Some Charlie photos

Just because I can, I'll show you some cute photos that I took of Charlie last weekend. We were having Christmas drinks at Julie's (aunties house), and Charlie was having a ball playing for hours in the spa.

My happy little boy!

Just checking to see if the hair is still there. Looking very cool with his spikes.

Get ready....to Wiggle

On the 4th of December The Wiggles held their concerts here in Adelaide. Charlie has loved them since he was about 6 months old, so when some friends were organizing tickets, I decided that we should go as well. The concert was at the Entertainment Centre, which was packed full of excited children for the occasion. This year was all about circus, which meant there was lots of acrobatics and funny things to watch, all to the catchy tunes from The Wiggles. There was even a big trampoline in the middle of the stage!

Everyone was wiggling to the music and both kids and adults had an absolute ball.

Picnic with the girls

When planning my wedding, I came across an australian bridal forum online www.beyondthebride.com.au the help I got in the lead up to the big day was great, when the sister forum Beyond the Baby started, we all jumped over there too. A few of us Adelaide girls catch up every so often. So for an excuse to meet again, we decided it was a good idea to have a pre Christmas picnic.

There were plenty of gorgeous bumps

And a beautiful bub

And both kids and adults enjoyed some cake. A wonderful day in other words. Now to think of an excuse to do it again :)

I can sing a rainbow too

After days of melting away in the sun, the cool change finally came, and brought with it some much needed rain. Together of course, sun and rain makes rainbows, which brings me to the subject of my post.

For my Wilton class today our project was to make a rainbow themed cake decorated with buttercream.
The cake was a vanilla sponge, filled with a passion fruit custard, and then covered with a layer of lemon buttercream. The decorating was done in class. As the cake was to be for a baby forum picnic, I chose to use pastel colours for a light summery feel, and with pink, yellow, green and blue, both gener specific and gender neutral colours were represented.

Bon appetite girls. Hope you enjoy it!

And it's Hot Hot Hot...

Summer is well and truly upon us, with everything that comes with it. The mercury has climbed above 40 degrees (celsius), the first heat wave has been and gone, and everyone are doing their best to keep cool. The beach being a definite favourite, especially with Charlie.

Unfortunately, summer in Australia also brings with it the terrifying reality of bush fires. The Black Saturday fires in Victoria in February 2009 was the worst in australian history, and 173 people died. This week, South Australia has seen temperatures in the high 40s, and the seasons first bush fires started on the York Peninsula.
So here's my plea to everyone. Get ready for the bush fire season, clear you gardens, have a plan, and be ready to leave your house on a moments notice. We don't want to see another Black Saturday, we don't have anyone too lose.

A day in my life - hour by hour

This is an idea I heard about thought Catherine, the author of the blog http://allcatsaregrayatnight.blogspot.com and is something that has been going around in the world of blogging for a while. All you need to do is to take a photo every hour for one day, and then blog about it. It's a bit like a fancy photo diary really. So here you go, welcome to a day in the life of me.

Saturday 7th November 2009

09.00: Breakfast. Crisp bread with tomato, cucumber, green alfalfa and ham, and a nice cup of camomile tea.

10.00: Charlie comes running in "mummy mummy, come and see, I've put the animals to bed".

11.00: "One fish, Two fish, Red fish, Blue fish" by Dr Seuss

12.00: We're down the beach, and Charlie has found some gorgeous "treasures" in the sand.

13.00: We've just had lunch, and are now eating chocolate donuts, at nanna and pop's house.

14.00: Relaxing in Bill and Julie's garden

15.00: We put Teddy to bed, and Charlie is making him a picture.

16.00: Relaxing with this weeks New Idea magazine.

17.00: Charlie is exhausted and has fallen asleep in the chair

18.00: Watching The Simpsons on TV

19.00: Just got into the car. Going to video store to rent some dvds.

20.00: Watching "The Duchess". I just adore Keira Knightley.

21.00: Eating Toblerone while watching the movie. yum yum yum

And that was my day. Hope you enjoyed this little insight. Now it's your turn!

Pretty in Pink

I'm what you can classify as a pink girl. I love pink, and it always make me feel happy. So when the order came for wedding cake with the theme pink and silver, it was almost too good to be true.

The cake was for the wedding of Samantha and Marcus, and they wanted a square, three tier cake to serve about 90 guests. We decided on a dense, rich chocolate mud cake, with soft pink icing and hot pink trimmings to match the theme, and with silver as the accenting colour.

We wanted the cake to be totally edible, so for decoration we went with silver coloured, sugar beads as the main feature on the cake. To break it up a bit I decided to use royal icing in the same shade of pink as the sugar paste for the second tier. The effect was great, and the design was beyond approved by an excited bride at pick up time.

Samantha and Marcus, I wish you all the happiness in the world. Happy wedding day!

A wonderful day out

A 30 degree day in Adelaide, is the perfect day to spend outside. Especially when you get to spend it with your favourite boy, and good friends. So today we went to Adelaide Botanical Garden, in the city.

This huge tree made a great "playground" for Charlie. It's huge massive system provided hours of fun, and with a child's imagination, who needs fancy toys. The twigs on the ground became fishing rods....

and the roots made an amazing mountain.

We were joined by my friend Rhiannon, who brought her two kids, Bailey and little baby Kara. Bailey and Charlie had so much fun together. They found plenty of sticks, and used them to play the drums on the trees, and dig for bugs in the ground.

Gorgeous little Kara, only 3.5 weeks old, slept through most of the day, and lucky as I was, I got to cuddle her for most of the afternoon too :)

Of course there is no better end to the day then with chocolate paddle pops at the kiosk. The faces just says it all. Thank you for a wonderful day Rhiannon!

Wedding cake project

For my big wedding cake project this week, the order is for a three tier chocolate mud cake with soft pink icing.

It takes a lot of ingredients to make a cake that size, and I've also discovered that the biggest cake I can make in my KitchenAid mixer is a 10 inch square.

The last tier will be made today, and over the next few days I will start the decorating process. And I will of course post about the finished product.

Wedding cupcakes

As I was already making vanilla cupcakes today, I took a few aside to practice on. Made a pink Glace icing, and decorated with little edible silver pearls which went really well with the silver foil casing. I could definitely see those on a stand for a wedding.

Vanilla Cupcakes

Found some awesome cupcake paper on special at General Traders the other day, so when Charlie ordered cupcakes (see previous post) I knew I had to test them out. I also bought two moulds, a frangipani and a little rose, so made some flowers out of some leftover sugar paste and coloured them pink.. Quite pleased with the overall result, and they tasted great too.

New Toy

I remember that when I was little I used to love it when mum got out her kitchen stand mixer. Because the mixer meant there was a cake coming, and I always got to lick the bowl afterwards. Now, as an adult with a love of baking, I can really see the how these stand mixers would come in handy, and for the good part of the year I've been drooling over the KitchenAid Artisan one. 

I just love the retro look of them, and the fact that they make cake making so much easier. So after having thought about it long and hard, yesterday I decided to have a look at the shops to see what I could find. I went to a few different places, none of which had anything even remotely close to what I was after. Then... there it was... starring at me from the shelf at David Jones. There was only one left in the store, and the girl kindly took $70 off the price for me, so I bought it.

So now it's sitting on my kitchen bench, all shiny and new, just waiting to be used. Charlie has ordered cupcakes tomorrow. Can't wait to make them!

My family

I though I'd take this opportunity to introduce the members of my family, considering I'll most likely mention them over the course of my blogging, and it would be nice for everyone to know who I'm talking about. 

This is us. Ben, Charlie and me. Ben and I have been married for 8 months today, and I can't believe how fast the time has gone by. The photo was taken while on our familymoon (meaning a honeymoon with a child) to Bali in June this year. 

This is my side of the family. From left to right we've got my dad, (Ben and I of course), my mum, and my siblings, Siri, Ida and Jonas. They all came over from Norway to celebrate our wedding with us. My dad, Oyvind, used to be a pilot, but unfortunately had to give up his license due to an illness, he has also done some radio programs. My mum, Nina, is a Principal for a year 8-10 school in Oslo, Norway, she's also been a teacher at the same school since I was about 1 or 2 years old. My sister, Siri (25), is educated as a ballet teacher, she is also the coach for Norway's national team in cheer-dance who got bronze at the last world championship. My sister Ida (16) is a high-school student, and works for a pet shop. And my brother Jonas (17), is 

also in high-school.

This is my youngest brother, Mathias. He is 13 and could unfortunately not come to Australia with the others. This photo is from May 2008, when Charlie and I went over to Norway to visit. Mathias is a year 8 student, and he is very good at making animation movies.

This is Ben's side of the family. from left we've got Julie (Ben's mum), Bill (Ben's dad), Simon, and on the far right is Abby. Julie, work in the school system helping vision impaired kids, Bill is a butcher, Simon has just started work as a landscaper, and Abby is a high-school student and works at Boost Juice.

So now you know my family. They are a good bunch of people, and I'm sure to mention them several times in my blog.

A day out

After weeks of pouring rain and storms, we finally got some proper spring weather. With a forecasted 20 degrees and sunny, we decided to go for a nice long drive.

Our first stop was Mount Bold reservoir in the Adelaide Hills. 

We have been at Mt Bold a few times before, but this is the first time we have actually seen it at 100% capacity, which is promising going into summer. Everything was so green, and it was just beautiful.

The view from the top of the dam is just amazing. There's a nice big drop straight down, and down the bottom is a suspension bridge over the river. We've never been down there before, so decided to go for a look. It was pretty steep, and many steps, but Charlie was so good, and walked the whole way, although he needed a little help to get back up again.

Because of all the recent rain, it was so beautiful and green. There were flowers everywhere, and even the normally dry creeks were full of water. And since I love taking photos of flowers, I just had to snap one of these little cuties, blossoming just next to the stairs.

We saw plenty of animals too. A few kangaroos relaxing by the water, and just after our little stop we spotted this emu just next to the road. Charlie however, was much more interested in the two little duckies that were walking just next to it....

Our next stop was at Meningie, a little town by Lake Albert. We grabbed some lunch, and sat down next to the playground, meaning we could relax, while Charlie could run wild.

Charlie had a ball. With swings, a "rocking horse", and slippery-dips, how can you go wrong? He even found another little boy, also named Charlie, to play with.

We had a wonderful day together, and after all that fresh air, I'm sure all of us will definitely sleep very well tonight.