did that really just happen?

Hello, my name is Laura. I am of reasonable height and in decent shape for my size. I can wear most of my trousers without worrying about muffin top (or cake top on a bad day!) I own a lovely knitted poncho that looks like little flowers all strung together. Today, I wore my lovely knitted poncho top over my pajama top to go to the doctor to get some drugs for a fairly ouchy infection. I was attempting to look like I was not, in fact, wearing my pajamas in public. Moderate success.  As you do, when trying to fly undetected, under the radar, you meet someone you know. I met a lady I know vaguely from school in the doctors office. For the record, I look like death today.

Her opener: "Congratulations! When is your baby due?"  me: "I had him. 6 months ago."  Ouch.
Do I look pregnant? I hope not. If so, must lay off of eating cake. Or stop wearing lovely poncho.

Anyway, here are the 'Did that really just happen?' highlights of late:

1) "Your lunch went in your tummy mummy, you've got a baby in your tummy." 
NO I DO NOT.

2) "I driving my fire engine through wee wee" again, noooooooo.

3) "Why is baby Luke crying?"  "Cos I hit my bottle with the train track and it hit him." (the mind boggles at the different expressions of the same basic bullying.)

I find the best thing for times like these is something a little bit gooey, squidgy and chocolately.

Chocolate Chip Bread and Butter Pudding

8 slices bread, crusts on or off, your call.
butter/dairy free marg
chocolate bits (tesco value plain chocolate is dairy free and a steal at 30p a bar)
about 30ish g of sugar (about a 1/4 cup)
1 pint soymilk/ almond milk
2 eggs
nutmeg

Preheat your oven to 150C/ 300F.  Butter your dish, and butter your slices of bread on 1 side. I like to cut them in triangles. Use plain chocolate and enjoy cutting it up or beating out frustrations on it. Or if you feel at peace, use chocolate chips. (I used DF plain choc and it came out lovely)

Layer the buttered bread slices covering most of the bottom of the dish. Top each layer with a generous sprinkle of sugar and chocolate bits. Then mix together your soymilk and eggs and pour over the top. Let it hang out for about 30mins to let the egg and milk soak in. Have a cuppa, make some dinner....  Then sprinkle some nutmeg over the top. Pop it in the oven for 45 mins - 1hr, until its a bit golden on top and a knife in the middle comes out clean.

This version is creamier and gooeyier (sp?) than your average bread and butter pudding, but tastes like pain au chocolate only softer and more custardy. I would have a picture, but it got eaten too quickly.

slugs, stolen goods, and the art of the Spanish language.

I am now happily eating lemon blueberry cake and drinking a much much much needed cup of tea.

Today was a very busy Friday. Joel and I have been patiently waiting for our strawberry crop to fruit and ripen for us to pick and try one. We were waiting for today because our first big red strawberry was going to be ready. Daddy was out in the garden, we asked him to check on our fruit and lo and behold,  a slug had gotten there first. Right in the middle of our lovely juicy ripe strawberry a baby slug had happily munched away on half of it. I was annoyed, Joel's face was the picture of disappointment. We deemed it a naughty slug. I looked up what to do to keep slugs away--consensus seems to be eggshells or beer. Joel liked the word beer. Eggshells were what we had to hand. We then crushed all the eggshells from today (5 in total) and spread them around to defend our strawberries. Later I checked the shells were doing the job, only to find the most enormous Jabba the hut slug I have ever seen under one of my strawberry plants. So I did what you do. I flicked it 15 feet into the hedge with my trowel. Nothing messes with my berries.

We also did some much overdue DIY this week. Finishing off the trim in the conservatory (it's taken us since Sept 2010 to finish this job.) And hanging some shelves. We need to pick up some bits to tile a splashback in the downstairs loo and so we took a family field trip to Wickes. Whenever I walk in Wickes with the children, immediately, the annoucement about how parents must look after their children is played. I wonder if they have a button they push....  Anyway, we looked at tiles, decided we needed to do more research, went back to the car only to realise that Joel had tucked, under Luke's carseat, on the trolley, some particularly lovely stone border tiles. Daddy and Joel returned the stolen goods.

While making dinner- we created the kitchen mess. While it was fun--  mixing crushed cornflakes, chicken breasts, DF ranch dressing and toddlers gets messy. Then they wash their hands and dip the tea towel in the washing up bowl, lifting it up to say "It's dripping now mummy" Really? Shock.  Then we made cake. Joel's learned that he likes batter. So now instead of waiting to lick the beater or the bowl, he just tries to dig in. Managed to stop his hand, only to turn around to get blueberries out of the fridge, to find him then dipping the beater back into the batter and trying to load it into his mouth. Boy likes cake. Even not yet cooked.

On the plus side, we learned some Spanish while making all of this mess. Joel is pretty good at 'Hola' and 'Buenos Dias'. Quite liked 'bombero' as well.

Lemon Blueberry Cake

1/2 cup butter (dairy free spread)

1 1/2 cups sugar

2 eggs

zest and juice of 1 lemon

3 cups flour

1 tsp cream of tartar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 cup milk  (can use soy or almond or oat and still turns out well)

1 pint blueberries (2 x 125g packs. They are 69p at Aldi this week. go go go)

Grease a 13x9 pan, or a tube/bundt pan. Preheat oven to 190C/375F.  Cream together the butter, sugar and eggs. Add the lemon juice and zest.  Then add the dry ingredients alternately with the milk. Dust the blueberries with flour and fold it. Pour it into the prepared pan and bake for 40-50 mins, until a tester in the center comes clean. I like to drizzle a glaze of icing sugar and lemon juice on top. Your call. Just as nice without.



hello friday

Cup of tea. check. Baby now in the jumperoo. check. Washing on. check. New pajama bottoms. check. Sheets changed. check. Time 6:45am. Ugh. Nothing says good morning quite like exploding baby poo.

It's always when they look sweet and lovely and you think, 'oh I'll just change him here in the bed, he looks so cute, maybe he'll go back to sleep really quickly after....'  Then you get the nappy off, and then you get machine gunned with poo. All over me, all over him, all over the bed. Hello Friday. Lesson learned (again) : Use the changing mat. That's what its there for.

It is though, a beautiful sunny morning and baby has been learning how to turn around in the jumperoo and so has occupied himself for the last half an hour which is a total bonus, it means I could recover with tea. Recovering with tea has rather been the theme of this last month, which has seen so much-- an ambulance ride, hospital stay, potty training, a week's holiday at the beach, the start of weaning, the change of my grandfather moving in with my parents, re mortgage of our house, the passing on of two wonderful, godly men-Bob and Andy, the deposit for the little one to go to nursery in September (means I am actually going back to work soon...), a 3rd birthday for Joel and our 8th wedding anniversary.

Sometimes you don't realise how much God has brought you through until you look back to see where you've come from.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13.

A better reading of that verse is-- 'I am strong for all things in the One [Jesus Christ] who continually infuses me with strength.'  I love that interpretation. I am not trying to do everything on my own, I am not even working from a bag of strength that was once given to me. I am able to face everything in life because I have Jesus, who is continually with me, infusing strength into me at every point. A friend of mine, on long walks back up the ginormous hill to their house, used to give her daughter raisins or grapes on the way, one every few metres to keep her going. Jesus gives strength, all along the way, so much so that when you reach the top of the hill, you don't even realise how far you've come until you look back and think, wow- look what we did.  It's not on my own, it's not Jesus on his own. It's us together. Him and I. I and Him. And that keeps me going. Along with tea and the occasional batch of lemon bars.

Lemon Bars

Oven to 175C/325F  Lightly grease and line a square cake tin with greaseproof paper.

6oz plain flour
4oz butter
2oz white sugar

7oz caster sugar
2 tbsp plain flour
1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
2 eggs
juice and finely grated zest of 1 lemon

icing (powdered) sugar

Rub together the flour and butter (or dairy free marg) until it looks like breadcrumbs. Stir in the sugar and press the mixture into the bottom of the tin. Pop it in the oven for about 20 minutes.  While that's baking, mix together the sugar, flour, baking powder, salt, eggs and lemon until smooth. Pour this over the base and put it back in the oven for another 25 minutes until set but a little wobbly in the centre. Cool in the tin on a rack and then sprinkle with icing sugar.

Joel calls these 'sugar bites' and he'd be right. But soooo yummy when recovering with tea.