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!

Music gets the best of me

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(I love that Sophie Ellis-Bextor song)

If (when) you come to visit us, you’ll notice a few things: 1. There will often be the smell of freshly-baked goods in the air; 2. I will probably apologise for the chaotic mess that will greet you; and 3. There will be music playing. Nothing loud or fancy, just something playing in the background to add a little ambiance and atmosphere to the place.

Why am I talking about this? Besides the fact that I needed a 499th post (the next one’s the big one!) we have been to a couple of social events lately that have been okay but really could have benefited from some background music. Music is the ultimate ice breaker and helps to lighten any mood in any situation. This is definitely one of those things that Hubs and I can’t understand why other people don’t think the same way as us.

I’ve even been at people’s houses and suggested “Hey do you want to put a CD on?” Is that rude? I’m not saying that these events have been awkward or boring, I’m simply saying having music on as well can make a social situation even better. Like adding a spoonful of milo to your coffee, or putting butter on your corn. It just adds that little something that makes it extra good.

That’s pretty much all I have to say about that. And now, to keep you excited, here’s a fun video we took of Chanbe on Saturday night (oh yeah, we’re party animals) feeding himself. And my voice is in there as usual, laughing my guts up. Oh, and see if you can pick the song/band playing in the background!

Enjoy! And I’ll see you soon at number 500!

Wifey’s Angels

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My mothers group

I cannot begin to describe the amazing, supportive role these women and their babies play in my life. Many other mothers have said how they only really click with one or two women in their mothers group, but ours is made up of the best chicks a gal away from home could ask for. We all get along ridiculously well, and I feel a real bond with these women. There’s no judgment, no bragging, and no “one way of doing things.” It’s an opportunity that we get each week, to talk about the highs and lows, the challenges and milestones of being a mum.

In the absence of family, these women are the best stand-ins I could have ever asked for. We meet at a different mum’s house each week where we sit around in a circle with baked goods and coffee and put the kids on the floor in the middle to play with each other. We can just be ourselves. We don’t have to straighten our hair (or even wash it. Or even shower for that matter!), or put on our best clothes and pretend that motherhood is a breeze. Cos it ain’t. Some of us meet up and walk there in our trackies and caps, covering the hair we haven’t washed in a few days. Some of us have bags under our eyes from sleepless nights, others on the day are full of energy from (finally!) a good night sleep.

We ask each other and share advice about anything from nappies to introducing solids, to breastfeeding, to constipation (the babies, not us (-:) Out of the 9 babies, we have 8 beautiful boys and one gorgeous girl. We don’t claim to know everything, yet we share what we do.

I cannot tell you how much I’m going to miss our weekly sessions when we move. This is the biggest thing I’m going to miss about living in Wang. I just hope I can come back from time to time to visit, as I know I can just rock up and pick up where we left off. They’re just that type of group.

Our local

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Ever since I moved to Edinburgh for a year when I was 22 years old, I’ve wanted a local coffee shop. One where I can walk in, greet the owners by name, have them do the same in return, and ask “the usual, Wifey?” After almost a decade of wanting this, it has finally happened, and it’s everything I hoped it would be. The only difference is, I don’t have a “usual”.

Introducing, the Bead Shop (previously mentioned here.)

I first went to the bead shop not long after we arrived in Wang, when it was just a bead shop. It’s on the way in to town and I do love beads! They have some really beautiful stuff in there and it was always worth a look. And then came the coffee… Our friends introduced it to us back in October but it wasn’t until this year that we started going there regularly. After about half a dozen visits, the owner, Eric, introduced himself to us while he was clearing one of the tables outside, and asked our names. After that he would always address us by our names and give us a big welcoming smile.

Now I like to think we have even become friends. He and his wife Lauren run the place brilliantly. Lauren is the Queen Bead (see what I did there?) and also helps out in the cafe at busier times, and Eric does a bit of everything – makes coffee, cooks lunches and slices, and on Saturday mornings, he makes these:

I was going to take photos of the bagels before we ate them, and the coffees before we drank them, but they were just too delish and I forgot! The secret to their cappuccinos? Real chocolate sprinkles on top, some of which can be found at the bottom of your coffee cup at the end. (I had already eaten them before I took the photo!)

Lauren couldn’t believe how big Chanbe is getting, and brought him out a high chair so he could “have coffee” with us. It’s the little things that make the big impressions at this place.

Chance isn’t quite ready for the babycinos yet, but he was pretty taken with Dadda’s bagel!

This was the first time we went for bagels and they didn’t disappoint! Hubs and I probably have coffee there once or twice a week (at least!) and the coffee is so good. Every Time. And they’re ALL good. Whether you want a cappuccino, iced coffee, affogato, iced chocolate, hot chocolate, chai tea, chai latte….

So come on down and we’ll take you there some time!

6 months old

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The low-down

Weight: 9.5kg
Height: 72cm
Size: 0
Teeth: 2
Eating: pear & pumpkin
Sleeping: hmmm…. pass?
Moving: backwards on his tummy
Talking: gibberish
Growing: more hair
Tricks: pulling hair and pinching when excited (ouch!)
Looking: darn-tootin’ cute as ever

Bumper weekend part II

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After our late bed time Saturday, Chance had a bit of a rough night, so I was more than pleased when he went back to sleep at 7am and didn’t wake us til 9am Sunday morning. We rushed around and got ready for church, and were our usual 5 minutes late which isn’t bad all things considered. The service was run by a visiting minister from Albury and his message was really great. I’m so glad we made the effort to go. We did the usual mingling afterwards and played “pass the baby”. We belong to a really lovely congregation, who we will also miss once we move. Hopefully we will feel the same sense of homeliness at the UC in Mt Beauty.

After church we headed home for some yummy leftover pasta bake for lunch and some faffing around for a couple of hours. The weather was pretty nice in the morning, and we were hoping it would continue for the afternoon as we were going to…. the local footy match! I’ve been wanting to go to watch a local footy game since we got here, and the local derby was on so I begged and pleaded with Hubs to take me and he finally agreed. I was SO excited! We walked there around 1:30, paid our $6 each to get in, and took our “seats” on the hill (i.e. sat on the grass).

(That’s a yellow teddy bear on Chanbe’s new beanie, not a flower!) A couple of the guys Hubs studies with play for the Magpies, and a few of Hubs’ uni friends joined us later on to cheer them on. I just sat there soaking up the atmosphere. I don’t know what made me so giddy with excitement – maybe it was the fact that I felt like a local. That feeling of belonging to something/somewhere is obviously very important to me, and you could not wipe the smile of my face.

Not even these storm clouds rolling in could dampen my mood.

It was a very one-sided match with the Magpies dominating over the Rovers from the start. At the three-quarter mark, it really was starting to get dark and we contemplated leaving but thought we’d come this far, we might as well stay. Plus if we started walking home then, we’d probably get caught. Just as the teams ran on for the forth quarter, down came the rain.

We had to admire these fans – they had obviously done this before!
Chance didn’t really see what all the fuss was about…

…and decided it was time for a nap!
The rain just got heavier and the clouds darker, so once the full-time siren sounded, we graciously accepted a lift home with a friend. But even that couldn’t dampen my spirits! (No, I do not pardon the pun.) Particularly since Hubs loves wet, muddy football, so he was in quite a chipper mood as well. It was quite a spectacle in the end, and the Magpies ended up winning 117-55.
And last night just capped it off. We rugged up with some yummy beef stew and watched a bit of this (QI) and a bit of that (Hung). An absolutely bonza weekend (yes, I said bonza.) And I’m still on cloud 9 🙂 Not even Chance’s worst-night-sleep-in-weeks can bring this little chicken back down to earth! (Though I’m hoping and praying for a better night tonight!)

Bumper weekend

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You know those weekends that you have every now and then where you get to Sunday night and you just can’t imagine how the last 2 days and nights could have been any better? I’ve just come off one of those. It started on Friday night when, although we watched the worst movie of 2010, (and one of the worst I’d ever seen!!) I did some maintenance work on Hubs’ dreads. It was a nice relaxing evening with Chanbe asleep in bed, and us spending quality Hubs and Wifey time together.

Saturday came around and we decided to go for a walk in the morning to check out a couple of garage sales. We only ended up with a couple of things (a book for Hubs and a beanie for Chance – see next post) so we decided to head to our favourite place for coffee in Wang – Cafe Derailleur aka the bead shop. But more about that little gem of a place later. After enjoying yet another top-notch coffee we headed home. It was lunch time and our bellies needed filling.

Dinner Saturday night was to be at our new friends house. I know Kyra through mothers group (more about that later too!) and we really hit it off once we got to know each other. The more we chatted the more we realised how much not only we, but our hubbies had in common! (like they both have dreads! More about that later too too!!) Anyway, we’ve really missed being able to have people over for dinner so I put a zany idea to Kyra – could we cook a meal and bring it over to have at their place! And she was all for it. So I put the rabbit stew on around midday, and headed over to their place at 3 to prepare the gnocchi. Once that was done (and after a cuppa) I took Chanbe for a walk in the pram for over an hour, as I wanted him to have a good sleep before our night out.

We headed over for dinner and had the stew and gnocchi with home-made foccacia courtesy of Kyra. It was all utterly delish.

We then juggled our little boys (not literally – but what a show that would be!) and tried to get them to sleep with not much luck. They both wanted to stay up and party with the big kids (us). We had some home-made apple pie for dessert and topped it off with some choc-coated glazed oranges I had made. It was so nice to be amongst such wonderful company and to feel completely at home in someone else’s house. We walked home (they live just around the corner) and I was absolutely shocked to see that it was 11:30pm! We just had such a great night that the time flew by. It’s so lovely to be making new friends, but it’s also bitter sweet as we’ll be leaving Wang in just 6 short weeks. But hopefully there will be more dinner parties to come – at our new place!

Sunday’s fun will come soon…

Toothy pegs

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Check out these little chompers!

Not nice to get your fingers (or worse!) caught in there I can tell you!
Pretty cool though hey!?
So I don’t know how it happened, but my 500th post is coming up! After putting so much thought and effort into my 400th, I don’t know that I can live up to my expectations. But you know me – I’ll give it a try 🙂

Cheap skate

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The thing about not having a lot of spare cash is that we tend to lean towards the cheaper “things” just to save a few dollars here and there. Problem is, more often than not we have to end up buying the more expensive “things” down the track because the cheap stuff is… well… it’s cheap. And nasty. We have had cheap buyer’s remorse for the following:

Shoes – cheap pairs that have lasted only 1 year instead of good pairs (e.g. Colorados) on special that will last years and years.
Fibre – yes, I take fibre every day. I’m old okay? I had Metamucil to start with, but the Chemart brand was on special for a huge $3 less so I bought it. And it tastes like cardboard. (Funny about that.) So it’s just sitting there… (pun anyone?)
Shampoo – the last 2 bottles of shampoo I bought were on special for $2.99. When I went to buy new bottle the other day, I splurged on the $5.99 because I’m sick of my hair feeling like straw.
Nappies – We put Chanbe in disposables over night, and I mostly buy Huggies because they seem to be the most absorbent and it means I don’t have to change nappies during the night due to leakage which, if you’re a parent, you know this is a bonus. I’ve bought the cheaper ones and have had a few explosions. Not fun.
Flights – we have bought a few cheap flights and flown in and out of the Gold Coast, in and out of Avalon, and have flown at 6am and 10pm. It’s worth the extra $50 not to have to do any or all of these things.

I think I’m getting better at being a bit more objective and thinking a bit more long-term, or at least the short long-term (long short-term?). I think in the end, it saves us more money if we fork out a little more at the start. This is how I talked Hubs into renting the house that was a bit more expensive, but fully-furnished. This way we don’t have to buy anything (well, not much!) and don’t have to waste time trying to get settled into a place that’s only half-furnished. This was a good decision. Plus did I mention how absolutely fabulous the kitchen is?? Happy Wifey, happy lifey. 🙂

Stuff’s been happening

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Not exciting stuff, just life. Chance is slowly getting over his cold and is still keeping me up most of the night which has been challenging. Especially when well-meaning people keep telling me he should be “sleeping through” by now. (Incidentally, “sleeping through” means sleeping 5 hours straight. At this stage, even that would be a blessing! :-)) He also has 2 teeth which he is having fun showing off. He is very happy during the day so we have been having lots of lovely play time and he enjoys being in the pram while I go on walks which is wonderful. I keep telling myself that once he gets over his cold we’ll get back into some sort of routine, but the truth is he’s never “slept through” so I’ll just keep reading my book and hopefully he’ll start getting the idea.

In other news, we’ve decided on a house at Mt Beauty (actually, it’s in Tawonga South) and it’s fully furnished which I’m very excited about. Not that the furniture is anything to write home (or blog) about, but the fact that we don’t have to move as much stuff, and don’t have to buy much when we get there, gets me excited! It has the most amazing view of Mt Bogong so we really hope we have some house guests during our time there.

Hmmm… what else… Hubs is very busy with study + PhD stuff but still has lots of time for us and we’ve been having some pretty special family time lately. We just can’t wait to move so we can spread out!

Also, Chanbe and I are coming up to Brizzie from 15th-22nd June for another visit so would love to catch up with anyone who’s around. And how could I post without including another lovely photo (or 2).