Tuesday, May 29, 2007

Guess where we went today?


One of the Ginger Ninja's homeschooling friends was given two Zoo Venture tickets, and very very kindly invited the Ginger Ninja to accompany her. Ginger Rose and I came along to see the sights available to the public.

We had a wonderful day watching the monkeys, bears, fish, leopards, but mostly liked the giraffes!
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Saturday, May 19, 2007

One wednesday...

Here's a little of what we did on Wednesday this week. Ginger Ninja, Ginger Rose and I walked Possum and Briar Rose to school, and dropped in at the school office to organise Ginger Rose's enrolment interview with the Head of Junior School. As they had a free appointment later that morning, we arranged to return.

We then walked up across the paddocks to the town shopping centre. As the Ginger Ninja was seeing a performance of Othello on Thursday, I tried to keep the conversation focused on literary and dramatic devices. As you can see, he and Ginger Rose tried to keep the conversation focused on topics appropriate for Dolly, seen holding both their hands as they head off on a tangent without me.

Ginger Rose met up with her best friend at the shops, so we stopped at a coffee shop for a quick refuel and play before continuing on for a quick blood test for me and a trip to the library for all of us.

We returned to school for a successful school interview, during which Ginger Rose nodded with her fingers in her mouth in response to questions such as "Do you like to play at the park?", before walking home for Ginger Rose's nap.

I returned to school to see Briar Rose's class presenting at the junior school assembly. She played piano very skilfully, presented a cereal she'd designed and explained that her class was experimenting to see how fast various things dissolved in Coke over a four week period.


I can't remember what we made for dinner that night, but here's a visual of the Thai chicken meatballs we made earlier in the week. They were such a quick winner that I'm definitely adding them to my "quick meals" list, though they're very rich so really need to be served with a good helping of rice and salad or vegies. I didn't have sweet chilli sauce (one of the perils of owning a teenage boy capable of finishing bottles of sauce and not informing stock control!) so served them with soy, but sweet chilli would've been much nice.

THAI CHICKEN BALLS

Serving size: Serves 4Cooking time: Less than 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS

500g chicken mince¼ cup (60ml) oyster sauce2 cloves garlic, crushed1 tablespoon self-raising flour1 tablespoon fish sauce½ cup finely chopped fresh coriander leaves2/3 cup (160ml) coconut milksoy sauce and sliced chillies or sweet chilli sauce, for serving
METHOD

Preheat the oven to moderately hot (200°C/180°C fan-forced). Grease two 12-hole mini muffin pans (1 tablespoon/20ml capacity).Combine chicken mince, oyster sauce, garlic, flour, fish sauce, coriander and coconut milk in a large bowl. Place rounded tablespoons of mixture into prepared pans. Bake in a moderately hot oven for about 15 minutes or until cooked through.Turn out and serve hot with combined soy sauce and chilli or sweet chilli sauce. Suitable to freeze.Not suitable to microwave.

Friday, May 18, 2007

Have you been introduced?

To Sebastian, our cat?

He's rather long suffering, and pretends to dislike the children, but strangely seems to prefer sleeping in the childrens' bedrooms. Here he is trying to blend in with the stuffed animals in Briar Rose's lower bunk.
And here's how the children are preparing for their new baby brother...

Friday, May 11, 2007

Ginger Rose enjoys autumn


We made the effort to leave the Ginger Ninja behind for Paint and Play this week, and Ginger Rose had a fantastic time playing with the other preschoolers. She's off to school for two days a week next year, so we're making a bigger effort to meet up with other children her age.

Autumn is great fun for little ones - Ginger Rose makes a bouquet of autumn leaves most days on our walks to and from school. Unfortunately, the leaves aren't allowed inside the house, which is terribly cruel of me, so the bouquets are left in piles on our back lawn.
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