(Officially) Introducing Ronan

aka Brimfeldt In The News when he eventually is big enough to play in the ring with the big kids and more commonly known as Wo-wo, Roni and Macaroni.;)  We are only just a TAD smitten.  

Easy Peasie (With Lemon Squeezie) Banana Bread

Getting my "good mother" badge today making something with the Short People's favorite fruit. ;)  No, seriously... if Lily were given free access she'd have 3-4 a day easy and La isn't much higher on the self-regulation scale!

1 cup very ripe banana, mashed up

3/4 cup sugar

1.5 tablespoons golden syrup

1.5 tsp vanilla extract

2 tablespoons sunflower oil

1/3 cup vanilla bliss non-dairy milk (yummmm... evil and sugary but so vanillaliscious)

6 tablespoons hot water

a good solid squeeze off of half a lemon or thereabouts

1 1/2 cups flour

1 tsp bicarb

3/4 tsp salt

dash each of cinnamon and nutmeg, more if it's your pleasure

Set oven to preheat at 180C.  Mash banana in a medium bowl till it's smoothish... don't worry if it's not blender perfect, you just call it "rustic home-style" and pretend that was your intent - it's half the charm of a loaf anyway.  Add in sugar and beat.  Add in wet ingredients - golden syrup, vanilla, sunflower oil, vanilla bliss, hot water and lemon juice and mix.  Add in the dry ingredients - flour, bicarb, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.  Mix to incorporate, tip into a greased loaf tin and pop in the oven.  Set timer for 55 mins or until the crust is golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.  Stand guard while it cools enough small fingers won't burn, tip out, slice and distract the 6 year old with a nose like a bloodhound long enough to have at least one slice on your own.

Miss Not-Quite-Three

• Loves fruit.  Apples, pears, bananas, blueberries, strawberries, mandarins and toast with either vegemite or peanut butter but NOT fruit spread thanks.  
• Has discovered "chuppa chups".  (Shoot me now...)
• Cheers for Daleks.
• Is the only person in our family or group of friends to call La by his proper full name.
• Loves her "dancy skirts" by which she means any skirt that swirls when she twirls.  Try putting pants on the child and she'll yank them right back off, hand them back and ask for "dancy skirt!"
• Believes this look is best accessorized by 'tompin boots' -  that's stomping boots for those who don't speak two year old - which are her little faux bludstones. 
• Is disturbingly interested in shoes.  Really, at not quite three the shoe department shouldn't win out over the toy department!
• Dances a mean boogie-woogie and likes to sing in the car like her momma.  (Has her mumma's complete inability to carry a tune too sadly!)
• Gives the absolute best huggies. Full arms around, patting your back, snuggled all the way in with her head either on your heart or in the crook of your neck.
• Loves daddy - unless mummy is around, in which case poor daddy rates somewhere below roadkill.
• Is Pip the kittens favorite person, despite all logic dictating that toddlers are most cats least favorite people she is the only one he will seek out, rub against and allow to carry him around.
• Still cannot stand to have doors in the house open - doors are meant to be SHUT!
• Is so going to be her mumma's junior handler - adores her doggies Sisi, 'opie, RIN!!!!, Kiahpuppy and 'wo-nin.

Funny words: shippy tuppy (sippy cup), 'abutty (peanut butter), 'amite (vegemite), shocks (socks), punnies (bunnies), rins (mandarins), toash (toast), bikkit (biscuit),

first race back

Miss Hope had her first day backrunning flyball the other week after her illness - I have to say that was one HAPPY puppydoggie!  On our way back home we stopped and visited the beach.  My camera battery was on the red but I managed to snap a few before it died!  I do love this area - such a lovely little town. :)

S'more bits and pieces

First puppy pictures... because there is just NOTHING cuter!  Okay so normally that'd be kind of insulting towards my children...and my other dogs... and cats... and rabbits and such.  I'm going with it because Ronan is very, very cute AND he's not dug his hay all over the box last night, muddy from wrestling outside (dogs), covered in lunch (LILY) or hanging upside down in the chair playing legos with his feet (that bit of weirdness would be La...) which makes him currently the cutest.  Sue me!

This morning I scared the bejeebers out of myself when I went to let the dogs out - bleary eyed from a late night of tummy troubles and pre-coffee, I cued them to sit in their pens and went to grab some treats out of the jar on the hutch for them.  Instead of just a few cookies, I came up with a bunch of spiderweb and an unamused funnelweb spider who'd decided to make herself at home.  Well... if nothing else, it certainly woke me up!

Taking a wild leap to the next topic with no logical transition... the Demonspawn was a funny nut last night.  She is rather OCD about the cats and movement.  I know, I know... Kelpie and Jack - that's a big fat lot of, "Well duh!"  At any rate one thing we've been working on is looking at the cats while giving calm/relaxed body language.  Nothing particularly ground breaking - it's pretty well known that getting relaxed body language can trigger relaxation. Breathing or rather exhaleing has been part of that.  So a nice relaxed exhale equals mark and reward. Exhale, mark and reward.  Lovely.  Possibly even productive.  Then she lets out this big HUFFFFFF when I was glancing away and missed the initial breath out.  (Bloody humans, can't train 'em to pay attention if their lives depend on it!  Pfth!)  I laughed.  About 0.00008 seconds later I realized my mistake (oh crap, I LAUGHED!  I LAUGHED at the manic dog who LOVES that kind of reaction! *mental whiney-stampy-dagnamit dance*) because my formerly 'relaxing and taking a deep breath' dog was gleefully running around on her tippy toes going HUFF, HUFF, HUFFFF!

Back to wishing my post box would magically contain the collars I've ordered for the dogs (two for Ronan and two for the girls and a name-tag for Ronan) and vaguely trying to get organized for the weekend in Wonthaggi as Hopie is having her first flyball comp after being ill!  Feel free to repress the trauma of seeing the unco wobbly thirty something doing a snoopy dance...

Puppybreath!

This is the other part of our news over the past little while... the arrival of PUPPYBREATH!

Sue was kind enough to have me over when mumma gave birth and spoil me with time with the babies to play and take pictures (just a few...) every week since as they've grown. 

Here's the wee little slugs in a row just after they were born... only a few hours old.  In order from left to right they are "Fat Albert", "Malcolm In The Middle" and "Tigerlily".  I was interested in a boy so it was Mr Albert or Mr Malcolm who were likely to come home with me and I had a soft spot for Malcolm as he has a kissy spot on his collar, which most of my dogs have had and I consider a bit of a lucky omen. :)  As it happened over the following weeks I just fell more in love with him and another friend fell in love with Albert (yay! PUPPY BROTHERS! *happy dance*) and Sue fell in love with Tigerlily (now Demi) soooooo unless things change it's most likely Malcolm is my "Ronan".  We'd decided to use that name as I'd made the wish for a puppy as special as my Verity after she passed at "our spot", St. Ronan's Wishing Well and it seemed the obvious name for a wish come true.  So here's a few of the pics (I won't add them all... there's about 300 'keepers' so far. LOL)  They are #2-3 at two weeks old, 4-6 at three weeks old and the last at four weeks.

If you're looking for a puppy to cuddle, I'm awfully cute!

With mumma, first time outside!

A bit of brotherly love!  With give and take of course. ;p

Beautiful mumma!

 Wellll... it may just have been a little while since I sat down to write on this blog.  A lot has happened so I'll give a relatively shortish recap.

One thing I'd not mentioned which was rather momentous for us was adopting Nilla a husbun!  Beautiful Master Buttons, a little black lop boy was who she seemed to get along with best at the animal shelter and he is just the cutest little man and I just love him to bits. They had a short period bonding before being able to be free-range housebuns full time together. :) 

In October we had Laurent's sixth birthday.  He was very chuffed to actually get me to go to a restaurant - Lord of the Fries at Chaddy - and get to order his meal all by himself.  He was especially pleased as turning six means he's allowed to transition to the "Big Kids Class" at school, from the Cycle One class (which is ages 3-6) to Cycle 2 (which is 6-12 year olds). 
We had a very busy few months after this first with three of the dogs ingesting a mycotoxin, which is suspected to be residue from a bit of rubbish (fast food wrapper or some bit of food) that was tossed on the roadside and blew into the yard.  The long story short, when they went out to potty they ate something (nothing was identified in their stomachs during pumping aside from a small amount of white powder in Kiah) and after about 45 mins inside were in dire straights having massive seizures and requiring a week at the vets.  Hope was the worst off, seizing for about 8 hours and requiring 2 generals and other medications to get under control.  Even then we spent the week waiting to find out of there would be permanent neurological damage.  Thank goodness there wasn't and all three girls are back to their usual happy bouncy selves as if nothing had happened.  The downside was we had a nice big fat vet bill resulting!

Then not a short while later Laurent was grabbing his schoolbag from the car leaning over the seat and knocked the car into gear.  Car went forward, La went flying... end result was the poor kid had a 5-6cm gash in his forehead all the way through and required plastic surgery to fix.  The car ended up being stopped when it rolled into a tree in our driveway, leaving it needing 'surgery' as well.

Thankfully everything has been a bit boring since then!  Hopie was able to go back to agility training not too long after and will be back to her first flyball comp soon too! :D

I've been doing a fair bit of garden work and the rainbow bridge garden has been really rewarding me for last year because all my little roses are blooming!

Christmas was quiet... we just spent the day at home opening prezzies, playing with prezzies and lounging around.  As you can see - it was rough!  LOL  The kids and critters all had fun with their prezzies though, which is the point of it all.

 And my own gifts weren't too shabby!  Although to be really honest... my best "gift" of all arrived a bit earlier than Christmas (5th of Dec to be exact) and will be the subject of another post! ;)