Bread Machine Jam Donuts - Delicious

Yep I am still obsessed with my bread machine and this time it produced yummy delicious Jam Donuts.

I had spied this recipe while looking for a cinnamon donut one and marked it to try one day and everybody agreed this is a keeper.

My recipe is based on this one I just tweaked it a little.

 http://allrecipes.com.au/recipe/4505/bread-machine-jam-doughnuts.aspx

Jam Donuts in the Bread Machine

Ingrediants

• 1 cup luke warm water
• 5 tablespoons water
• 1 egg beaten
• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 155g caster sugar
• 750g plain flour (I put in 5 cups)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1 tablespoon yeast

Directions

1. Put water, yeast and sugar in bread machine and let it work it's magic for 10 minutes
2. Add egg, butter.
3. Add all other dry ingredients
4. Put the machine on to dough cycle
5. Once dough has finished role it out and use a small cup or cutter to make circles
6. Put a drop of jam on every second circle
7. Use your finger and trace water around the outside of the circle
8. Place another circle on top and squish the sides together
9. Fry in vegetable oil
10. Serve with icing sugar.

These are so yum and I kept half the dough in the fridge over night and cooked some fresh the next day.

Now you know how to make them are they donuts or doughnuts?

A Day in the Life of Miss 2

Miss 2 in our house has a big personality.  She is number 3 in the family and loves to hang out with her big brothers.  We often say she is a 5 year old boy in a 2 year old girls body.  She has great physical skills and keeps up easy.  We went camping on the weekend and people were amazed as she tore down the BMX track on her balance bike screaming with delight!

As she often lives in big brother land it is fun on school days when I get to see her being 2.  So here is her day.

Breakfast - if you can call it that, she is my on off eater.  Sometimes she will wake up hungry a woof down a weetbix, other days she will have a mouthful here or there and then eat two pieces of fruit on the bike ride to school.
School Run - Everyday she jumps in the bike trailer and hitches a ride to school.  We love being able to ride to school it somehow turns every day into a good day, the fresh air, the chats on the way and the exercise all make us happier.
New Park - On this day we went to visit a new park Number 1 Dad had told us about.  Number 1 Dad is a Landscape Architect so he has his finger on the pulse when it comes to parks.  This one got the thumbs up.
"I love this park, my park"

We have suggested that we should get a job as playground testers!

Box Fun - A simple box and box monster is born.

Drawing - On the floor when Mum isn't looking................................

Cleaning - The floor, which was probably enjoyed to much!

Rest Time - In our our house this consists of 30mins quiet play in her room listening to Enid Blyton's The Faraway Tree (we have these audio books and all my kids adore them.......a.whole other blog really).  Miss Two is my first to cut her day sleep out early so this has been a learning curve for both of us.

Birthday Cake - A Birthday party for her dolls

Playdough Birthday Cakes - Because every one loves birthday cakes.

Panda Eating Playdough Birthday Cakes - Why not everyone loves a birthday cake, the singing that went with this was hilarious!  And while this was happening I squeezed in some baking.

Opps - Mum forgot to put the flour away, and it was discovered by Miss 2 while I was hanging out washing!

Back to school and onto the afternoon adventures of 3!

Process or Product - Painting Rocks

My children continually remind me that the learning is in the doing not in the end product.  often when we get out the paints I have an activity in mind and often my children's creative minds have a wonderful time taking it in a whole other direction!

This week I thought Miss Two and I would paint rocks.  I had seen a picture of painted rocks on http://www.natureplayqld.org.au/ and went we have rocks and paint, fun.

So I pulled out our powdered paints, some ice cream lids to mix on, some water containers and brushes.
We grabbed a bucket and went out to collect rocks.

My first reminder about "the doing" was watching her mix the colours, shaking on the powdered paint and mixing with water. Hint: if using powdered paint the more powder the more it is like paint.  Don't add to much water.

My second reminder was how painting rocks turned into painting hands and arms.

My third reminder was how painting arms turned into painting bodies

My fourth reminder was how painting bodies turned into jumping into warm water in a tub and our again to paint your body once again before having another bath.

Did we end up with some painted rocks absolutely!  But along the way she did a lot of "sensory and fine motor doing"

Confession to Kate

This is my confession to Kate

The other day kate at www.picklebums.com blogged about trying to simplfy home life and asked for ideas.  I have a philosophy to life at the moment. I Am Keeping Things Small and Simple so I happily shared my small and simple strategy to deal with the loads of washing.  I am sure others have thought of it before me but when I come up with it I thought it was revolutionary!

It came to me one day when I was totally frustrated with having to tip everything out of the washing basket to find one sock...............so I went out and bought 5 coloured tubs and now when washing comes off the line it gets put straight in people's tub.  If I have time folded but if not then just thrown in.  That way if I have to go searching for things at least I know what tub to dive into and I am not throwing mountains of washing on my couch or bed.  Now things are in tubs we also get our big boys to put there own clothes away.

Small and simple it works.

So why confess?  Well my small simple coloured tubs are great and work most of the time. But sometimes when we have been camping for the weekend, have lots of washing to catch up on, are trying to grab things off the line before school run as it might rain.....................................Well the photo above explains it really.

Lets just say sometimes you have to let it go and embrace the Chaos!

Spoons

We went camping on the weekend and had a wonderful time.  There were a tribe of kids, a great bay and wonderful cottonwood trees to climb.  The string is long when it comes to nature play in our house we are all for tree climbing, mud playing and anything else nature serves up but I must admit the nerves set in a little when Miss 2 skillfully climbed to the top of the cotton wood trees.  They had never been pruned so they were like a big birds nest and entertained the tribe for hours.

But this blog is actually about spoons, an old but fun game.  One night our Number 1 Dad (sounds like we have others but really there is no 2 or 3 Dad) decided to teach all the kids spoons a game he loved as a kid.

Spoons is simple easy and loads of fun.

You will need:

• A pack of cards, seperated into numbers.  Use a set of numbers(4 the same) for every player
• Spoons, one less than the number of players

Instructions

• Spoons are placed in the middle of the table
• Cards shuffled
• Deal each player 4 cards
• Players check there cards.
• The aim is to get 4 cards the same
• Players choose 1 card to place face down on the table
• One player calls pass (the adult)
• Everyone passes their card to the right
• Players pick up the new card and check to see if the card helps to make there 4
• Keep passing
• When someone has 4 cards the same they quietly take a spoon
• If other players see a spoon being taken they take a spoon to
• The player who doesn't get a spoon gets the letter s
• You assign letters from the word spoon til someone is spoon

Our kids loved this so much that on Sunday night, games night in our house, everyone requested spoons.

Our Mr 7 is very skilled at quietly sneaking a spoon, considering the amount he talks - must be his competitive streak coming out, we are very impressed!

Anyone have any old but good games we can play?

Backyard Obstacle Course

We have a lot of left over building supplies from our renovation.  They are stacked neatly against the fence.  And sometimes they just call our name asking to be turned into something.  At the moment they are yelling,

"Obstacle Course, obstacle course, obstacle course!"

And of course the response was Yes Yes Yes!

I basically pulled out bits and pieces and they started planning and making.  We used the edge of the garden beds for height, our old plastic play frame, some bricks and an old ladder off the cubby.

The kids made this on their own with a little help from me and once they played on it then proceeded to change it and make it more complicated.
 

And in amongst all this fun they were, planning, making, balancing, problem solving, cooperating and sharing.  And I was just the pack horse really!

Dinosaur Land Surprise

This is a surprise for Miss Two when she comes downstairs in the morning.

Its simple, a polystyrene box, some dinosaurs, stones, leaves and small branches from our yard.  Oh and of course my incredible artistic set design!

Hopefully it will transport her into a land of dinosaurs.

And here is how it went down.

 Water was added for them to drink from.

 Then they needed a bath

And of course they needed drying

And our pond needed rocks so the dinosaurs could walk across the other side