holidays...pumpkins..& pretty pancakes

My Son with his snow buddy.

Hi there, just when you thought I had dropped of the face of the blogging earth....I'm Back!!
We took a weeks holiday & it was such a great thing to do this time of year to break up that mid year bogged down feeling. My husband's youngest brother has become engaged to be married & finally had a party to celebrate..so we drove near 700kms to visit his family in Albury N.S.W. A lovely time was had catching up with family & looking around town. My children had so much fun with their cousins, especially the day we drove another 120kms from Albury to Falls Creek for a day in the snow. It was the first time ever seeing snow for our kids & they loved playing in it for hours. We hired some toboggans which we gave an absolute huge workout going up & down a snow covered gentle slope...I kept stealing them from the kids to do some crazy stunt tobogganing. We even built a snowman & decorated him with pebbles & my beanie...which resulted in me having a bit of a cold damp head for the rest of the afternoon..well worth it though.

Home grown pumpkin

Why am I showing you a photo of a pumpkin? Well because I grew it myself in my own backyard. It was quite an accident to be growing pumpkins as I dug a big hole in the earth to plant a banana tree & threw a heap of vegetable scraps in the ground to give it a kick start, which it did but also a few weeks later started to sprout a vigorous pumpkin vine. Delicious tasting soup & a couple of serves of yummy roast veggies came from this little baby.

The pottery dog looking thingy in the background is named Herbie & was a part of my 1970's childhood. He is from South America & is used to grow alfalfa sprouts. You fill him with water & then place seeds in the groves on his exterior. Within no time the seeds sprout & you can harvest them for salads & sandwiches..Lots of fun!!

Butterfly pancake.

Can you believe your eyes?! My husband is great at making pancakes, & being the creative soul that he is, he loves giving a bit of a twist to the traditional. He often makes spider or jellyfish shapes for the kids but I think this is one of his best... the butterfly. All done by turning the pan to run the mixture in the right directions...love it!!