Winter sports have all but taken over our weekends at the moment. Mr I and myself are normally pretty good at just talking through the logistics, but recently it hit a peak and I requested Mr I draw me a flow chart!

And this was just for Saturday. Sunday had two games of junior footy as well. With weekends like that it is easy for it all to go by in a blur of drop offs pick ups and rushing to get from one game to the next.

Thanks to Yoplait we were to take the family on a picnic. Due to sporting commitments I was beginning to think we could never fit it in, but that was because I was just thinking of a picnic in terms of a lunch. I needed to think broader than that, so I blocked out time for everyone late Sunday afternoon and set about creating for us a fab French inspired picnic basket for an early dinner.

I wanted the venue to be something different for us and finally settled on the Sculpture Park at Heide Museum of Modern Art.

It was the perfect venue for us. Lots of space, lots to look at and in the late afternoon when we went, there were very few people around, so it felt just like us amongst all this space and greenery. We could take our dog Lucas too!

I had packed plenty of food and we were going to have a rolling sort of meal, with lots of running around and fun in between. Our first sitting was fruit, yogurt and cheese and crackers.

We scooped out the vanilla yogurt to dip the fresh fruit into. I brought along tooth picks for the kids to skewer the fruit and then dip. They loved this and had lots of fun making fruit stacks.

Of course the eldest took it a step further and combined, fruit, crackers, sun dried tomatoes and yogurt! He was adamant it tasted superb…..

While the youngest made himself a camembert cracker sandwich.

There are the most amazing trees at the Heidi Sculpture Park. The kids took off to explore them, while I reset the picnic blanket for the second sitting.

This was a combination of home made food and purchased supplies. Master 11 played his 50th game of footy earlier in the day which we all went and watched and after cooking in the lead up to the weekend for Master 6′s birthday party on Friday, I wanted to keep it pretty simple for me.

I packaged up the Strawberry Yogurt Cupcakes so they would travel well and cope with being jiggled around in the picnic basket by one of the kids as it was carried into the park.

Roast Chicken and salad baguettes where devoured by the kids and the adults too.

Everyone wanted to share what the top of their Yoplait tub had on it.

Another pause in the eating and time for some soccer fun, even if there were some hold ups on challenges to the ref.

The car park closes at 6pm, so even though we would have happily played for longer, we did need to pack up. I had taken along old shopping bags, one for rubbish and one to place all the dirty utensils in. This made packing up a lot easier and it was quick to pop everything into their respective bags, fold up the blankets and make our way back to the car.

There is beautiful lighting at Heidi and it made for a gorgeous walk back to the car.

Without doubt though, the highlight for the kids were the great big lamps on the ground near where we parked our car.

They would have played forever on them, but the car park gates were calling us.

The picnic was such a lovely way to end our busy week end. The kids thought it was the best dinner ever and I was pretty happy too with only minimal clean up to do once we arrived home!

It was such a great reminder to me about the importance of blocking out time for the family, to enjoy each others’ company and have some fun.

How do you fit in fun family outings during the busy times?

Current Sponsors:

• Bright Star Kids' Name Labels - Super Cute & Durable Name Labels
• 4MyEarth - Lunch that does not cost the earth.

Making Time For Fun is a post from: Planning With Kids

Strawberry Yogurt Cupcakes

Ingredients:

• 125gms unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup caster sugar
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup strawberry yogurt
• 2 cups self raising flour
• 1 tsp baking powder

Pink Frosting:
(Based on the Donna Hay Frosting)

• 125gms unsalted butter
• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1 tablespoons milk
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• Few drops of pink food colouring

Method:

1. Preheat oven to 180C. On a tray place cupcake wrappers or line muffin trays if you are using those.

2. In a large bowl add the caster sugar, butter and vanilla. Beat using an electric mixer until light and creamy.

3. Add the eggs one at a time and beat until well blended before adding the next one.

4. In a separate bowl sift the flour and baking powder.

5. Add a third of the flour mix to the cake mixture and combine gently with a spoon.

6. Add half the yogurt and combine well, but just like muffins, these are best if they are not over stirred.

7. Continue adding to the mix until you finish with the last batch of flour.

8. Spoon out mixture into the cupcake wrappers. For the size wrappers we used we made 16 cupcakes. Bake for about 25 minutes.

9. Once cooked – you can use the skewer test to ensure they are, remove from the tray and let them stand on a wire rack to cool.

As I noted, these cupcakes are delicious without icing and for lunches I prefer them not to be iced. But we were going to be taking them on a picnic, so we did ice them.

To make the frosting, chop the butter and soften it in the microwave. For my microwave this works out to be about 20 seconds on high.

10. Using the electric mixer beat for 6 minutes or until the butter has turned pale and creamy.

11. Sift the icing sugar on top of the butter. Add the milk and vanilla. Beat for another 4 or so minutes, stop and add the colouring, then beat again for another couple of minutes so the frosting is light and creamy.

12. If your cupcakes are flowing over the top of the cupcake wrapper, simply take a slice off the top to even them out before icing them.

13. Use a knife to spread the icing evenly on top of the cupcake and decorate with fresh strawberries.

Did you know that you can freeze your homemade frosting? Well you can! I simply took this frosting out of the freezer the night before our picnic and placed it in the fridge. Before our picnic, I transferred the frosting to a bowl and using the electric mixer, beat it for about 5 minutes until it was all light and creamy again.

Have you used yogurt in your cupcake recipe?

Current Sponsors:

• Bright Star Kids' Name Labels - Super Cute & Durable Name Labels
• 4MyEarth - Lunch that does not cost the earth.

Strawberry Yogurt Cupcakes is a post from: Planning With Kids

I was super impressed with the organisation of the Great Ocean Road Half Marathon. Everything went according to their published times and their was such a lovely atmosphere of people keen to take in this gorgeous part of Victoria that the Great Ocean Road encompasses.

While waiting in the toilet queue, I met a dear friend and his running companion. It was nice to have someone to talk to as a distraction from the cold!

This is the only scenery photo I took and it is from just near the starting line. Although the blogger in me did want to stop a number of times to take photos along the course.

The starting line was packed, but it didn’t take long for it to disperse. As a novice runner in these types of events, it was the start that was worrying me the most, but it was much better than I imagined.

The course went from Kennett River to Apollo Bay. 23kms in total, so runners received a half marathon and race time (or a marathon and race time if you ran that far!).

I had set myself a goal of finishing under 2 hours for the entire race and was happy to have come in well under that and run a personal best time for that distance.

Thanks to Pete and Cath, who let us stay at their fab place in Lorne Saturday night. Thank you also to another friend Mark and Mr I I for the prompt in getting me to take part in this event. It wasn’t something that was on my list of things to do this year at all, but I did really enjoy the challenge of pushing myself and has me thinking about other areas where I need to push myself out of my comfort zone!

Have you done something recently that has taken you out of your comfort zone?

Current Sponsors:

• Bright Star Kids' Name Labels - Super Cute & Durable Name Labels
• 4MyEarth - Lunch that does not cost the earth.

Great Ocean Road Half Marathon is a post from: Planning With Kids