Thinking Vintage

Now that we are 20 weeks along I am somewhat less apprehensive and more excitedly planning everything baby. I'm looking forward to getting back to the newborn phase, and I'm so enjoying planning what to wrap baby in and what to do in the nursery.
You see, not long before we found out we were pregnant I had sold a lot of items. I lusted after another baby but I didn't think we would have one (hubby was pretty set against not). Fate landed on our doorstep. It's like one door closes as another passes. Days after my husband and his family farewelled the patriarch of their family, my husband's much loved grandfather we conceived this precious soul. I'm a firm believer in what the universe takes it also delivers. It works in crazy ways. So here we were in January with a baby on the way and suddenly...very limited baby items.
I've sat back and waited until now to look at our newborn items. Nervous to acknowledge this wonderful thing that is happening to us.

So now, I am embracing, accepting and planning. The 1 piece I have to work with is a beautiful vintage bassinet that my best friend is giving us. She is a newborn and maternity photographer and had purchased this as a prop. It will find a wonderful home with our precious babe I tell you! I will be using this vintage bassinet as the basis of our nursery, I plan to carefully blend modern and vintage but will mostly use a vintage them. Pinterest is getting a massive workout with finding ideas. What a shame shows like The Block don't do a family version. There are shows in the US like 'Make room for baby' where you see rooms renovated for new baby's however these are so American and very cliche and over done.

Since we are moving sometime between now and baby's due date I have to pin and pin until my hearts content, buy wraps and clothes for our precious bambino and wait until we are settled to set up stations.

And the bump...it's growing <3 My best friend. The aforementioned newborn/maternity photographer decided to whip the camera out on the weekend to mark our halfway point, here is one of the shots. I adore it (you can see more on the blog at www.evokeartphotography.com.au)

It's been a while

I've not been around these parts for a few months, I check into blogger frequently to read up on the many friends who blog regularly and the people I don't know but am interested in. Somehow though, getting the energy to put together a post myself has eluded me.
You see I've been in a bubble of busy the last few weeks...oh yes and morning sickness!

The new year has blessed us with a new baby due in the Spring, we are thrilled, blessed, excited and so so happy! As of Friday our precious 3rd bambino is well and baking as a baby of 20 weeks gestation should. Along with baking a baby we've been busy in open home fun and busy with our boys as usual.

Life is good to us. We have our health, we have good friends, supportive family and a wonderful full life.

It feels like I'm in a bubble and I'm terrified the bubble will pop.

Don't Worry be Happy

Last night I went out to dinner with a friend, we had a bit of a philosophical conversation about being happy with our cards in life, being happy with what we DO have and not being greedy about what we don't have.

I got home and had a shower and played my usual play list and ironically Guy Sebastian's 'Don't worry be happy' came on. How fitting! For those that have not listened to it the song is essentially about life being short and just being happy. We only get to live it once and we should live it up!

Life really is short, and this year I'm going to promise myself to try to appreciate what I have. I'm going to try to not be greedy, I'm going to count my blessings and truly be happy with my lot in life.

End of an Era

With the start of full time formal schooling we've ended the era of our firstborn home days and entered into living our lives through lunch boxes, school holidays and stains on white t-shirts.

I was not sure what to expect today but I think the outcome is the best I could have hoped for. On dropping Master 4 at school this morning I was told 'you can go when you want to mummy'. I was taking the lead from other parents and trying to hover around watching my son orientate himself with his new surroundings, noting whether he engaged in conversation with fellow students and what activities he delved into first. But this was cut short after a brief period of time with Master 4 clearly more confident and ready for school than we had given him credit for. I'm pleased that I was the one with tears brimming with both sadness and pride and not him. I am pleased that I am the one that was thinking about him all day and that quite likely he didn't give me a thought.

It seems that somehow, out of the last nearly 5 years of sleep deprivation, tears, screaming, tantruming (both him and us), toilet training, moving house, travelling overseas and interstate, laughter, fun and more we've raised a little boy who was happy to farewell us on his first day of big boy school with a brave confident and excited face. Im happy with where we are at.

Going to the Wild

That is what Hamish gleaned from being told we were visiting the Wildlife park...and then on departure he wondered where the park was? Poor kid, only got taken to see many different animals including a private koala experience but he wondered where the good old slippery dip was?

We last visited this particular wildlife park when Hamish was just on 3 and Angus was 3 weeks old <3 What a lot of growing happens in 22 months.

Here is Mister Mighty watching the sheep shearing show.

Hamish getting to feed a lamb that was only 6 weeks old, it took forever to feed <3

No words, just heart melting.

And all of us visiting the koalas

Click

That's what that movie is called isn't it?! Where Adam Sandler has the remote and can see his life as if they were just sections on a DVD.
I wish I could put all my memories onto a device like the one in the movie and relive them when I wanted to. I find myself agreeing to read 1 more book to the boys, falling at each hurdle they throw me just so I can live in that moment just a second longer. Don't get me wrong, the kids have the ability to send me from 0 to 100 on the angry/frustrated scale within a matter of seconds BUT the feeling of completion they give me - that completion that I never knew I had been missing, the happiness I feel in our family unit soars far higher than the angry scale could ever go. Moving away from everything we have ever known has been the hardest and most rewarding thing our little unit could ever have done. And its not just the boys I count in that feeling, its the 4 of us. I'm not one of those people to publicly ooze an abundant amount of soppy affection about my life so I'll stop these there. I'm tired, hubby is away and I'm missing him. So I'm sitting here trying to get myself to a sleepy state, so really I could go on for ever. But I won't. My family is ultimately what I feel anyway, I couldn't possibly relate it all to somebody else.

So what I originally came in to blog about was language. Its the theme of the day here with master 4 at speech therapy to try fix his pronunciation habits that can affect his ability to communicate some messages. Like anything, when you start working on it you notice it more so every element of Master 4s language has been the focus of much of my attention.

We are really enjoying in the thick of the fournager years here and getting served a true variety of language in all its flavour. Comments like 'I want you to go and die' really do leave you with a feeling of warmth and love deep inside don't they!?
On the weekend I headed to the shops and on departure I asked Master 4 if he needed anything, his response was Yes, intrigued I asked him what he needed and his response was 'Um, something we don't have'. Clearly he got his shopping tendencies from his mother AND has outsourced the buying part, smart lad.
I wish I had a mental memo board to take note of all the funny things he has said, its all a vague distant memory.

We are thoroughly enjoying the other end of the spectrum as well, Master 1 just finding his voice and saying single words, 'UCK' is often yelled in the car when he sees a truck bus/train/large utility vehicle, we also have Car, duck, mum, dad, Santa which is adorably pronounced SAAAANTAAA. He also tries other words, IF he feels like it when asked. But generally he is a quiet kid preferring to use gestures to communicate. Which works fine, for now.

x

Christmas time

It seems the lead up to Christmas drags on for months but the day itself, gone in an instant. A blurry memory of torn wrapping paper, many laughs, some tears and much love.

This year marked our first Christmas in our new home. I've been so busy with sorting out the house and doing all my 'holiday activities' that I didn't feel too anxious about the upcoming day. Christmas means a lot to me, being a foodie I love the food preparation and the eating, I love the planning, I love preparing the gifts for people, thinking about what they would like and seeing them open their gifts. I love being with other people and relaxing for the day. Obviously I wasn't sure what to make of this year being so far away and missing out on those usual activities in the comfort of our family homes.

The lead up to Christmas was wonderful, we found ourself unleashing the 'kids must be in bed at their 7pm bedtime' rules to, 'lets leave to see the christmas lights at 7.20pm'. The freedom that came with our more relaxed holiday attitude was wonderful. We got to enjoy the innocent wonder of the Christmas lights through the eyes of our sweet boys. What miracles children are! Mere days before Christmas a friend lost her baby girl to a rare genetic disorder, so many times during these holidays I looked at my boys and couldn't stop thinking of baby S. I am just so lucky to have my boys, every single day that I get to cuddle them, that I get to tell them I love them and even when I get to experience the joy of having them fight is a wonderful day because it means I have them.

We are so fortunate to have a wonderful village of support over here, I guess you lean on these people more when you are away from your family and older friends. As a result Christmas day did not go by with my sitting and tearing up at the thought of the events we were missing back at home, I did at various points in time think with fondness back to what we would be doing had we been back home. But we had such a lovely time with new friends and adopted family that I cannot say I felt sadness at what we were missing, just nostalgic.

I've managed, you see, to get myself into a good headspace! It is a nice place where I don't yearn for things I cannot have, I live here, not there. I CANNOT simply have the life we live here AND the life we left behind. THIS is our journey for now, and I'm going to enjoy it and not wrap myself up in what we miss and what we cannot do. We take the opportunities here as we can and continue to grow into a stronger family unit as a result of living in isolation to those family ties.

Christmas has come and gone and we prepare ourself for another New Year, what a great year 2012 will be. I am sure.

Good Food and Wine Festival

The weekend just passed Chris and I were both recovering from a weird virus which had left us with headaches and nausea and we were coming off the back of 3 weeks of doing virtually nothing with the boys due to them being sick. With the Good Food and Wine Festival on in Perth I thought it was a nice opportunity to head on the train into the city...it turned out a massive fail but we made something of it.
We took the train after Master 4's swimming lesson - it was a lovely train trip and quite quick. We got there and as soon as we got into the stuffy and food and wine smelling convention centre Master 4 got instantly restless and pale. Master 1 was crabby and not going to sleep. We made the decision to split up, the 2 big boys heading home and the little one hopefully napping in the pram whilst I explored. I quickly changed my decision and leapt after Chris - meeting him outside with a vomitting Master 4! The shows! Courageously Chris took the kids by himself back on the train and home and I headed back into my mother ship, aka the food and wine festival.

Whilst I felt guilty at first I quickly warmed to the surroundings - tasting bits of freshly made fudge, malaysian (meeting Alvin from Masterchef), watching a masterclass hosted by Matt Moran and tasting yummy chocolate, wine and so much more. If its on in your city and you love to know more about the origina of foods and tasting different things then its definitely worth an outting. I even got my Matt Moran cookbook signed by the author himself...

Hutch

Meet our new family member, he is a 15ish week old Boxer pup. Isn't he cute!?!

Bob the Builder

Rare is it that daddy can do anything in our home without a "mini-me" following him around. I absolutely adore it - it is simply the cutest thing when I see C working on something in the home and Master 4 is usually right by his side (okay so it wasn't as adorable when I realised he had taken this act a little too far by actually drawing on the wall to measure where he was to drill a hole...in pen no less).

Perth in Autumn

I'm in unchartered territory - for me anyway. Spending Autumn in Perth, on our 4 previous visits to Perth prior to moving here I had never been here in Autumn, it was always Spring or Summer. I have to say I am loving it. Traditionally Anzac day in Canberra is the start of the freezing weather, the start of long sleeves until at least September. But Perth is so different and I am not taking the differences for granted in any way. I should note, you won't see me blogging about what I miss or the cons of living in Perth. It goes without saying that we miss our friends and family so much, but life is about embracing change and all the positives in life and as such I don't stop very often, if ever to feel sad or sorry about our situation - we are so very fortunate. I just wanted to note that so that you know.

Anyway, as I was saying...Autumn in Perth, at least for us is:

Visits to the park (and not having to rug us all up!)

Visits to the beach:

Taking a swing in the backyard at 5.30PM (again without having to rug up!)

Enjoying a family dinner outside (okay so maybe that ocean breeze is sometimes a little too cool to enjoy dinner outside without a jumper...but you can't have everything right?)



Late night visitors

A couple of nights ago Master 4 woke up at about 11pm, usually he goes to bed and we don't hear a peep for 12 hours. So to hear him pitter patter into our room at 11pm and tell us he felt sick I jumped at the opportunity to have him hop into our bed and cuddle us for the night. He loved it too, cuddling up inbetween his mummy and daddy I have no doubt he felt safe and loved. We held hands for some of the night, I know it sounds corny but his little hand on my pillow was irresistable. And the sleepless night aside with him waking for water and his little brother waking (a reminder he was at the other side of the house alone no doubt), it was really nice.

"Cookie"

It seems only fitting that my little A has finally attached to a comforter, and that comforters name is Cookie. A loves his food, he loves his cookies too. After months of trying to get him to attach to a comforter that suited me he finally found what suited him. A beautiful bear that was gifted to him before he was even born, it is a good 3/4 of his size and he adores him.

Easter traditions

I don't remember any easter traditions in our family home when I was growing up (correct me if I am wrong mum and dad). And through watching reality television shows and reading about other peoples lives on the internet I have started to think about whether I want traditions in our own home. What I hope is that we will set up some traditions of our very own and one day when our boys are much bigger and living separate lives from us they will gravitate home to us to enjoy their childhood memories...in adulthood and hopefully then one day with families of their own. I realise this might sound like I want to set up traditions JUST for the future benefits. But that is not the only reason. I know that Hamish is at the age where his earliest memories are forming, I would like to think they will become of baking in the kitchen with me, hunting in the garden for eggs with his daddy and not of me raising my voice at him to tidy his toys, or clean his room...or wash his hands.

In any case, what DO I want to become our Easter traditions. Well today I pondered the tradition my dad had of cooking shortbread every Christmas. Sadly Australian summer is not conducive to working with rapidly melting butter and flour on the kitchen bench and drinking a hot drink with a piece of shortbread is not quite as appealing as it would be in a northern winter. As a result I pondered making shortbread each year for Easter. Given we are now living away from my parents I cannot rely on a constant supply of shortbread from their home and the postal system is not nearly reliable enough...so I just might have to make it myself.
Today I found a very simple recipe and then put the shortbread dough into Easter egg moulds. I thought that this would make little crispy shortbread biccies that the kids would enjoy. The result was not too bad considering I have a) never worked with easter egg moulds and b) not done shortbread in this way before. As with all my recipes recently it was made with dairy free margarine as opposed to butter. The recipe is simple, 250gms marg, 1 cup of icing sugar, 1 cup of cornflour and 1 cup of plainflour. You cream the marg and sugar then sift the flours in and mix and knead well. I find it is quite sticky with the marg so its harder to work with.  In any case, below is the result. I'm pondering lining the moulds with chocolate before putting the shortbread in next time, also decorating with icing once cooked. Not sure yet...will this become a tradition for Easter in our house. Time will tell. I apologise for the dodgy picture - Blogger keeps changing it around.

First year around the sun

It would be nice if I could pretend tomorrow wasn't really happening. But, alas it is here my baby boys first birthday and thanks to being in Perth I 'technically' get and extra 3 hours of Angus being a baby. I'm enjoying every minute of those three hours resettling him back to sleep. But that aside, I honestly want, no need time to slow down. Where has this year gone?

This time 1 year ago I had quite a restless night, just couldn't get comfy. Nothing painful but in my heart I knew that my baby was on his way, I just didn't want to let my head know because of the disappointment if I were wrong.

It is hard to believe that this strong little soul has been with us a full year. In one way it feels like it was yesterday, in another way it feels like he has been with us a lifetime. My heart swells with love and pride when I look at him. My little Angry Angus is a contrast in so many ways, he was in a tearing hurry to arrive earthside yet is not in a tearing hurry to do much else in life. He has a feisty fiery aspect to his personality but at the same time he is so laid back and cruisy. He is a cheeky devilish little thing and at just 11 months 3 weeks and 6 days I can see he is going to be a handful, he has a taste for adrenalin....yet at the same time he is the cutest most angelic little boy.

I want to drink him in, remember every little bit of him at this age. I don't want him to grow up, but at the same time I want to see the person he becomes and see what he achieves in life. I want to protect him, wrap him up in bubble wrap and never let him out of my sight - but at the same time I want to miss him, I want to hear about all the things the world is giving him. I want him to stay near me so I can see him all the time - yet I want him to explore everything his heart desires. Why can't we control time even more? With Hamish I felt like time went by in an absolute blur and somehow I have a nearly 4 year old on my doorstep. I thought with a second baby time might go slower I would have time to drink him in because I had 'done it all before'. But then we get thrown with a completely different child (naturally) and I feel like a whole year has gone yet I'm still trying to get to know him.

My darling Angus, don't grow up too quickly. Let me saviour and capture each milestone with you. We love you so very much...thank you for choosing us as your family.

Making your own fun

In the world of two little boys I can certainly see that the sillier, crazier and more dangerous activities are the most fun! Last week I grabbed the already falling apart laundry basket and allowed the boys to have some of their own fun. This will not be a frequently repeated activity as when we get our new floor I won't be encouraging it but for now it was a fun activity that filled in half an hour in the afternoon.

I LOVE

Wouldn't it be nice if Valentines Day became less about doting on that 1 person you love most in this world and more about enjoying and really appreciating the things you love most about your life? Sometimes I think we are too busy living to actually stop and think about those things. So what do I love? I'll show you a little about what I love.

My family! I love all my boys and I love our life. I'm so so fortunate to have 2 healthy little boys that are all mine and a supportive and loving husband (most of the time, don't go getting a big head Chris!)

Okay so we might not look quite like the Kardashian sisters but I Love my sisters. There are 4 of us all up, all different and individual but we get along alright!

Okay so we don't quite have the same issues as the Fockers BUT families are complex and ours are no exception. But we love them anyway and we and our boys are very fortunate to have both sets of parents in our lives supporting us and what we do.

Friends! They really are angels without wings. I'm very blessed to have wonderful friends in Canberra and now also in Perth. Today a very beautiful new friend of mine bought over a 'sleep deprivation survivor' it had oly the very best things in it that I would most definitely have picked for myself. A very beautiful soul to have bought that to me today. How did I get so lucky to have so many beautiful people around me?

Speaking of beautiful...

 I love turquoise boxes with white ribbon....need I say more?

It is a new love, but it is a love. The iPhone is my sanity when at a coffee shop with a disinterested threenager, my navigator when I am lost, my entertainer when I am waiting and my friend at all hours of the night! If it would settle the baby for me then we would be set.

Okay so honestly I LOVE all food, food and I have a wonderful relationship.

So really I love a lot of things, it is nice to sit here thinking about what I love. What do you love?

While you were sleeping

It's something I do every night, I just pop in to see my little boys fast asleep. It's nice to have their peaceful faces as the last thing I see before I hit the pillow myself. This is what I see.

How many do you do?

Hamish does 5! 5 Weetbix is this little 3 year olds breakfast. Impressive huh.

Brothers

Ever since we bought Angus into the world it has been quite an adventure for our little family as we learn our roles in the family with this new little person who really changed us. I really felt that we went from a couple with a child to a family. I guess family is what you make it, and for me I always knew there was more then 1 baby waiting in the wings for me and as a result, I just didn't feel like it was a family until we had more then 1 child (and okay honestly, I feel like there are more...but sssh Chris might see this and freak out!).

Anyway, part of what I really have loved seeing is little Hamish becoming a big brother. There relationship is complex and has many levels to it. I suspect on the whole each would do anything for the other...as long as they wanted to do it. hehe. Anyway here are some photos of them from this week. Beautiful boys!

Would you trust that face 'helping' you up the steps?

Angus is not always happy when his brother smothers, I mean hugs him

Big brother teaching little brother how to play with the bead toy

Big brother teaching little brother how to use the Buzz big boy toy.