Category: Trying new things

Giddyup!

/ Renae / Leave a comment

In case you’re living under a rock (or just living outside of Victoria) you would know that today was Melbourne Cup Day – a public holiday in Victoria. Woo! We celebrated the day by heading to Wangaratta (just for a change) to take Ma to the races. We had such a lovely day and I must say that we were 4 of the best-dressed punters there! I’ll let you decide for yourself though…

First up we have Wifey, wearing her red dress she recently purchased on line, accessorising with a Mimco necklace given to her by her darling Hubsband as an annivchrisbirthday present. Chanbe’s outfit was purchased at the local op-shop for a total of $2, with accessories made with love from 8-10pm last night by his Mama, with the help of his Dadda and Ouma. Hubs is looking dashing in his pinstripe pants that he wore on the day he made his vows to Wifey, matched with a lovely white paisley shirt and topped off with black suspenders. And Ma is wearing a delightful silk dress she picked up whilst in Melbourne last week, paired with a stunning cardi and super-cute fascinator.

Can we see a bit more for the final judgment? 🙂

 Sorry, is this just too cute? (as IF I’m sorry…)
  I just wish I had thought to enter Chanbe in “Fashions on the field.”
Three cheers for Chanbe’s outfit! Hip hip hip!
Hooray!

We really had a lovely day and the weather was spectacular. We’ve had a lovely time with Ma here, and will be sad to see her go home tomorrow, but we know we’ll be seeing her in just over a month back in Brisbane. Okay okay. I’ll give you just one more 😉

Hubs’ new hobby

/ Renae / Leave a comment

Guess who just joined the local gliding club? (I’ll give you a hint: It wasn’t me. Or Chanbe.)

Hubs went gliding last weekend with our good friends Nathan and Cal. And he got hooked. Real bad. Can you see why?

So we headed back down yesterday so he could become a member. I might even give it a go some time!
Skip to about 40 seconds in and enjoy the ride!

A classic cliche

/ Renae / 1 Comment

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.

More visitors!

/ Renae / Leave a comment

We arrived home on Friday evening and got straight back into hosting friends in our new home! Sian and Warwick came down from Friday night and left Tuesday morning and we had such a great time with them. We hit the snow on Saturday, and I must admit that I was a little hesitant after last time, but this time was truly amazing – I didn’t realise taking your (almost) 9 month old to the snow could be such a delight! We rode a couple of the lifts and made our way to the top for lunch. What a view we had! Amazing what you can see when the weather is crystal clear.

We then headed back down and sat outside and had coffee. Yes, we sat outside it was so beautiful!

After our cappacinos we hung out at the bottom of one of the runs to wait for the boys to come down so we could take some action shots.

The boys were in fine form!

I think Chanbe is going to enjoy snowboarding one day!

So much fun!

On Sunday the boys went back up for more skiing/snowboarding, while Sian and Chance and I went to Bright for lunch. We had a lovely wintery slow-cooked meal for dinner that night and the next day was Sian’s birthday so Warwick took her to some local wineries. And since Sian is 5 months pregnant, Warwick got to do the tasting while Sian did the driving 🙂 We took them out to the local tavern for dinner that night (it was really good!) and they headed home the next morning.

Another awesome visit with friends from Queensland.

The Cake

/ Renae / Leave a comment

Step one: find an awesome vanilla cake recipe

Step two: mix ingredients and choose colours

Step three: bake first layer, which happens to be blue
Step four: break layer when getting it out of pan

Step five: be sad about this

Step six: be happy about your new hair cut and colour! (where applicable)

Step seven: watch as the other layers come out wonderfully!

Step eight: make your ganache and frosting, and colour to your heart’s desire!

Step nine: start layering

Step ten: keep layering!

Step eleven: frost the outside of the cake (be generous with this “layer” of frosting)

Step twelve: whack the ganache on top.

Step thirteen: take a cute photo of your son.

Step fourteen: decorate your cake as desired. Don’t tell your friends, or whomever you’re eating the cake with, what’s inside, and enjoy their oooohs and aaaahs!

Yum yum yum yum YUM!!

Any questions? I’ll be happy to help if I can. (I got most of my help from the internet.)

Also, there’s 14 steps because I can’t stop on 13. And I noticed I have 13 followers on my blog. This is not sitting well with me. Maybe someone could help me out? 🙂

Happy 500 posts Wifey

/ Renae / 6 Comments
What better way to celebrate, than with delicious vanilla bean cake!
Delicious vanilla bean cake with vanilla frosting, topped with ganache!
Delicious vanilla bean layer cake with vanilla frosting, topped with ganache!
Does it get any better than this? Happy posting to meeeeeeeee!

Music gets the best of me

/ Renae / 1 Comment

(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!

Bumper weekend part II

/ Renae / Leave a comment

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

/ Renae / 2 Comments

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…

Firsts

/ Renae / Leave a comment

First “solid” food.

I don’t know if you can call what we fed Chance “solid” (rice cereal + boob juice) but he took to it, moreso on the second day:

Next step, pumpkin!!

And guess who’s teething!!? No wonder we’ve had such bad nights lately. Chanbe bit down on my finger this afternoon and I felt it. Can’t wait to take some photos of the toothy grin!