I am a cheater

Some people ask me about cooking in Australia. Cooking is the same but there are some major differences. First and foremost.......they measure, like most of the world in the metric system. That completely was confusing to me and took me a while, I feel like I am just starting to be able to visualize some of the measurements, but really I found this lovely cheat sheet in the back of one of my cookie recipe books. I copied and it sits on the door of my pantry along with christmas cards that we received.

 I seriously use this chart nearly every day. I use it for measurement and to know how hot to turn on my oven when i cook. And I have a convection or fan forced as they call it here and that also took me a while to figure out. Cooking was very stressful and frustrating for me in the beginning before I found this sheet. It is far too expensive to just give up and go eat out and we didnt get our home goods until 2 months of being here. Yes sometimes I googled things but it didnt all fall together until I found this easy fix.

And yes thoes were teddy grams you saw sitting on our pantry shelf and no you can not get those here, they were a wonderful treat sent in a care package from grandparents. Lots of the typical american kids snacks are not here, fine by me. I do miss them a bit but really erik is now accustomed to being handed carrot sticks (they also dont sell baby carrots here, I do all the work, and yes it is annoying sometimes but mostly makes me feel like supermom-I am entitled to that feeling right?), cut up fruit, and other veggies. On a good day he gets something similar to a cereal bar and he does a happy dance and quote says "oooohhhh likey likey" That also makes me feel like super mom : )

Apparently I lied...Oops

So I was done with christmas pics but then I just couldn't resist myself. Here are a few more..

 Classic, perfect expression for a kid opening a gift. We were very blessed that one of Lindsay's home teaching ladies bought this awesome super sized dump truck with construction hat and tools for him....spoiled...um yes.

These are our lovely vietnamese friends who adore Erik. Seriously they will hang out with us as long as Erik is around but if he goes to bed, they are out. Its all right we love having them around any way! They are newly baptised members of our church and this was their first christmas, and first year learning the whole Christmas story....how lucky we felt to be a part!

Those sweet girls knew our little guys favorite treat is kinder eggs (chocolate eggs with a toy inside)...so they found a GIANT one and gave it to him for christmas....spoiled.....why yes!

Erik and Lindsay found light sabers in their stockings, Erik of course HAD to have the blue one. They surprisingly are still a favorite toy. I am pretty sure santa found them in the cheap gimicky part of target candy area (they had m&ms in the bottom) back in the states.

The two men playing with them. Erik has now learned how to fake die and stab in the armpit to pretend a stab in the heart. That sounds morbid now that I type that out.....oh well every little boy learns it some time right? Why not while playing with daddy.

I dont know if I will ever get used to this lovely view. On this particular eveing I caught a glimpse outside as the sun was making the skyline look like it was on fire. It was beautiful and the picture can never do these things justice. Its awesome. And this is perfect time of night also to see the ginormous bats fly around as they wake up. One of our family's favorite evening activities. We will miss many of these things one day when it's time to leave.

Toilet Talk

Some people call it the toilet, loo, and even the porcelain throne

 Dont worry this post will have nothing gross to see or be squirmish about. Just thought I would take some time to share some of the things that are different round these parts of the world that are every day things. Lo and behold the Aussie toilet. And random bit, when you need to go the bathroom or restroom as we most commonly call it in America, it is always called the toilet here (I have every once in a great while seen a sign say "restroom") It's always toilet. It was a bit odd to me at first not quite seeming proper enough but quickly learned that Aussies have a completely different style of communicating (they shoot from the hip and no one takes offence, it just is what it is) and so it makes sense. Now looking at the above picture you might not notice anything different from any other toilet........let me point out a few things.....

 This is the way you flush the toilet. Its almost always on top of the toilet or in some public toilets on the wall directly behind where its pictured above. Some have the flush styled a bit differently but there is one thing that remains the same. A half flush and a whole flush (ours happens to be the small moon or big moon, ah how fitting). I absolutely love this concept and think it is something that would be great to integrate back in America. It is environmentally  "greener" and just is practical. Cause really when you make a 'wee' as the littles call it here you don't need a big flush and other times a big flush will do just the trick.

The one thing I dont like about the flush is in public bathrooms the buttons are still up at waist height and you cant flush with your foot like you usually can in America, yuck!!!!! And yes many times their public facilities are just as nasty as ours as far as parks and big places. The shopping centers are not as bad and usually have a family bathroom which makes it a bit easier but that is one thing I hate about this flush system. I dont know if it has to be that way or not, but me no likey.

This is the toilet bowl, who notices the difference...................barely any water. Yep initially I thought smart cookies you aussie's and well I guess it is smart. The country had been in drought for so many years that all these changes including the flush had been made to help with water use. Showers were limited to 4 minutes a day and you could be fined or get in trouble somehow if you were using too much, and you could only water your garden or yard if you collected the rain water and used that. So yes, this was a great change to their system to help. Unfortunately Queensland had major flooding last year but since then the drought is over.

Back to the toilet, that little amount of water means lots of phantom skid marks and washing to toilet way more often than any homemaker would ever love to do. I mean I dont know about you but cleaning the toilet is not my favorite chore of the house, but that may just be me. Toilet brushes are usually kept in every bathroom er toilet, and must be thrown out more often. So all in all there are things I absolutely love about these here aussie toilets and things I very much dislike. Every time some one comes over I have to run into the toilet and make sure there are no marks that need scrubbing because that little amount of water even my 3 year leaves phantom marks.