100th Post!

I've been wracking my brain trying to come up with some contest or something to celebrate my 100th post but the idea eluded me and i kept putting off posting anything! In desperation i turned to my usually less creative other half and lo and behold he came up with a brilliant idea! Here goes:

I would like you to track back your minds (or blogger's archives :P) and answer just 3 questions from my previous posts. Of course only the seriously determined (or deluded) will even care to respond to this challenge but at the end of it you will be greatly rewarded by something handmade by me. Those of you who know me will know my hobbies so lets start there...

1) What are my 4 main hobbies?

2) Name ONE of the three people/families that have come to visit us here in Mt Isa (they have to have stayed with us).

3)Where did i spend my birthday this year?

I realize there may be several of you that answer these 3 easy questions correctly so from the correct answers I'll get Jesse to pick out ONE name out of a hat. Of course there's also the very real possibility that no one will even bother to comment so if that happens I'll just sit here and wonder why i don't have any friends!

Be sure to leave you email address with your answers in the comments page :)

I will leave you with some pics I've taken in the last couple of weeks...

Charli Turned three this week...

Lily & Jesse got spoilt with a treat from Miss Karen so Mummy could have a play with the camera...

and i managed to steal Abby away for a short girly mini-shoot...

I'll be posting more of little Abby on my photography blog over the next few day so be sure to check that out, but for now peace out! :)

The cake is not a lie!

If you don't know what I'm talking about then don't worry your pretty little heads about it and just enjoy the visual and maybe try out the recipe for yourselves, as for the rest of you... I'll deal with you later!

I mentioned to my friend Neek that i have an abundance of oranges and lemons and she linked to a recipe found on this blog. I made it today and it is the easiest recipe to follow and the product is quite easy in the palette (probably not on the hips though LOL)

Here's the recipe and trust me you'll be eating it within the hour!

Orange(or lemon) Poppy-seed Muffins

1.5 cups self raising flour

1 orange (or lemon but I haven't tried it with a lemon yet)

180g melted butter

1 cup sugar

3 eggs

Poppyseeds to taste (i put in about 1/3 cup the recipe says about one tblspn)

Process all in a food processor till it comes together and all the orange or lemon is finely processed. Bake in for about 15-20 minutes or until knife comes out clean and enjoy!

Oh and now that i'm back from Canberra i'd like to share

5 Things i'm thankful for

while i was there:

1. An uneventful flight.

2. My sister spoiling me with leaf tea at her house

3. Seeing all the family and friends at the party (photos to come)

4. That the weather had warmed up from the week before so i wasn't so cold.

5. Talking to my babies and Lalo everyday and knowing they were fine.

Now that i'm back:

1. Hugs from my babies and Lalo right off the plane

2. Finding the house in order and dinner cooked.

3. Getting my computer back.

4. Lily walking so well all around the place (too cute!).

5. Ali keeping her baby in while i was away...(You can have it any time now LOL!)

Now i must go and have some tea and a muffin...

Canberra is Cold!

Yes sir it is mighty cold here in the capital but it's been nice seeing family and even as i sit here next my SIL the cold doesnt put a damper on the fun! Until that is i think of my babies at home and that brings me back down to earth, i am missing them more than i thought i would :(

Anyways, no photos just a quick hello and a 'watch this space' because i'll have some pretty cool pics coming up :)

Cheers Big Ears!

I've been busy...

Taking photos of others mostly, not so much my own little treasures but treasures just the same :)

Here's a taste what you'll see coming up in my photography blog in the next few days...

If you're curious click on the Memories by Carol link on the right and tell me what you think :)

I'm also getting ready to go to Canberra in almost two weeks so I'll have to dig out my winter woollies and just pray that the cold doesn't catch me by surprise so i don't get sick! Of course I say this as I reach for the tissues because it suddenly got cold here in sunny (but cold & windy) Mt Isa so i better start medicating myself with all sorts of the natural elixirs i push on everyone else LOL!

Thanks for looking :)

Practice makes perfect?

Yes my obsession hasn't waned one iota! Jesse rarely stands still for me if i have the camera around so Lily is my main victim!

I've been testing my lenses for sharpness (you see i had a suspicion my big lens 28-135 wasn't as sharp as it should be but of course it's just user error)

Pretty sharp you reckon? If you look closely you can see me in Jesse's eyes taking the photo LOL!

I also have been practicing with a bit of sun flare...

and perspective...

and this is just to show that the little Miss CAN stand on her own quite easily but refuses to attempt this thing called walking LOL!

Not much else happening around here, I'm trying to get some sewing done here and there and I'll show you some of my creations when i get a bit more time :) Thanks for looking and don't forget to leave a comment so i know you visited :)

One of my Favourite Recipes...

At this time of the year when our orange tree is starting to yield it's fruit i love serving this up...

Serve with a dollop of double cream and lap up the compliments ladies and gentlemen!

Flourless Orange & Almond Cake

2 oranges

1 ½ cups of Ground Almonds

1 cup caster sugar

1 tspn Baking Powder

1tspn Vanilla Essence

1 tspn Cointreau

6 eggs

Icing sugar, to dust

1. Wash oranges well to remove any sprays or waxes. Place the whole oranges in a large saucepan, add enough water to cover them and place a small plate on top to keep the oranges submerged. Gradually bring the water to the boil, the reduce heat and simmer for 40 minutes (oranges should be quite soft and are ready when a sharp knife slides in & out easily).Preheat oven to 180C, lightly grease the tin and line the bottom only with baking paper.

2. Cut oranges into quarters & leave to cool. Remove any pips and place oranges in food processor and blend until they form a very smooth pulp. Add the ground almonds, caster sugar, baking powder, vanilla essence and Cointreau and using the pulse button blend until all the ingredients are combined. Add the eggs and process again until just combined- take care not to over process (the mixture will be thick & may look slightly lumpy).

3. Pour the mixture into the prepared tin and bake for 50 minutes or until the cake is firm and leaves the side of the tin. Dust with icing sugar to serve.

Why do i give away my secrets??

Well it's not really mine to give away but through this blog i came across this competition.

The website has lots of scrummy things for sewing and all sorts of beautiful crafty stuff so go on over and check it out...i may have already added stuff to my shopping cart LOL!

In my never ending quest to improve my photography and take portraits good enough to sell, my camera and i have been inseparable, and when I'm not spending time taking the photos I'm back in the office processing them and reading everything there is to know about it all. I would eventually like to show you before and afters (how i used to do it and how i do it now) of all I've learnt but there's too much and I'm definitely not an expert yet!

So here's a few photos I've taken here and there for you to HOPEFULLY see an improvement on and of course just to show off my gorgeous kids *wink*

I'm of course thinking big things and with this in mind i have bought a cute little prop for any willing little girls brave enough to put up with my enthusiasm...

I was originally going to make one of these gorgeous pettiskirts but on the advice of one wise woman I decided against it in favour of keeping my sanity *wink*.

So do i have any volunteers? I am traveling to Canberra at the end of June for just a week so be sure to book in early =D

Just one more quick share:)...Jesse is and has always endeavored to be super helpful around the house and when he asked to have eggs one morning for breakky i thought I'd try getting him to feed Lily while i got the eggs ready...

He did a fantastic job and Lily just loves her big brother to bits so this would've been a treat for her! So for this reason there was lots of laughs and cute exchanges between them and they were finished in no time! This was the end result though...

Thanks for looking and God Bless :)

Cupcakes...

Just a quick share today, BFF made a request for my cupcake recipe so i thought I'd share with everyone :)

Carol's Cupcakes

125g butter

2/3 cup caster sugar

1 1/2 cups self raising flour

1/2 cup milk

2 eggs

Preheat oven to 180C and get patty-cases ready in muffin tin. Dump all ingredients in a bowl and beat on low then increase to high speed and beat till mixture is smooth and pale yellow. Divide evenly among patty cases and bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Decorate as desired :)

I always double quantities MINIMUM and freeze so i have them as needed, they defrost really well as if I'd just baked them :)(just one of my secrets to being a domestic goddess *wink*)

What you almost missed...

Due to some 'issews' with my inbuilt card reader my memory card was corrupted and would not read even in my camera! ... so after a lot of wheeling and dealing with the mostly helpful guys at Harvey Norman I've been able to share this moment with you :)

You see... we've had a little visitor around our home lately, he's kinda tiny and green and may not even be a he but a she but i cant tell these things and haven't had the time to investigate further so for now we call him George...

I have a plenty more photos of little George to share but i couldn't resist posting these the minute I recovered them from the card. I don't know who's cuter the little green critter or my big critter LOL!