familyrae

Beautiful warm day today which was spent at the allotment. Almost felt like it was a summers day! We built four large and two small raised beds, which will hopefully contain some growing vegetables in a week or two. Ben and Esme love it at the allotment, think we might be spending a lot of time down there this year! Premiere BBQ today as well, albeit hotdogs on a disposable one at the allotment!

As Swedish Christmas is on Christmas Eve we have gone out for a meal in the evening the last couple of years. So this is what we did again this year. Esme wanted to wear her party outfit!



Christmas Carols were sung outside the pub...Shame we didn't have lots of snow like last year!



After putting an excited Esme to bed we finished wrapping the presents ready for the morning..



This is Esme having just come downstairs to see that Jultomten has delivered all the presents!



Discovering that Jultomten and his reindeers have eaten the biscuits and chocolate we left and drunk the milk and water. He left a lovely note saying thank you, what a polite Jultomten!



I decided that this year I would make Swedish Christmas dinner rather than the usual turkey. After a trip to Tesco at 4.30am on Christmas eve morning I had all I needed!

                 Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!

Now what could this possibly make?!



Tah Dah!





Merry Christmas!
      God Jul!

Woke up early this morning (why is that always the case at the weekend but during the week you can't drag yourself out of bed!) and was bored so I thought I'd make some bread rolls. Have never made bread before so wasn't sure how it would turn out. But they were eaten so I guess that means they got the thumbs up from the rest of the family!

Can't claim that I thought of the recipe myself, it came from the swedish website www.kokaihop.se so I thought I would translate it here:

makes about 30-40 rolls

1 litre milk
100g fresh yeast (ask for at any supermarket bakery)
2 tbsp honey or sugar
0.5 dl vegetable oil/olive oil
4 tsp salt
2.5 litre flour (can all be plain flour or could mix with different types of flour)

1. Mix the yeast with some of the milk in a large bowl. Add sugar/honey and the oil.
2. Add the flour and the rest of the milk and work the dough for about ten/fifteen minutes (add more flour if needed)
3. Add the salt and work the dough for another five minutes
4. Leave it to rise for about 40 mins, under a tea towel
5. Put the dough on a table and tear of chunks to make into rolls, about the size of a small orange
6. turn the oven on (220c). You can add a bowl of water to the bottom of the oven, this will make the rolls crispier
7. Leave the rolls to rise under a tea towel again until the oven is heated up
8. Cut a cross on the top of the roll, then brush with beaten egg
9. Cook in the oven for about 10 mins/until they look like they are ready (although mine needed about 20 mins)

Leave to cool for a few minutes before eating!

Been carving pumpkins this afternoon with the kids..



Obviously me and Esme had to add something to ours!

Doesn't she look pretty!?!

We have got an allotment! Amazingly they charge £12 per year, yes that's right, per year for a plot that is bigger than all of our garden at home! It needs a bit of work, so we've got the autumn to dig it over ready for the spring.
Me thinks a nice little shed painted a nice blue with some bunting round it with little polka dot curtains and some nice chairs to sit in after a hard day's work will look just lovely too! I know, I know, it's the vegetable planting that is important but no harm in prettifying the plot is there?! Looking forward to getting started now. Might even work wonders and the kids might actually eat some of the vegetables we produce, but then again I doubt it!
Will take some photos when we go down there next and show you.

Hello hello!! I really did intend to do some more posts but have been busy busy, as always I guess! Got 3 weeks off work now so hopefully going to get most of the painting and decorating done in the next few days so that the rest of the time can be spent relaxing. Pretty sure that won't actually happen though, why is it that I don't seem to be able to just sit down and relax, always got to be doing something or it feels like I am wasting the time.

Have had the very exciting job of painting skirting boards today and we have also put up some pictures in Esme's room. Esme's morfar and plast mormor bought her an alphabet table mat but I decided to frame it instead. Also made an ESME sign out of a load of spare buttons I had, think they look quite nice up on the wall together?

A while back when me and Emma went to the vintage fair I also bought an old printer's tray and that is now also up in her room, complete with some very old playmobil things that Pete got given from someone he works with. Very cute me thinks!