Happy Mothers Day!

Today was an awesome Mothers Day!

It started with me sleeping in until 8:30am, which is about 3 hours later than I usually wake. That was quite a luxury. DH came in with the kids and they gave me cards they had made.







T and DH then made me breakfast in bed- coffee, apple juice, muesli and a plate of mandarin segments and crimson grapes. Yum!

After brekky I spent an hour or so tidying the house- it was an utter pigsty after I was away for 9 hours yesterday. Then I decided to make scones for afternoon tea and invited MIL over. My mum didn't get an invite or a 'Happy Mothers Day' from me.

Took the kids shopping to get supplies then when we got back DH made big brekky for lunch. It's a Sunday tradition for us. Then I had to get my butt into gear and make the scones whilst the kids made a card for their Gran. It was my first time making scones. They were perhaps cooked for a couple of minutes too long, but they were still good.



Jimmy entertained us all with his robot dance. That kid is the most hilarious little man ever.




DH made a mega-tasty Chinese dish for dinner- beef with mandarin. It was gorgeous. He also made baked custard for dessert.

Even though no money was spent on gifts or cards, I was thoroughly spoiled. My beautiful man made me delicious food, my stepdaughter was being extra helpful, and my kids were happy. What more could I ask for?

Recipe: Raspberry brownies

A friend just asked me for the recipe for my famous brownies, so I thought I'd share it here!

It's actually from my Reader's Digest Eat Well, Live Well recipe book, but I've fiddled with it over the years to get a truly yummy slice!

They are super easy and you only need to use one bowl and a spoon.

1/4 cup cocoa powder
1/3 cup warm water
1/4 cup vege/ canola oil
1/3 cup sugar
1/3 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 cup sifted plain flour
1/2 cup choc chips (I use dark and sometimes white as well)
3/4 cup raspberries

**Note- this is only enough to fill a square tin. I make mine in a large rectangular tray, and double all the measurements except the oil, sugar and brown sugar, which I just keep the same**

Preheat oven to 180 deg.
Grease tin/tray, or put a sheet of baking paper on it.
Stir water and cocoa in a bowl and let stand for 5 mins.
Stir in Oil, sugars, eggs, and vanilla.
Add baking powder and flour and stir for 2 mins.
Fold in choc chips and raspberries.
Pour into tin and spread evenly with a spatula.
Bake for 20 mins or until a skewer inserted into the middle comes out clean.
Cool for minimum of 10 minutes, cut into squares or rectangles, and scoff!

Go on, make them! I dare ya!

Ramblings

There has been a change in the weather over the last week or so- the cool breeze feels just a little bit cooler each day. The next 6 or 7 months are my favourite part of the year. The Gold Coast is stunning in Autumn, Winter and Spring. I love being able to play outside with the kids without wiping sweat from my upper lip, and walking from the carpark to the shop without getting sunburnt. I love cold-weather clothes. Not that it actually ever reaches a temperature that Southerners would call cold. I love blue skies on a cool day, brown leaves underneath trees with naked branches, porridge for breakfast every day, hot cups of coffee, and warm cuddles.

The kids are loving their 'new' swing set (actually T's old one, which I've been nagging DH to set up for 5 years). Elizabeth and Jimmy sit on the double swing together and have a jolly old time. Jimmy keeps asking me if I can buy him 'a green slide or a yellow slide'.



The littlies are now in the same bedroom together. After the absolute BLISS of our night away, little miss woke up for her dummy 6 times and I decided the next day to move her our of our room. Yep, completely selfish, but she is with her brother and not alone. I fully expected it to be a huge failure, but she has settled in really well. There have been a couple of really crappy nights where I've had to go in 2 or 3 times for each of them, but mostly it's only once or twice. We have been putting them to bed at the same time (except for last night when she was really tired and he was awake until 8:30), reading them a story together on Jimmy's bed. It's a bit crowded in there but nice and cosy and they love it.




Psychologist appointments are going well. This week I am working on not treating T like persona non grata all the time. On Friday I'd promised we'd go to Dreamworld, but instead of taking the littlies like everyone assumed I would, I got Gran to come look after them and just the two of us went. We had a ball- went on heaps of rides. I made her go on the Cyclone (big roller coaster) even though she was saying she was scared and as soon as the ride finished she made me go on again- then asked for a third time but my almost 33 year old guts couldn't handle it!

DH and I have been very close lately. The night away did us more good than I could have imagined. We have been really affectionate with eachother. I've been enjoying giving him a big kiss and cuddle when he gets home from work, instead of 'letting' him plant a peck on my cheek.

Our house looks awesome with its freshly painted roof and awesome new patio roofs.

I've got a few sewing projects to get done. I made E a cute pair of corduroy pants with cuffs, just liek the ones I made Jimmy for his birthday. I'm now making a little vest in the same corduroy but it's proving to be an absolute ARSEHOLE of a garment. I need to make some items for friends' daughters, and a tunic top for me. Time to update my Works in Progress thingo.

Our 4th anniversary

Yesterday was our 4th wedding anniversary.


DH had told me he was taking me away for the night, but he didn't tell me where- just that it was secluded and far away from everything. I thought how nice it would be to go to The Mouses House .
Lo and behold, we got into the car and he handed me a leaflet for the very same place and said, "That's where we're going!" Woohoo!

We arrived around 2:30pm. It was very cold in Springbrook and silly me hadn't brought any warm clothes. It was drizzling lightly so it was hard navigating the slippery boardwalk to our chalet. All of the chalets are named after characters from Snow White, and ours was Bashful.




It was stunningly beautiful inside- cosy, inviting, and romantic.



Here is a quick rundown on what we did:
-Spa bath
-Shag
-Watched Toy Story 3
- Dinner
-Spa bath
-Shag
-Sleep (accidentally, at about 8pm)
-Woke up at 10:30pm, went back to sleep
-Woke up at 6
-Watched Harry Brown
-Breakfast
-Shag

:)

Yep, it was just what we needed- both for ourselves and as a couple. The past few months have been so stressful for us and this one night away has done so much for us. Firstly, we got to sleep through the night without being woken 5 times. There were no chores to worry about- no gardening, no washing. No phones ringing. I felt truly relaxed for the first time in a long time and discovered that I actually do have a libido, after all.

So after we checked out, we decided to have a little drive around Springbrook as DH has never been there. It is stunningly beautiful. We drove to Best of All Lookout and did the 350m walk to the lookout in the pouring rain. We saw some amazing Antarctic Beeches on the way, but there was no view at the lookout- just dense cloud. It was quite spooky and amazing to look at but we only got to see it for 2 seconds because it was just too wet to stay there.

When we got back to the car, the remote wouldn't work, so we couldn't disarm the alarm to start the car. We spent 20 minutes faffing around with a screwdriver to get the battery out, only to discover there was nothing wrong with the battery- the insides of the remote had gotten wet. Then I looked down at my legs and saw all these little black wormy things on them, and a big fat one attached to my ankle. I got out of the car and shouted, "I'm fucking covered in leeches!!!" (Creepy crawlies don't really bother me, with the exception of cockroaches and leeches). It took me ages to get the buggers all off- they are like velcro.
By that time, the remote had dried out a bit and started working properly. We were both soaking and I was freezing. I snuggled up with Elizabeth and Jimmy's blankets that we keep in the car, then jumped straight in the shower when we got home, after giving my babies lots of hugs and kisses.

I've already told DH that from now on, we are going back to the Mouses House instead of giving eachother presents. He didn't argue ;)

One year, one month and two weeks.

That's how long I expressed for.

From the moment I found out that Elizabeth had a cleft lip and probably wouldn't be able to breastfeed, I vowed to provide her with expressed breast milk for at least one year. I'm very proud to have achieved my goal.

How easy it would have been for me to buy a tin of formula every week instead...but I simply could not do that. My baby deserves the best, not an inferior imitation.

The first six months were the hardest. I literally was a slave to my breast pump- expressing every 3 hours meant that I had to plan all my daily activities around pumping sessions. I had an abundance of milk and our freezer was struggling to cope. When Elizabeth was a few months old I found a mum and baby in need of donor milk and was only too happy to help out.




As the months wore on, Elizabeth's feeding requirements changed, as they do. She started sleeping through the night after her surgery at 4 and a half months, so the overnight pumping stopped. We introduced her to finger foods around 6 months and she was eating a fair bit by around 8 months, so she was taking less milk at each feed. Before I knew it, I was only expressing 3 times a day.

About a month before her birthday, I started to think about weaning. Although she still loved her booby milk, I wanted my life back. So I dropped down to two sessions a day. After two or three weeks, my supply started dropping right off and I went to one session a day. Gradually I went from a 200ml yield at each session to 100ml. Then I started noticing that my breasts weren't feeling full at the end of each day, so I skipped a day. Then another. Elizabeth refuses to have breast milk now, pushing the bottle away if we try to give it to her.
Now it's been 3 days since my last pumping session and where I once had firm, full breasts I now have two pathetically small, loose, soft dumplings. But I know that when I look at them, I'll be proud of the fact that they fed two children for thirteen months each.

Hey there!

I just noticed that since I wrote my last post, my page has had over 90 visits.

I know of maybe 5 people who regularly read my blog, so I find it really intriguing that there have been so many visits. I started this blog as a way of keeping a record of my feelings and documenting my parenting journey. It's a very boring blog.

So, if you're reading this post, I'd love it if you'd humour me and leave a comment telling me who you are.

Happy birthday to Jimmy

Yesterday was our little man's third birthday.

It just seems like last week that I was staring at him in the hospital crib, tears running down my face as I thought how quickly he would grow up and not be a baby any more.

He has grown to be such a funny, entertaining, intelligent, caring little boy. I feel very proud about the way I've raised him. He is still my baby in many ways, and never likes being away from his mummy for too long. He loves cuddles and climbing up into my lap for a kiss.

Although he's a great talker, he gets some things wrong which never fail to crack us up.
- "Look I what made/ look I what did"
- "Did you didn't do that?"
- " What are we're gonna do?"
- "Look what I'm got!"

Anyway, about his birthday. MIL and I were planning on taking him to Fleay's wildlife park. DH wasn't too happy about that as he was working but I said we could all go together another time. Jimmy had a runny nose and a slight cough the day before but woke up on his birthday as sick as a dog. Poor little man. I ended up in his bed with him and we were woken at 7am. He was pretty happy with his presents. He got a magnetic drawing board thingy, a plastic Ikea toolset which he adores, an Ikea abacus, a pair of light-up sneakers, and a mummy-made outfit.







After the school run, we went to see Gran and Granddad for morning tea and gifts. He got a cool educational wooden floor puzzle and a Very Hungry Caterpillar board game, which I've tried to play with him but he's been more interested in putting the little round pieces back into the piece of card they came in. Sigh.



His cough became steadily worse, and after his nap he had a huge coughing fit that had him very distressed so I decided to go to the chemist. The lady I spoke to thought it sounded like croup and suggested I go nextdoor to the doctor. I knew it wasn't croup as he's had it twice before but we went to the doctor anyway. Jimmy was a very patient patient and the doctor gave him two lollipops after telling me it was just a virus and no medication apart from Panadol would be necessary.

We had burritos for dinner and birthday cake for dessert (made by MIL, iced by me!). I felt really bad that he had such a dull birthday.
All week I'd been telling him that we were doing something special for his birthday, and on the way back from morning tea, he kept saying, "Are we going to something special now?". Poor little man. We wanted to go tomorrow, but he is still quite sick and so is Elizabeth. DH and I have it too but we mostly just have runny noses and the sneezes.