Love, bubs and life on our little farm

So I have been dragging my sorry sick butt around recently - enjoying the delights of early pregnancy such as gagging at all smells and thoughts of smells and experiencing tiredness so intense even your bones are tired. But one of my best friends is getting married soon.. in Hawaii.. and we are waiting to hear whether we are coming into some money. If this money eventuates, well then Jase and I are on the plane, sarongs packed, as fast as you can say "Nanny and Poppy, could you please mind Elka?" I really really want to be at this wedding but current finances are very tied up with our house extension and me needing another batch of maternity leave. So at the moment I am just hoping and wishing and tearing my guts out with guilt that I possibly won't be there on one of my friends most important days.

In the meanwhile, I have just found out that her Australian hens night is scheduled for 4 weeks time. Arrgh! I want to make it as special as possible for her as she organised my amazing hens night that was touching, beautiful and wild and fun all at the same time. So hence me needing to snap out of the pregnancy funk of eating reluctantly, working, grumping about being fat and falling into bed.

Did I mention that the hens night is in another state and that the hen is a party girl from way back and was even an events planner in glamorous old Sydney.. so she has some high expectations. Urrghh please please if you are reading this - leave some hens night games/experiences that you have loved in the comments :)

I have started trying to tidy myself up... got to book a hair appointment to fix my 2.5 inch long roots and to shape my eyebrows again. I have pulled together a hopefully passable going out in Sydney glamourous outfit, that suitably shows enough skin to blend in but also hides my chubby belly bump that unfortunately currently just makes me look thick through the middle. But how to survive the looooong night of teetering around in heels to noisy clubs when I can't have a drop of sparkling and I am normally tucked up in bed by 9pm? Hmm haven't quite worked that one out but am hoping adrenaline, guilt and a sense of duty will get me through!

Oh how I am hoping the worst of the illness will have passed by then!

I started this blog to be a record of my pregnancy with Elka. And it will now serve to be a pregnancy blog again...... I am happy to announce that I am 9 weeks pregnant and due on the 4th of June. Another winter bub :)

If you know me in real life, I apologise for not telling you - I have been pretty slack with announcements, mainly because its not yet that magic 12 weeks and also because the morning sickness has nearly killed me and talking about babies and pregnancy only makes it worse! But I don't like not being able to blog my experiences with this pregnancy so I am ready to come out on here :)

I am using the same obs as last time - very strange to find myself sitting back in his office again! A scan revealed a healthy looking little blob with a heartbeat so all is going well so far.

I have the same 24 hour nausea that I experienced with Elka's pregnancy but this time it is even more severe - alot more gagging and vomiting and stronger dizziness and queasiness. Its not been fun. Just in the last week I have also had extreme tiredness - not useful with a toddler!
I am already showing this time round - making dressing for work a little tricky (have told my bosses but not all my workmates). I was shocked this mroning to weigh myself and find that I have lost a kilogram (57kg) as I was sure with all the poor eating that I have been getting by on, that I was piling on the weight. So far, the best solution is peppermint choc chip ice cream with ice magic - mm healthy! But is soothes the stomach and calms the heartburn too. I have had heaps of cravings - mango chillers, ice, thai samosas, pickled onions and the list goes on!

I have been despairing at not being able to buy the summer clothes that I would like as they more than likely won't fit. But I have comforted myself with some cute maxi dresses instead ;)

Now just to (im)patiently wait for the 12 week scan and for the sickness to pass!

I heard Summer today. The sound of the sun beating down on the crunchy grass, the crickets sawing and the baby magpie demanding a feed. I love Australian Summers expecially on the land. The heat, the endless blue skies, the birds - it all reminds me that its nearly Christmas - time for family, relaxing, holidays, beach trips and lots of cold fruit and BBQ's.

I am looking forward to Christmas time. I am planning some holidays to relax at my parents gorgeous farm. Mum goes all out at Christmas - the house and gardens always look amazing and she cooks for weeks in advance. I adore Christmas shopping - wandering around finding lovely gifts to spoil my loved ones. I love picking our real Christmas tree out and the fresh pine smell it brings into the house. Elka is going to love Christmas and all the trappings.

We went to the first pool party/BBQ of the season last night and it was great fun. I have started buying lots of fun Summer dresses. I am ready for it now :)

I have neglected my blog :( I have been so busy I am afraid - work has just been crazy and life is too with interstate trips and lots of farm work to do...

I feel bad as some lovely people have even given me blog awards! Thank you! That means a lot to me as I write my blog to please myself not any one else so its nice to know that even still some people enjoy it!

I now have a killer head cold and a toddler teething her molars so I wish I had something lovely or fun to post but alas unless you want to hear a whinge about how much work I need to get done on my scientific grants or how we are slowly and very dully moving forward with our house extension plans... not much to say!

The horse front has also been quiet as Spech is having some corrective shoeing done at the moment in order to get his bad foot to grow some new sole (which is working well!) but means he is on rest from competitions.. I have been giving Sam a little bit of work in the meanwhile but am not feeling too motivated at the moment.

In bright news, despite more dust storms, bushfires and high winds, we have had over 30mm of rain in the last week and our paddocks are green and shooting lovely fresh spring grass :)

I did buy a lovely dip dye/tie dye skirt the other day... that is about as exciting as my summer shopping has been recently...

And that is me for now :) xoxo

Little Miss Elka has started talking a lot lately - she has a great range of words now for a 15 month old and tries out new ones daily. My current favourites are "Tate-toh" - potato :) and "Nnnnnnnneigh" - for the answer to the question what noise does has a horse make?

But she is also stringing together words into sentences now. "Dadda.. where?" when she is looking for Dad (the answer is always work of course!), she can also say "here you go" and "where'd it go?"

But last night was her first really independent sentence to communicate exactly what she wanted and it melted my heart. Jase gives her the evening bath but she likes me to come in too.. however I was in the kitchen cooking and she came hooting out from the bathroom crying for me. So I picked her up - she looked me intensely in the face and said and pointed to the bathroom "Bubbles.. want Mum!". She calls her baths bubbles as she gets bubble bath in them. I was so impressed that she had made herself understood so clearly! So yep - she got Mum ;)