a beautifully ripe avocado that I was desperate to use and wanted to pump Little Red with some good fats yet for some reason he's vetoed avo as of late - why, I have no earthly idea. So I got creative and mashed a quarter of it with half a banana and half a black doris plum and holy moly, I've never seen the child eat so fast! And he cried when it was all done.

As you can see, he morphed into somewhat of a sparrow - sticking his neck out as far as he could and opening his gob wide (for once):

Booyah! That is freaking good:

The last remnants, I can feel the tears welling already:

It doesn't look that appetizing but I had a wee taste and I have to admit, I struggled to give it to him.... I wanted to keep it all for myself! It was absolutely scrummy. We did it again tonight and yet again, it went down a treat - you'd think all Red's Christmases had come at once! 

So if you're after a healthy, oh-so-delish pudding, I totally recommend this. And don't keep it all for baby, shove some in your gob too!

Sweet treats - Nicky's pineapple muffins

If made correctly, these muffins should look a little something like the picture above. Haha, funny lady. I crack myself up. Meh. But! In all seriousness, this recipe has kindly been passed down to me by my darling ma-in-law and these are AMAZING and addictive and should be made with ease but eaten with gusto. For example, today I ate three. I do not feel guilty about this whatsoever and if there had been more, I would've eaten those too. I wouldn't have felt guilty about that either. In fact, I would probably eat a whole batch of these babies and feel pretty proud.

Anyhoooo, here's the recipe....

1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white flour
1/2 cup wholemeal flour
1/2 cup wheat bran
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
Small tin crushed pineapple (pref. in juice not syrup)
1/2 cup sultanas
4 oz butter
1/2 cup milk
1 egg

Combine dry ingredients. Add pineapple and sultanas to dry ingredients. Melt butter, add egg and milk and stir. Pour onto dry ingredients and mix just to combine - don't over mix! Spoon into muffin trays and bake at 190 degrees C for approx 20 minutes. Leave in tins for a few minutes then transfer onto rack. Let cool and shove them in your gob. Et voila!

So the good thing about this recipe is you can mix it up a bit - use stewed apple (or any other fruit) instead of pineapple, substitute sultanas for raisins or dried apricots and if you want to use just wholemeal flour then make up the amount you'd use for white flour. If you're using pineapple in syrup maybe cut down the sugar a little otherwise they can come out a little too sweet.


Happy baking!

Sweet treats - Oatmeal cookies

I hosted coffee group at our pad a couple of weeks ago and one of the treats brought was these incredibly addictive cookies. I grabbed the recipe off the mama that made them and whipped up a batch over the weekend. Needless to say, they're almost gone! So easy to make, so yummy and so deserving of being shared with you all....

 

Oatmeal Cookies (makes about 20 - depending on how many you taste test....)

85gm unsalted butter

1/2 cup raw sugar

1 egg

1/2 tsp vanilla

1/3 cup plain flour

1/4 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 cup chopped nuts (I used almonds but walnuts or peanuts would be delish too)

1 & 1/2 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup dried fruit (I used raisins but next time I'm trying apricots & dark chocolate!)

Preheat oven to 180C. Cream butter and sugar. Add egg and vanilla, mix well.

Sift flour, soda and salt together. Stir into creamed mixture.

Add everything else and mix well.  

Using you hands make walnut sized balls of dough and place them on a lined or greased cookie tray. The dough balls can be varied in size for small cookies or great big ones.

Press down balls till they about 1-1.5 cm thick. Bake in oven for about 12-15 mins or until edges of cookies are light golden brown.  Let them cool and enjoy!