Yay, we got a parcel from my friend Jenn today!  It was very exciting to get a package in the mail.  This is not our first package (we have received a few previous) but this is the first that I have taken pictures of while opening - apologies to those who have sent us something and I didn't take photos, I had not thought of it:(  

We received a chocolate fondue set from the Brazilian CS that we hosted as a thank you gift.   It was difficult to find time during the week to set it all ready early enough so that the sugar could wear off the kids in time for bed, so Saturday marked the day that finally suited us best to have chocolate fondue.  The time that fit the best was diner time, and so there it was, chocolate fondue for diner!  We grabbed all the fruit we had available in the house, and sliced it all up; it included bananas, pineapple, mandarins  apples and mango.  We had strawberries given to us with the fondue set, but Aurora ate them much earlier in the week.  

Overall, we had a great time eating dessert for dinner, but it is most definitely something we can not do regularly, we had had a very big sugar rush, and a huge crash to follow.  We finished the evening with family movie time, watching Pocahontas.    Thank you Anita and Edu for the delicious gift! :-D 

I finally broke down and bought brand new mini muffin pans.  I have been aching to bake, and I have been wanting to try my hand at making banana-oat muffins.  I found a pretty good recipe on-line  that had great reviews, so I tried it, making a few suggested changes by some reviewers.  Here is the recipe is used.  We had a great time making them, and they turned out so gooood!!  I think I am going to give my grandma a run for her money when it comes to banana muffins (although she has Heaps more experience than I do:-)).  Here are some pictures of the girls helping me make the muffins.  i think next time I make them I would like to try to replace some sugar with applesauce, I found  this website that gives a bit a guide on how to replace the sugar, so I'll give that a try 

We have had a Brazilian couple staying with us for the past week and a half, and tonight I made nachos for them, because they had never heard of them, and obviously never tried them. 
We had a great time getting everything chopped up, and created a masterpiece.  Edu made an amazing guacamole to go with them.  We enjoyed a night of watching Lord of the Ring and finishing off with a Tim Tam Slam.  I think we are starting to settle into the NZ life quite well:-) 

Anita and Edu with the amazing Nachos:-D

I am so happy that I come from a crafty family, and that I seem to have inherited the craft hand that my grandmother has.  Tonight I decided to make way with another pin on my pinterest board, and make an infinity scarf for the girls.  I did really follow any instructions, I just used a photo an inspiration.  I found this fabric at Creative Junk, where I filled a bag of 'junk' for $8.  The fabric is a stretchy knit of some sort, I am not too educated on fabric types, but It worked perfectly!  
The weather is getting colder everyday, so I think these scarfs will keep my girls nice and warm:-)
Mom - thank you for passing this amazing gene to used my hands in such a fabulous way!!

Now that autumn is among us, the air is getting cooler everyday.  New Zealand does not have central heating like back in Canada, and we have to depend on a wood burner in the family room to heat the house up. New Zealand houses do not have the same insulation as Canadian houses, on top of that our house had only single pane windows.  So needless to say the cool air from outside is making its way into our home very easily. 

So today I started our first fire in our wood burning oven. I was pretty nervous about getting it going, because I don't have much experience lighting fires. With a good amount of wood kindling, paper and cardboard I made a tipi in the middle of the oven. Of the few things I know about building fires, I do know that starting it well is VERY important in making sure it stays alive. With only ONE try, I had the fire going and blazing hot!!!  I did use a lot of paper and cardboard, I am sure more than was necessary, to get it going.  If anyone has fire making (and staying alive) tips, I would love to hear them!  
The only I had left to figure out is which side the air intake handle had to be on in order for the vent to be open.  With a lot of fiddling about, I finally got that too; but it think is was much harder than it had to be because the chimney has not been cleaned out for a few years, and the oxygen source is probably not the best that it could be.  Our landlord it supposed to be getting it cleaned out very soon, FYI.

Not too much going on over here, many couchsurfers coming and going, making our home full of friends all of the time:-)