One more sleep!

Only one more sleep till my grandchildren arrive! They have driven for nine hours today and will have another nine hour drive tomorrow and should be here by late afternoon all being well. It was my grandson's first birthday today and what a way to celebrate your birthday...driving through the hot and dry Aussie Outback. However, Outback kids are tough and the children have always been great travellers and I believe even the baby coped well with the long hours of sitting in a car seat.

It never ceases to amaze me how quickly a baby grows in one year and it doesn't take any time at all to go from this....

 

...to being big enough to devour a slice of watermelon during a break at Winton while travelling through the harsh Outback of Queensland.  According to our forecast the next week will be no hotter than 29C so I do hope that the family doesn't freeze after leaving the 40C temps of Mt.Isa. 

 I have been trying to think of some healthy snacks for the children when they are here and am keen to try out the recipe for Peanut Butter Choc Ice Creams which is from the Holiday Season Snacks eBook from That Sugar Film.  You can read about the reason Damon is raising funds from the eBook on the link. I haven't seen the film as I believe it was only shown in the capital cities but I think he appeared on TV talk shows and spoke about his experiment eating only 'perceived' healthy foods for a period of time.

 Did I have trouble finding icy pole makers ~ not sure what they are called exactly ~ in the shops here! I did see some last week when walking through Myer and they had heaps of them but when I went back there in desperation a couple of days ago after not being able to buy them anywhere else they only had one box of these left. With a lot of development going on in our CBD it is really difficult to find a park at this time of year so getting to Myer is a tad difficult. I would really like to buy the Biome Stainless Steel Popsicle Maker but it is a bit out of my price range unfortunately.  Still these are BPA free so that's something.

I read on Rhonda's Down to Earth blog during the week that she had made Cheese Rolls.I don't think I have made cheese rolls in my life before so I thought I would give them a try as perhaps I could bake some when the girls are here. I added some ham as well as cheese and they didn't turn out too badly and at the end of the day there were only two left out of ten so the menfolk must have thought they were okay.

The oven on our old stove doesn't cook very evenly so some were more cooked than others but Rhonda says they are also nice when toasted if they are a bit doughy. A few of us on the Down to Earth forums are trying out the recipe and I think it has been a great success.  

Kel left a comment on my last blog post when I was writing about identifying insects and she has given me a link to the Queensland Museum Network Field Guide to Queensland Fauna App which can be downloaded onto iPads and Android devices to help identify birds, fishes, insects etc. and there are descriptions there of over 560 species. That should be really handy to have as I am always trying to identify insects and birds around here. It would be helpful for children's school assignments as well. 

Well, I had better get moving and try to do some more child proofing of this house which I think will be almost impossible after all these years. I think we will be spending a lot of time at parks and in swimming pools during the week...away from all the bits and pieces adults accumulate when there are no little children around ;-)

I hope everyone is enjoying their weekend and that the cool change passes through our southern states very soon. Stay safe everyone!