Love, bubs and life on our little farm

Jase is acting in a pretty important position for work currently - so he spent Sunday morning in the office. The girls and I tagged along for a free trip to the city and we spent Sunday morning in Myer ;)

Made me feel a bit like a kept woman really - him working, me spending. Except as anyone would know that reads this blog - I also plug away hard at my career and in fact had only arrived home late Friday night from a work trip to Sydney. But anyway I lived the fantasy for a few hours.

It was close to a perfect shopping experience - the girls were angels in the double pram, happily sitting for two hours whilst I did circuits, the sales were incredible and I found clothes that I wanted and even better in my size! I had spent a long plane trip pouring over my latest Shop Till You Drop magazine so I had some strong ideas of looks I wanted to achieve for this transeasonal time (Sorry colder parts of Australia but here in Qld I am already moving into my late-winter,early-spring mood).

Some of my inspiration currently is drawn from the dancer trend

The skater style shirt skirt worn with oversized knitted see through jumpers is something that I wanted to try.... and I found the perfect jumper in a lovely dusky pink. I saw plenty of skirts too but none that were quite right yet.

I grabbed a great navy and white striped cotton scarf with a bow pattern printed over it - I am such a sucker for bows! Very classic but a little cute too. I got a great thin material bomber style jacket in dove grey and splurged on a really elegant chocolate brown blouse for work as I have a talk to present on Tuesday and thought it would look great with my black pencil skirt for a bit of a confidence boost. And I finished by uhming and aahing over a Wayne Cooper race back satin singlet in plum - it fell beautifully but does draw attention to the fact that I am yes slim but no not *cough* blessed with any womanly curves. But I decided at that sale price I could work that out later!

But the clothes will come in handy in the next few weeks as I have quite a few things on such as High Tea and a girls night out..

This has been the view from my apartment for the last week. Tough hey?! I have been in Hobart for the annual national Microbiology Conference. Fascinating and inspiring, sometimes daunting and discouraging but a great meeting of the minds and very useful for networking. I have more meetings, potential collaborations and possible research students now than I will ever have time to balance!

It was my first time to Hobart and I loved it. I spent seven years in Canberra so I am some what accustomed to cold (but still detest it). But it couldn't have been a colder time to be there according to the locals and as you can see by the snow, we really got to see the town at its most wintery. However, the devine stone restaurants harbouring log fires and live music and perfect wine and food were made so much the nicer for the fierce snow winds outside.

I enjoyed my time away from my little ones - there was no washing to do, no cleaning of yoghurt off hands and floors, no rushing them out the door before 7am and the ability to have a few glasses of wine and "sleep in" until 7.30am in the morning! Bliss! But of course I was moping and missing them by the end and gazing longingly at sweet toddling babies and cute little girls by the time I was waiting at the airport. The big cuddles and huge smiles and giggles I got when I picked them up from daycare was one of the best parts of the whole week.

And now.... I am trying to get my head around our next couple of weeks. Jase is acting in his bosses position, which without much detail as he won't like that ;) is pretty umm *cough* high up and the type of role where you are required 24/7 - I won't be getting any help with the kids for the next few weeks, let alone seeing him much as he will pretty much be coming home to just grab 6 hours sleep and get up and go again. So proud of him but at the same time - uurggh! Add in the fact that my parents are still overseas so I am still minding their horses and cat on top of all our animals, that my job is only getting more and more demanding with work trips/research students/lecturing and a lot of stress with deadlines, that Bronte has a heap of medical appointments that I have to take time off for (including a CT scan under general anaesthetic that I am DREADING) and I have a number of horse comps with my new competition horse who is totally green coming up the next few weekends.... well I can't shake that uneasy feeling that this month is not going to be very fun... am hoping to be proven wrong.

Oh how I can't wait until my parents return and they shower me with gifts from America ;) and offer to take the girls for a weekend so Jase and I can have a few precious moments. That is my light at the end of the tunnel at the moment...

Bound to irritate a lot of people but its been on my mind. I think I missed out on some Mummy genes. Time and time again, my real life Mummy friends and online Mummy friends all do things that just don't register on my radar and I find myself wondering how I missed that page in the Mummy manual...

- I just don't get the mania over the toy sales. I don't even look at the catalogues and I couldn't think of anything worse than piling into the shops with millions of other parents to rummage around plastic fantastic toys. I dont get shopping for Christmas when its not all nice and Christmassy and how am I meant to know what my kids would like 6 months out? I don't know what I want 6 months out, let alone the changeable fickle beasts that are kids! I also have never laybuyed a thing in my life... no not quite true, I laybuyed a saddle once as a 16yr old and convinced my mum to pay it off within two weeks so I could ride in it. But cue this time of year and all I see on facebook is Mums posting excitedly that it is toy sale time!? Yep definitely missed out on the Mummy gene for that one!

- I don't get parents that make their little kids hug and kiss everyone goodbye. I like your kid but I don't want to get his snotty nose rubbed on my cheek, thanks. As an infectious disease scientist I am not a fan of unnecessary close contact, particularly in Winter! (sound like a ball of fun don't I!) I also feel for the little kids that are reluctantly pushed over to all these almost strangers and conjoled into giving them kisses. But this is probably more my issue - I don't tend to give my babies/kids to others to hold etc unless they ask so maybe I am just more standoffish than most?

- I don't get making facebook status updates about every inane detail of your kids toilet training etc - but thankfully I am not the only one there - STFU Parents is one of my fave blogs as it makes me feel less alone!

- I don't get spending ridiculous amounts of money on your kids clothes or the time and effort some Mums put into dressing their kids. Sure I love spending ridiculous amounts of money on my clothes hehe but I don't tend to smear food on them, roll in dirt or finger paint as much as the average toddler. I don't do brand names for kids, in fact half their clothes are hand me downs from my best friend. Maybe its living on a farm, maybe its the fact I have better things to do than sit on the internet looking at kids clothing websites (boooring) but meh I do a trip to Target every couple of months, buy some staples, grab some shoes and Mum makes them some cute party dresses... done. Elka invariably picks her own clothes which are guaranteed to be the oldest most hideous items in her wardrobe. Every time I have bought her something a bit fancier she has flat out refused to wear it to the chosen event, demanding her $10 fairy skirt or a pair of satin boxer shorts that somehow made it into her drawer and I keep forgetting to sneak out again instead...

and last but not least - I completely missed out on the pram gene. I have owned one pram, zero strollers and have no desire for anything else. I did my research, found a pram that would accomodate two kids because I knew we would be having two in close age and that could negotiate paddocks and our gravel driveway and bought it, it cost more than what I thought a pram really should but was still way less than most of the fancy pants ones. Job done. I am constantly amazed at how many prams other parents go through and the money that they cost. And most of those people just want it to push it on flat concreted ground at the shops! Am sure everyone has their reasonings but I always wonder why as someone that loves shopping and fashion I am so uninterested in what my pram looks like...

That is my list - what Mummy things do you find that you are immune to?

Big thanks to Mamamia for doing a spread on Kate Moss due to her wedding. I have adored her and her fashion sense for so long.
She just has a nack for looking boho and super cool whilst also looking elegant and never try-hardy. Looking through the collection of photos on the website, I can't help but notice she doesn't wear alot of jewellery - she really lets the clothes or hat or belt or shoes do the talking....

Some of my fave looks of hers:

Its been one of those weeks - where you burn the candle at both ends. I have been flat out at work, we have been preparing for Jase to take on a new acting position which will mean he is incredibly busy and won't be around at all and we have had some of our dearest friends visit from interstate with their little ones. Unfortunately, both Jase and I couldn't entirely step away from work for their visit, so Jase was attached to his Blackberry all the way around Australia Zoo and I was chained to the computer every night desperately crunching data for my conference presentation. We are existing on 6 hours sleep a night lately and life is just whizzing by - I couldnt believe a week had passed when I realised we had to buy groceries again. We have started ordering the groceries online and having them delivered - its been very useful. I still insist that we buy our fresh food from a greengrocer but that is a pleasant task that can be squeezed in. Oh the bliss of being able to put the kids to bed, cook dinner and chat whilst having our groceries dropped to the door so that we can have them put away without having to leave the house.

I leave for a week in Hobart for a work conference next Monday,looking forward to it as I have booked a gorgeous waterfront apartment. It will be SO cold but so nice. And sleep ins for the mornings and cocktail receptions and conference balls in the evenings - a nice change to the normal 5.30am pitch black starts and nights of freezing under floodlights rugging horses and juggling kids! I have a work trip the week after that too and Jase will basically be absent for those weeks also. We have a family holiday booked for September and Jase and I are planning a kid free weekend in August - I find the busy times are so much easier to get through when you have treats to look forward to.

I also love going away because I LOVE coming home again - I adore seeing my little ones faces after an absence. When I can't drink them up enough or can't hear their sweet voices too much. Miss Bronte has gotten so big all of a sudden - she plays with dolls, putting them to bed in blankets and pushing them around in strollers with Elka. All of a sudden, I have two little girls, not a toddler and a baby!

The girls loved our old friends visiting with their two little girls in close age. It was a strange feeling - our old dear uni friends,the ones we have done so many fun, crazy things with, were still just the same, like we see each other weekly not yearly like it is now but with our kids playing together?? wow when did that happen. But it was good strange - pretty special really.

And well that is life at the moment.... I am trying to fit in time to train Sam, my other (and now only!) horse. He is a diamond in the rough, needs a lot of work but I think we will get there, but that can be for another post..

And for now, I think sleep is the priority! xo

So a horsey forum I read had this as a topic.

Sometimes its the little things that make you feel so damn awesome isn't it!

For me - my new Bates jumping saddle, I have waited 16 years for this saddle and instead of getting it second hand, I bought it new! That makes me feel like a million bucks.

The other day the thing that made me feel like life couldn't get much better - my Friday off, the kids slept in and I got out of bed in my beautiful new master bedroom, threw open the curtains and looked out on my amazing horse paddocks with the sun rising through the mist over the dam, twinkling through the snow gum tree trunks. I had a real "wow" moment - we worked hard for all of this but at the same time I sometimes want to pinch myself - to achieve my dream home and property by the time I was 30 is pretty amazing. Now to find some new goals!

And finally, a real mum moment - today Elka was asleep in her car seat when Bronte grabbed up her hand and sat there holding Elka's hand beaming with pride and happiness. Oh how I love my girls and how they love each other.

Would love to hear your millionaire moments.

It has been over 6 months since we moved into our house extension. In some ways we can't remember not having the rooms and the deck (oh the deck how I adore it!) but other times, I still marvel at how blessed I feel surrounded by my beautiful new house.

But we all know that it is not the architecture and shiny new paint that is the most loved part of a house but the little things we do to to the rooms to make them homely.

Our parents retreat lounge room has come along way from an empty echoey chamber that we simply used as a passageway out onto the deck. It is now cosy and comfortable with cushions,accessories and tables. I love curling up on the Ottoman side of the lounge with a warm drink gazing out across the deck into the acres of gum trees and sparkling dams that lie outside.

I am hoping to get some curtain rods sorted this weekend so I can finally hang the curtains for the double sliding doors as the expanse of glass can suck the warmth out of the house at night. Then the room will truly feel complete. (I am ignoring the fact that we still havent stained the french sliding doors into the study, it is well and truly on my list to get completed, otherwise they will become one of those things that never get done!)

Miss Elka turned three today - it was a much nicer day then the day I spent three years ago!

She seems to have decided that three is the beginning of being "grown up". She wanders out the kitchen this morning claiming that she is now big and can open the fridge (apparently it would seem opening the fridge is the measure of being grown up). She pulled and strained at the door and then admitted defeat. Guess she didn't get too big overnight after all!

She opened her presents with great delight - a Cars scooter (she adores Cars, such a tomboy), a toy guitar, a cash register and a fairy dress. She was too excited to eat breakfast and after a late morning where we stayed home and she played with her presents, I bundled her in the car with a birthday cake she helped cook to share at daycare. I picked her up this afternoon and much to her delight we went to IKEA to pick up a lovely new cabinet for our new lounge room (for the new TV for those that follow my inane life! Possible pics to come) and she got to have dinner there before finishing her day with a chocolate cake at home with us. In a three year olds books I think it was a winning day.

I am so proud of her turning three - it feels like a real transition. She is a little girl now, not a chubby toddler. She is tricky, savvy and I can no longer get away wtih anything as she pulls you up and knows when I am trying to get away with something. She has hit the endless questions stage and I have already copped a number of the sterotypical difficult questions (ie where did I come from and so on). She has learnt her first joke - Why did the chicken cross the road, and gets the concept which is fun.

She is starting to develop girly habits - she now has a CD player in her room and loves to put it on the radio and listen to songs. She is learning the words of songs on the radio and asks for certain songs to be turned up in the car. She is into fashion, she compliments you on particular outfits or accessories and insists on picking out her clothes which can take forever..

She can write her name to some recognisable degree and is learning to read - she can read all letters and is starting to get simple words. Her pictures are starting to look something like things rather than just scribbles and she has taught herself to count to forty (!) as I discovered the other day.

I have taught her to recite our address and she knows all our full names. She can pick out a police car or policeman and knows to go to them if she is lost or something is wrong. I think I will next teach her our phone number and then how to use our phone. Those sorts of skills come in handy when you live on property. I often worry about the girls when Jase is on one of his many interstate trips and I am home alone with them - if I was to be knocked out by one of the horses etc it could be a long time before someone would check on us as our neighbours are so far away.

She is startign to get more responsible and wants to help more with Bronte. She will stop Bronte from wandering off too far at the shops and gives her food and drink or fetches Bronte's comforter without being asked if Bronte is crying.

She takes forever to get to sleep at night if she has a nap at daycare - she hasnt had a day sleep for me at home since she turned two! She has started asking me if she can have friends from dayare around for visits or if she can go to their places. And we have visitors coming next week and she wants the little girl to sleep in her room.

I love watching her become a real little person and am constantly amused by her quirks and outlooks. I am also endlessly frustrated by her button pushing and egocentric attitude (I know this is an age thing but gosh it can be tiring!). But in so many ways its so hard to believe it has only been three years, I feel like I have known her forever but in others, I am incredulous at how the time has flown and my baby is looking all grown up!

But one thing I know for sure that this is going to be an interesting year!

...to shop! The sales are incredible. Clearly the spending down turn here in Australia is worrying the shops and they are doing what they can to get us back in there.

Well it worked on me anyway. I needed some retail therapy and sad as it is, Spech's sale did bring in some pretty decent cash.

So... first on the list - I spoiled myself with my dream jumping saddle, expensive but I got a great price (thank you ebay!) and its a forever saddle.


Then Jase got his dream set-up, that I have been promising him for years for our new lounge room that has been sitting empty with just a leather lounge begging to be snuggled on - a bigger plasma than our current one complete with blu-ray and surround sound. I am fairly convinced that all the cords and speakers are going to far too tempting for the little ones but Jase is optimistic that his parents retreat lounge room is feasible. We are about to find out! I am also less than impressed that the surround sound is on the other side of my bedroom wall where the bed is - since he is planning on watching Formula 1 at 3am tonight, this may rapidly become an issue ;)

Next up - we upgraded our saucepans, something that desperately needed to be done, since our most handy sized saucepan was minus its handle and a bit of extreme cooking to handle. We scored a lovely $500 set for $100, happy days!

I also hit Witchery - their loyalty card had a deal where spend $100 and they take $50 off. Done. I got a great knitted cream vest, a cute blue buttoned skirt and a staple white long sleeved top, with their current sales, it was $250 of full priced clothes for $50.

Metacilus had a great sale so I got a lovely plum coloured long sleeved top for 70% off. And at Portmans I got a lovely high waisted black work skirt which will look so cute with my lace blouses tucked in to it. And Jase got some great shoes, including a $140 pair for $40..

And I am still yet to get to Myer - I still have some gift vouchers to spend so I will be making the most of the sales!

Anyone else had some good bargains?

After a long hard decision that has been well over a year in the making. I put my main competition horse up for sale. I was so reluctant, I barely advertised, just listing him on a free horse sales website. Well, after a surprising amount of calls, I found him the perfect new owner. With a stringent vet check today, it is all official and he leaves tomorrow.

My chest hurts just thinking about it. I have taken him from a off the track race horse frightened of jumps and dressage arenas to a beautiful competition horse that is now jumping 1 metre jumps and doing beautiful dressage. Everyone that tried him commented on how lovely he is to ride. I feel very proud of our hard work together and how muscled and fit he is.

Unfortunately, the intense care he has needed for his bad hoof has just taken up too much of my precious little time and I just couldn't justify committing so much effort to him. The family that are taking him on are well aware of his requirements for care and are willing to look past it for the beautiful ridden horse that he is.

This is far from the end for me - I still have another horse, our gentle giant Samson. I will now concentrate on getting him trained, just as I did Spech. I fear his personality is not quite as easygoing but it will be an enjoyable challenge none the less. In 9 months or so I will make a decision on whether to keep Sam or sell him on and start again with a new horse.

An exciting and rewarding sport/hobby. But oh tomorrow is going to be hard. Stripping him of his rugs and halter for their gear to go on him, loading him onto a foreign float and watching him drive away. It is like giving someone your five year old pet dog - it does not come easily or naturally.

Good bye my beautiful boy. Never forgotten xo

Miss B turned 1 a few days ago. I can't believe that we are done with all things baby (but we most definitely are!) and that I have survived a year of juggling two under three. This time last year we were starting to demolish the side of the house to extend it whilst caring for a teeny newborn and a stroppy two year old. Some lovely memories but I can pretty safely say that I don't desire to revisit the tiredness, lack of space and privacy and sheer demands on my patience that that time brought me.

So it was a real celebration to see my littlest one turn one. She is really coming out of her shell - loves to laugh manically as she trucks around the house with her walkers, loves to copy Elka in every way- colouring, noises, sitting on their little matching lounges and carrying around dolls or pushing strollers. She is a brilliant sleeper - 1-3 decent day sleeps a day plus a good 12 hours at night, she never cries when put down in the cot and smiles or nods when you ask her if she wants a sleep. She is also a great eater - a huge appetite and will eat most things. She loves corn cobs, carrots, all fruit and cream cheese on bread. Her favorite treat foods are hot chips and chocolate cake. She has dropped her day formula bottles and is having a sippy cup of milk instead.

Despite her hearing loss, her speech is developing well, she is learning to say hello and miaow and words like that. She is also a very good mimic of sounds which her speech pathologist is very keen on. She understands a lot of questions now and responds with emphatic nods or head shakes, which is very handy. She loves Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and will hum along and wave her fingers when we sing it. She wears her hearing aids most days thanks to the special caps and bands that we have bought for the purpose, if she doesn't have the caps on, the hearing aids are pulled to pieces within two minutes.

She has two bottom teeth and two on the top - however the two upper teeth are both on the same side of her mouth - we call it her hill billy teeth and its pretty cute!

She has a very cute habit of loving to lay her head down on anything soft. So she will crawl over to it and lay her head down - she sometimes does it to my slipper on my foot!

She has been taking steps since she was 10 months old but has lacked the confidence to really walk (I suspect this has something to do wiht our hard tiled floors and a certain older sister who seems to specialise in knocking poor Bronte down). However, she has been getting braver and today she has taken off - walking at least 5 metres at once without holding on to anything! I am not a soppy type of Mum but watching her proudly wobble off on her little adventures has made me teary tonight.

She has been such a different bub to Elka - much fussier, quicker to cry, far shyer and content to watch more than do but very rewarding with her beautiful smile and wicked sense of humour. She certainly has kept me on my toes - being so different meant that even being a second bub, we still had a lot to learn!

I am looking forward to getting to meet more of this intriguing personality as it develops even more in the next year!

Happy Birthday Miss B xo

As promised here are some pics from the girls shared Teddy Bear Picnic 1st and 3rd Birthday Party.

I complicated things terribly by deciding to take the horse to a cross-country event on the same day as the party, getting home less than 2 hours before the guests arrived. But in my defence, it is the best horse event held all year and is only an annual event, so I couldnt bare to miss it! I also spent the days before floating my parents horses interstate up to our farm to mind them whilst my parents are overseas for 2 months. So it was a busy time.. but we got the baking done, I got up early to decorate the cakes and Jase was fantastic at following my mental plan of the layout of the backyard to set up.

It went as perfectly as an event with 16 toddlers and a few babies can ever be! And my girls had a great time and were thoroughly spoiled. I felt blessed to have such wonderful friends and family and that I was literally able to have my cake and eat it too by indulging in my hobby of horse competitions and getting to throw a great party also.

And here are the photos :)

Am still here.. just. By the time I get to the computer and start work of an evening, I have a heap of uni marking to do and things to sort so my eyes start to feel like they are bleeding and I lose the urge to blog..

But will attempt to return with a lovely update on my little girls combined Birthday party - how on earth is my bub a one year old this week!

The tough get a cleaner!

Well at least in this house ;)

Our weekly cleaner starts tomorrow and I can't wait! Working a long day at work and coming home to a sparkly clean house on hump day sounds good to me.

Plus its the girls combined bday party this weekend, so its one less thing on my list to do, perfect.

Uurrgh does anyone else feel like they are tag team parenting? I would love some couple friends that are both working professionals to relate to, instead most of my friends are either not that fussed about career building or at home with the kids. Furthermore most of them have family living close by, whereas our closest family is two hours away. So sometime I feel like we face different challenges as a family to oters around us...

Our main week-to-week dilemma is the large amount of out of standard work hours work commitments we both have. Between work dinners, cocktail parties, work trips interstate, lecturing, late nights in the lab and videoconferences a lot of evenings are taken up. So we find ourselves literally doing that stereotypical diary matching where we stand and barter off dates where one or the other has to mind the kids while the other one is away. Often, this turns into scenarios where one of us flies in from interstate in time for the other to pack their suitcase and fly out. Hence, why we have called it tag team parenting. We are currently debating dates in September, that is how quickly things fill up. Life feels a little crazy some days.

Not to mention when the tag teaming rolls over into the weekend so that we can get all the farm work done too. If I hadn't had a cuddle with jase on the lounge last night to watch a rare DVD together, I would have felt like I hadnt seen my husband at all this weekend.

Life is only going to get crazier in the next few weeks unfortunately as we double the numbers of animals on our farm by taking in my parents horses, cats and potentially chickens while they are overseas for two months. Needless to say, I am eagerly looking forward to a lovely family holiday we have booked for ourselves for September - no tag teaming as we will all be there together :)