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Friday, December 12, 2014

Recent Things: Christmas Craziness, The War on Possums and Fruit Cake Loving


This week has been hectic! I don't know about the rest of the world, but December really seems to be the most hectic month in Australia. Not only are we gearing up to celebrate Christmas and the New Year, the school year ends, there's school orientations for the new year, graduations, Christmas parties, end of term parties, end of youth groups and playgroups, Christmas traditions, get togethers with friends and December birthdays all squished into one tiny month. 


It kind of makes me want to crash on the couch in a tiny little ball and wake up on Christmas Day (because that's my favourite day of the whole year!) - but let me show you what we got up to during this very hectic week!
Christmas Activity Advent Calendar - 19 Days to Go - Stocking Stuffer Hunt at The Reject ShopChristmas Activity Advent Calendar - 19 Days to Go - Stocking Stuffer Hunt at The Reject Shop


Recent Advent Calendar Happenings; We are still loving our Activity Advent Calendar and doing each of the activities each day. I showed you what we got up to last week so here's what we did this week!

Saturday (19 Days to Go); Jesse, Katrina and I headed off on a stocking stuffer hunt at our local Reject Shop with a $10 budget to spend on each other. We raced around the store, dodging each other from aisle to aisle, to grab as much as we could within the $10 budget and then headed home to wrap our treasures ready to give one another on Christmas Day. Jesse was skeptical of this activity (as he'd never heard of anyone doing such a thing) but it was so much fun and we've decided it's a new Christmas Tradition for us. 

Christmas Activity Advent Calendar - 18 Days to Go - Christmas Breakfast for Dinner - Ham and Cheese Savoury PancakesChristmas Activity Advent Calendar - 18 Days to Go - Christmas Breakfast for Dinner - Ham and Cheese Savoury Pancakes

Sunday (18 Days to Go); Christmas-y Breakfast for Dinner. At first we were stumped by this activity and I had no idea what I was thinking when I wrote it. We were thinking about a sweet dinner but by the time dinner time rolled around we felt like something savoury so we decided to make Savoury Ham and Cheese Pancakes and they were so good! I'll have to perfect the recipe and share it sometime soon!

Christmas Activity Advent Calendar - 17 Days to Go - Make a Peppermint Sweet Treat - Peppermint Chocolate Fudge Cookie Cups Christmas Activity Advent Calendar - 17 Days to Go - Make a Peppermint Sweet Treat - Peppermint Chocolate Fudge Cookie Cups

Monday (17 Days to Go); Make a Peppermint-y Sweet Treat. For this day I decided to make our Healthy Peppermint Chocolate Fudge Cookie Cups (which are amaaaaaaazing)

Christmas Activity Advent Calendar - 16 Days to Go - Hot Chocolates and Candy Canes in BedChristmas Activity Advent Calendar - 16 Days to Go - Hot Chocolates and Candy Canes in Bed

Tuesday (16 Days to Go); Candy Canes and Hot Chocolates in Bed - little did I know how much I would need this activity! After a crazy busy day it was so lush to snuggle up next to my husband with a hot chocolate (and the weather even matched thanks to the windy, rainy conditions we've been having!)


Christmas Activity Advent Calendar - 15 Days to Go Wednesday (15 Days to Go); Write a letter to one another to give on Christmas Day. We actually haven't done this yet as we haven't had time to sit down and write it out - but it's on the agenda for this weekend! 
Christmas Activity Advent Calendar - 14 Days to Go Thursday (14 Days to Go); Watch a Christmas Movie we've never seen - we decided to watch Black Adder's A Christmas Carol which was randomly on Netflix and we'd never seen it before. It was weird watching Rowan Atkinson not playing Mr Bean but it was pretty amusing!
Christmas Activity Advent Calendar - 13 Days to Go Today (13 Days to Go); Make a Chocolate-y Sweet Treat. Jesse's asked if I could make us some brownies so I'll have to do that so that we can enjoy them for dessert after Ignite (the youth group we help run) finishes tonight!
Nexba Watermelon Iced Tea

Recent Beverage of Choice: Nexba Watermelon Iced Tea! Usually I can never drink any soft drinks/flavoured drinks/etc and stick to either water, tea or coffee - but this Nexba Watermelon Iced Tea is one flavoured drink I can enjoy and it is AMAAAAAAAZING! Now all I need to find is a never ending supply because somehow they keep disappearing?

The only thing I wish I could change is the stevia (as I'm not a big fan of Stevia) but I figure if I only drink one every now and again it's not going to kill me!

Peanut Satay Stir Fry

Recent Dinner Fave: Our current fave dinner has to be a new stir fry creation I came up with a couple of months ago. It's kind of sweet and sticky with a delicious peanut soy flavour and I have no idea what to call it other than delicious

Homegrown CucumbersCorn eaten by Possums

Recent Garden Successes and Failures: So the week started on a positive note as we've been harvesting cucumbers all week (and they're delicious!) but it's ended on a bit of a downer as last night, the possums totally annihilated our little corn babies so Jesse has now declared war against the possums. 

Not only did they eat all of the corn husks and cobs - they also ate every single one of our zucchini flowers and zucchinis. Luckily they haven't touched the cucumbers... yet.

Windy Weather at Oatley Park

Recent Challenges: Trying to keep warm?! What is up with the weather Sydney has been having lately?! It's cold, windy and rainy and it's supposed to be summer?!

Healthy, Vegan and Gluten Free Fruit Cake

Recent Findings: Well, the only reason why Jesse doesn't fit in with my family is because he doesn't like fruit cake, however, yesterday I perfected my fruit cake recipe and he discovered that he actually really loves fruit cake (well that one at least!)

The recipe is seriously the Ultimate Fruit Cake Recipe as it's so simple to make and is also gluten free, vegan, egg free, dairy free and contains no added sugars. Wham, bam, thank you ma'am.... and it's a good thing Jesse is loving it as I made a grand total of 1.86 kg of fruit cake... (don't worry, I'll give you the option to make a smaller batch! :P)

Healthy Homemade Bounty Bars

Recent Deliciousness: As well as fruit cake, I also made these homemade bounty cups with a creamy coconut filling and they are seriously, ridiculously good. I've got to share the recipe with you ASAP as I cannot stop eating them :P 

here's what has been posted on the blog this week - click on the images to view the posts

Healthy Mint Chocolate Fudge Cookie Cups Recipe - Gluten Free, Vegan and Refined Sugar Free Healthy, Vegan and Gluten Free Fruit Cake Pancakes Recipe - Healthy Christmas Breakfast Recipe
Unique Gift Wrapping Ideas on a Budget
The Ultimate Kids Gift Guide for 2014    The Ultimate Foodie Gift Guide for 2014 - Unique Foodie Gift Ideas
6 Sentence Sunday on Southern In-Law

But tell me, how has your week been? 
What's the best thing you've eaten/done/discovered/baked this week?

2 comments:

  1. I love that you're writing letters to each other for Christmas day! That is so perfect!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Haha ;) It is one time of year where Jesse will actually write me a letter so I've got to take advantage of it, right? :P

    ReplyDelete

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