Heard of Cows?

It's been a busy old time in the All the Good One's household.  Last weekend we helped family and friends celebrate my husband's Uncle Simon's 80th Birthday.  Staying on the Marae was a great experience for Dylan, who doesn't remember staying on his family Marae before.  The communal style of living is not conducive to a full nights sleep - so it took me most of the week just to recover!  Something to do with getting old :o)

As the days disappear until Dylan's big school trip to the snow, the fundraising effort seems to just keep continuing.  Wednesday was a big cross country event held at school - so another opportunity to impress with my vast baking skills.  Well actually, I just try for something edible...

My go-to recipe is a basic chocolate cookie... this time I went to town with the decorations (thanks for the inspiration from the latest cake decorating weekly magazine that is being promoted in NZ at present).

Heard of cows???

 Now, before I had children I had a naive image of what parenthood would be like - me doing crafts with my children... spending time decorating biscuits and cakes... little did I know that I had zero tolerance and even less patience.  I soon discovered that cake decorating was not my forte (around about the time of Dylan's first birthday, although I did try again somewhere around Nadia's first birthday), and after tears and swearing - decided that a basic iced cake was the most the kids could ever expect, and I've been training them ever since to have low "cake expectations".

Every now and then - I think, hmm, maybe I could manage that?  Now these cows aren't rocket science in the decorating world - chocolate buttercream icing, jellybeans, chocolate melts, marshmallows and chocolate drops.  I figured I could do these... and they turned out not too bad.

In my spare moments I've been reading - recently downloading the first book in David Edding's series The Belgariad.  I purchased these books for my brother as they were published back in the 1980's???, probably reading them several times in my teenage years; and haven't read them since.  The first few pages were like curling up with an old friend... comfortable like a pair of old slippers.  I'm really enjoying the repeat performance.

Sorry no sewing this time... maybe next week?