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Sweet potato muffins - and they taste great. Success at last!


At the request of Baby Genie, here is the recipe (I took it from the newsletter that Abel & Cole send out with their boxes):

Ingredients:
150g brown sugar
2 tablespoons honey
120ml vegetable oil (though I had to use olive oil as had no vegetable oil. Tasted fine.)
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs
100g plain flour
150g wholemeal flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg powder
1/2 tsp salt
450g grated sweet potatoes (it's a killer grating them though...)
2 handfuls chopped walnuts and/or 1 handful raisins or other dried fruit (I just put in walnuts)

Preheat Oven to 180c/350F/gas4. Oil 12 large muffin cups.

In a small bowl whisk together the brown sugar, honey, veg oil, vanilla extract and eggs.

In a separate large bowl, mix together the plain flour, wholemeal flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and grated sweet potato.

Make a well in the centre of the flour mixture and pour in the egg mixture, stirring gradually to mix together.

Stir in the raisins/dried fruit and/or walnuts.

Spoon batter into muffin tins and bake for 25 - 30 minutes or until knife inserted comes out clean. I had to bake them for an extra 10 minutes, but that may well be our dodgy oven.

Easy peasy! Had one for breakfast, yummy. Though Freyja won't eat them. She has an aversion to eating pretty much anything we bake together for some reason.

Christmas Day

This was to be a magical Christmas because we were spending it together, just us, creating our own traditions and our own Christmas.

On Christmas Eve we went out for an early dinner then stopped off at some friends for a quick hello, present swapping and glass of vino. It was an hour well spent but we paid for it when we got home. My plan for opening one present - GAP pyjamas, orange for Theo, pink for Freyja - followed by mince pies and sherry for Santa went a little awry. Theo had this face on throughout:


It was very noisy.

The next morning, the first person to wake up was me, at 6.20am. After half an hour I heard Freyja stirring and then, heartmeltingly, 'We Wish You A Merry Christmas' came floating from her room.

Once downstairs, she called me in to see that Santa had been. She finished off Rudolf's carrot (strange child), then she played with Theo's Duplo and he played with her paint set.

After that the day just unfolded slowly and at our own pace. No expectations, no one else to please. I like a good family Christmas as much as the next person, but every now and again, something a little less hectic doesn't go amiss,

We didn't make any new traditions, or create a fairy tale Christmas day. We just enjoyed being together, eating nice food (a duck for us and a little poussin for the kids!), drinking quite a lot and watching our children enjoying themselves.

The children got loads of presents, of course. We bought them a children's set of chairs and a table (which we actually only got today in an early morning dash to IKEA) and Father Christmas got the paint set for Freyja and the Duplo for Theo.

And me? Adrian and I got each other a new boiler for Christmas. We were delighted when that packed in last week...

Now again they show that they do love each other...

Happy Birthday No 4, Freyja

Wow, 4 years old. We celebrated with an ill timed outing to Giraffe on South Bank. Not only did the entire population of London also go to Giraffe today but we left it a bit too late leaving the house so Theo was way past his good-mood window - not to mention starving - when we finally got seated. The food was lovely though, and both kids got a balloon. Giraffe is one our favourite child-friendly-but-not-actually-a-children's-restaurant places to go. We also like Wagamama and Gourmet Burger Kitchen.

This year we bought Freyja a proper birthday present. I'm usually a bit boring with presents. Because they get so much from friends and family, I tend to feel a bit guilty buying toys for them. I intended on using birthdays to buy something a bit more meaningful and long lasting. So far Freyja has received 2 pictures (only 1 of which is 'meaningful and long lasting' ) and something else which I can't remember.

So this year we bought her a shop - Cherry Blossom Store . We toyed with the idea of getting her the Rose Petal Cottage but it was a quite a lot more expensive (we found the store on offer at Amazon for £40), plus she already has loads of play fruit and vegetables, perfect for stocking a shop. She was given some extra foodie bits and pieces at her birthday too - lovely tiny packets of fairtrade coffee and M&S organic biscuits (!!), plus little wooden eggs you can cut in half, all from the ELC. So Cherry Blossom Store it was - I've been very excited.



We put it up last night and this morning Freyja walked into the room and said 'Wow'. Her and Theo spent a good hour playing in it before she even turned her attention to the pile of presents stacked up behind it. Then this evening I played shop with her - it turned out to be a very interesting game. The eggs cost £5 each, the bottle of olive oil 50p. I asked for dog food, but that wasn't in stock - would cat food do? I asked for some chicken that I could see on the shelf, but was told 'we don't sell chicken'. When I complained that a box of cereal was very expensive at £9, it was whisked off me and returned at the much more reasonable price of £1. And every now and again she has to do some 'magic' in the till - something to do with finding out the price of items.

It's been a lovely day. As always, I've seen massive changes from age 3 to age 4 and it continues to surprise me how much difference a year makes. This year has been one where Freyja has started to settle down into being an easier child, a little less reactive, a little more in control of her emotions. Still so young, but growing up. And maybe I'm also getting a little better at being her mum.

Happy Birthday, Sweetheart.

So this is Christmas...

...and all of my Christmas cards are neatly stacked on the table, last post well and truely missed. Gah. I only send a few to family and even then can't actually get around the posting the damn things.

We have a few friends coming round for Boxing Day and New Years Eve and have Freyja's actual birthday nestled in the middle so I will be quite busy for the next week or so.

But the shopping is done, the presents bought and wrapped (just...) and the husband has just called to say he's finished work and is on his way home. Freyja is tracking Santa on the Norad Santa tracker (thanks Rowan). We're all going out for an early dinner. And it is the first Christmas in four years that I have not been either pregnant or breastfeeding. How can I feel anything other than festive?

Happy Christmas and Merry New Year to everyone!!

The Party!

Freyja's birthday is the 27th December. Before I had a baby I could never understand why people had babies at Christmas time. I told Adrian that we would have to make sure that we didn't have a baby at Christmas time. Then I got pregnant and realised my baby was due at Christmas time. And no, she wasn't an accident.

Originally I thought that I would make sure that Christmas and Birthday did not overlap at all but actually it's hard to do that and I've realised that the best approach is just to embrace the festive season and make the most of it.

This year, for her 4th, we went for a winter wonderland theme. Adrian and his dad hung up 200 feet of snowflakes on string, cursing me the whole time - but it did look pretty. I think perhaps I overcompensate for the fact that it is so close to Christmas and go a bit overboard trying to make it special for her. But I do enjoy it all...


Freyja greeted everyone at the door with the words 'where's my present?' and after cutting the cake (which was so fabulous it has its own blog post) declared that the first slice was for her because it was her birthday. She also cheered herself when we sang happy birthday, doing a sort of victory wave to everyone. They always manage to show you up somehow don't they?

But really she was quite the hostess, taking all her friends through to the kitchen to have their faces painted (by my sister, who is the only creative one in my family and therefore always gets landed with that sort of stuff), getting drinks and food for everyone and not even complaining when, during pass the parcel, I managed to miss her out so she was the only one who didn't get a go (or a chocolate coin). My dad at one point commented it was 'turning into a brawl', but I think things were pretty much under control.


That was until I made the mistake of letting Freyja open her presents. Children of this age barely respect the fact that wrapped presents belong to someone else and once they are opened it is a free for all. I really was quite frightened. Children, paper and presents were flying about and Freyja was unwrapping as fast as she could go. I was fearful of losing what little control I had of the situation and will not allow present opening during party time again for quite some years.

A vat of mulled wine and many sausage rolls later everyone said their goodbyes. I think I enjoyed the party almost as much as Freyja did - the best thing about having a Christmas birthday is that everyone is just so merry.

Cake!

My friend Paul is really rather good at making cakes. He made his daughter a lovely ladybird cake for her 1st birthday. When Freyja saw this she asked Paul to make her a cake for her birthday. He agreed and then she told him what she wanted - a squirrel.

On Sunday we had Freyja's birthday party. Paul came round with the most perfect pink squirrel cake I have ever seen. Actually I've never seen a squirrel cake before, but this cake looked like a squirrel cake should look.

Freyja was delighted. She wants Paul to make all her future cakes - these are: a butterfly, a bee and finally a horse. At least he has a few years to work that last one out!

Thank you Paul - it really was a perfect cake.

A message from Santa

I know everyone knows about this, but it is so sweet that I'm going to put it on my blog too:

portablenorthpole.tv

For the second year in a row, we’re bringing Santa closer to you! Help someone you care about receive a personalized video message from Santa Claus himself using the PNP console, a technological breakthrough that makes real-time communication with the North Pole possible!

I just did it for Freyja - called her in to see her message from Santa. She sat on my knee, totally in awe of Father Christmas, nodding at all the things he was saying. It brought a tear to my eye.

Night Nappies

I potty trained Freyja when she was coming up to 2.5 and it was relatively pain free. I did not, however, tackle the night times. She was dry at night for a week when she first potty trained and instead of seizing the moment, I left it, something which I was starting to regret a year later when she was still waking up with soaking nappies and showing no signs of making it through the night.

Well, I am pleased to report that, having started to think she was never, ever going to get out of night nappies, she is at last completely nappy free.

I think my mum may have had something to do with it. At least while we were on holiday she made a few comments about having got all of us out of nappies way earlier and then the next thing she was telling me that Freyja was dry in the mornings.

So we got back to England and Freyja wanted to finish the packet of nappies before she attempted without. Every morning I was throwing away yet another dry nappy and trying to convince her to go without. I even tried hiding a few but she saw through that. And then, last weekend, we finished the packet and she went to bed without one. And she wet the bed. And then she wet the bed the next night as well.

We decided to give it one more try (with a bit of bribery thrown in for good measure) and so far she has stayed dry since - and is also the proud owner of a new My Little Pony play set.

I don't lift her before I go to bed - I've tried it and she doesn't wee. She's gone straight through a few times but usually she wakes up and comes to get me in the night when she needs to go. Which is great, though it's wreaking havoc on my undereye circles.

The Tree

We put the tree up last Saturday. This was because Freyja had asked us when we were putting the tree up every 30 seconds or so since waking up that morning. Eventually I snapped and sent her and Adrian to get one.

All our decorations are red and white, bought 2 years ago by me in some ill thought out decision to try to be a little bit tasteful about the whole thing. It seems you can only do tasteful single colour schemes if you spend a lot of money on a lot of decorations and have at least some idea about what to do with these things once you get home. When I was little our tree looked like someone had vomited multicoloured tinsel all over it. A great big heap dripping with glitter and not one pine needle visible beneath the glitz. Now we are grown, by mum's inner interior decorator has won out and she goes just for green and gold. But I loved our psychedelic tree and decided this year that kids want colour, not taste. So I bought some new multicoloured baubles, dug out all the different decorations I could find in the house and gave Freyja free rein.




It looks ace. It looks way cooler and much funkier than any tree I have ever decorated before. Though it is still a long way off from reaching the dizzy rainbow heights of my childhood Christmas tree.

I Saw Santa

Over at Sticky Fingers, there has been some pondering about when you stopped believing in Santa. I don't have any memory of suddenly realising Santa doesn't exist and no idea how old I was when I no longer believed. My sister is 5 and half years younger than me and I know that I pretended to believe for a lot longer than I actually did believe. But there wasn't any traumatic moment when I suddenly knew.

One Christmas I remember clearly is one of the few that we spent in Wales with my Nain and Taid. I can't remember how old I was - probably 4 or 5. My grandparents had this glass brick wall separating their entrance hall from the living room (they were way ahead of their time...). It made everything look blurry and as my brother and I crept out of the bedroom early in the morning, he suddenly froze, turned to me and urgently whispered 'go back to bed, Santa is still there, I can see his big red bum!' We ran back to bed and only later realised that Santa's big red bum was in fact the Wendy House that he had got me for Christmas. Ho ho ho. We still laugh about it now, almost 30 years later...

With Freyja just coming up to 4, we are firmly in the believing stage. Last Christmas, just before she turned 3, was the first Christmas that she really 'got it' and I am so looking forward to this year. We are spending it alone and I know I'll get ridiculously excited about the prospect of creating our own traditions and special memories and I keep coming over all Cath Kidston and planning lovely crackers and candles and table settings.

I've got as far as buying a few baubles from Paperchase and then having a stress-attack about the fact that it is actually December now.