Love, bubs and life on our little farm

It has been a busy year - no where as crazy as last year with the whole having a baby and extending our house but still very intense.

It has been Year of the Career - with both Jase and I dealing with promotions and really throwing ourselves into being the best. I went back from Maternity leave to find myself made head of a lab with three scientists and one technician to manage... part time. I bumped my work days up to 4 and with overtime etc I have been working well over 5 days of hours a week. Jase has had a lot of national, international and statewide travel - sometimes on one to two work trips a week. I have learnt to juggle the two girls, long hours at my work, the farm and working at night and despite a number of people telling me it wasn't sustainable, have been fine although it has involved learning to function on 6 hours sleep a night.

We have taken our house extension/renovation from new and empty to a lovely homely house - staining decks and french doors, adding furniture, wall hangings and electrical items, putting up curtains, landscaping driveways, planting new gardens and building over 20 metres of new retaining walls. Our home and land are lovely, it is know everything we dreamed it could be five years ago when we bought it (besides the pool, outdoor woodfired pizza oven/kitchen and extended horse arena that are our next dream projects) and I am so content when I walk around soaking up the peace and quiet of the snowy gum trees waving over our dams.

Before

After (and curtains have been added since!)

I sold my competition horse as his bad hoof was just not holding up to the unforgiving hard paddocks on our property. He is now a much loved Pony Club horse on the Sunshine Coast and looks wonderful. I had a difficult hunt for a new horse, requiring 100kms of driving, vet checks and aborted sales before I finally found the perfect horse 5 minutes down the road, unadvertised, sold through word of mouth of a horse friend.

We had our first flying holiday with the girls to Sydney and Jase and I enjoyed some weekends away to ourselves thanks to my parents babysitting. I visited Tasmania for a conference, Jase had a surprise work trip to Paris. We had interstate friends come and stay and have planned a number of trips for next year already. We threw a New Years party to kick off the year, hosted our combined 30th Birthday party and had a Teddy Bears Picnic themed Birthday for the girls 1st and 3rd Birthdays.

The girls have grown and grown. Bronte has  changed from a 6 month old baby barely crawling to a independent communicating 18 month old. We have taken her through hearing aid fittings, umpteen hearing tests, endless speech pathology and a general anaesthetic cat scan on her head. She is developing on target for a child of her age with normal hearing, and that is all we can ask for. We have been through all the preparation for Elka to start school in a short three weeks - hard to believe we are that stage.

The difference a year makes

The girls have discovered what it means to have a sister - being the best of friends and the worst of enemies. I love having two little kids rather than babies - they constantly delight me with their little quirks and funny mannerisms. I am excited to watch them both continue to develop into little people in the next year.

Sisters

We were blessed with good health - my broken finger is as serious as our injuries and sickness have been. We were spared the worst of the SE Qld floods thanks to a new dam being built on our river system the year before. We did suffer some trees down in some severe storms but no structural damage.

Life has been very good to us. We work damn hard for it but we wholeheartedly appreciate all that we do have. I believe in siezing every moment and making the most of it. And I can say we truly have done that this year.

2012 is a year concentrating on our health - we want to make sure we are eating fresh foods, concentrating on balanced nutrition and taking time for exercise. We have a lovely holiday to the Great Barrier Reef planned for our wedding anniversary (7 years!) and another couples-only weekend away booked for a friends wedding. We are planning on taking the kids on a family trip to Canberra and surrounds to see old friends. We are also thinking of another short trip to Sydney. Jase and I both have work trips already booked for the first few months of 2012 and of course more to come, our careers are only advancing not slowing down. I have a number of publications currently submitted and more to write. I have two Masters students to supervise as well as all my staff. I plan to get this finger healed and get some time to compete my new horse. We have plenty more landscaping plans for the property and gardens to fill with plants. Elka starts school and I have to adapt my working schedule to accomodate this somewhat. Bronte will turn two and we will face the parenting challenges that come with that.

But right now - well its time to get off the computer and get into a party dress as we will be heading to a New Years Party very soon!

Happy New Year to all my followers :) Thank you for all of your support and great comments xoxo