A Day in the Life

Clarys' day.
It starts with a bowl of cereal (or two), and a good book. Very bad manners to read at the table, but you can get away with it when you're under two, so make the most of this time. Suck up to sister early in the day. Look smug while doing so.

Be prepared to be hard. If others get smug you may have to wipe the smirks off their faces.

If you do choose to go around smacking people (especially if it's Ruby) in the face, you then have another decision to make.

Prepare for battle.............

.................or grab yourself another good book and hide your cheeky little ass.

Note: all photos in this post were taken on the same day and Ruby has allowed him to live to see another day

But wait, there's more.

Ugh, blogger has uploaded my pictures all crazy so lets start at the back of the dress here.
Same dress, different table cloth, LOL.
And excuse the dodgy pictures. Yes, the dress is lying on a driveway for these. It also wasn't quite finished. I couldn't do the straps up as I hadn't finished the button holes. I lost my stitch ripper thingy and bought a cheap one and it was just blunt and horrible. When I went to get another one the lady in the shop nearly had a heart attack when I told her I wanted it for doing button holes.
I've always done my button holes like this, what's everyone else doing?? Are you using weeny little sciccors to do it??

Anyway I like this dress. Would have been kind of a crazy horsey table cloth though.

And check out this poor little fella. His Dad did it. Fancies himself as a bit of a master home hairdresser apparently. Says "It's only two weeks between a good haircut and a bad one"

He's such a trooper though, just soldiering on like he's not looking like some disastrous result of a mis-guided bowl-cut experiment.

Precious

Banana Bread (Worlds' Best)

I found this recipe for Banana Bread about two weeks ago, and I have made three lots of it since then. It's so good. Cannot stop eating it. So let me share the recipe :)

Banana Bread
You'll need
150g unsalted butter, chopped and softened
115g (half a cup) castor sugar
45g (quarter of a cup) soft brown sugar
2 large eggs
250g (two cups) plain flour
1 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
5-6 ripe bananas, mashed
1 teaspoon natural vanilla extract
125g (half a cup) sour cream

Then
Preheat the oven to 160 degrees C (315 degrees F). Grease the base of a loaf (bar) tin around 22cm long, 9cm wide, 9cm deep and line the base with baking paper.

Cream the butter with the caster sugar and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in the eggs one at a time until well incorporated. Sift the flour, bicarb and cinnamon with a pinch of salt, then beat it into the butter mixture to form a thick batter.

Combine the banana, vanilla and sour cream and fold into the butter mixture. Pour into the prepared pan and smooth over the top.
Bake for one and a quarter hours, or until a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean.
Allow to cool in the tin for 15 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack to cool to room temperature.

Believe me it is worth making.

Let me know if you do.

Little flag boy

Forgive me for posting pictures with no 'real' post but I just want to share these. I took them this afternoon and I really like them.
This cheeky, out of the sides of his eyes look he's giving here - he gives that to me all the time.

There's been a lot of debate about the 'appropriateness' of our flag over the years, but, to be honest, I quite like our flag and I'd be a bit sad if it were changed.

OK, just editing this to add that, yes, I know the flag is actually upside down and back to front but, hey, when you're working with a 19 month old boy you've just gotta take what you get sometimes.