knittinginperth

Summer Holiday Fun

I know it has been awhile and I have been working towards this post for sometime.  I have to admit that it has taken me awhile on and off to edit all of my holiday photos from our summer holiday at the farm.  Always so many good things to capture, so by the end of our holiday I am left with zillions of photos to edit and upload to flickr.  Finally finished and now it is time to share.

Here is a series of photos of the farm buildings.  The farm is located between Mt Barker and Albany in the south west of Western Aust. 

 

You can view the rest of the series of the farm here.

Mum and I took the boys to Albany Marron and Bird Park.  We all had a ball hand feeding the all the parrots.  We also enjoyed a delicious lunch at Nippers Cafe, which I highly recommend to anyone visiting Albany.  Here are two of my favourite shots from the day.

 

All the other photos from the day can be viewed here.

 

MM Christmas morning before present opening started at the farm.  More photos of the boys enjoying themselves at various times a few days prior and during Christmas day can be viewed here.

So Sweet

On Friday evening I was busy working away at the computer when AJ came into my office and presented me with a bunch of roses that he had picked from our garden and put into water all by himself, which was just such an awwwwwwwwwww moment as I didn't even realise he had gone outside, which he often does to play.  As you can image I was totally blown away with this act of sweetness.  Awhile later he brought me another lot, so now I am surround by two small vase full of my favourite pink roses on my desk.  He has such a kind caring spirit and just loves animals and plants.

Here he is playing scooby-doo on the computer yesterday, which is another of his favourite things to do.

All for now! Helen

Happy 8th Birthday Matt

This post is a little late as his birthday was at the beginning of November.

Since Matt was 3 years old he has always loved building all sorts of Lego.  A few years ago he started requesting Star Wars MTT Trade Federation Troop Carrier, which we thought wasn't appropriate for a 5 year old as it would take forever for me to build and one of our kindy teachers told me that it took her 13 year old Son a week to build, so you can understand my hesitation in gifting him one of these until now.  I'm pleased to say our decision to wait until he was older paid off as he built it all by himself over two weeks on and off with no problems.  If you haven't already guessed he is a very passionate Star Wars fan.

His party was held at Dark Zone a laser gun gaming venue in Willetton, which the boys absolutely love a week after his birthday and all the kids had a fun time.

 

Enjoying the party food.

 

Matt with his best friend T.  They have been friends since Pre-Primary

Matt enjoying his birthday chocolate cupcakes.

AJ enjoying his cool drink and showing off his lollies.

We are very proud of all your achievements Matt over the last year, especially your school merit award for story writing, finishing the Fast Forward program and getting your yellow belt at Karate.  Many big hugs and keep up all your good work.

Happy 6th Birthday Adam

Adam's 6th birthday party was held on Friday at Jungle Gym in Willetton again, which was a great success judging by the amount of fun had and food consumed. Of course I baked my famous easy chocolate cupcakes again, which were all devoured in no time.  At Adam's request I did make his version of strawberry cupcakes which are vanilla cupcakes with bright pink icing and pink marshmallows.  Here are some photos I snapped overlooking the play area and while the kids were enjoying the party food.

 

 

 

 

 

A Morning at the Park in July

We are very lucky to live a block away from the Canning River with a modern playground, which we do not visit nearly enough these days.  As it was a glorious sunny winters day we arranged to meet up with some friends one morning during the school holidays, as we hadn't seen our friends from Mother's Group for over three months, as live in another suburb and go to a different school across the highway.  As it was such a beautiful day I thought I would take the camera along for the ride, so here is what I captured during the three hours that we were there.

 

 

 

 

 

In the afternoon we made biscuits for the first time.

 

 

 

The boys enjoyed the fruits of their baking over the next few days.

Basic Biscuits

125 g (4 oz) butter chopped into cubes

1/2 cup castor sugar

1 free range egg

1/4 tspn vanilla essence

1 cup organic plain flour

1 cup organic SR flour

Method

Preheat oven to 160 degrees.  Line two baking trays with baking paper.

Beat together butter and sugar until creamy.  Add vanilla, egg and beat well.  Fold in sifted flours to make a soft dough.

Turn dough onto a baking sheet and cover with another sheet.  Roll out to 1/4" thick.  Use biscuit cutters to cut out shapes and place on trays. Keep repeating this step until you have no dough left.

Bake batches for 10 - 15 minutes, or until lightly golden.

Enjoy!

Festive Fun

Hope this finds you enjoying the festive season and quality time with your loved ones. Here are some highlights from our Christmas day, which was a quiet one with close family. 

I kept Christmas lunch simple by making my home made lasagna which I tend to only make for special occasions as per DH request.  I cooked the sauce and meatballs for the first time the day before in new slow cooker gifted to us in December by my wonderful Mum.  It cooked the sauce beautifully and I just assembled the lasagna on Christmas morning using fresh pasta and put it in the oven to cook slowly for approx an hour.  The sauce ingredients were all organic, so it tasted delicious.  DH and MIL were still talking about it the next day.

Flying High Brother

Today is my younger brother David's birthday, so I thought that is was only fitting that I post some photos of him flying his gyrocopter around the farm early one morning while we were staying there recently.  The boys love watching him fly over the house and surrounding farms.   He has been flying for quite a few years now and has rebuilt and sold some gyrocopters along the way too.  He has had this one for awhile now, as he doesn't really get much time to rebuild them anymore due to all the other farm work that needs his constant attention. 

He has always been very good with his hands and fixes all sorts of vehicles and farm machinery, which keeps him very busy.  My Pop (Mum's Dad) was a pilot for many years and I have vivid memories of him landing his small plane up on the farm air strip when I was a small girl, so I guess that is where my brother inherited his flying passion from.   

It is at times like this that I wish I had a SLR digital camera as my current camera struggled to capture the flying  shots, as it doesn't have the zoom capacity needed for shoots like these.

He is definitely the more adventurous one of us, as I like to have lots of metal around me when I am flying and even then I would still prefer to keep my feet on the grown.  He doesn't get to fly very often as  you need perfect weather conditions with no wind.

Happy Birthday Dave and I hope you had a super day and we wish you many more happy flights!

Holiday Times

Back home now after a lovely time at my parent's farm north of Albany in the South West of WA.  The boys enjoyed lots of tractor and motor bike rides along with playing in the sand pit and swinging on our old swing that we used when we were kids.  I enjoyed relaxing and spending time with Mum along with lots of tea and Gluten Free Raspberry muffins.  Some other holiday highlights were a visit to Albany's beaches, indoor playground and Denmark Pentland Alpaca Farm.  Mum spoilt the boys with lots of presents.

Knitting wise I did finish one sock for my Dad and are half way up the foot on the second one.  I am using Lana Grosa Mega boot sock yarn.  I also started knitting my Clapotis, which will take me forever to finish as I am knitting it in The Knittery's  4 ply handpainted in Kelim.  More pictures to come in next post along with pics of my sock club yarns that arrive while I was away.

Wishing you all a happy peaceful 2007 with lots good knitting and fibery moments.

Here are some snaps at the Alpaca farm

Merry Christmas Everyone

Just a quick post to say Merry Christmas and a Happy Safe Knitty New Year to all the wonderful readers of my blog.  Hope the holiday season brings you lots of knitting time amongst all the other festive activities.  Below are a few pictures from Christmas morning in our house with the boys.

Off to make nori rolls to take to Christmas lunch at hubby's cousins place in Mindarie 1 hour north of Perth, so wish me luck.

Hope you have a great day and I will be back with more knitty news shortly including pics of a FO.