Home Made Greek Yoghurt

For those of you who have made my homemade natural yoghurt, I have tried a new twist to this original recipe; turning it into Greek Yoghurt.

I love the creaminess of Greek Yoghurt but many of the store bought Greek Yoghurts use thickeners to get this consistency and add $1 to the price for the privilege.

Using the wisdom of the internet, I searched Greek Yoghurt and came up with the following method:

1. Make my homemade natural yoghurt and let it sit in the fridge for 24 hrs

2. Tip the yoghurt into a fine muslin bag (a bag that will let the liquid drain without the yoghurt escaping)

3. Place the muslin bag into a flour sifter/colander and then place the sifter over a bowl. Make sure that the sifter does not touch the bottom of the bowl as you want the liquid to drain freely from the yoghurt

4. I would suggest tasting the yoghurt after one hour to see if it's thick enough for you. I let mine drain for 2 hours and it was a bit too thick so I will try 1.5 hours next time.

Enjoy

Butchered Lullabies

Recently I was out walking with my god son A. We were strolling along holding hands and just mucking around (as you do when walking with a 3 year old boy). To kill a little time during the walk I asked A if he knew Twinkle Twinkle little star. He sang the song to me - it was perfect. So I asked him if he knew Humpty Dumpty. I guess the attention span of a 3 year old isn't that great - and A must have started to get bored with the songs because he started to improvise. It was obvious that he knew the song and the right words as he used one substitute word here and there throughout - never missing the rhythm or rhyme of the song. The substitute word that the used was poo.

As a 3 year old boy he thought this was all rather funny and we continued walking with me naming a song and him singing it perfectly - but substituting more and more of the words with the word poo. So it went something like this.....

Baa Baa Black Poo
Have you any Poo
Yes poo, yes poo,
3 bags of poo.
One for the poo,
Poo poo poo
one for the poo who lived down the poo.

I must confess that I butcher some of the lullabies and songs that I sing to L at night when I am putting him to sleep. I don't use the word poo but I do change the words slightly to make them more relevant to us. Does anyone else do this? If yes - what lullabies/songs do you change the words to and how do you change them?

I will leave you now with the one song that I sing to L every night without fail. I would like to apologise to anyone that is religious and finds my version of this song offensive. It is not meant to be anything other then personal to me and my little boy.

Cheers,
S.

Away in a manger,
No crib for a bed,
My little baby L,
Lay down his sweet head.

The stars in the night sky,
Look down where he lay,
My little boy L,
Asleep on the hay.

The cattle are lowing,
My baby awakes,
My little boy L,
No crying he makes.

I love you baby L,
In each and every way,
For now and forever,
I will love you always.

Exercise for Mummas and Bubbas

I have never been a gym junkie and have never owned a gym membership in my life. My one time experience in a gym as a 17 year old exposed me to muscly men pumping iron in front of wall length mirrors (doesn't sound like a bad memory in hindsight) but it certainly wasn't my cup of tea at the time.

My parents instilled a love of bushwalking in my sister and I from an early age so I am a seasoned walker. I walked through both my pregnancies and having a dog adds extra motivation at 5.45am each morning.

Now that Alex is 3 years old and not interested in sitting in a pram for lengthy periods of time, I have divided my exercise regime into two parts; morning walks by myself and afternoon walks with the kids.

I get up at 5.45am each morning to walk the dog. I go for about an hour at a reasonable pace and love having the time just to myself. My good friend in Brisbane downloads free podcasts onto her phone and listens to them when she walks. ABC radio have wonderful podcasts and are free to download.

In the afternoon, Alex hops on his bike and I push the pram with Ellie in it. Sash is tethered to the pram and has learnt to avoid the wheels.

Justin takes the kids out to the park each afternoon and they fly the kite and kick the footy. We have made a family rule to only buy the kids 'active' presents for their birthdays so the whole family can get outside, exercise and have fun together.

Walking is free and fun and good for my mental health and waistline!

Trip Organisation with Children

Whether we are travelling 2 kms or 200 kms down the road, my children are constantly hungry or full when we leave the house and starving when we reach the end of the road.

It has taken me several years but I have finally learnt to pack plentiful snacks and drinks when travelling with the kids. I try to prepare the snacks just after breakfast when I can add more mess to the kitchen bench. I usually pack fruit, cheese, nuts and plain biscuits for Alex and cheese and biscuits for Ellie. This way they can munch in the car, shopping trolley or at the park.

I have saved a lot of money, tears and tantrums by being organised when we're out and about. It takes me a few extra minutes each morning but it makes for a more pleasurable day with the kids.

I pack all our food and drinks into a small cooler pack and then put it all into a large bag I made for Ellie for Christmas. I also put our sunscreen, hats, wipes and spare nappies into this bag so I can just 'grab and go'.

Full tummies equal happy kids.....

Queensland In Crisis

For the past couple of weeks I have been sitting at home glued to the TV. This is a rather unusual pasttime for me. But this time - I have not been able to stop watching the news on the natural disasters that are decimating Queensland.

At first the floods - and the shock and horror of the lives lost and the damage done throughout the southeast. I was so worried about the people involved and the possibility of my house being flood affected that my milk supply reduced noticably (I had to defrost some of my spares). And just when we are coming to terms with that disaster - the biggest cyclone Australia has seen comes along to destroy the top of Queensland!

I appreciate that I personally have not been affected by either of these disasters. Yet I am still profoundly affected by them - and cannot imagine what the people that are directly impacted are going through. The horror of it is so much worse because it is all happening in my backyard - my state, my home.

I feel rather useless sitting at home not being able to do anything to help in the clean up (donating money just doesn't feel like enough). I would love to get out there and lend a hand to those that need it - to help in some way in putting everything back to normal.

By watching all the drama of it on TV I have been reminded of what is most important in life. I have on several occasions gone to my little boy and given him a big hug. Friends and family are so very important and in the end the only things that really matter.

Cheers,
Sharon.

Playdough

My sister and I grew up with home made playdough. Mum would often colour our playdough and put different scents in it to excite our senses. Alex has always enjoyed playing with playdough at Kindy and Playgroup; squishing it between his fingers, eating it and turning it into bird's nests.

I recently went to Kmart to price commercial Playdough and it was $10 for three small tubs. I have been making it at home for around $1 for a whole tupperware full. I keep it stored in the fridge and leave it on the bench to warm up for around ten minutes before Alex plays with it.

A friend of mine recently shared her 'no cook' playdough recipe which works well:

Ingredients:

2 cups of plain flour (I use homebrand to keep the costs down)
4 tablespoons of Cream of Tartar
2 tablespoons of oil (I use homebrand canola oil)
1 cup of cooking salt
2 cups of boiling water

Method

Simply mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir well in a big pot. I then squish the mix with my hands just to make sure the flour and salt is well combined

To Jazz It Up

To jazz up the playdough I added red food dye and some oil of cloves

Ellie happily munched on the playdough until I took it off her so I'll probably let her play with it around 18 months of age. Alex loves getting his cars bogged in the 'mud' playdough(typical boy).

Happy Playing.

Big House - Happier Life?

Justin, the kids and I moved from Brisbane to Perth in November 2010. We left behind our simple three bedroom/one bathroom house in Carina (about 9 kms from the city) to a four bedroom/two bathroom/study/tv rooms/living room/dining room house in Canning Vale, Perth.

We were pressed for time in finding a house to rent in Perth and settled on the Canning Vale house as it's not too far from Justin's work. All houses in this area are of similar size and design.

Our Carina house used to take me 1 hour to clean from top to bottom including vaccuming, mopping, dusting, cleaning mirrors and cleaning bathroom and toilet. I detest cleaning and one hour a week was more than enough for me.

On the other hand, our Canning Vale house is huge and it takes me 2-2.5 hours to clean it. I feel as though I walk 10kms just to vaccum and mop the floors and the house is always messy because of the kids and dog.

Having moved into a bigger house has made me realise that bigger is not necessarily better and I resent spending my time cleaning when my time could be doing something that I enjoy.

Justin and I have now decided against renovating our Carina house when we move back to Brisbane. We had plans drawn up to turn it into a four bedroom/two bedroom house but have settled on enjoying our three bedrooms and one bathroom.

My wise friend from Brisbane told me last week that "more space equals more stuff, less stuff equals more life" which I now appreciate.

Here's cheers to less stuff and more life!