Easter Holidays

It was Eli's Birthday on the 22nd, and he had a banana cake with lemon icing sugar.

 This was his recipe:

Ingredients

• 125g butter
• 1 cup (200g) white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 3 ripe bananas
• 1 teaspoon vanilla essence
• 2 tablespoons milk
• 1/2 teaspoon bicarb soda
• 1 1/2 cups (185g) self-raising flour

Preparation method:

Prep: 10 minutes | Cook: 45 minutes | Extra time: 5 minutes

1.

Preheat oven to 190 degrees C. Cream butter and sugar in a bowl until it turns a light colour. Gradually add beaten eggs one at a time. Mash banana on a plate with vanilla essence. Mix bicarb soda in a cup with the milk.

2.

Add your mashed banana mixture into the creamed butter and sugar and mix until combined. Alternately add your flour and your milk mix until just combined.

3.

Pour mixture into a greased and lined loaf tin and bake for 45 minutes or until cake springs back from a touch in the middle. Cool on cake rack. 

For the Icing:

• 1 1/2 cups icing sugar
• Strained juice of 1–2 lemons (or lemon juice out of the bottles you buy at the store)
• Tablespoon butter

Put the icing sugar in a bowl add butter, and microwave for 20 seconds, or until butter is soft. Then add enough lemon juice to make it a spreadable consistency. Spread over the cooled cake and leave to set.

 

 In the photo I know his candles look a bit manky, but the twisty ones burn with a fizz!

 This is Mumma helping his blow the candles out. His rather wet enthusiasm was missing.

 And this could be the birthday boy in all his birthday glory!

 Yeah, I know these photo's are back-to-front, but the computer is demented and I'm not going to fiddle with it too much or it might loose everything I've done! This shot is Eli drooling with anticipation as Daddy cuts his slice - NOM NOM!

 And here we have everyone enjoying the cake :)

 A day or so after Eli's birthday Malachi made this for me. It is an elevator! It is hollow, with a door at the bottom and a door at the top, and he made it all out of his head. I am tickled with it, because up till this last year he was adamant he couldn't make anything without a page of instructions. He has started doing things out of his head this year, and I am so pleased!

 And this is a blind shot. I saw Eli with his angel pose one night, and just HAD to get a photo! Trouble was, the camera only showed blackness, but I reckon it turned out pretty good, eh? This night was not an easy night for him to get to sleep in, as he had a late nap, and so wasn't tired at his usual bed time. This shot  was taken around 11pm.

We were off to visit Mum and Dad's again on Sunday afternoon, this time for two nights. We ducked off straight from church, and managed to arrive well before dinner. Just over two and a half hours travel, with crazy drivers allowance.
We were expecting it to be a lot cooler than it was, because a cool change had come through our place, but they wern't quite as cold. No fire place needed. Never mind, there is always next time :) And in the meantime we had a visitor on our very first night!

Isn't he cute?
After dinner (we ate with the family, its really nice to be able to do this) we all come back to the house to have baths and settle in a bit better. I left Michael to handle the showers while I spent a lovely hour out in the veggie garden pulling out weeds left right and centre.
This is what greeted me when I came back it! Eli trudging around the house in his brothers new boots! Definitely photo worthy!

The next day all of us except Dad (um, Grandad) went out to Visit Miriam and her new baby girl. Baby Ebony was all of fifteen (I think? Might be 12..) days old, and the baby was much adored by all.
For most of the morning baby Ebony played pass the baby with us all.
Here is Zibbiah,    

And Hannah,

And Keziah,

And Michael,

And Adon,

And Tamar,

And Mum (Nanna)

And then Phebe (with Eli sticking his finger up poor Ebony's nose!)There! That's a better one of Phebe!

And here is a nice group one

And here we have baby telling us in no uncertain terms that nappy change is any where NEAR as important as a feed at this particular time thank you very much please!

And now onto the important thing! Good old Mum is a real pro, don't ya think?

And here is a nappy change with Uncle Tim being amusing to Ebony.

She is such a pretty baby! I am so tickled with her!

Phebe was tickled too. She didn't go far from her all the while we visited!

Just before lunch we all went on a walk. We wandered down to the beach and along there for a while just enjoying the sights and smells. On the way back Miriam and Ryan took us past a block of land they were interested in.

 It was a nice block! Long, if a little narrow, with a superb view of the sea!

 Mum (Nanna) and Miriam standing there looking beautiful!

Mumma and Aunty Tamar leading a small wee boy AWAY from the edge of the beautiful view!
When we got back from our walk we had a really nice lunch of salad sandwiches and hot chips, and then we all sort of flopped in the lounge room and relaxed till we were almost asleep and the decided to head back home before we really were!
Nanna had to do some grocery shopping before she went home, so Michael and I offered to put dinner on, as we were headed right home. I left Michael and the older children at the pink house, (Michael getting the rest of dinner on, I helped with the first half) and took Eli with me back to the other house so I could take the clothes off the line, make a bed, and tidy up a bit.
I sort of got distracted out in the garden when I firts got home, and while I was out there Eli found the camera! These are the shots he took that I kept.
This is a nose,

This is a boy

and this is a belly!

The next day we were planning on going home, but it was also Mum's birthday, and I wanted to make her a cake, with Tamar's help, so that morning Michael and I rushed around cleaning the house, doing some clothes washing, and starting on the packing, and then we rush over to the pink house where Tamar and I proceed to make the cake.
We made an old fashioned Ginderbread cake:

Ingredients
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup butter
2 egg
1 cup golden syrup
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup milk
Directions
Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Butter and flour your pan and set aside.
In a bowl, sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, and ginger, and set aside.
In a large mixing bowl cream together the sugar and butter until nice and smooth. Then add in the eggs, and golden syrup and mix together.
Slowly add in half of the flour mixture, then the milk, then the remaining flour mixture and stir together until smooth.
Bake for 1 hour, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean.  Cool on a wire rack
Icing
1 1/2 cups icing sugar
Strained juice of 1–2 lemons (or lemon juice out of the bottles you buy at the store)
Tablespoon butter

Put the icing sugar in a bowl add butter, and microwave for 20 seconds, or until butter is soft. Then add enough lemon juice to make it a spreadable consistency. Spread over the cooled cake and leave to set.

we mostly followed the recipe, and instructions, and while the cake was rather crummy, it was very nice!
Then Mum opened her presents, and while they were home made they were so nice! Necklaces and bracelets and a picture. Just lovely. We had brought with us a bunch of flowers for Mum as her birthday present from us :)
Then afterwards we went home, and while it was damp, the car was warm and mostly everyone just slept, lol!