Category: Photos

The story so far…

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We have been on holidays for 10 days, and today was the first full day of sunshine we have had. And now it’s raining. Again. It has rained every day since we left home, but that is not getting us down. The thing that is getting us (me) down a little is the cold I (we) have. I haven’t had a “proper” cold since before I was pregnant with Chanbe, and I had honestly forgotten how miserable a cold can make you feel, and for how long! To make matters worse, I have somehow caught a “man cold”. Seriously. It’s that bad. Thankfully I have a very patient Hubsband who can tune out my doesn’t mind me whinging. Hubs hasn’t been feeling 100% and my poor little Chanbe has been sick too which makes me very sad when I hear him cough. But I believe we’re on the mend now, finally, after a week of feeling pretty ordinary.

So, back to the trip! We’ve seen some Apostles:

We’ve had some sleepy time in the car:
Some fish, chips and very large burgers in a seaside town:
Some (lots of) very crappy weather:

And we’ve had lots of lovely times with our family and friends down here, and those we caught up with along the way. We headed to Hahndorf today and McLaren Vale is on the agenda for tomorrow, so still lots to do and not too much time to do it all! But we’ll get there. We’ve had a few low-key days, to try and recover from this damn cold, so that has actually given us a bit of a holiday. I just hope the colds are all gone by early next week when I fly to Brisbane and Hubs starts his 5 weeks at the Royal Womens in Melbourne!

Lots more photos (taken on our camera, not just my phone) to share so stay tuned.

A photo break

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I just noticed that most of my blog posts lately have been very texty (yes, that’s a word…) so here’s a bit of a break from that…

Getting ready for a walk and trying to keep warm

Eating the world’s biggest freckle.
(Not my idea of a great Playgroup activity, but you get that. 
You should have seen the tantrum when I took it off him after only 2 bites!!)

Yes I love the “sitting in the stroller wearing a cute hat” photo…
Hopefully that will keep you going for a while…

Happy Birthday Hubs

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Even though yesterday didn’t go exactly to plan, (I’ll explain later), Hubs’ birthday weekend was still lovely. Much more low-key than previous years (for a number of reasons – I’ll explain later), but still a great celebration of a wonderful man’s life.

There was cake (friand)

A belated breakfast of creamy garlic mushrooms on toast (that I forgot to take a photo of) and a massive fail brioche. This is how it was supposed to look:

This is how it actually looked:

And a visit from one of the local doctors:
Hee hee! (Costume courtesy of Aldi!)
And of course presents!!
We got Hubs a workbench for his man shed. I’m sure he can’t wait to put it together once exams are over!

Even though it was a bit of a crazy weekend, everything worked out nicely in the end. Happy Birthday Hubs. You continue to amaze me every year with your constant love, support, sense of adventure, and beautiful heart. I love you so much for the Husband and Father I am getting to know more and more each day.

Something’s gotta give

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Because I’m currently up to my eyeballs in life, and getting closer and closer to my “limit”, I’ve decided on a few things that I have to let go of, to keep a hold of my sanity. And number one on my list is nappies. No, I’m not going to stop using nappies all together (though, Hubs did want us to try it…) I’m just not going to use our lovely cloth nappies. Actually, Chanbe hasn’t really been in cloth nappies regularly since a month after I broke my foot, with all the packing and moving and broken foot and all. But I started using them again last week and it’s already stressing me out trying to wash them every second day and get them dry and put them together again.

So what I’m actually going to do is go back to just disposables, but not feel guilty about doing that. I can’t do everything and I have to stop putting so much pressure on myself to do it all. I know that we will go back to the cloth nappies eventually, but for the time being, it’s disposables all the way.

I don’t think Chanbe is fussed either way… (even though he has pooh on his jacket in this photo… ha ha ha ha ha ha ha! That one was for YOU Hubs 🙂 )

Happy Friday!

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Here are a couple of videos to give you a giggle on your Friday afternoon.

First of all, introducing the one. The only. Chandini!

And next we have Chanbe telling us about all the animal noises he has been learning lately.

Have a great weekend, and if you’re in the Brisvegas region next week, I might see you round.

Haircuts: 2 for the price of 1!

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Both of my boys recently had haircuts, and boy do they look dapper. Yes, dapper.

First, it was Chanbe’s turn. My friend from mother’s group is a (damn fine) hairdresser, and cuts all of the kids hair in our group which is very nice of her. Chanbe didn’t think so, but he got through it a bit better than the first time. He had this gorgeous little curl at the back of his hair that I just couldn’t part with, so we put in a little piggy tail and snipped it off for safe keeping!

Before: 
(starting to look like a bevan)

This little piggy went to market:
(and this little piggy didn’t make it home!)
After:
See? Dapper.
(This photo was actually taken this morning, after an overnight low of -1 and frost)
Then it was Hubs’ turn for his 6-monthly haircut, courtesy of yours truly.
Here he is before:
And after: (dapper)
Don’t I have 2 of the most handsome boys around?

A day for mums

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Today is Mothers Day (in Australia), and what a day it has been so far. Last year, I got very spoilt with a beautiful Kenwood mixer, and since that was my first mothers day, I figured things would be a bit more low-key this year. But then, I remembered who I’m married to…

I woke up to the sounds of our little man, who is the reason we celebrate mothers day in our house, and went in to bring him to our bed for some cuddles. He wasn’t in a particularly cuddly mood, so Hubs got up with him around 6:45am (neither of us are morning people) while I turned over and promptly went back to sleep. At 9am I awoke to the smells of another delicious breakfast being cooked for me (Hubs actually cooks me breakfast at least once a week anyway!) and a hot cup of tea sitting on my bedside table.

I came out to the living area and was greeted with cuddles and presents!! What better way to start the day?!

Even though we are on a pretty tight budget at the moment, Hubs kind of ignored that for the greater good (my extreme excitement and happiness!) and surprised me with:

Oh yeeeeeeaaaaahhhhhh….
I can’t even begin to tell you how much this excites me! Now when I’m pretending to host my own cooking show as I’m making dinner, I have the right equipment! 🙂 I have wanted a Chasseur pot for a little while now, but could never justify the expense in our current financial situation. But Hubs could! YAY! I was ready to get up for breakfast, when I saw these notes in the bottom of the pot:

There’s a trainer at our gym who looks SO much like Luke Wilson it’s ridiculous! I’ve been struggling a bit these last few months with my broken foot, and have been feeling pretty down about my body etc, and I told Hubs a couple of weeks that I really would love some personal training sessions. So that was present number 2! I’m so excited about this, and have already booked in 2 sessions for this week.
Surely that was everything?? But no. As I was walking to the breakfast table, I saw these:
The one on the right (remember it?) is almost life-size! And our wedding shot is just gorgeous. I may not have a wedding album yet, but this is a great substitute for the time being!
I was exhausted with excitement even before sitting down for my favourite breakfast (poached eggs, bacon, spinach, tomatoes and toast). After said delicious breakfast, Hubs and Uncle Ben (down for a visit this weekend) took Chanbe outside to do some more manly work, and here I am lazing about, reading blogs, listening to Adele and Paul Simon, and loving the fact that the house is a mess but I don’t have to clean it up! (That will be a job for Tuesday 🙂
Happy Mothers Day, to all the mothers out there reading this, and particularly to my Mum, who has not only been indescribably helpful these past few months, but who has taught me so much about how to be a great mum to our little guy. And to Hubs’ Mum, who is such a great role model and inspiration to us. We wish we could see you more, Ma, but we know that it’s all about quality, not quantity. We can’t wait to catch up with you both next week.
Thank you Chanbe and Hubs for another beautiful Mothers Day. You sure do spoil me rotten and I love you both so much.

“Time for bed”

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Those 3 words used to conjure up images of gnashing teeth and serious screams (except when it was about me going to bed.) I’ve mentioned the trouble we had with Chanbe’s sleeping habits before, and I just kept saying that if we had a routine, things would be better.

Enter broken foot.

When I was lying on the floor in KMart, after hearing an audible crack come from my foot as I fell, I just kept thinking “this is the worst thing that could possibly happen right now.” But you know what? It turned out pretty darn well. Yes, I had to have a cast and a boot and/or be on crutches for the better part of 3 months, but this gave Chanbe a time to settle in to a house for more than a week or 2 at a time. And it has done wonders for his sleeping. More than I could ever have imagined.

Now when bed time comes around, one of us takes him to his cot, puts music on, lies him down and says “sleepy time” and, this is the best bit, WE JUST WALK OUT OF THE ROOM!!! No more patting to sleep, no more tears (most of the time anyway) and often, even if he doesn’t go to sleep straight away, we can hear him talking to himself and amusing himself until he can’t keep his eyes open. And get this. At night he’ll sleep from 7pm (ish) til 6:30am (ish). Yes. We have one of those kids now! It is absolute bliss and it also means we can have dinner at a reasonable hour now.

So, as it turns out, breaking my foot was the best thing for our little guy. Let’s hope I don’t need to break anything else for toilet training…

Back in business

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Our internet finally got connected yesterday (woo hoo!) after almost 3 weeks of being off-line. Apart from our phones. And the Library. And Hubs’ work. But it’s different to just being able to sit anywhere in the house (hooray for wireless!) and surfing/blogging/paying bills/emailing to my heart’s content. My neck didn’t cause me too much grief and it was all better within about 5 days, thankfully. We are still unpacking but the end is nigh. These bookshelves that Hubs made really helped!!

Pretty gorgeous hey!? So I spent yesterday filling the middle and top shelf, and I’m now left wondering what to do with the bottom shelf. It might work nicely as a little desk for Chanbe actually. And who says unpacking has to be hard and boring? (Excuse the sound – that’s me laughing hysterically…)
So we’ve had some fun over the last few weeks as well as working very hard. We have a very busy few months coming up, with going down to Melbourne for a weekend, then I’ll head up to Brisbane for a week for a wee holiday and a couple of celebrations while Hubs stays home to study, then he’ll head to Shep for a while for exams, then we’re taking a trip over to Adelaide in July to visit friends which I’m REALLY looking forward to! And lots in between! So much for staying put for a while. *sigh* At least we love our house. 
More pics to come!