More rain and indoor pursuits

Edited to add my muesli recipe which I should have included in the original!

You'll be shocked I'm sure to hear that this week we've had a whole lot more of this:

In the interests of accurate reporting I should add that we've had a day or two of sunshine and warm temps as well (19C the other day!  I nearly melted!  I'm being sarcastic obviously!), but mostly it's been very wet.

Can you believe my flowers, which have all been going strong in vases for weeks?  I'm very lazy about changing the water and it's always warm inside due to the fire, and yet still they give and give.

Anyway, the rain has kept us indoors most of the time which I wouldn't mind at all except OH YEAH I have small kids who are going insane.

We're all doing our best but the cabin fever is reaching a critical level.

My knitting is still going strong, and in fact I've cast on another project.  I'm making a raglan jumper for J in this adorable self-striping yarn.  It's working up very quickly and I have to force myself to keep working on the jumper I'm making for myself.  The adult jumper pattern comes with tutorial videos and I won't be able to finish either garment without the assistance of those videos.  So I have to keep working on mine even though I'm at the round and round stage of knitting the body and it's sooo borrrrrrinngg.

So I should have these done for next winter anyway.

What else have we been up to here?

We've baked some biscuits.

We've eaten lots of dippy eggs (or duppy iggs as my little Kiwi calls them).  Did I mention we have chickens now?  Normally there'd be a photo or two of them here but it's way too wet out there to be mucking about with my camera.  And I assume you know what chickens look like.  Ours are brown. There's three of them.

I've made a batch of my trusty muesli.  No yucky dried fruit.  Just the good stuff, ready for my yoghurt tomorrow morning.

If you're interested, here is the recipe:

Ingredients

6 cups rolled oats

1/2 cup maple syrup

2/3 cup honey

1 cup shredded coconut

1/3 cup pepitas

1/2 cup sunflower seeds

Method

Preheat oven to 180C.  Line two baking trays with baking paper.  Place oats in a large bowl.  

Gently heat maple syrup and honey together in a saucepan.  Once warm and combined, pour over oats, then toss with two metal spoons.  

Spread oat mixture evenly over baking trays.  Bake one at a time for 15 minutes or until golden.  Watch them closely to make sure they don't burn - this can happen within a moment!  

Once toasted, remove from the oven and allow to cool.  Repeat with remaining tray.  

Once cool, place mixture back into mixing bowl and stir through coconut, pepitas, and sunflower seeds.

You can add in anything you like in the last step.  Some other ideas: dried apple, dried apricots, dried cranberries, chopped almonds, bran, linseeds, ... whatever!

I serve mine over natural yoghurt with some in-season fruit.  Or tinned peaches.  You really can't go wrong.

There's been lots of building with blocks and some of the constructions are quite elaborate.  Until A the one-woman demolition team rolls through.

I think the most newsworthy news item this week is that A's sleep has taken an amazing and unexpected turn.  She sleeps!  She sleeps all night!  She sometimes wakes for a bottle at 4am but the rest of the time she sleeps through!  Don't worry, I'm keeping my glee in check because I know all too well that things could turn back the other way but it sure is nice, and she is SO much happier.

Speaking of A, I was having a read through my old blog from a year ago and it's funny how much you forget.  A year ago I was talking about what a chilled out and easy baby she was, the big sleeps she was doing overnight.  I totally forgot what an easy newborn she was.  I wasn't exactly smug back then but I have certainly attained a difference perspective on it all.  I'm so glad I've got all the ups and downs recorded.