All Blacks and the Little Blue Duck

"The little blue duck with a passion to cook, was busily searching her recipe book.  I'll make a pavlova that beaut kiwi treat, lighter than air and perfectly sweet"

These words are read often in our home at bed time from the story "The Little Blue Duck".  To Kaea I guess the pav has been a mystery and a promise that one day we would make one.

And so we finally made one as a contribution to our Kiwi Dinner to celebrate the World Cup Rugby Final.

For every game the All Blacks played we dined on the delights of the "other" team.  From savoury crepes, and fruit tarts, to turkey sandwiches, pecan pie and pancakes, to takeaways (we had those when we played Tonga!).

We beat the egg whites and sugar for 10 minutes as suggested by a few Pavlova websites.

We also built walls up around the outside to stop the flat Pav thing from happening.

Kaea was in charge of the eggs.  "We whipped and we beat till the white of the eggs were perfectly peaked".  The funniest part of our pav making was when Kaea asked to go and find a cow to milk so we could make the cream.  We explained that we would go to the supermarket for cream.... to which she replied "To find a cow".

The outcome of our pav was somewhat like the game really..... a bit touch and go but overall pretty sweet!

Oil Spill in our Beautiful Bay

Mr G, local and internationally acclaimed graffiti artist and local artist OD provoking the need for immediate action in the Bay of Plenty to clean our waters of the oil and stranded cargo ship devastating our environment.

So hard to fathom that this is happening in our neighbourhood.

("hui" pronounced "hoo - ee" means to meet)

Well Adjusted Babies and Children

I have been a great fan of the principles and values of the Well Adjusted Babies website and book since becoming a Mumma.  Again as we enter another  challenging week of sickness in our family - Mumma struck down with a tummy bug, Bubba with inflamed throat and ears and terrible break your heart cough at just six weeks old and Big Girl with another seasonal cold I am reminded of the Well Adjusted Baby and Children principles.

I absolutely believe that chiropractic adjustments allow the immune system to "do its thang" with might and clarity.  Bubba had a wonderfully blissful  sleep and time after hers' this week and her body seems to be healing itself.  A complete contrast to dealing with her ailments beforehand.

Children know what their bodies need when they are unwell and if we have the strength and patience (in my case this week) to listen to them they will lead us to these.  My Big Girl has often told me that she needed an adjustment and can point out where on her body it was required.  She always turns out to be right!  Little ones can also make the best nutrition choice for them during times of illness.  My Big Girl as a crawler with a cold would take her self to the pantry and bite on garlic cloves!  Today, after assuring me that it was in fact warm enough outside to play, she went to her garden to pluck peas to eat and pulled out a broccoli.  This was followed with a request for her knife with which she stripped the broccoli and came inside to ask to have it for lunch with rice.  Sure thing!  We added tomato, cheese and tuna, she mixed it all up and lunch was devoured.  An awesome lunch made with my Big Girl helping in six minutes flat!

Lastly, and this one I am struggling with... a lot given the countries latest issues.  Immunisations!  Poor sick Baby is due to have the six week ims, however I put this off due to her being so unwell.  I am so unsure about immunising this time around mainly because I realised first time round I just went with it and did not allow myself to absorb enough information about the pros and cons.  I have since learned that many unimmunised children with whom I have had contact lead healthy lives with very few colds and flus compared to the immunised children I know.  My immunised Big Girl has certainly had her fair share of colds and flus in her two years.  I wonder if the immunisations can stress the immune system and run it down making it easier to catch a cold??  So I am stuck on the notion of immunising having listened to much more information than I had in round one.  I wonder if you might share your thoughts on immunising or not with me.

Again as I have posted before, I want to say thank you to our family chiropractor "Zest" for their support and energy they give me as a newish Mumma x  Check out their facebook page for helpful articles and updates on raising free range healthy children.