my-speck

i'm pregnant and it's going to be a rollercoaster

Cheddar Cheese Bread August 12, 2013

Filed under: cooking,eating,Raising a Child — rakster @ 7:09 am
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I went on a cooking spree yesterday afternoon and finally cooked a few loaves from the Rose Levy Beranbaum Bread Bible that I bought for C for Christmas 4 years ago!

I give you: Cheddar Cheese Bread..

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My kitchen smells amazing, the bread cuts beautifully, and tastes just the right cheesy…

Mmmmm..

 

Tree Climbing August 8, 2013

Filed under: family,playing,Raising a Child — rakster @ 9:20 pm

Little O loves to climb…

In the big tree in Fairfield

 

Today we had a doctor’s apartment and afterwards there was a special request for a park stop on the way home.

And this is where he hung…

 

My big girl July 21, 2012

Dear Little Miss L,

or, as you are more frequently called in our house: boo boo.

Boo boo. Derived from Boona. Which rhymes with Luna. As in Luna Boona, shortened to Boo boo. Of course.

I feel remiss in a number of ways. Not only did your first birthday pass without my mentioning it here, but as I have sheepishly admitted to a number of people, it was so uneventful that we even forgot to take a photo of you on the day.

So, a belated public Happy Birthday my darling.

You are a cheerful, happy, rotund and gleeful little even-tempered darling. We all love you dearly, most of all perhaps your brother. Who climbs into your cot each morning to play as soon as he wakes up. We wake most mornings to the sound of the two of you giggling gleefully from your room.

And often at night that is the sound of you going to bed too: you and Oscar playing “the giggle game” with each other from separate rooms (you both quickly worked out it was a game that could be played without the need to see each other)…

Luna, you are beautiful and we love you very much.

Kisses

 

mum

 

the link for those who can’t see it

 

Another birthday and a robot cake adventure June 26, 2012

It’s been a crazy week of birthdays… A quick post to share a photo or two.

We celebrated O’s 3rd Birthday in the park on the weekend with a robot and rocket party.

What does that look like? Lots of big refrigerator boxes all joined up to make a robot spaceship, decorated with stickers and stick-ons. Filled with small children popping their heads up through the funny windows and openings. And crawling between all the adjoining boxes like crazy.

In the spaceship

Lots of fruit for morning tea.

the spaceship has landed in the park

And, of course, a robot cake. Which the smallest one managed to swipe icing off while I was trying to light the candles!

Robot Cake!

Happy Robot Birthday my beautiful boy!

 

First Day June 13, 2012

Filed under: development stages,emotion,family,Parenting,Raising a Child,work — rakster @ 8:40 am

Today is my first day back to work! A new job where I actually have to go into an office.

And this is who I’m leaving behind…

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And for the record, the inside of a bus in Brisbane looks the same as about six years ago when I last caught one to work.

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Gastro, dryers and reminiscing about childhood. Dream house requirement #1. June 2, 2012

Filed under: baby stuff,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 4:02 pm
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I mentioned when talking about Girraween that little Miss L had the gastro bug. I should have realised before we left, but silly me, I didn’t. She is such a happy little thing you see, even when she is sick she’s really happy, so it’s hard to tell how affected she is.

Anyway, we returned from Girraween with a lot of washing to do. Including the rewashing of the clothes and bedding I’d had to handwash in the absolutely f*ing freezing water on Saturday morning in the bathroom at the campground as I knew the amount of clothes I’d brought wasn’t going to cut it with a vomiting babe. There is only so clean you can get something with freezing hands and cold water in a small basin.

Monday Little miss L was still sick. So counting Thursday, when she was at daycare and it started with a few poos that caused a megasauras (mega-sore-ass in our family), it was Day Five. Cue trip to doctor just to be on the safe side. Doctor sent me straight to the hospital. So I spent Monday most of the day in the emergency children’s. Outcome was that she was slightly dehydrated, but since I’m a breastfeeder and she is a very healthy 11.something kilograms at 11 months (and officially the same or more than her three year old brother), that breastfeeding would get us through without any jabs or tubes. Hurrah.

Home again to try to sort through the gargantuan pile of laundry. Started to get there on Tuesday. Chris started to vomit on Tuesday night. Thankfully he can manage to use the facilities. Still not much fun with a sick husband, recovering babe and a pile of laundry that I could at least now see over.

Wednesday night, finished something I was working on and due this week at about 9:00 pm after working solidly since putting the kids to bed at 7. I’d been working on it for a few nights straight. Went to watch an hour of escapism TV, only to hear a noise through my headphone that didn’t sound quite right. Mmmm. Not right, the nearly-3-year-old had emptied his stomach. Throughout the bedroom.

Which would have been fine, you know, apart from THE WASHING!!! Aagggh… At least he is better with being able to aim for a bucket than a nearly one year old..

We had a conversation on Thursday night at our house where we both recalled that both of our mothers have separately offered to buy us a dryer in the past/recently. And you know, we turned them down, because we live in the sub-tropics of Brisbane. Where it’s supposed to be perfect the next day or something like that. So washing dries in the sun pretty quickly and well. And we have a laundromat at the end of our street for when we get desperate. But we wondered, have we been silly?

But if I recall my childhood correctly, my mum did have a dryer at home. Which she got installed when my three sisters were in primary school. There was a huge room solely for laundry in the house. And mum got gas piped in (if it wasn’t there already), or at the very least got the room modified so that she could get a commercial grade and sized gas-powered Maytag dryer installed. And it was huge and efficient and awesome.

And that’s what we’ve decided. In our dream house in which we will have a large utility room we will also have a large industrial sized dryer which we can use on the occasion that the gastro bug or some other such thing strikes down our household and soils our laundry….

It it weren’t raining I would be off to the shops now to buy a lotto ticket.

 

Girraween … May 30, 2012

Filed under: camping,family,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 2:47 pm
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Girraween National Park, on the border of QLD and NSW, south of Warwick, was the destination for our camping trip last weekend.

It was great.  Lovely crisp days with amazingly blue endless skies.  Freezing cold (like minus 3 or something) nights.  We were joined by some great friends, and did some wonderful walking on both days.  The photo below is up at the top of The Pyramid.  It is a steep climb/walk straight up a granite-faced rock.

 

Did I ever mention that I’m not so keen on heights?  Not petrified, but not enamoured with them either.  Climbing up for me was a big challenge.  I don’t like going up steep inclines where I feel one false move could mean I slip to my death.  Which is a bit of an exaggeration really, as the granite face of the rock is really grippy and if you fell you’d probably just end up with a lot of gravel rash.   But nonetheless, rationality doesn’t come into it all that much for me when I’m trying to climb.  Going down is fine.  I can see where I’m going to fall then so it’s not an issue.  Figure that.  Anyway, with a lot of support and encouragement (and assistance by handing the baby in the backpack right on over to G for the full trip up and down) I made it all the way up and that is us on top.  Glorious!

 

at the top of the rock - The Pyramid - Girraween National Park

It was absolutely freezing at night, and little Miss L came down with a bad case of gastro which made nights in the tent (wearing all our clothes and with limited bedding) pretty tricky (you can see where I’m going with this but I’ll spare you the details), but the days made up for it.

Yay for camping!

🙂

love M

P.S. and we still use our macpac backpack all the time – I just got another one so we can do stuff like this and carry both kids at once. wonderful.

 

Eating : a balancing act May 22, 2012

Filed under: cooking,eating,family,Parenting,Raising a Child — rakster @ 9:46 pm

I had to take a photo tonight at dinner to remind myself and record the fact that my son will eat dinner.

On occassion.

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If in a restaurant.

Mmmmmmmmmmmm.

Grrrrrrrr.

I have made the same meal at home (pad thai) plenty of times and he won’t even try it.

And here he is not only serving himself a whole plateful, but eating it too!

I’m happy and frustrated simultaneously 🙂

 

Love Mum

P.S. The 11 month old weighs the same as the 2yr 11 month old in our house.

 

The family outing May 19, 2012

Our family went out to brunch this morning to celebrate Aunt Rhyan’s birthday.

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We were in safe hands with the rescue team on standby in case of emergency..

 

when Robots attack! April 14, 2012

Saturday morning was robot time at our house this morning.

 

robot. saturday morning robot

We found the pipe cleaners and raided the recycling box.

New Robot met old robot,

“See, you’re just like me – a robot.  We are both robots, right?”

Hello robot!

and there was a lot of playing.


happy weekend everyone!