Donné will be 22 weeks on Tuesday….

Grace and Eli helped me to paint, drill pilot holes and then screw the hooks onto the coat rail. A couple of noisy holes into the wall later and we have our new coat rail.

Today was another chance for us to sit in Grace’s ballet class. It was very interesting to see how the group has improved in the last term – they are working more as a unit now than before and their dance movements are more defined.

The wings are costumes for the ballet show which will be on in late September

Grace has been practising her reading, reading to Donné every night at story time. We went to the library to get some new books this weekend, and on the day we got the books she comes to sit at the counter and wanted me to read the book to her. I managed to convince her that she should read it while I was busy in the kitchen, and off she went….all the way through Green eggs and Ham…

Two days earlier I woke up and found her reading Hop on Pop in bed

I have been having a craving to make some Italian meringue to practice and get it perfect, so when Donné told me the Bradshaws were coming to visit it was an opportunity to try something new. In my quest for perfect Italian meringue I discovered that macarons are made with it, so a new challenge arose.

I do seem to have lucked out and had a very successful first batch of macarons. The main comment from the consumers was that they were on the large size, and were hence dubbed, “Man-carons,” but as Kim said, “Who has ever complained that their macaron was too big?”

I was also super happy with the Italian meringue that I made – it came out entirely differently to my previous attempts, and in my opinion it came out perfectly. Shiny, silky and stable – beautiful to work with.

There is one challenge in making macarons – it takes quite a long time for them to rest before they bake, so although the preparation time isn’t too long, the waiting part (where the outside forms a skin) is very time consuming. If you make them, be aware of how many batches you’ll need to make, and how long the pre-baking resting time is for each batch.

I used this macaron recipe (because it prints nice and easily), but made them more like this recipe describes. For the filling I just doubled up the meringue and used half of it to make Italian meringue buttercream.

Grace was talking to Eli and she wanted to get him to say that he lived at home, so she asks him, “Where do you live Eli?” Eli replies, “On planet Earth,” and then Grace starts moaning at him about how that is not what she meant. We did point out to her that his answer was technically correct. That is what happens when you learn about the planets at school.

Eli has been running a fever over the last couple of days (Dr. diagnosed as throat infection). Fortunately his medicine has been keeping it down – when his temperature is up, he is down, and when the temperature is down he is bouncing off the walls and you wouldn’t know he is sick.

For some reason his nose is all blocked up though, and when we sleeps….well….he does have a little bit of a snore. This was after falling asleep on the couch while watching TV this afternoon (after refusing to go and have a nap).

The new little man, who is perfectly healthy – thank you Lord

Cuddles in front of the fire

Noshing some delicious winter oranges