Exciting News!!!!!

That's right baby no. 2 is on it's way!!!!

For those who aren't aware I had insulin dependant Gestational Diabetes (GD) during my first pregnancy. No matter what I did one of my readings was always too high which resulted in my having to take insulin once a day. This time around I'm determined to make sure I'm able to either beat the whole GD thing or at least escape having to use insulin again. Thankfully though the GD had no affected on my first child & she was born a healthy normal weight of 8 LBs with perfect blood sugar levels after birth. On a plus side though I did lose weight during the last trimester of the pregnancy & was 10 kgs lighter a week after the birth then I was when I fell pregnant. Don't worry I had the weight to lose in the first place!

Today I did my first Low GI shopping for this next chapter in our lives & I must admit I'm really looking forward to this new healthier lifestyle (notice I didn't use the word diet?). I look forward to bringing you all along for the journey. Weekly I will post on my ups & downs, recipes & milestones of the pregnancy.

Cookies In A Jar Tutorial

So as you may know this year I made the pledge to only give handmade gifts to family & friends, well in honour of this pledge this Christmas I am giving all my playgroup mummy friends their own COOKIES IN A JAR!!!! These are so fun & colourful & just the perfect present for anyone.

Alright so onto the good part, to make these gorgeous little jars here's what you'll need;

1ltr Jar ~ I hoarded my Maccona coffee (200g) jars for the whole year but still didn't have enough so popped into Vinnies & picked spares up for as little as 50c
1 cup Plain Flour
1/4 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Bi Carb Soda
1/4 tsp Salt
1/3 cup brown sugar, firmly packed
1/3 cup caster sugar
3/4 cup rolled oats
100g M&Ms
125g White Choc Chips

Sift flour, baking powder, bi carb & salt together then place in the bottom of the jar. Layer brown sugar, caster sugar, rolled oats in this order, making sure to compress each layer. Finally layer M&Ms then white choc chips. That's it, simple isn't it.

Now the rest of the recipe goes like this which you might like to copy & paste into a Word document then laminate just as I have done;

COOKIES IN A JAR
Prep 10 mins Cooking 15 mins Makes 24

Extra ingredients needed to make cookies
125g butter, melted & cooled
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 tsp vanilla

To make cookies, preheat oven to 190C
Line 2 baking trays with baking paper.

Empty jar into a large bowl. Add butter, egg
& vanilla. Stir until well combined. Shape
tablespoons of mixture into balls & place on
baking trays approx. 5cm apart.
Bake for 10 – 15 mins., swapping trays
halfway during cooking or until edges are
lightly browned.
Turn cookies onto a wire rack to cool.
Serve & Enjoy!!!

I hope you have as much fun as I did prepare these gifts & I hope your friends & family love them as much as mine did.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!!!!!!!

My Sister's Safari Baby Shower

I recently had the pleasure of organising my older sister's baby shower. As she had already decided on a safari theme for the nursery I decided it was also a great, out of the norm, theme for her baby shower.

Delicious After Dinner Mint Melting Moments & Chocolate Bars



Aren't this glass bottles fantastic??? I love them to bits!

I just love these jumbo brandy glasses

Noddle boxes for the guests to take home full of lollies

Some of the guests sampling the lolly buffet

Sorry about this photo not sure how I got this terrible blue shade.

Don't the Bird of Paradise flowers just look divine on the table?

And finally the cake, nothing flash but I just had to try my hand at mini bunting.

One last photo of my mum, sister & myself taken at the party.

Pink Ribbon Morning Tea @ Playgroup

Well the gods were not kind to us today at all, we were meant to have a lovely sunny day so that we could hold a Pink Ribbon Morning Tea at our regular playgroup. However the weather was less then desirable which meant a change of venue was needed so I put my hand up to have a "wet weather playgroup" at my house so we could still raise money for a worthy cause.

As it was held at my place I was able to quickly whip up a few pretties to help set the right mood for the morning tea.

Here a few photos I managed to snap but please excuse the quality of them as I really have no idea what I'm doing when it comes to manual settings on my Nikon. I hope to undertake an online course in the near future on how to get the best out of our DSLR camera then there will be no stopping me.

Yummy meringues made from the latest Donna Hay Kids magazine

This was my first attempt at Cake Pops & although the very talented Angie from Bakerella has nothing at all to fear from me I still think they turned out pretty good.

The vanilla cupcakes! These gave me such dramas yesterday while baking them.

Luckily I had a little bit of hot pink tissue paper around the place so I could make some cute pom poms to hang from the ceiling fan. I'm going to move them into Sahara's room later today as permanent decorations for her.

October is such a big month with different charity events so as well as donating to the Breast Cancer Foundation I will also be donating 10% of my sales from the upcoming Mummas Fair to Stillbirth Foundation Australia. International Baby Loss Week was held 9th - 15th October this year.

Baby Shower Sneak Peak

So as you know I've been madly preparing for my sister's baby shower well yesterday was the big day. Although it was a mad rush at the end & many things were missed due to lack of time & unavailability of some finer details but all guests were highly impressed. I received many compliments on my candy buffet & in particular my tissue paper pom poms. Gracefully a work colleague of my sister's who is aspiring photographer took loads of photos but until they are ready I'll just show you a sneak peak of what I took myself (all up I only had time to snap 5 photos after everyone had left hahaha).

Needing a little bit of colour

Here in Central East Queensland we're experience some pretty terrible weather so I am in much need of a bit of brightness right now. I hope you enjoy the below as much as I did.

Baby Shower Prep

So with T minus 10 days & counting until my sister's baby shower I thought I would share a few pics of the preparations with you.

Here we have a few off the little fellows that will be making an appearance at the party & cute animal print tissue paper pom poms.

Personalised noodle boxes for the lolly buffet

 What's not to love about receiving brown paper packages tied up with string???

I was very excited to unwrap my order from Mon Tresor

Look, look I finally have some retro paper straw & super cute cupcake wrappers. I'm very happy girl now.

Stay tuned for more party preparations & then the big shabang!