Guest Post - Lauren's Gingerbread Recipe

Today's guest post is from Lauren, one of the nicest people you could ever meet!  As well as being an especially lovely person, Lauren is a talented cook.  (You might remember that she made the owl cup-cakes and Halloween cookies at Tammy's Halloween birthday party?)  You can find more from Lauren on her own Blog here.)

Hello lovely readers of Patches of Heaven! I blog over at Living Loved!  This recipe is one of my favourite things to bake and is always a hit at Christmas, so when I was asked to write a post I knew that this is what I wanted to share!

Gingerbread: 125g butter 1/2 cup treacle (golden syrup will do if you don't have treacle) 1/2 cup lightly packed brown sugar 1 egg yolk 1 tablespoon ground ginger 2 teaspoons mixed spice 1 teaspoon bi-carb soda 2 1/2 cups self  raising flour, sifted Icing 11/3 icing sugar 1 tablespoon lemon juice 1 egg white 1. Preheat oven to 180/160 degrees fan forced.. 2. Combine butter, treacle and brown sugar in a small pan and melt. Remove to a bowl and cool. 3. Stir in egg yolk and remaining dry ingredients to form a soft dough. 4. Turn onto plastic wrap and press into a flat disc. Rest in fridge for an hour. 5. Roll dough to 7-8mm thick on a lightly floured surface and cut gingerbread with cookie cutter of your choice. 6. Place on baking paper-lined tray and bake for 7-10mins until firm. 7. Stand on tray for 5 mins then remove to a wire rack to cool completely. 8. Decorate as desired!   Quick tip for you: Gingerbread is all about it's time in the oven, so while I've outlined a time, play around with it when making your first batch and you can decide what works best for you!

Quick tip for you: Gingerbread is all about it's time in the oven, so while I've outlined a time, play around with it when making your first batch and you can decide what works best for you!

Monday Movie - Mr. Krueger's Christmas

Jimmy Stewart, sometimes called, 'America's most beloved actor,' made two great Christmas movies.  His most famous is called, 'It's a Wonderful Life,' and can be seen in its entirety on Youtube, (if you follow the link).

His other Christmas movie was made for television in 1980 and is called, 'Mr Krueger's Christmas'.  Perhaps you've seen it?  

I know everyone gets pretty busy at Christmas, but if you've got about 26 minutes, I think you'll like this?  It's a little dated now, but still has a wonderful Christmas spirit about it.  The last link below is to a pivotal scene in the film, and is under 4 minutes, if you only have a couple of minutes.  Even better though to start at Part 1, to get the whole gist of things.  This short movie was made by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but its message is universal and non-denominational.   Happy Christmas season!

(Part 1 of Mr. Krueger's Christmas)

(Part 2 of Mr. Krueger's Christmas)

(Part 3 of Mr. Kruger's Christmas)

(Excerpt from manger scene)

The Three Most Important Tips For Great Family Photographs!!

I am no great photographer, but I think the following photography tips are virtually priceless, seriously! :)

Rule Number One Of Family Photography -  Remember to take lots of photos!!

There are lots of posts I'd love to do for you, especially around the theme of Christmas, which has always been big in our family.  Unfortunately though, I am hampered because I've always been absolutely terrible at taking photos of what we do - whether when we were having fun, making, laughing, playing, going, or just living, etc. - we don't have all that many photos, and I wish we did!  (For example, I've catered dozens of weddings etc. over the years, and don't have a single photo of anything I've done.  I just never thought of it. )  So my first, very important tip is: Remember to take lots of photos!!

As the years pass we look back and often only clearly remember the times we have recorded on film.  Our photographs many times virtually become our memories!  Even if we do remember more than just that ourselves, it's difficult to share those times with others when we have no images to accompany our stories.  And when we go, those memories go too.

My excuses for not taking having many family photos...

1. At first photographs were expensive enough to get developed that we always thought twice about taking too many.  (That was back in the days of non-digital cameras, so doesn't apply anymore.)
2. My second excuse is that I was always having too much fun and in the thick of things to think about taking photos as we went.  I was too busy!  (If you are like this too, then you and I both should ask someone else in the family to take photos when we are too busy or don't want to do it ourselves.)

Rule Number Two - Make an effort to take good photos

Having lots of photos won't be so very wonderful if all you have is poor photographs.  Every photograph abides by the rules of Compose and Expose.  The Compose part is all about being careful what you photograph.  A photographer is like a director, making sure that all the right things and none of the wrong things are in the frame.  The Expose part of things is about getting to know the basics of photography along with the basic functions of your camera enough to take good photographs. Photoshop programs are great, but it's better and easier to get a good shot to begin with where you can.

Rule Number Three - Store your photos safely

When we finally bought a digital camera we tried to be better about taking more photos - of big family celebrations, family activities, all the great and small stuff in our lives, (especially after having been so bad at it!).  After about four or five years of this, our computer 'blew up' and took all of our photographs with it!  Nothing is left from that time in our lives.

This could happen to you too.  Are your photographs stored safely?  Perhaps by having copies of everything on discs, on a separate hard-drive, on another computer, or on a storage site for photographs?

Also, if you print your photos out, avoid them turning brown and yellow over the years by storing them carefully in acid-free albums or boxes.

When people are asked what they would save if they had to quickly escape a burning house, the most popular response is, 'our family photographs'.  Because they are irreplaceable!

(Just like our three children in these photos.  Irreplaceable :)  At least they do 'Take lots of photos!!')

Our Elf on the Shelf!!

This is our first year of the Elf on the Shelf Christmas Tradition, and we were very excited to kick it off on Saturday morning with a fabulous breakfast!!  

Of course, 'fabulous' in our case didn't mean 'perfectly beautifully presented' - now that I see the pictures it looks pretty messy and thrown together!!  But it was a yummy pancake breakfast, and was a lot of fun :)  

Our elf, Buddy, was chilling out on a little Christmas platter, along with some little gifts he had bought from the North Pole :)

He had even brought a note for each of the girls:

Who studiously read them when they sat down...

The gifts were EXACTLY the same as the ones Maggie and I made for her cousins the other day!! - More on those in another post..

And he even bought a bauble to hang on the tree for 'Baby Brother'!! 

On December 2, Buddy was perched on the star on top of our Christmas tree: 

December 3 he had a chat to Santa - this one thrilled Maggie all day.  She kept pretending she was on the other end of this phone call... :)

Day 4 he checked out our Christmas countdown:

(That photo above him is a newborn little Ana last year - Seeing it makes me so excited to have this baby!! :))

And then yesterday, December 5, he joined in the Nativity!

Buddy hasn't done anything super elaborate yet (obviously), or anything that involves food, like the cute ones I see on Pinterest!  He has also stuck to high surfaces, because the 'don't touch' rule is really hard for a 1 and a 2 year old to obey, when Buddy is within reach!!  But the girls are enjoying running out every morning and seeing where he is!!  I think this tradition will get more fun as he becomes more of a tradition each year, and the children remember and expect him to be running around this place all December long :)


(You can learn more about the Elf on the Shelf Christmas tradition here :)

Picture a Christmas...

For today's post, I thought I'd pull together some pictures of my favourite Christmas things, or of things that remind me of Christmas, or things that put me in the Christmas mood.  Because let's face it, it's almost Christmas, and I'm in a particularly Christmassy mood, and I thought I'd spread that joy around just a little so we can get excited together :)

Very first thing on the list:

 

 

Fairy Lights!!  Is there anything more Christmassy than fairy lights?! No! The answer is no! There's nothing more Christmassy than fairy lights :)

 

Two:

Christmas Carols! I love them. Whether it's singing them in church, actually going carolling, singing Handel's messiah with community choirs or just jamming out to carol CDs in the car.... I love this Christmas music.  In fact, I love it almost as much as my brother Michael, which is saying something, because he started playing carols in July...

Third:

This is not a hard one... Christmas Desserts.   (The miracle here is that I limited myself to only two pictures).

The next one's a little funny, because I think of it equally on two completely different ends of the spectrum:

That's right - winter AND summer. For the five years I lived at the foot of the rocky mountains, nothing said Christmas quite like an invigorating nip in the air and those beautiful, magical, falling flakes. On the other hand, the last several years back home in Australia, nothing has said Christmas (and Christmas holidays) like the heating up of the air and that slightly slower, completely wonderful, laid back pace everyone adopts in December. I love that by December 10th, it becomes almost impossible to get any work done with clients because the entire city of Brisbane has decided to shut down. "Oh, we'll just do that in the New Year" becomes the most opt repeated phrase in the Brisbane workforce!

Fifth (and closely related to the third), are some typically Aussie foods that always make me feel like it's Christmas:

That's right - Prawns and stone fruit.  Yum, yum, and yum!

Sixth:

Chilling with the family. One of my very favourite things.  (Obviously I didn't have a picture of my actual family on hand.  But since I always think of Christmas against a Bing Crosby soundtrack in my head, this picture actually captures it all pretty well, lol!)

Seventh: 

Presents! I love spending what feels like half of my time leading up to Christmas getting my presents organised.  Making lists, ordering things, darting through crowds at the department stores, creating things, realising you've finally stumbled on the perfect Christmas present idea for so-and-so.  And then watching everyone open your presents on Christmas morning. So. Much. Fun :)

And finally, or perhaps I should say ultimately, my very very favourite thing about Christmas: Is the actual meaning of Christmas. I love that my thoughts turn to the Saviour and his wonderful gift to all of us. I don't think that it's a coincidence that there's such a special spirit in the world at Christmas time. That inclination to be kinder, more generous, a little more cheerful.  Just a little more like Him.

 

 

So, happy 5th of December!

20 days to go, and counting.... :)

 

xo Tammy 



Guest Post by Ally - Joy School

This is Ally's first ever Blog post!  Ally is a speech pathologist who now works at home as a busy full-time mother to her three beautiful girls.   We are very grateful that she has written for us about Joy School :)  With Ally's permission I have added some photos of her and the girls that were recently taken by Jessima.

This is my first EVER blog entry. 20 minutes at the keyboard, and I've lost count of the number of times I've hit the Backspace button just writing my first line. That's because I have that annoying problem of wanting everything I do to be just right. Thankfully, I get to write about Joy School. When it comes to this ingenious program, everything feels just right.

http://joyschoolco.blogspot.com.au/

Joy School was created by parenting gurus Linda and Richard Eyre. It's a curriculum for 3-5 year old kiddies, and from what I can gather, parents all around the world have been teaching its lessons for decades! As the name suggests, this program is all about helping kids to experience joy in all its forms. When I first read this, I cynically thought "What does joy have to do with learning? Doesn't it just happen on its own?". But what I'm quickly discovering is that when you focus on teaching joy, the learning of other concepts is what happens on its own. I won't go too much more into what Joy School has to offer because these 2 amazing sites here and here will tell you all about it.

What I want to share is the little gems of joy that I have experienced in becoming a teacher-mum alongside my friend Jessima. She and I take turns teaching the lesson. We hold it every Thursday morning. The curriculum suggests doing 2 lessons a week, but life is too busy for Jessima and I to manage that. That is one of the wonderful things about Joy School - it gives the parents the freedom to decide what works best for them. We started almost 2 months ago and have done 7 lessons which have been predominantly about the Joy of the Body. The concepts we've covered are amazingly simple, so simple in fact, that you wouldn't think you could get a 2 and a half hour lesson out of it. And yet, I almost always run out of time when I'm teaching, because the lesson content is so diverse and rich. To give you an idea, when we covered the 5 senses, we made a smelling collage with different aromatic herbs and spices and we listened to pre-recorded sounds that the kids had to try to identify.

When we talked about body parts, we compared our joints to hinges on different doors around the house. Eating and living healthy was our topic last week, and we had an enormous amount of fun discussing different vegetables and how they grow, before cutting them up and turning them into vegetable soup. But every week, no matter what we cover, the underlying message has always been that we are so lucky to have our bodies, and we are lucky that they do all that they do. If I was to just blurt that message out to my kids in the car or at the dinner table, my kids would politely smile and nod and then look at each other bemused with a look that said "that was pretty random...". Thanks to Joy School, my kids don't think I'm as kooky as I would otherwise seem AND they are actually learning what it means to enjoy their bodies.

One of the things that leave me most satisfied is when my 3 year olds comes out with something like, "Hey mum, I'm using my sense of smell!" as they sniff a flower, or they tell me what month we're in (it's sooo cute watching a toddler try to get their mouth around the word "November"). Inside, I victoriously claim: "There you go ABC 4 Kids - you don't teach my kids everything they know!!!"

Jessima's and my older children are charismatic, but strong-willed little girls. It has been amazing watching their friendship develop during Joy School. This is especially rewarding for us as their mums, because on the first day that they properly met, Jessima and I could hardly hold a conversation due to having to referee their constant arguments. lol

Thankfully, to help with the moments when a child decides to misbehave during the lesson (the older children are, not surprisingly, the usual perpetrators hehe), we have the Joy School House. It is this quaint little cardboard cut-out that works magic! When the kids arrive at Joy School, they each open up their window to reveal a photo of their smiling faces. Later on, if someone decides to be disruptive we simply say "oh, it doesn't sound like you're ready to be in Joy School today. We'd better close your window". Whenever I've had to say that to my munchkin, within 20 seconds she has this cheesy forced smile on her face and she's opening her window back open. She then manages to sit quietly for about ooooohhhhh 30 seconds before she's wriggling again, but she's at least a lot less disruptive right throughout the rest of the lesson.

I could go on an on about what I love about Joy School. It IS hard work, and requires more committment than I had initially realised, but it is incredibly rewarding because it's not just a source of joy for my kids, but for me too. It's nice to know that 20 years from now, I can look past the fighting, the whinging, the scrambled egg dinners, and the excessive amount of time my kids spent in front of the TV, and I'll be able to reassure myself that I definitely did some things right... Joy School being one of them.

Wise Men Still Seek Him

It's almost Christmas!  I hope you are all enjoying this wonderful time of the year :)    

I think you'll like this video..    xo

The Secret To Being A Good Mother?

http://suzysvintageattic.blogspot.com.au

Almost every mother wants to do a great job.  It would be great if there was a manual or training course that covered it all!   Mothers read parenting books, attend parenting workshops, and try their best every day - and regularly feel as though they are failing!   We might even feel like we are doing a terrible job some days.  (Even some weeks, and sometimes some years! :)

What makes a great mother?  Having everything home-cooked?  Staying slim and gorgeous?  Keeping the home immaculate?  Having the home messy and relaxed?  Lots of laughter?  Lots of teaching?  Slaphappy?  Always busy? Talkative?  Reserved?  Not too strict?  Not too lenient?   ...

The truth is that we are all so very different.  A great Mum could be any or none of the above.  There is only one quality that I believe all great mothers share, and it's this:  They care.  They love you more than they love themselves.  They care enough and love you enough to do their best every day and to never give up on you or on themselves.  

A good mother may even make lots of mistakes - but not because she doesn't care or isn't trying hard enough, but just because she gets it wrong sometimes.  She will apologize to her children for the mistakes she makes, and might explain to them that she'll probably make more mistakes - as hard as she's trying not to.  

And that will be probably be ok, because her children will be able to see and feel and believe that she loves, and cares, and believes in them, and always will.   A good mother isn't necessarily perfect, but her love almost is.

I find that enormously comforting!   The thought that a good mother is simply one who truly cares.

Bahahaha

2-year-old Maggie's appetite fluctuates, and some mornings she'll eat up to 7 (!!!) Weet-Bix for breakfast, while at other times, 2 is more than enough.  So these days, even if she asks for more, I always start her with 2, and then give her more, 1 at a time as she asks for them.  Still, sometimes she asks for another, and doesn't eat it all, and it's such a waste!!

Lately, she's been eating her 2, then a 3rd, and then asking for a 4th and only eating half of it, so the last couple of days when she's asked for a 4th, I've said 'No'. 

Also, she's been complaining about having milk in her Weet Bix.  When she asks for her 3rd, she says "No milk! No milk!!  Nnooooo!!!!" and gets upset at me putting milk in, though I've tried to tell her it's practically impossible to eat without milk on it.

This morning, she asked for her 3rd, and then her 4th.  When she asked for her 4th I said 'No', but she begged and begged, so I said she could have a 4th, but she HAD to sit up until she ate ALL of it - was that okay? "Yes, I will eat it all up!"  I told her in about 5 different ways that she'd be sitting there till she ate the whole thing, and she agreed, so I gave her the 4th.  When I was about to put the milk in, she started begging to not have any milk in it.  So I said 'Okay, no milk then - but remember you have to eat the whole thing'.  I crunched up the Weet-Bix so she'd be able to get it on her spoon without milk, and handed her the bowl.  She looked at it for aaages, then looked up at me and said "Oh.  no milk."  "That's right!"  I said, "Just like you asked!  Are you sure you don't want any milk??" and she looked at it for ages again, before saying slowly "Nooo... no milk".  She looked devastated, and so obviously really wanted milk, but her 2 year old pride wouldn't budge ... bahahahahaha.

She sat there and painfully downed most of the dry Weet-Bix, while I delightedly cleared up Ana and my breakfast things.  When I was putting the milk back in the fridge Maggie freaked out again and said "No! - Don't put the milk away!!!" and I said "Why?  Would you like some??" but she still wouldn't budge :)

Finally, she said "Finished, Mummy!!" and I asked her if she'd eaten it all, and she slowly said 'Nooo...' and looked sadly down at the remaining dry Weet-Bix (I was impressed at how much she'd gotten through!!).  I asked her again if she'd like some milk to finish it and she said "No".

A few minutes later, she said, "Mummy you can if you want" and I asked "Want to what?" and she said "You can if you want, Mummy" and I said "What can I do?" and she said "You can put the milk in there".  I said "I don't want to, unless you want me to??" - silence. 

Another couple of minutes later I finally heard "Mummy?  Can I please have some milk" :)  Bahahahaha.  So I put some milk in there and she was done in 2 minutes.  I cleaned her up and she asked me for a drink of water, poor girl :)

Hopefully she's had enough of the milk fight.

A while ago Maggie started freaking out every time I cleaned her ears and nose with cotton-tips.  She started throwing a tantrum and saying "No it hurts! No!!!!" every time I cleaned her up after her bath.  One day I got her out of the bath, and we were in such a hurry that I rushed through and didn't cotton tip her ears.  When I said I was done, she froze and exclaimed "No Mummy!  My ears!  Clean my ears!!!!" and she never complained again lol - the things this girl does for kicks! :)

Diary of a public pool novice

A long time ago (12 months), in a suburb (not that) far away...

I was stressed and exhausted. It was a really busy time of year  and I was getting very little sleep or wind-down time in amongst everything else.  The weather was warm and sunny, and I found myself longing to be out doing something active.  This was a new and strange feeling for me (what?! Go outside?! But it's hot! And there's no air conditioning out there!!). 

When to make things even stranger, I had a sudden urge to go swim some laps.  I'd been trying to add a little exercise into my life, and I think the idea of being in cool refreshing water on a hot day (and, let's face it, not going for a run or some other kind of horrible outdoor exercise) was almost exciting!

Long story short, a couple of weeks later I found myself at our local swimming pool.  It's gorgeous and old with a great sense of character and a real 'neighbourhood feel' to it.  I love it! (that's not it in the above picture by the way.... that's just a google pool... lol!)

Anyway, the thing about swimming laps at a local pool, if you haven't done it, is that after the excitement of buying some goggles and paying for your pass and walking through the pool area feeling all summery and sporty and, well, 'cool',  you find yourself standing at the side of the pool staring at the people who are 'actually cool'.  And they swim those laps like machines.  I stood there for about 5 minutes trying to decide whether it would be more embarrassing to get in the pool with the machines, or to walk back through the entrance past the women who knows I only came in 2 minutes ago...

But I told myself not to be a coward (pull yourself together woman!),  watched everyone for another 10 minutes to try and figure out the rules, and then took a deep breath and forced myself to get in the water and (let's face it) annoy all the machines.

Here are some things I've learnt:

1) During busy times, there are lots of people in each lane.  You're supposed to find a gap and jump in, joining everyone else in swimming up on the left and down on the right.

2) People don't love it when you accidentally kick them in the head.

3) Choosing the lane with the 'old people' in hopes that it will be a slower lane is not actually good practise.  Not only do they often go much faster than the other lanes, but they'll also leave you feeling much worse than if you'd been in a lane with the Olympic swimmers (did that 95 year old woman just lap me?! AGAIN?!)

4)  This one took me a while to learn, but: Don't Stress.  If you're slow, people will just swim past you.  And try not to take that personally.  It's not worth drowning over (she says, with some experience)

But in the end, here is the thing I found most helpful:

5) Talk to the people at the front desk, and then through experience, work out the times when the serious swimmers are not going to be there!  I avoid the 5-7am time slot, and the 5:30-7pm time slots, and I find that then I can really (really) enjoy my visits to the pool.  On Saturdays or holidays, I like to go in the middle of the day for 30 an hour.  Or when I finish work at 4pm, I love to go straight there and swim for a bit on my way home.  I usually get a lane all to myself and can swim away with my (probably very incorrect... I keep meaning to watch some YouTube videos) swimming stroke.

I've been doing it for a year now, so I'm less intimidated. AND, I've noticed that I'm much fitter, faster and less breathy than I used to be.  I love that sun on my back and the freshness of the water, and I love that when I get out, the stress of the day has generally faded and I've got a fresh wave of energy (get it? wave?!) to accomplish some more things that evening.

Of course, regardless of all this great experience and improvement, the 94 year old ladies continue to lap me... which continues to wound my pride.... just a little.... how do they do that?!!

xo Tammy