SUNDAY MORNING CHIMNEYS

A little tradition has developed in our family over the past few months which has been rather lovely.  Well actually rather delicious also.  Every Sunday morning my parents go to the Takapuna Sunday markets.  They bring these Hungarian delicacies to us from the markets and we absolutely love them! Here is a little information about them….

The worldwide famous Kürtöskalács is a traditional Hungarian pastry originated from Transylvania. A very funny renaming of the Kürtöskalács,  is on the web: the "Barbecued Chimney Cake".

Kürt is Hungarian for horn and kalács means milk bread.

These tasty Transylvanian treats are giant rolls made of dough covered with caramelized sugar and walnut, coconut and many other toppings. Kürtöskalács is made in smaller rolls too (the first two photos), so people can taste more flavors.

Here are some photos of them making them at the markets.

We love the cinnamon and sugar coated ones but they come in all different flavours.  The kids like the hundreds and thousands sprinkled ones also.

Our kids call them chimneys (much to the Hungarian’s disgrace I am sure).  It is so cute I am starting to get early Sunday morning texts asking “what flavour Chimneys do you want today?” 

So here are some photos of our latest ‘Chimney’ deliveries.

We love you Mum and Dad for all you do!  Our kids will never forget little things like these!

Mothers Day Fun

Mothers Day this year was lovely! 

It started the Night before.  Our church always puts on a ‘Mothers Day Dinner’ for all the ladies and their whanau and friends around the time of Mothers Day.  So we had a blast together with some of our Besties! Then after that we went to a local café for hot choc etc. 

On Sunday Morning I was woken nice and early arghhh! Excuse all the photos, remember I had hardly had any sleep!  LOL!  As if I didn’t get into bed late enough  LOL.  

Terina made me fruit salad,  she had been asking me all week to get mandarins, Apples, bananas and grapes by Saturday in time for Mothers Day so I knew she was scheming something.  It was so cute.  I was woken and taken into the kitchen and it was all set up with my lovely surprises.  I love the fruit Salad she made (note the silver balls in it, now that’s a first)!  

The kids had made lovely cards for me,  one from each of them. 

The card below is Niwas' card to me.

The Card below is the one Arama made for me.  I 

Loved the detail in his picture. I am bike riding in the

street and there are people walking up and down the 

footpath.  All the letter boxes have numbers on them, 

the trees have lovely shading on them etc,  the dyslexic

detail is amazing!

The card below is the one Terina made for me at school.

Her kind words melt me as usual!

Terina also made me this card below.  

I think she copied a Maori Book of Mormon 

cover as it says Ko te Pukapuka a Moromona

on the front of the card.  When you open the card

up you see a lovely drawing of the temple.

This is me opening my present.

They Gave me Annabel Langbein's cookbook,

'Free Range in the City'.

Then the kids said they were going to make waffles for breakfast.

I am actually the waffle Queen in our house so I kinda ended up making 

them Ha HA!

More photos of us eating the waffles coming up.

All in all it was a lovely day filled with love and excitement!  My mum has been

on a Cruise around OZ the past few weeks so we didn't

get to see her  and Keith's mum was in hospital.  

Keith and Terina went  to visit her in Hospital after we finished dinner. 

OUR ZOO TRIP

Yesterday we went to the Zoo.  Keith was working so I took the kids as we had promised them and their cousin Kyla came too!  Here are some of our Zoo photos.

OUR LAUNDRY SYSTEM

This is our Laundry System!

I don't usually put up things like this but it might help you if you 

hate folding washing as much as I do!

Everyone has their own bendy container.  

Terina = Pink

Arama = Blue

Niwa = Black

Keith and I  = Black

You can see the pile of washing in the background! (about 4 days worth  LOL)

The kids throw (its like a basketball game) the clothes into the correct container. 

They then take their clothes to their rooms and fold and put away. 

(Some are better than others at this job)

The kids then fold the towels and the face clothes etc.  (all the easy stuff)

All hard at work!   

They love the basketball game!

They could improve on the folding and putting away.

We haven't got it perfect yet but it sure is easier than doing it all alone, 

even if all they do is sort, that still makes your job so much faster,  it 

only takes us about 2 mins  to sort the washing together.

These containers are perfect because when they are finished 

they just stack neatly on top of each other again and go 

back in the laundry!

Give it a go, you will love it and the kids love it too as it gives them ownership!

The insides of their drawers are not as good as they could look if you did it,

 but hey who cares,  they did it!