Oaty Date Slice - easy one bowl recipe

This is a great recipe to do with kids! It's minimal effort but enough ingredients that children will have lots of practice measuring and pouring as they're making their yummy oaty date slice!

Ingredients ::
1 cup oats
1 cup dates, chopped
1/2 cup SR flour
1/2 cup coconut
1/4 cup sugar
200g butter, melted
1 Tbs honey


Method ::
1. Preheat oven to 180'C.
2. Mix together first five ingredients
3. Melt butter and honey and stir through dry ingredients
4. Press mixture into a greased/lined slice pan and bake for 15-20 minute
5. Cut while still warm as it will crumble once cooled.

Lowered expectations mean less disappointment

What sort of expectations do you set for yourself? What expectations do you set upon your children? Your husband? Your friends?


I've been thinking lately that the less expectations I have on myself and on others, the less disappointment I will come across. This isn't a cop out, I promise, hear me out!

All around me I see people assessing and reassessing their relationship with social media and technology. I feel like I do this a lot myself too. I have such a love/hate relationship with my iPhone and with the apps on there that consume the most of my time.

I spent almost a year without a smart phone, I'd hardly call what I had a phone at all! But it was in my bag in case of emergency and every few days I'd check the text messages and delete the 20 messages in the inbox to ensure I'd receive new ones should they come through! It was primitive, yes. But it allowed me to stay away from the temptations that come with the so called smart phones.

I have to say I do love my iPhone. I love to have a fairly good camera in my bag or pocket at all times! We're in the age of taking countless photographs and I am not immune to this! It brings me great joy to look back on the abundance of photos in the past few years. I look forward to many more storage devices filled with photographs.

I also love the ease of messaging and communicating with friends via the phone itself. My previous phone made me a very poor responder to texts and was just generally annoying!

That's probably however where my needs for the iPhone stop and it just becomes a palm sized obsession with lots of apps to steal away my time!

And my time is precious you know! :) My time on days without technology is much better spent no matter what my good intentions may be. I'm just checking internet banking, just looking at two emails, I'll check that facebook event for the details then jump off the computer. And on the excuses go.

Well, sometimes like a baby, we need to be spoon fed. And guess who spelled it out for me. The same delightful almost three year old who does an amazing job of spoon feeding her baby sister. Miss Daisy.
She is at the most delightful age... she will happily approach me if I'm on the laptop, close the lid and request my attention. She will lock my iPhone, even if I try to tell her I'm just putting a photo of her on instagram or facebook so our friends can see her pretty face then I'll be done and playing tea parties again. She will return my iPhone to it's home next to my bed to ensure that said photos are not shared in tea party time again.
She's also a tech head though and is delighted to pose for countless photographs each day! She is completely apt in scheduling herself a sitting with ABC 4 Kids on the iView app and loves to flick through photos too!

Anyway, I've lowered my expectations.
I do not expect Miss Daisy to play on her own - even though she does do this multiple times each day. But I'm not expecting it, then I'm not disappointed on those days it doesn't happen and she wants to be my siamese twin!
I do not expect Li'l Peppa to nap 3 hours morning and afternoon like she did a few months back. Were my motives for her to rest or for me to have some free time?
I do not expect her to go to bed at night without a hitch. I love when she does (and she's getting so much better!) But I am resolved that some evenings she won't. Craft, reading, facebook etc will survive without me another 10 minutes.
I do not expect my hubby to look after the kids when he walks in the door each afternoon. More often than not he does. He loves being home and getting a running, jumping hug from Miss Daisy and an excited greeting from Li'l Peppa. But without the expectation of this, I'm not disappointed if he's tired, busy or late home.

Do you see what I mean? I'm trying to change what I think and feel should happen in my day, in my life. Because I shouldn't expect such things. They are often wonderful blessings on the days when I need them most. But they are not to be expected at all times. This is motherhood. This is the battle field that defines us. These are the days that define our children. The days that define my children.

Anyway, I'm off to hopefully sleep as soundly as this for a few hours!

The stuff fairy tales are made of...

We got to our park early this morning. The slides were still spotted with raindrops and dew, the swings carried small pools of last night's rain and the damp wood chips clung to our socks. We took time to explore under the trees where we'd been only days ago. Our delightful red mushrooms had disappeared. However, as we travelled a little further around the woods surrounding the park we discovered another amazing sight! A new mushroom, or toadstool as Miss Daisy was calling them. I'm not sure exactly what they were, perhaps I should search and see. Whatever they were they have a certain kind of magic!

Once again thankful that our park is only 50 metres from the house, we strolled home for the camera and a towel to dry off the park! Armed with both, Miss Daisy set about exploring the park and I captured some beautiful shots of another amazing Autumn day!

 

 

I just can't get enough of the colour that surrounds our place at this time of year! And I love that this year Miss Daisy is noticing it all. Asking questions and remembering details. "The leaves are changing colour and falling off some of the trees" "It's because it's Autumn." Well, it is in Australia" 

We've pressed leaves, collaged, painted and sketched. There is just so much you can do with an abundance of leaves dropping each day! Not to mention just lay under the trees and have them rain down over you. Best.

And this. This is almost finished! One year of bathing our girls in a plastic tub and we have a beautiful new (gumtree/eBay) bathroom that my amazing hubby (et al) made!! Hooray!
So now that I've uploaded my delightful photographs, I'm off to soak in that tub whilst Miss Daisy and her Daddy are out on a special Daddy/daughter date!
How are your Autumn days?
Or are you enjoying the first glimpses of Spring!?  

Cravings.

Miss Daisy is big on telling me she grew and grew in my belly lately. And then she came out just like this *lifts shirt and pulls dolly from under* "See mummy, I was born" Yes honey, just like that!
We had fun the other evening playing mummy's and baby's... she always gets so serious in her mummy role and I love the way she tenderly strokes my forehead when I go 'wah wah wah' with gusto!! She'll be a great mummy one day. One day. Daddy was a little put off by our game, not sure which pregnant lady scared him more!!

I remember early in my first pregnancy being about half way through and people asking had I had any cravings... no, I hadn't had any. I'd had a few food aversions, or more appropriately, things I couldn't bare to eat.
Then at around 28 weeks it hit me, hard. My dad and I were cleaning up a piece of furniture I'd bought off eBay. He wanted to give it a once over with eucalyptus oil too, just to make sure it was clean and hygienic. So we did. One whiff and I wanted to drink it... really bad. I refrained but went to bed that night with eucalyptus oil on a handkerchief, my pillow and the bottle on the bedside just in case reapplication was necessary throughout the night!

Needless to say drinking eucalyptus oil wasn't advised (I googled around - go figure) so I went to the store and bought the next best thing! Eucalyptus balls!

And the cravings took over. They consumed me. I was a slave to the eucalyptus ball. I hid them in my wardrobe, car, handbag, clothing. I went through packets and packets each day. I'd get my hubby to hide them. Then I'd make a 45 minute trip to go buy more! I'd beg him to tell me where they were hidden. It was ridiculous. And you know what, pregnant with #2 it happened all over again! Both times, after giving birth to these two perfect little koalas... I did not touch another eucalyptus ball!

This post was going to segue into an eloquent post on how I'm craving more at the moment in relation to this blog. I'm craving more meaningful activities with Miss Daisy and more meaningful exploration for Li'l Peppa. I'm craving better use of my time. Less influence online. More time in the garden. More food coming from the garden to my table (we used a heap of our silver-beet in tonight's cannelloni). I want that insatiable craving to become an unstoppable force that pursues and accomplishes those things.

And I want sleep... it's nearly tomorrow so it's good night. x
What are you craving?