Gingerpixel Photography - Ireland - Children\'s, Baby, Newborn, Family, Wedding Photographer based in Greystones, County Wicklow

Peanut Butter Cookies

Sunday afternoon has always been my day for baking. I’m no gourmet chef but I love making desserts. This recipe is one I’ve been making since I was a little girl…that’s how easy it is…but oh the cookies are the best. This is an American recipe so you’ll find no mention of oz or kg.

1. Mix the following in a large bowl:

Half a cup of soft brown sugar
Half a cup of caster sugar
Half a cup of peanut butter
Half a cup of butter
1 egg
Half a teaspoon of vanilla essence

2. Pause here to, ahem, sample the dough:

3. Sift the following and stir into the peanut butter mix:

One and a quarter cups of plain flour
A quarter teaspoon of salt
Three quarters of a teaspoon of soda

4. Roll the dough into balls and place onto baking sheets.

5. Criss-cross the balls with a fork. Dip the fork into flour to stop it sticking.

6. Place in a pre-heated oven at 375F/180C and bake for 10 – 12 minutes until they’re golden brown.

7. Snap them up while they’re still warm and have a large glass of ice-cold milk handy.

Yum!

Animation

Pocoyo: The Blog

Elly

Luckily I’ve never felt the need for an excuse to watch cartoons, but since Eve has started to pay a little more attention to the flickering screen in the corner I’ve been trying to introduce her to some of my favourites. There are some excellent ones to choose from and my hope is that if I can indoctrinate her with the quality shows then perhaps she’ll never ask me to sit through Barney or BooBah.

One of the best is Pocoyo. It’s a Spanish-made series about the adventures of a little boy and his friends: an elephant, a duck a sleepy bird and a puppy. The animation is 3d and it has a wonderful lighting and texturing technique that makes it look like soft plasticine. The design is slightly skewed, the animation is snappy and there’s a lot of funky dancing but no dialogue, instead it’s narrated by Stephen Fry. I haven’t quite persuaded Eve, but I watch it whether she’s around or not so I was really excited (yes I’m a nerd) to discover that one of the creators, David Cantolla, has a blog.

pocoyo

In it he talks about how hecame up with the idea of doing a show when he saw his daughter Vega watching the Tellytubbies:

I had not really paid much attention to them before that and I have to say that at the time I didnÂ´t understand why they were so successful. However, Vega was transfixed. I felt a huge sense of envyâ€¦ â€œthose guys are so lucky, they are forming part of my daughterÂ´s memories!!!â€ â€¦ and suddenly I saw it really clearly – I wanted it to be US who were building her memories, herÂ´s and my niecesâ€™ and nephewsâ€™ , JosÃ© MarÃaÂ´s kids and business partnersÂ´, friendsÂ´ and their friendsÂ´. To Make Memories!!! And for them to be different, to give something that had ever been given before, a different view point for the pre-school world, we wanted to see children laughing, and applauding and to see the adults understanding what their children were watching, so that they could enjoy it with them â€¦ this was the challenge, and this is where it all beganâ€¦.

He goes on to talk about how he and the other creators came up with the idea for Pocoyo eventhough none of them had any experience in making animation. The artistic influence that Calvin & Hobbes and Little Nemo had on the design and story. How they searched for funding and grew it from that seed of an idea to become a multi-award winning global hit. It’s a fascinating read and a blog I’ll be adding to my links.

Blogging

Happy Blogday 2006

Yes, today is the day and I have to say I’ve really enjoyed preparing for this. So many excellent blogs out there, I had a hard time whittling it down to just five. Eventually I just had to stop myself from clicking anymore links. I think I’ve found five excellent ones though. I tried to find blogs written by people from those countries rather than blogs written by immigrants to that country to get a real global feel. Finding blogs in English was probably the toughest part. Without further ado…

1. Restless Kiwi

Shona blogs from Auckland in New Zealand and describes herself as “A Kiwi girl with wanderlust” which immediately endeared her to me. She’s a journalist which would explain her lovely way with words. Just check out her post today about a phonecall from her landlord’s mother.

2. Gosu

Had to include this photoblog of beautiful images of African landscapes. There’s no information about the photographer on the site that I could find. Just amazing photography.

3. Chayyei Sarah

I wanted to find an Israeli blog that wasn’t a straight political one but which still gave me some insight into what it’s like to be living over there. Quite difficult to do right now which is understandable. Sarah describes herself as “An Orthodox Jewish thirty-something is living,playing, writing, and dating in Jerusalem” and I love her mix of topics. Today’s is a rundown of the childhood tv shows from the 70’s which made me smile.

4. Chookooloonks

Chookooloonks isn’t a blog I had to go looking for, it’s been a favourite of mine for awhile. Karen is “a wife, mother, writer and photographer” and she lives in Trinidad and Tobago. Her photographs are so beautiful it has put T&T on my list of places to see before I die. Excellent blog and far too many nice things to say about it to fit in this little space.

5. The Lost Hawaiian

I love this blog by Josie from Hawaii. Her latest post features a photo of her completing a San Diego Half Marathon and reminiscing about how far she’s come in the past year. I love her honesty and her humour and will be adding this one to my regular blog reads.

Now, I’m off to see what gems everyone else has unearthed…

Eve

Ready…Steady…GO!

basf tape
*** not the actual tape but it looks just like this one.

My parents have an old BASF audio cassette tape with a collection of recordings of me at about two years old singing and talking and saying nursery rhymes. It was recorded on an old brown cassette player which was the height of techno-gadgetry back when I was a toddler. It’s funny when you think of all the modern ways there are now to capture your child’s every move and utterance. This generation of children won’t be able to get away from images and recordings of themselves at every stage of their growing up but back then that cassette was as good as it got.

Listening to the tape I’m struck by how much like Eve I sounded. I’m told all the time that she looks like me at that age but it’s strange to hear my voice from all those years ago and for it to be like listening to Eve. The thought that gets me the most though is that my first memories start somewhere in there. I don’t remember being recorded, but I do remember that brown casette player. I have hazy memories of some of the people I talk about on the tape and of being the flower girl at my aunt’s wedding just a few months later when I thought I was getting married to the page boy. It gets me because it means that any time now Eve might have her first memory.

It’s not like the other firsts we’ve already had…first word, first step, first tooth…for some reason it seems far more important. It’s as if everything up to now has been the warm-up because our mistakes won’t be remembered. So if we were to, say, accidently fall down the stairs with her, well it’s ok because she wasn’t hurt and she’ll have no memory of it. Not so now! Anything we do might become that first recalled incident and if we mess up then it’ll stick.

It’s as if we’ve just left the Ready, Steady portion of parenting and we’re into the GO!

Blogging

Blogday 2006

The 31st of August (I can’t believe that’s just next week!) is one to mark in your Blogging diaries as it’s international Blogday. It’s a day when we’re encouraged to step outside our Blogging comfort zone and go international. From the Blogday site:

In one long moment In August 31st, bloggers from all over the world will post a recommendation of 5 new Blogs, Preferably, Blogs different from their own culture, point of view and attitude. On this day, blog surfers will find themselves leaping and discovering new, unknown Blogs, celebrating the discovery of new people and new bloggers.

So, if you’d like to take part, do a little exploration this week of the blogosphere. On the 31st do a post linking to 5 new blogs with a little introduction to each one. Then leave a comment on those 5 blogs letting the authors know that you have recommended them. If you’re having trouble locating suitable blogs Global Voices is a nifty site to help you find some new bloggers from far-flung places. Or if you already know of a few gems that you’d like to let people know about here’s your chance to get the news out.

If you do take part drop me a comment and let me know, I’d love to see the blogs that people find.

For more instructions go to the Blogday site.