Have I done the Right Thing?

I'm in the process of transferring over to Wordpress. It's still a bit confusing but I like that I have so many options. Still waiting for my adsense account to be approved over there though so if for some reason that doesn't happen i'll come crawling back to good ol' blogger.
Check it out so far www.kylieroars.com
Love Kylie

They Always Look So Sad

Does anyone else think that? Every time I wash plush toys and hang them on the line. I just think they look so sad hanging there with their little eyes staring at you begging for help.


Just look at these poor things hanging by the ear.

Maybe I'm crazy but how could you not feel sorry for the poor little critters?
Love Kylie

They Always Look

GRRRR What Is Happening To My Titles?

The title of that last one was supposed to be 'Some Pics I'm Proud Of'
*shakes fist at Blogger*

I got my brand spankin' Nikon D60 DSLR camera back in May. After lots of dreaming and researching and more dreaming, I finally had it, my new baby and I treasure it every day. Well almost every day. At least every day I have the time.

Anyway, when I firt got it I promised myself that I would not shoot in Auto. I just pretended it wasn't ther. I convinced myself that there was no point in owning a DSLR if I was only going to use it in auto. If that was the case I may as well go back to my point ans shoot. So for three months i've been playing around and learning more and more. Slowly getting better and now i'm starting to take some pics I can be proud of.

Until a couple of days ago i was only shooting JPEG files, but I went and bought myself an 8GB memory card so I could make the jump to RAW and i'll never look back. I love how I can fix little exposure problems with just one little click instead of playing around with lighting levels for ages and still being unsatisfied.

Here are some photos I took of Harrison yesterday. They were all taken in manual using my 50mm 1.4 lens.
Let me know what you think. I'm a big girl, I can take it :)

I love this last one in black and white, but I'm a sucker for black and white images.

Love Kylie

Pumpkin Feta Pasta

That's what the title of the last post should have been :)

Here’s what you’ll need:

*500g of dried pasta. I chose Penne. Also I feel the need to say ‘Hello my name is Kylie and I buy Home Brand Pasta’
*About ¼ of a Kent pumpkin or ½ a butternut
*One red onion. Yes I know these are for salads but rules are made to be broken.
*200g block of Feta
*A few cloves crushed garlic
*125g grated Parmesan
*Two tablespoons dried rosemary
*Extra Virgin Olive oil
*Salt and pepper

First of all, chop your feta into small squares/rectangles cover and put in the fridge for later. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees C then get to chopping up that pumpkin. You can peel it if you like but you don’t have to. The skin really softens when cooked. I like to chop the pieces to be roughly 1-2cm squarish. They don’t have to be perfect.

Now that looks like a lot of pumpkin doesn't it? You should end up with about 1/2 this much. I was making a double batch because I had people coming for dinner. Next chop your onion in an Asian vegetablish style, (that’s a technical term you know) and add it to the tray of pumpkin.

Peel and chop up your garlic nice and small. You can use a garlic crusher but I prefer to chop it. Add it to the pumpkin. Again, there's a crapload of garlic in this photo but I'm making a double batch remember.Season the pumpkin mixture with salt and pepper and add the rosemary. Drizzle with olive oil and mix it all together.

Bake in the oven until the pumpkin is tender and the onion has started to caramelize. Boil the pasta until tender. Drain and add it to the pumpkin mixture. Stir in the feta and Parmesan and another little drizzle of olive oil.

This is delicious and truly is a family favourite of ours. All the kids love it and I hope you do to.

Love Kylie

Cake Addict

What can I say? My boy loves cake. Ever since he first tried it he's been obsessed with it. If he sees cake, if someone mentions cake it sets him off ' Have cake Mum. Have cake mu-u-u-u-um'.

Cake is one of 'those' words in our house. You know the ones that have to be spelled out. I swear C A K E will be the first thing he learns to spell. This is a child who once ate about 1/2 a cup of pureed broccoli and carrot because he heard the mixer in the kitchen and thought I was making cake and wanted to taste it.

Unfortunately I'm one of those mean Mum's who only lets him have it his beloved cake on special occasions.

He near starved himself the day after his birthday because all he wanted was cake and I wouldn't let him have it. The child has an iron will. I wonder where he got that from?

Love Kylie

My Week in Cake

Ever had trouble finding time to scratch yourself? That's been me for the past little while. It's been great having my Mum visiting but all good things must come to an end. She's gone to stay with my sister for the next week before going home. She must to divide her time evenly you know.

(Seriously Mum, we're not six any more. I really don't think Michelle's going to care if you sleep here the whole time. Besides you're the best baby sitter ever! Love you xo)

I've baked so many cakes recently I couldn't care if I ever saw another. Don't think that's going to happen somehow since my friend Rain who decorates cakes for a living has asked me to take photos of her cakes for her. Pretty exciting huh? Someone thinks my photos are good enough to display!! I'll post a link to her blog as soon as she gets it up and running. She promises me she's started. I think maybe she needs a few more gentle nudges. People should see her cakes. They're amazing.

So what have I been creating? So glad you asked.

Harrison is so into cars at the moment I decided I would attempt a car cake. It wasn't that difficult in the end and I think it turned out alright. Some blue butter cream, a little bit of piping, some licorice wheels and windows, lollies for the lights and Bob's your uncle!

Jesse requested Pokemon cake this year. There was no way I was trying to create a Pokemon shaped cake so I enlisted in the help of my trusty cake decorating friend (everyone should have one) who gave me a few pointers and let me borrow some of her stuff. I ended up painting a picture of Jesse's favourite Pokemon onto royal icing on the top of the cake and slathering the sides of it in Red butter cream. The kids all loved it. I was pretty proud of my effort although believe me it looks alot neater in the picture.

I normally always make the kids a cake for their party and a little cake on their actual birthday. I got away with one for Jesse this year because his party was on his birthday. Wish we could do that every year. Harrison however got two. His second cake was so easy. I cheated and bought some of those ready made icing decorations. Thomas The Tank Engine this time. One for the top and a border for the sides. All it took was to pipe some of my leftover butter cream around the edges to hide the joins and it came out as good as a bought one. Almost.

So that's it for cakes for me until January. Well the fancy ones anyway.

Til Next time........

Love Kylie

Visitors YAY!

Just for the record, in that post down there when I said "There's no black and white'" I meant, ' It's all black and white', or 'there's no grey area'. Either or, you take your pick , they both make sense unlike what I originally wrote. You know what I mean. Just had to clear that up.

For the next week and a bit my Mum and step-dad are visiting so I've got limited time to spend blogging and browsing the net. They're sleeping in our office and I feel like a bit of intruder barging in to sit at the computer. Of course I also don't want to waste the precious time I have them here.

I'll be back with plenty to say soon. We had two birthday parties on the weekend which means two cakes I had to decorate and lots of photos taken!

I'll be back with the details
Love Kylie

When I Grow Up

Meet Jesse, my almost 10 yr old step-son.

Jesse has Asperger's Syndrome so life with Jesse can be very challenging. He can be sweet or he can be so frustrating I want to tear my hair out. He loves computer games and would play them all day if we let him. Just check out the look on his face.

The way his mind works fascinates me. I would love to know the thought process he goes through to get to the conclusions he does. Everything is so definite with him. There's no black and white.

The other day we had a conversation that went like this.

Jesse (quite concerned): Kylie, I don't know what I want to be when I grow up

Me: Well Jesse, your not 10 yet so that's OK, you have plenty of time to decide

Jesse (pauses to think for a minute): Are paleontologists the one's that dig up dinosaur bones?

Me: Yes

Jesse: A paleontologist then. Or an archaeologist. That's what I'll be.

And he walks away satisfied. One more decision made. One less worry.

If only everything was so easy.

Love Kylie