Chocolate Lace Cookies

Last Friday at work we had Festive Food Friday.  We do it once a month to celebrate everyones birthdays from that month.  The idea is that everyone brings a plate of food and we have a morning tea/nibblies to eat all day.  This month I made cookies.  Everyone loved them! One of my friends kept appearing near the buffet with 3 cookies in his hand.  I'm pretty sure he ate about 80% of the cookies himself!  So judging by that reception I am pretty sure I will be making these again.

Chocolate Lace Crisps by Australian Women's Weekly

100g dark cooking chocolate chopped

80g butter chopped

1 cup caster sugar

1 egg

1 cup plain flour

2 tbs cocoa powder

1/4 tsp bicarb of soda

1/4 cup icing sugar

Melt chocolate & butter in a small saucepan over low heat.

Transfer chocolate mixture to a medium bowl; stir in caster sugar, egg & sifted flour, cocoa and soda.  Cover, refrigerate for 15 minutes.

Preheat oven to 180*C/160*C fan-forced.  Grease oven trays, line with baking paper.

Roll level tablespoons of mixture into balls. Roll each ball in sifted icing sugar, place about 8cm apart on trays.

Bake for 15 minutes and cool on trays.

The Good, The Bad and The Bump(y)

The Good

• Being absolutely spoilt on Mother's Day by my darling husband.
• Spending a wonderful Mother's Day with my mummy.
• The final countdown to finding our Squishy's gender (this Friday...yay!!!)
• The cooler weather. Winter is my favourite season!

The Bad

• Continuing back pain. The doctor says it is in my joint so there is not a lot I can do except take it easy.
• My major fail at footy tipping this week. Luckily everyone had a bad round so I still have a chance of clawing my way up to the top.
• The weirdo noises my car has started making. I think it's time for a visit to the mechanics.

The Bump

19 weeks and I finally feel like I am starting to look pregnant.  A few people have told me I have popped this past week.  I am getting a bit more comfortable with it now too and realised that when I was trying to hide it I was just making myself look bigger.  So I have embraced the bump and am dressing to show it off.  The annoying thing about looking pregnant is that everyone now feels the need to touch my stomach.  I don't mind with people I know but sometimes it gets rather annoying.  Oh well, I guess everyone is just excited so I can't complain too much.

Garterbelts & Gasoline

Not last weekend but the weekend before Mum, Dad, Corey and I ventured up Mount Tamborine for the Garterbelts & Gasoline festival.  This was my first time visiting this festival and it was loads of fun.  There was everything a a rockabilly/vintage festival should have cars, markets, music and gorgeous vintage fashions.  Here are some photos I took of the day.

I didn't get any photos of my outfit because I wasn't feeling particularly vintage.  I have just grown out of my last 50s dress so I was a bit bummed out.  I did however still spend some time on my hair and makeup.  I used this tutorial for my hair.  I also got to pop into my favourite vintage store, Kitty's Vintage Kitsch, for a little visit and catch up with Celia.  It was lovely to visit again and I am hoping to pop up again once we find out the gender of the baby and see if I can find any vintage treasures to use in Squishy's room.  We have been having some fun weekend adventures lately which I am really enjoying.  I can't wait till the end of the year when we can start taking some family adventures with Squishy.

Happy Mother's Day

I just wanted to say a quick Happy Mother's Day to the most awesomest mummy in the whole entire world! I hope you have a super duper fantastic day. You are the bestest mum that I could ever hope for. If I am even half as good a mum as you are Squishy is going to be one lucky kid.  Love you xoxoxoxox

Recipes from Bloggers

  

Last weekend I did a little bit of cooking and decided to test out a couple of recipes I had seen shared by some fellow bloggers.  Firstly I have been wanting to try out Broccoli & Cheese Soup for a while and in my search stumbled across this recipe by The Veggie Mama.  I whipped up a pot on Saturday while Corey was sick on the lounge.  I woke him up to have a bowl and he ate it up pretty quickly. It was delicious! I will definitely be saving this recipe into the winter recipe list.

After the soup I thought it might be nice to bake something sweet to take to Garterbelts & Gasoline.  We pack a picnic whenever we go to a festival so we can camp out in front of the stage and have lunch and listen to music.  I had a few spare oranges so I decided to whip up this Orange Butter Cake I saved a while ago from Melbourne Epicure.  Cathy is an absolute goddess when it comes to cakes and this one is no different.  It is so quick and easy to whip up and produces a delicious moist butter cake.

Have you found any good recipes on the blogs you read lately?  I am having the biggest urge to try out new recipes lately and have been cooking up a storm!

The Good, The Bad & The Bump(y)

The Good

• Long weekends
• Spending the day up Mount Tamborine with the family at Garterbelts & Gasoline (post to come)
• Visiting my favourite vintage shop even though I couldn't buy any of the gorgeous dresses
• Having a constant urge to bake
• Bacon - I never was a big bacon person before but I crave it now like its going out of fashion

The Bad

• House inspections
• A full day spent cleaning for said house inspection
• The funny noise my car is making - still trying to figure out what it is!

The Bump

I think this week I have definitely popped out a bit.  I feel like I actually look pregnant now and not just chubby. I had my first person ask me if I was pregnant the other day which was exciting.  Afterwards I thought lucky I was pregnant though otherwise that person would have felt very embarrassed.  Only 2 more weeks until we can find out what we are having.  I am so excited! Counting the days.  What do you guys think I am having?

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April Reading List

This month was a good reading month for me.  I managed 7 books!  I think this is my best month of reading since the start of last year.

I finished up the Shopaholic series with Shopaholic & Baby.  This was a fun read being pregnant and able to relate to a lot of the stuff that was going on in the book.  Especially the overwhelming feeling of all the things you have to buy.  One of the items on my 101 in 1001 list is to reread the Harry Potter series.  I finished up Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince and now I only have 1 more book till I can cross that item of my 101 list.  The last 5 books I read are the first 5 books in the Pretty Little Liars series.  These books are so quick to read and they really suck you in.  They are about a group of teenage girls whose best friend goes missing in year 7.  In the first book they start receiving text messages revealing their closest secrets from someone who they believe is their missing friend.  It is part mystery part suspense and they having totally sucked me in.