A Spring recap!

 

 

February was Ownie's first Birthday. The Birthday Ring that Opi brought back from Germany came out. It's still mostly me that gets a kick out of seeing it...though both kids liked blowing out the candle.

 

 

A rather unprofessional-looking robot cake was made. Tasted good though! 

Woolly pants were worn...mostly by Ownie thank god. Children grew and played and learnt to walk...

Some of us briefly channelled a "Miami Octogenarian"  look for a while....thanks Mam!

 

Flowering red current (one of my favorites) blossomed outside the house. Smells like cat wee but it always remind me of the time I was falling in love with my husband...am not sure what that says about us!

My best friends came to visit!  They've been multiplying too!

 

Ownie and I had a fantastic trip to Cornwall. It's such a cool place. For instance at the town where my friends live they have a bubble room just for babies (and their tired Mothers). Some of my favourite people live there too!

To cap it all off a purple hen came and laid a bunch of colourful eggs on our table! Hope she comes again next year, although all that messing with dyes and three year olds wanting to be involved and dyed eggs being thrown across the room I'm not sure she will...

Rainy Day.

Another rainy day! There's been a lot of them recently.....but what better excuse for a tea and biscuit party!

Our usual chocolate walnut cookies and the totally yummy peanut butter cookies.

Some ingredients were tested along the way....

Maybe these rainy days aren't so bad after all!

It's the little things...

.........enjoying the last of the daffodils.

...........loving  the grand stretch in the evenings!

...........giving Murphy his 'bath'!

.....watching these seedlings grow and looking forward to seeing them bloom...Hugh' favorite flower!

.......exploring and wondering where our beach went after all the recent rain!

.......spotting the first swallows arriving for the summer.

.......eating many many of these muffins due to all the left-over porridge around lately.

.......getting seriously excited about all the new little babies arriving later this Summer and Autumn!

......watching my 'littlest thing' grow bigger by the day!

All these little things are brightening up my days!

Harvest time....

We almost missed blackberry season! Not sure why, time just sometimes seems to race away from me....

But we did get out there a while ago and picked probably the last of the crop.

Picking and some eating at the same time!
 We also took the last of the apples from the apple trees. These were a happy discovery made after we had moved into our new house!

Maisie had a little taste of everything first. Actually she has picked an apple everytime we've gone into the garden since mid-summer, seeming unbothered about their bitterness!

Then it was onto the kitchen and a slight adaptation of the Blackberry Tart recipe from Dennis Cotter's Paradiso Seasons. If you've not been to his fantastic resturant in Cork, put it on your to-do-list!

 

Is there anything yummier than Blackberry and Apple Tart? Well at this time of the year when you've picked your own berries and apples....I don't think there is! 

Cupcake heaven!

Using the cupcake recipe from The Gentle Art of Domesticity we made some cupcakes for Dada on Father's Day! I wanted a little something extra for the icings so after some rummaging around the cupboards and some experimentation a new icing recipe was invented....

Icing for a Special Man

1 cup icing sugar

2 tbsp ricotta cheese

 a few drops of maple syrup

coco powder/zest and juice from an orange

1. Sieve a cup of icing sugar into a bowl.

2. Add the ricotta cheese and the maple syrup.

3. Mix in either the sieved coco powder or the zest and juice, a few drops at a time!

4. When cupcakes are cool, spread on thickly using a knife.

5. Hide immediately if not to be eaten straightaway!

 

We decorated them with roasted almonds, marshmallows and choc chips and then had to take precautions as a certain someone decided she didn't really want to wait for Dada to come home before tucking in!