Love, bubs and life on our little farm

So I confess I hit the Boxing Day sales. As if we hadn't consumed enough throughout the year... oh and I was dreadfully spoilt at Christmas. But my Mum offered to babysit the girls so how could I refuse the chance to wander the shops unhindered. Sure I had to park two blocks from the shopping centre and walk in torrential rain and mud to get there. Sure there crowds like I have never seen, one shop had a red velvet rope line outside it for people to queue to enter. But I had a great time, even when it took me 30 mins to line for a change room in Cue, 15 mins to pay and the dress I bought wasn't even on sale! Jase just shook his head in disbelief at this point.

My review of the sales; I was sadly disappointed in most of my regular clothes shops - Witchery, Forever New, Bardot, Sportsgirl etc hadn't improved on the discounts I was browsing pre-Christmas. I had already seen most of their sale items at those prices and felt no interest in buying them. Cue had some great bargains... but of course as I previously mentioned the dress I fell in love with was firmly full price, typical. But I bought it still.

The best bargains were for Jase with mens suits etc and the ever reliable Myer. They had some great sales and extra discounts for Boxing day only - which made me feel justified in venturing out in the rain rather than staying home and eating turkey sandwiches. We got some lovely Sheridan towel sets at good discounts and 50% off some lovely cotten sheet sets.

But overall the sales were pretty blah and I am taking some time off from shopping in the hope that some new stock in the clothes shops will perk me up in 2011.

Did you get some bargains?

I am really feeling the march of time at the moment. Could be because I am only 1.5 months off the big three-oh, could be because my first baby reminds me nearly everyday with her antics that she is a little girl not an infant or toddler anymore or could possibly be because my last little bub has at almost 7 months old decided to wean herself and embrace drinking from a bottle so that she can watch the world go by rather than stare at a boob.

Fortunately, as old as all this makes me feel, it is a nice sort of old feeling. I feel contented and ready to move into our next stage. I am ready to be a mum of kids rather than babies and pregnant bellies. I miss my crazy fun uni days but I love that my husband and I are more senior at work and are past the stage of scrimping and saving for things. And I am excited for what the next decade will bring us as far as travel, experiences and lovely things.

And I am proud of my wonderful breastfeending relationship with both my girls but now that it has passed, I am so damn excited to get to wear nice lingerie again and to dress in clothes where I don't have to consider access to my chest! Definitely the silver lining.

And just look at my big girl - who at 2.5 has graduated to a big girl bike courtesy of Santa and has blown me away by mastering it in an hour.

When I see her ride past the window, pedalling away and singing to herself, my heart swells with love and pride but also pangs a little with the realisation that she is never going to be my tiny helpless bub again.

Parenting and life in general can be such an oxymoron!

A big Merry Christmas to everyone! I hope you felt loved and had people to love. I felt very blissful celebrating with my dear family and soaking up the joy of my beautiful girls.

We managed to get Elka to finally sit with Santa to have a photo on the day before Christmas Eve, talk about cutting it fine!

We had lots of visitors and spent relaxed time out on our new entertainment deck. We ate and drank lots of lovely things, I indulged in some cherry cocktails and we had a delicious bottle of French champagne to savor on Christmas Eve.

We fed the horses the reindeer carrots so there were bite marks in the stubs and I had so many presents for the girls Santa sacks that I managed to forget to out some in and didn't notice for two days!

I was terribly spoiled, so much so that I felt bad! I got spa vouchers, beautiful Clarins and Clinique skincare and make-up, sheets and towels, digital photo frame, morocan oil for my hair, Peter Alexander PJ's, a huge gift voucher and the list goes on..
But after opening all that stash, Jase had made me keep o e of his gifts for last and it was an.... iPad!! A big surprise and it is such fun toy!

So that was a pretty memorable gift, only beaten by the gift that Elka picked out and wrapped for us with Nanny, AND kept a secret! She was so proud when we unwrapped our box of tissues :)

I can only hope you were just as spoilt ;)

Image credit

So it seems we have upset the Christmas gods. When Elka was 6 months old in December 2008,I had my heart set on a lovely Baby's First Christmas Ornament to hang on our tree. Off we trotted bright eyed, proudly touting our bub to buy a gorgeous keepsake. It hung on the tree for hmm less than 12 hours before one of our two indoor cats merrily hung from the Christmas tree and toppled it over, smashing the ornament to smitherens. Not put off, I popped back to the shop and bought the same one again, sure that it was just a freak accident. Well it was not to be - within a few days, another cat versus tree incident resulted in the second ornament meeting the same fate as the first. SO a little wiser, I trawled the shops for most of December until I lucked upon a non breakable fabric Christmas ball with the appropriate words written on it. Success and I still proudly hang the ball each year.

So come 2010 and its Brontes turn to be celebrating her first Christmas. I now know to steer clear of delicate glass ornaments, however this year it has proven to be an impossible task to find am unbreakable Baby's First Christmas decoration. I have searched endlessly and fruitlessly. The other day, in David Jones in desperation I decided against Jase's advice that a lovely frosted pink ball was not glass but in fact tin.

I bought said ball and much to my amusement was flirtatiously asked by the sales guy if this was for a baby niece or nephew. However, my little moment of feeling like I posibly didn;t look as worn and mumsy I thought did was rapidly ruined by Jase parking the double decker pram full of sleeping baby and toddler loudly singing "ABC" right next to the sales guy. So I set him straight that it was in fact for my second child lol.

I packed the wrapped Baby ornament into the bottom of the pram and we headed off for a walk. I even congratulated us on being so organised and getting everything done on my list. Feeling very smug, until "CRUNCH" and I see Jase jump over a David Jones bag that has fallen out of the pram basket onto the path. Well that sound definitely convinced me that the ball had indeed been glass! It was smashed to pieces and now takes pride of place of being the shortest we have owned one of our ill fated baby Christmas ornaments.

Not to be detered though. I visited a Christmas shop yesterday and explained my predicamant. They have very kindly made me a new "Baby's First Christmas 2010" ornament and it is plastic! I pick it up tomorrow and I have high hopes that this will conclude my saga!

It is also storm season. And don't I know it!

Where we live, the title of the area is Aboriginal for "much thunder, little rain" and we certainly cop the Summer storms pretty strongly. However, thankfully the little rain part of the title hasn't been true for the last few years since we rely on rain for our water.

But the last few days we have slipped into our fairly typical Summer storm cycle, where we have hot mornings with terrible heavy humidity that brews into beautiful big thunderhead clouds on the horizon and then rumbles into existence as a heavy drenching storm. It briefly cools things down before the wet ground steams and adds to the humidity again, leading to a new day of heat and mugginess that creates the next storm. And repeat.

However, some days you get those "perfect storms" - a storm cell that is violent and terribly damaging and so much worse than our typical summer drenchings. We got one yesterday. I knew as soon as I saw it forming that it wasn;t going to be good. And it wasn't - Our area copped the worst of it. Deafening hail, torndado like winds that tore down countless tall gum trees around our properties and severe flash flooding that resulted in our laundry filling with water. All the paddocks were under water, we lost trees and I had to keep moving the girls to opposite ends of the house to the wind as it was so terrible I was convinced the house would be crushed at any time.

Our area lost the power almost immediately and we lost it for 8 hours as they desperately pieced the lines back together. Of course when you lose the power out here, you also lose running water as we need our pump to move water from the tanks into the house. Not a fun situation to be in with two kids. Although Elka thought cooking toast on the BBQ was pretty funny.

I am counting my blessings though - our property is quite sheltered being on the side of hill. The more exposed properties around copped a beating and their paddocks are blanketed in fallen giant gums and fences are smashed to smitherens. To add insult to injury we copped another decent storm today and are told to expect another one tomorrow.

aahh Summer in Australia!

I have been quite shocked at how rapidly Christmas is approaching and feeling a little sad I am not getting time to revel in it and feel more festive.

So Elka and I spent a lovely half an hour cooking these Christmas Chocolate Balls. They are super easy, really yummy and make you feel Christmassy when you put them out in a pretty red bowl for visitors to eat. They are also great for a toddler to roll in coconut and have fun making.

Hope you are finding the time to soak up a little Christmas joy! xo




Christmas Balls
250g pack of biscuits (I used Choc Ripple)
180g chocolate pieces
395g can of sweetened condensed milk
1.5 cups desiccated coconut
100g red glace cherries chopped

Food process biscuits to fine crumbs
Melt chocolate in microwave on Med-High for 2 mins, stirring every 30 secs
Add chocolate, condensed milk, half cup of coconut and cherries to biscuit crumbs and food process
Place remaining coconut in a bowl.
Roll teaspoons of mix into the coconut and place on tray with baking paper on it.
Refrigerate.

Hard to believe but my littlest one is now 6 months old. She is still a trickier bub than Elka - she is my "Princess and the Pea" baby - little things tend to annoy her and induce screaming pretty quickly!

But that said, she has become very smiley and giggly and loves to play and be tickled or twirled around. She still adores Elka and beams adoringly at her - if Elka comes close or talks to her, she squeals in excitement and giggles away.

She is still absolutely amazing in her enthusiasm for food. That is my nice way of saying she behaves like a rabid beast if there is food around! She ripped through cling wrap and got a cupcake to her mouth the other day when I was juggling her, a plate of cupcakes and some bags inside. She screams and tantrums if we don't feed her fast enough (and I mean fast!) and heaven help you if you run out of food! She now eats a finger food course, a savoury course and then a sweet course (ie fruit with rice cereal to help fill her up!) at each meal as well as snacks throughout the day and breastfeeds. She currently loves sucking on watermelon, adores milk arrowroots and steamed brocolli and has started eating meat and yoghurt.

She sleeps 12 hours a night from 6.30pm-6.30am and I no longer dreamfeed her during the night. I love getting my nights back to me for sleep :) She has a couple of decent sleeps a day and a nap or two in there as well. The current hot weather is making her extra sleepy. She has just cut her two bottom teeth so we have had a few restless niights but overall besides endless chewing and drooling she has done really well.

She sits up alone and has very good balance now - she can lean far out to reach toys. She doesn't love tummy time now that she can sit but she is good at pushing her body off the the mat now and occasionaly tries to wiggle to reach toys. She is quite vocal, a lot of yelling, squealing and giggling but no "mum-mum" etc yet.

She has slowed down in weight gain but the paeds today said that that was normal. She is 7.3kgs but he commented that she is quite long. He also commented on her pigmentation - she has a delightful orange hue from all the pumpkin and sweet potato she eats. Elka had the same thing at this age I remember!

She loves to dance and "sing" with her sister to music and she loved going to the Wiggles concert the other day. She yelled and clapped her little arms on her legs and just beamed. Very cute! Her favorite toys are balls and plastic keys. She is also quite taken with dolls at the moment - mainly to gouge their eyes and suck their faces which she then tries to do on real babies when she meets them.

She is no longer completely attached to me - she will happily go to Jase and even lets my Mum hold her now. We have had success with her being babysat and she is taking some formula from a bottle. This is all very promising as I awnt to go back to work in Feb and she needs to start daycare familarisation in January. She is smiling a little at strangers now (still cries at some) and even has started the coy burying her head in my shoulder thing.

She is a very cuddly bub (to me) and I do love our cuddles and giggly play times. I am soaking it up - she is my last bub and I know how fast they grow up!

I have never had a sister and I am so pleased that my two girls have each other. They are 2 years apart almost to the day.

Which means that I can do photos like this - here they both are at 6 months old in the same outfit in photos taken exactly 2 years apart to the day.

I love that they are both so unique - Bronte was born blond and Elka was born with dark brown hair and looked nothing alike. But increasingly they are looking similar and they share their stunning blue eyes (which thanks to the different lighting in these photos don't look it but are identical).

OK so most days I don't burden anyone else with my little internal annoyances. Although it is all the trend to twitter or facebook it for everyone to know, I haven't quite got to that consistant level of sharing.

But today I was at a big shopping centre. I avoided the crowded stressy looking groups of cars circling the close parks and instead gave thanks to my healthy body and parked on the outer edge of the carpark and loaded the kids into the stroller and headed in (sidenote- I so much prefer parking further out as then no one wants your park when you are leaving so you don't have an audience waiting impatiently for you to load two kids and umpteen things into the car making you feel rushed). But anyway, as I got to the shop entrance, I noticed that the disabled car spaces were across the busy lane from the shops and that there were heaps and heaps of pram parks provided instead directly around the shop entrance and not a single disabled space on the convient side.

This theme continued at every shop entrance I saw as I passed by them shopping. In one spot, the pram parks and disabled parks were in a line near the entrance but it was the pram parks that were given the closer location again. What the?

Does anyone else think this is a little wrong?

Sure kids are a handful and I don't want to see a little toddler hit by a car or anything. But far out, kids are not a disability. Far from it.

I was disappointed and a little ashamed to be a user of pram parks. I will NOT be using any pram park that is given accessibility priority over the disabled spaces, I can say that much.

I am wading through a day of childhood memories touched with sadness today as I found out that my brothers best mate from primary school has died in tragic circumstances. My brother and I are only 11 months apart and living in the country meant that we shared our friends and all played together. So I was good friends with him too and we all grew up together.

A free spirit who epitomised our little mountain village's friendly feel, he stayed on there and who my Mum was still picking up to give trips home three weeks ago. In fact he sat next to Elka in the car and when I asked her today, she remembered him and his name.

My Mum is so griefstricken she has barely been able to speak and my Brother had to take the day off work. I have spent the day with pain in my heart and fighting back tears when I indulge in memories of his lovely personality and quirkiness.

Clearly it is not just my family that mourns. This article shows how close our village is and what a loss we all know we have experienced.

A life cut short and a true reminder that we are not guaranteed tomorrow on any day.

Extending is an eventful process and truly is as emotionally and physically draining as people say it is. However, the best way to survive is to keep your sense of humour. Here is a list of things that taught me to laugh, roll my eyes, shake it off and carry on. I also tried to remind myself, they are the funny stories we will tell for years to come!


Things I learnt:

• That the building supplies/Tiles/Bathroom stores that provide a kids play area or toys are more likely to get us to stay longer and spend more money. And that taking a toddler tile tile shopping in a swanky shop can end in Jase frantically shoving samples of lino that she has ripped from the display into his pocket and us beating a rapid exit.

• That inevitably Bronte would wake for an early night feed when I was up a ladder covered in paint. Likewise the morning that the kids are both sleeping in will be the morning that the tradies will arrive early and make the most noise.

• That Murphys Law will ensure that your blind pet duck will manage to fall down the 2.5 metre deep foundation holes not once but twice.

• That our handfed Butcher Bird will decide to land in the full paint roller tray and then despite our frantic efforts will fly up onto the brand new green gutters and leave lovely cream footprints all along them.

• That the one time I didn't put the lid on the 15 litre paint tin securely would occur just before Jase decides to pick it up and shake it back and forth to mix it.

• That gap filler is useful absolutely everywhere. Best to buy bucketloads of it.

Our family tradition is to have a real Christmas tree. Yesterday my parents delivered ours and we had a gorgeous afternoon decorating the tree with the two littlies. Our decorations are an ecletic mix collected from our time living in Canberra as a childless couple, Canadian decorations from my family over there, gifts from my Christmas obsessed Mum and lots of Baby themed baubles from the last three years. It doesn't all match but it's all our special memories hanging there.



The pine smell makes the house smell cosy and Christmassy to me. They are hard work to cut down, trim to the correct ceiling height and get sitting just right in the pot of soil and stones (and secure enough to withstand puss cat attacks!). But despite the work, I just love our little tradition and I can't imagine having a fake plastic tree, despite the fact that they do look more "perfect" and quite beautiful in their own right.

I love Christmas and all the love and good cheer (I am choosing to ignore the agro and stress people have at the shops!). I hope your Christmas preparations are making you feel contended and excited. xox

I have been asked to write a blog post on a particular theme, in aid of promoting Vodafone Infinite Plans. You can find information on the Infinite deals here and I want you to know - I am not being paid to say this, when my husband and I checked this page out, we started seriously discussing getting rid of our home phone as we would save so much on this plan.





So on to the topic of this post.


Well as many people could probably relate to, having two kids often makes me wish for infinite patience and sometimes having a property and a career makes me wish I had infinite time and energy.

But what I really wish I had is an infinite amount of trees and safe habitat for Koalas.


Yes really. I actually feel shame and sadness about the threatened state of our Koalas nearly every day. My mother is a Koala rehabilitator and the desperate little Koalas that she nurses, which have been attacked by dogs or hit by cars are heartbreaking.

People don't realise that Koalas are very fragile little creatures. They can just up and die from stress - the stress of being bailed up by a dog or not being able to find a safe tree. Koalas also can't eat all gum leaves, so if they lose their food trees they can literally starve amongst a sea of trees. They are also battling a losing fight against a retrovirus, like a version of Koala AIDS, that is sweeping through the population and are also being rendered infertile from endemic Chlamydia infections. These diseases are taking hold because the Koala population is so weak and stressed. Not a pretty picture is it.


What is even worse is that some horrible individuals who are evil and cruel take pleasure in torturing and killing these gentle little creatures, whether by gunshots or inciting dogs to attack. This excerpt from Blinky Bill never fails to make me cry when I read it.

" The Koala family lived so happily; never thinking of harm, or that anything could happen to disturb their little home, as all they asked for were plenty of fresh gum-leaves and the warm sun. They had no idea such things as guns were in the world or that a human being had a heart so cruel that he would take a pleasure in seeing a poor little body riddled with bullets hanging helplessly from the tree-top. And they had no idea this same being would walk away, after shooting a bear, content to see him dead, no matter if he fell to the ground or not. That same being might just as well take his gun and shoot baby kookaburras, so helpless were they all and so trusting.

Poor Mr Koala one day was curled up asleep in his favourite corner, when the terrible thing happened. Bang! He opened his eyes in wonder. What was that? Did the limb of the tree snap where that young cub of his was skylarking? He moved very slowly to take a look and, bang! again. This time he felt a stinging pain in his leg. What could it be? And peering over the bough of the tree he saw a man on the ground with something long and black in his arms. He gazed down in wonderment. Whatever was that, and how his little leg hurt. Another bang and his ear began to hurt. Suddenly a great fear seized him, he slowly turned and tried to hide round the tree, peering at the ground as he did so. Bang! again, and now his poor little body was stinging all over. He grunted loudly and slowly climbed up the tree, calling Mrs Koala and Blinky as he went. He managed to reach the topmost branch and now turned to see where his family were. Tears were pouring down his poor little face. He brushed them away with his front paws and cried just like a baby. Fortunately Mrs Koala and Blinky Bill were hiding in the leaves, quite motionless, and the shadows of the tree made them appear as part of it. The man with the gun stood and waited a long time, then walked away, whistling as he went—the only sound to be heard in the bush except the cries of a little bear far up in the tree."

Blinky Bill - Dorothy Wall.

What amazes (and enrages) me is that Blinky Bill was published in 1939 and yet this is still happening today.

We have a beautiful Koala that lives in the gum trees above our house, he calls for a mate every night. Sadly in the four years we have been here, we are seeing less and less Koalas and this mating season he seems to be very much alone.

So yeah, I wish I could do something incredibly useful like providing infinite safe habitat for these beautiful threatened creatures. Wishes don't do alot but there is some little things we can all do - this document covers how you can help Koalas exist in the encroaching suburbs, and most importantly of all, be very aware of your dog at all times.

Sorry terrible pun for the title! But now that I have finished my house renovation posts, I can get back to what I love talking about - shopping ;) oh and my kids of course..

So today I felt like sharing with you my new absolute favorite mascara. I have been a little ho-hum about mascara's lately but I got a free full sized mascara in a Napoleon Perdis gift I recently picked up with some great new foundation. It is called Mesmer-Eyes Mascara and it is bloody amazing - it gives you long thick eyelashes that seriously look like falseys. I feel so feminine and glam when I use it as particularly the edge lashes get all long and gorgeous. It took me a few goes to master using the teeth on the comb (rather than a brush) but I have it down now.

If you are feeling a bit drab, I would definitely recommend it as an instant glam pick me up :)

This will mostly likely be the last house extension post for a long time - we only have small touches to go really, although I might do some before and afters on the staining of the wooden verandahs etc.

Its been a long journey and I am so very glad to be on this side of it!

So for my last big post I thought it only fitting to do some before and afters on the exterior of the house.