Author: Renae

Living life as a wife, a stay at home mama of 3 kids under 5, a marriage celebrant, a craft and sewing amateur, a cooked breakfast lover, coffee enthusiast, extroverted socialite, and most recently, someone who is trying to keep a tidy house. It's tough I tell you!

Dear Hubs

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I’ve not been overly inspired to blog lately, as I mentioned, but as I was walking with Chanbe in the pram the other day, I started thinking about all the wonderful things that are going on in my life. They are not overly newsworthy, but I am definitely really enjoying life. I then started thinking about Hubs and all the wonderful things he does for me and Chanbe, and started compiling a list in my head. It went something like this:

Dear Hubs,
these are just a few things that I love about you.

1. I love how you seem to have every type of lead and adapter for every type of gizmo and gadget thinkable. And if not, you can often make one out of something else you have.

2. I love how even though you don’t like watching the footy, you have been tuning our media PC into the local tv channels so I can watch Friday Night Footy.

3. I love how you watch Friday Night Footy with me.

4. I love how, after I’ve gotten up to Chance for the third time in the night, when I come back to bed, you give me cuddles and tell me how I’m an amazing Mum and that Chanbe is really lucky to have me as his Mum.

5. I love how even though you have an interrupted night’s sleep as well, you always give me sleep-ins on the weekends and sometimes during the week when you can.

6. I love how after you have given me a sleep-in, you often bring me breakfast in bed consisting of poached eggs and toast – more recently your home-made sourdough. And a cup of tea.

7. I love how you “made” me watch Firefly and didn’t say “I told you so” when I thought it was one of the best tv shows ever made.

8. I love how even though you think I look pretty when I get all dressed up, you like me best in my jeans and a t-shirt.

9. I like how we don’t have that much in common, so we can both experience new things, and I love that you challenge me to try new things.

10. I love that you don’t take things at face value, and that you constantly ask “why”?

11. I love how you play with our son; how you love and adore him; how you play WWF wrestling with him and let him win.

12. I love how you take such good care of me in so many ways.

He said he’d caaaaaallllll!!!

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I thought, once I was married, that I wouldn’t have to wait for a guy to call me, after he had promised to do so. But I forgot that I still had to deal with real estate agents. Our washing machine stopped working 11 days ago, on a Friday night, and I reported it to the RE agent on the Monday morning. We went to Wang til Thursday night, and on Friday arvo, after picking Chanbe up from Childcare and having coffee with a friend, I popped in to the agent’s office to ask how things were progressing.

“Oh hi Renae. Yeah, um, the guy who fixes washing machines is on holidays til the 20th of October.”

“Riiiiiight. Is there anyone else who could fix it?”

“Yeeeeah, we’re going to try someone over in Bright.”

Wifey’s thinking: Going to? You found out that this guy is on holidays 4 days ago and you haven’t rung anyone else??? And now it’s Friday afternoon. Yeah. Good luck. “Okay, well keep me posted!!!!”

I hadn’t heard anything by yesterday arvo so I gave them another call at 9:05am today.

“Yeeeeah, we were following that up yesterday. I’ll call you back in 10 or 15 minutes.”

It’s been 45 minutes. I have 4 loads of washing to do. Luckily a new friend of ours (a receptionist from the medical centre lives just around the corner and has very kindly offered her washing machine for use this morning (and any time) but that’s not the point!!!

WHY WON’T HE CAAAALLLLLLL???????

A classic cliche

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I know all kids go through the stage where they take things out of a box, one at a time, but it’s different when it’s your kid going through that particular stage. We are having SO much fun.

blogging blah

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I haven’t been around much lately, I know. I just haven’t felt overly inspired to do much posting, even though I have half a dozen half-finished blog entries. I’m sure I’ll get back into the swing of things soon. We’ve just been traveling back and forth to Wang more than expected, and we have things on for the next 6 weekends, as well as having to go back to Wang regularly for the next 5 weeks. I feel like my time is being spent either packing or unpacking!

On a good note, Hubs has been giving me LOTS of sleep-ins and even a few breakfasts in bed for absolutely no reason (other than my being awesome! :-)) Our (not-so) little Chanbe is going great, and just rolls with our crazy lifestyle. Sleeping is still an “issue” (hence all the sleep ins I’m getting) but we’ll just keep plugging away.

I’ve spent this morning chatting on the phone and shopping on line for fun things, as well as giving our house a much-needed vacuum. I’m about to walk to childcare to pick Chance up and will hopefully meet Hubs for a coffee afterwards.

See? Really not much to blog about 🙂 But always some photos to share…

Chanbe helping Dadda

Father and Son on Fathers Day

And…. he’s out! (almost)

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Hubs and I entered parenthood without much thought about how we were going to raise our kids. I mean, we had a few things sorted, but most of our parenting “style” has happened by “chance” 🙂 We never really intended to have our baby sleep in the same bed as us, but that has happened a lot (and has been lovely). We never really decided about keeping him in the same room with us, but that came about due to the size of our unit in Wang, and then we just got used to it so we continued with this in our new place.

I have loved this arrangement for so many reasons, but now we feel it’s time that the little guy has his own room. So I have spent this morning clearing out the spare room to make way for Mr Independence. Well, I spent the first part of the morning sleeping, as Hubs took Chance to childcare for me, but since I got up (10:15am – BLISS!!!) that’s what I’ve been doing. I really wanted to have it all set up for when Chance got home, but the cot won’t fit through the bedroom door so I need to take it apart to move it.

We are hoping that this new arrangement will mean more sleep for us all. I’m a little nervous about it to be honest – I’ve been able to be so in tune with Chance’s sleeping and waking – and I’ve resigned myself to a few rough nights to come during the adjustment stage (rougher than usual??) but I’m really hoping the benefits outweigh the drawbacks. I’m also prepared for the possibility that it won’t make much of a difference at all, but I’m happy to give it a try.

Oh, and I can’t WAIT to have our room back to ourselves!! I’ve really missed being able to read in bed and not have to worry about making noise and creeping around during the night.

So here goes nothing!

(Hopefully we’ll be seeing more of this soon!) (This photo is quite old 🙂

Ouma Lies

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Hubs’ Ouma Lies, in South Africa, is having a heart valve replacement tomorrow. Hubs’ Mum headed over yesterday to be with her, and we hope to hear some news about how everything is going soon. I’ve been thinking a lot about Ouma Lies the last few days, and really cherishing the memory of our time in South Africa, almost 2 years ago.

She is one of the most interesting people I’ve ever met and has had such an amazing life, full of so many stories and adventures. We are praying that there are still many more adventures to come.

Stuffing around

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On our most recent trip to Brizzie, Hubs’ sister Lsl’s pool was empty, so Hubs decided it would make a tee-yodally awesome skateboard ramp! Woo!

Since that didn’t work out so well for him, he thought he might try with the BMX.

As Hubs was poised, ready to rumble, I was pretty sure he was just posing for the camera, but the thing about Hubs is that, deep down, he’s a boy. A boy who loves a bit of mischief, so it was still possible that he’d give it a go. But the shallow end of the pool wasn’t a challenge enough for him. So he went to the deep end….

“Hubs? Huuuuuuuuuuuhhhhbs????? Pleeeeeeease tell me you’re kidding!!!”

Thankfully he was kidding*, but who can resist a good gag photo shoot??
*No hubsbands were harmed during the making of this blog post