Recent Things: The Birthday Edition

It's my BIRTHDAYYYYYYYYYYYYY! 

And I'll share my favourite recent things if I want to...

Because whilst I'd love to share cake with you all, I know you're reading this from all different parts of the world where I can't really send cake to - so I'll send it in spirit (though lets be honest... cake in spirit kind of sucks.. so maybe you should bake a cake). 

And clearly adding an extra year to my age makes no difference to my randomness because here I am babbling away, but let's jump right into.......

The birthday edition of our Recent Things! >> 

Recent Thankfulness: This week I have definitely been reminded of how lucky I am! I am surrounded by incredible friends who I love so so SO incredibly much! 

And not only do I have friends who live just 5 minutes from me, I also have friends right across the globe thanks to this little bloggity blog (and the Kristy curse... but I'd much rather that didn't happen haha!).

Recent Surprises: One of those bloggy friends is Claire who surprised me with an awesome birthday gift! Inside the box was this Facial Cleansing Gel, Moroccan Argan Oil (one of my beauty MUST HAVES!) and Mongo Kiss Lip Balm and Vanilla Honey Lip Balm.

Claire started out as a SIL reader, then created her own blog and her and her boyfriend Eric are officially the most dedicated SIL readers out as they have made at least half of the recipes on the blog :P 

I am in the process of convincing Eric (Claire is already convinced) that they need to move to Australia so we can cook and eat delicious things together and go on awesome adventures!

But there's someone else who potentially is reading this who knows they were behind the peanut butter shown in this photo. If it was you who sent that package 1) THANK YOU! 2) please tell me who you are so I can thank you personally!

Especially because you got my FAVOURITEST FAVOURITE peanut butter! This Coconut Peanut Butter from Earth Balance is a MUST try and the Mighty Maple is the only PB&Co peanut butter I haven't tried so I can't wait to try it!

As for the bath party bath bomb? Why wouldn't you want to party in the bathtub when it's your birthday?! (and watch the weird search terms come after that sentence, friends!)

Recent Reader Creations: I always love hearing what you guys think when you try our recipes and here are three pictures from around the world! 

First up is our Easy Healthy Baked Falafel Recipe, followed by Cora's version of my Peanut Flour Banana Bread Recipe  and Carlie's twist on my Healthy Paleo Banana Bread Recipe!

Recent Chanel-ing: I realised earlier that this week that I clearly don't share enough photos of Chanel as someone emailed me to ask if he still had her!

YES, we most certainly do still have Chanel and she certainly gets plenty of love and attention. The reason you often see more pictures of Trixie vs Chanel is because of their personality differences. 

You can tell here in one of our recent Instagram Stories - Chanel is more than content to just snuggle and do her own thing but Trixie? Trixie likes to get rightttttttttt up in your face and give you no choice but to give her attention all day every day :P 

Recent Toys: I'm considering buying a new camera and recently I've been playing around with the Canon 750D. I'll be honest, when I first tried it, I wasn't a fan - but the more I play with it? The more I love it... 

To the point where I don't actually know how I'm going to part ways with it. Not only does it take incredible photos - it also has it's own WiFi network so you can sync the camera to your phone or computer and transfer the images across in seconds - or shoot remotely by setting the camera up on a tripod and triggering the shot on your phone! (perfect for recording videos... which we really need to start doing!)

Recently Reading: Amy Silverman's My Heart Can't Even Believe It. I've just finished this book on my Kobo (more about that later) and what an incredible book it was! 

Amy is the author of the blog Girl in a Party Hat and this book (as well as her blog) centres around life with her cheeky, dramatic and loveable daughter Sophie and older daughter Annabelle. Sophie has Down Syndrome (or Trisomy 21) and this book shares Amy's journey from finding out her tiny newborn had Down syndrome (something she knew nothing about and something that came as a complete surprise) to investigating possible treatments and battling school systems to day to day life with Sophie.

Amy wrote the book because she couldn't find anything like it when she looked herself. She wanted a story that wasn't just for parents of kids with Down Syndrome - but a story for anyone touched by disability. 

But I think it's a book everyone should read. Not only does it share what life is like when someone you love is a little bit different, it's the perfect mix of education, family, marriage, genetics, history, politics, legal, pop culture and just about everything in between. 

And if you're like Amy used to be and find yourself uncomfortable around people with disabilities... trying to avoid eye contact with the people you pass in the street or serving at a store... you really need to read this book. Because these people are just like you or I - only they probably have a few life lessons to teach you too!

Recent Laughs: On Sunday after church Jesse picked up one of our friends' kids to go Pokemon hunting whilst I stayed at home to work on some recipes. About an hour or so later, I got a message with this photo. 

Jesse had bumped into some fellow Pokemon hunters (our favourite little guys!)  whilst wandering through Carss Park and Belinda snapped this photo because she thought it was quite hilarious too :P 

Recent Loving: Bowl after bowl after bowl of oatmeal... or either this creamy buckwheat hot cereal or this organic creamy brown rice hot cereal. Either way, if it's hot, delicious and gluten free I'm eating it. 

I've been eating hot cereal or oatmeal for either breakfast or lunch (or both... don't judge :P) most days as I just can't get enough! Especially as I'm currently sick with the flu too and it's the perfect way to soothe a sore throat. 

This week's favourite combination would have to be this bowl, loaded with fresh strawberries and banana, big dollops of peanut butter and some dark chocolate chunks for good measure. YUM!

Recent Favourites: My Kobo Glo. Usually I'm a "real" book girl but I cannot tell you how obsessed I am with my Kobo Glo. Not only is it super duper light weight (and the perfect size to pop in my handbag), the battery lasts FOREVER. 

Okay, well maybe not forever.... but I finished My Heart Can't Believe It and the Kobo read that is had 87% battery left. What the what?! I didn't even read it all in one day - I'd read it throughout the last week!

Not only can you upload any eBook file you have (via Adobe Digital Editions), Kobo also have a really awesome eBook store with daily deals and cheap prices.... which is a MUST if you're like me and chew threw books like Michael Phelps chews through calories (speaking of which, did you know he eats 12,500+ calories a day?! Usain Bolt only eats 5500 calories per day and I was shocked to find out that he achieves that by eating lots and lots of chicken nuggets... bleh).

But back to the eReader.... to put things simply... I love it - especially when it means I get to read cosied up in the afternoon sunshine on my favourite red chair (with a sleeping Trixie who cannot let me sit on said chair by myself... ever... regardless of what she's doing at the time I sit).

Recent Failishes: Failishes because it wasn't exactly a fail. This is just proof that not every recipe makes it to the blog. This week I made these double chocolate cookies that whilst really really delicious, probably won't make it to the blog because they're not very aesthetically pleasing :P 

I also made a MAJOR fail yesterday when making what was going to be my birthday cake. I was following someone else's recipes which I thought sounded a little off but decided I shouldn't mess with it and yuh... I really should have trusted my gut because it was a FAIL!

But it was a good fail because I then made my favourite Healthy Chocolate Cake Recipe (our neverfail favourite!) which I will top with either peanut butter frosting or cookie dough frosting (we haven't officially decided!) to devour tonight!

But tell me, how has your week been? 

What's the last book you read? 

And what do you think; peanut butter or cookie dough frosting? 

You can be sure I'll end up making both sometime but Jesse thinks I should make peanut butter today!