Friday, February 3, 2012

Our Bedroom

I thought I would share the rooms of the Shouse.  I've already posted about the lounge room here. This one is about our bedroom.

I actually took these photos a long time ago (look how tiny Claire is). It was obviously winter and I remember that Milly was spending a few days with my parents.  Claire was still a newborn and doing lots of sleeping (something she could do with a refresher course on at the moment) so I used the quiet, uninterrupted time to clean our room and take some photos.  After looking at these photos for the first time since I took them, I am planning to clean the room tomorrow, because it is looking a lot more cluttered right now!

Here it is:

Claire's corner

This side actually has the cot in it now, instead of the bassinet.




That's the back of the lounge room that the mirror is leaning on.




Now I just have to find a time when Milly's room and the kitchen are looking tidy enough to photograph when I know where the camera is!

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Favourites again...

Milly:
Has recently turned 2 and some of her favourites at this amazing age (are they all amazing?  I'm only up to age 2, but each new age is amazing to me!) include:



Singing! Seriously, if she's not talking (which admittedly is rare) she is probably singing.  Some of her favourite songs are twinkle twinkle, one banana two banana (or whatever it's called), the 'diddle up a tree' song from play school, baa baa black sheep.  Sometimes she just hums the melody and she is even on tune (I'm a qualified musician, so I'm not just being a biased mother I promise!) a lot of the time.  Today she was just singing the word 'quack' to the tune of twinkle twinkle and at the moment she is hanging over the baby gate to her room (she should be in bed sleeping) humming.

Play school.  She got a DVD from us for her birthday and watches one episode every morning when she needs a rest, but not a sleep.  Luckily for me this usually coincides with Claire having a morning sleep so I get 25 minutes to either use for myself, watch play school, or get some housework done without interruptions.

Jumping on the trampoline is still a big favourite and she gets to do it most afternoons.

Riding her big girl bike that she got for christmas.  Although her great aunty that lived 2 properties down has just moved very far away so we haven't been riding for awhile.  Must remember to take her for a ride to check the mail box tomorrow!

Swimming lessons. She's definitely getting her confidence in the water back after no swimming for a good 9 months.

Finally, I'd say her absolute biggest favourite thing to do right now is play with her figurines.  She has some little people, some toys from happy meals and some farm animals and she loves to cart them around the 'shouse' and make them 'do' different things.  I don't have many photos (MUST take some more), but she does things like line them up on the floor or the couch or a chair or stand them in a circle all around her cereal bowl and says 'they watching Minnie eat', or in the sandpit or the rocker.  Pretty much everywhere.  She also loves to have tea parties with them.  She always removes the lid of the teapot before she pours them a cup of tea and she makes a pretend eating noise when they take sips from their tea cups.  She often describes what's happening as it happens to herself.





Milly is also starting to want to interact with her baby sister more and gets so excited when Claire can get involved in something she is doing.  Although, she's not too happy with the handfuls of hair that Claire removes or when Claire accidentally catches a toy she is, was, or might want to sometime in the future play with.  She tries to give her a dummy, gives her toys to play with and ALWAYS has to give her a kiss and a cuddle if she is going somewhere without her.  Actually, she's pretty relentless with that last one no matter who it is.  She gets seriously upset if she thinks someone is leaving and she hasn't given them a kiss and a cuddle goodbye.  Something that became habit for us when we lived in Brisbane because we didn't see relatives very often and it has really stuck with her.  She will not go to bed without giving me and daddy a kiss and a cuddle, but she will accept an explanation if Lyle is at work when she goes to bed.



She is also starting to want to do things 'by herself'.  (Not sure why she talks in the third person so much, but she does!)


Claire:
Claire is nearly 5 months old and is so so so so adorable and cute and I could just smell her sweet baby breath all day ( in between cuddles of course).  I'm sure this girl gets more kisses than she wants what with me, daddy and her adoring big sister slobbering all over her all day long.




She is doing all of the typical things a baby of this age does like grabbing things and catching her feet and eating them and whatnot, so I'm not going to record those, but I'm going to record the things that make her HER.

Claire is very happy to go to almost anyone, although her face just lights up with a huge smile if she sees me.  Also with Milly and daddy, but mostly me.  She does get a bit worried if she can't see me for awhile or if she is with someone very new to her.

Claire has been going on the swing a little bit over the last week and she LOVES it! She just smiles and giggles the whole time.  OR if she's really relaxed she falls asleep.  She especially loves it if she can see Milly jumping on the trampoline at the same time.




She loves playing with her toys and her favourites are a lamaze caterpillar, a butterfly rattle, a cube with taggies on it and her activity centre.  She plays happily with them for ages.

She really enjoys tummy time and probably prefers to be on her tummy rather than her back.  She likes to be able to look around and see all her favourite people, especially so she can see what her sister is up to.  She just loves that girl.


She loves to chat and touch my face while she's 'talking' to me.

She likes it when I make her 'walk' around the house chasing Milly or when she stands on the trampoline while Milly is jumping (Milly's only light, so it's not too much bouncing for Claire).

She's enjoying her swimming lessons and is very relaxed when she's floating in the water.

Last night she was dropping her bottom lip and had the saddest little face all because Daddy was blowing on the pitch pipe to tune his bass.  Everytime he blew it her bottom lip dropped and her chin trembled.  I wanted to video it, but I felt too mean so I just gave her some extra cuddles instead.  It was so adorable, but so heartbreaking at the same time.

Me:
I'm enjoying getting in the pool for swimming lessons or the creek every few days in this heat.



I'm enjoying the fact that we are finally, although barely, getting settled enough in this place to get some sort of weekly routine happening.  It's making me appreciate the days at home a little bit more and using my time at home more efficiently.  We are still a long way from being settled, but it will never happen here in the amount of time we are going to be here for, so we're just doing the best we can manage.

Gardening - put in a herb garden, planted some stuff in a new garden bed.

Mostly, I am loving the fact that we have a plan to buy a house in Brisbane in the next few years.  This is a whole new plan, but Daddy and I seem to make big plans and then either stick to them or find a way to make them work even better for us.  We are still going overseas at the end of the year at this stage ( there is one instance that may change this, but I can't see it happening), but we have come up with a plan to be able to buy hopefully only a year after we come back instead of lots of years after we come back.  I'm disclosing the plan at this stage, but I think it will work.

Daddy:
Getting a lot more time to practice now that we are slowly getting more settled.

I plan to do some posts on the rooms of the 'shouse' soon, it's just difficult to align a room looking mildly presentable with knowing where the camera is and having the time to take photos.





Monday, January 16, 2012

This is going to be a very boring post.  I'm not even sure why I'm writing it, but maybe it'll help bring back my motivation.  Since before Christmas I have had no motivation to sew or craft.  I started making a few christmas presents, but never finished them.

The thing is, usually when this happens I get really anxious and worried that I'm just being lazy and stuck in a rut.  It tends to freak me out a bit and I tend to get really proactive and make myself sew something and I usually get back into it.  This time, though, it doesn't seem to be bothering me. I should mention that this happens to me every few months and this is the first time since Claire was born.  I think I am finally learning to accept that sometimes it's ok to focus entirely on my home and my family and not feel like I have to fill my free time with doing something for myself.  Lately I have just been doing typical domestic things like laundry, dishes, vacuuming, tidying, etc and general maintenance (there is an awful lot of that here and just when you think you're up to date something else presents itself, the most recent being rain and we had to get out in the yard and dig to change the shape of the yard because the water was dangerously close to coming inside) and playing with my girls.  It's been a much more relaxed pace in the sense that because I haven't been trying to cram too much in I have time to be more organised, I get to places on time and my house seems tidier.

That was a bit of a ramble, but I think I'm trying to say that at the moment having a 2 year old (this week!!!!) and a 4 month old and living in the 'shouse' just has me too busy to do too much other than maintain the 'shouse' and look after my family and I am ok with the lack of motivation to do anything else, because I feel pretty confident that when I do have time again, the motivation will come back. Also, I LOVE that I have the opportunity to do nothing but care for my family.

Here's hoping my motivation comes back soon, but in the meantime I'm very content with life at home.  

Sunday, January 1, 2012

Shed happenings

 Wow, 3 posts in one day.  This is just a quick one though and I wrote the first one yesterday.

Daddy put the water tank up last week and spent sometime inside it sealing holes today.  Now we are just flushing it out and cleaning it before we use it.





My new closthesline.  Some clothes horses pulled apart and hung up from the beams from the toilet/shower block.  This is an upgrade from string between trees and I hope it works better than string between trees. 





This year....

I'm going to start this post by commenting on my goals from last year, because I am so proud of myself for accomplishing them and much, much more.  I'm not proud because I did so much, I'm proud because I did the things on the list.  I'm the type of person who makes goals and doesn't stick to them at all.  Infact, I stopped making goals for anything because I was tired of being disappointed in myself for not accomplishing them.  BUT, this year I did it! All except for one, which I had very good reason for. Oh, I just re-read the goal list and I actually didn't complete another thing on there, but it's still a huge improvement for me.

 The list was:

  • Grow a successful vegetable garden
  • Grow a successful herb garden
  • Complete crochet blankie
  • Complete knitted cardigan
  • Sew a patchwork quilt
  • Join a soccer team (this terrifies me!)


I didn't join a soccer team because I was pregnant (I think that's pretty fair!)
I didn't complete the knitted  cardigan.  No excuse for that one, except that I forgot it was on the list.  

Now for this years goals:

Go on more outings with my new family of 4
Enjoy my days at home and make the most of living so far out of town before it's over.
Do at least one productive thing while Milly has her nap.  
It's time to get fit and lose the weight now that my baby making days are over for awhile. I would like to lose 12 kilos, but I don't want to jeopardise breast milk production in the process.  
I would like to be more specific about my crafting goals but I don't have any ideas so far, except that I would like to do some form of crafting every day, even if only for a few minutes.  I don't always have the motivation to do this, but I know I always enjoy and appreciate the rest of the day more if I spend some time crafting, so this is me giving myself a little push.




These are sounding more like reminders than goals, so I will leave it for now and spend some time over the next few days thinking about things more specifically.  I would love to be able to complete a goal list 2 years in a row! 

My first year in review!

Oh my goodness, I have been trying to get to this post all day, but things just kept happening to keep me busy.  Well, it has been a year (not exact to the day, but pretty close) since I started this blog.  I have done a terrible job of updating on things at the shed and I already regret it.  I have blogged about other things that I enjoy though and I'm happy with that.  I'm not usually one for reviewing at the end of the year, but I also wasn't one for blogging a year ago either and I have enjoyed that, so I thought I'd have a go at a review of my year.

This year has probably been the most eventful one in my life so far.  We have done so many things (many of them things I hadn't even considered we or I would be doing this year, even only a few months before the year started).  I'll think I'll do this in bullet point form.

December 2010:
  • Moved North to be closer to our immediate family.
January
  • My baby girl turned one and we celebrated with spaghetti and her first taste of chocolate cake.
  • We found out that both my and daddy's grandma's were both diagnosed with cancer and that meant I couldn't see my grandma until her chemo treatment finished because I was pregnant.  January was the last time I saw her.  Lyle's grandma was not having chemo, but radiation and Milly and I stayed with her during the day while daddy and his granddad worked on the shed.  
  • I found out I was pregnant again!
  • I started a new job teaching a laptop class.
                                                 
April:
  • We went to Brisbane for the school holidays and caught up with some friends and did some shopping.
May:
  • We moved into the 'shouse'.
  • We spent the first night in the 'shouse' from 3am  in a hospital room with Daddy's entire family and his grandma died the next afternoon. My aunty died of cancer the day of his grandmother's funeral.
  • I was very spoilt by my class and my teaching partner with a surprise party for my birthday.  

June:
  • I finished work and was spoilt by my class and my teaching partner with a surprise going away party.  
July:
  • According to my photos this was the month for baking! I remember being really grateful to have the time at home to spend with Milly and to do the things I love, like baking.  I also remember it taking me awhile before I wanted to start using my spare time to craft.  I think I was too tired for that!

August:
  • This was the month of my due date (30th), but it was not to be and so it felt like the month of suspense. 
  • Installed a 'craft room' (a few shelves in a corner of the lounge room) and I unpacked all my craft stuff. 
  • Still lots of baking and just putting my toe in the water with some crafting.  I made the owls and the fabric boxes 
  • We got the concrete tank for Daddy's studio delivered.
  • My aunty died from cancer. 






September:
  • Claire Bear is here!!! It's very difficult to imagine our family without this amazing little girl. I won't tell you how much I love her because if you're a parent you already know and if you're not a parent I can't describe it well enough.  
  • I recovered from my caesar with some incredible care and help from our mummies. 
  • 2 weeks later Claire met my grandma only 3 days before she died.  I will never forget the smile in my grandma's eyes when she met Claire, her 9th and last to be born (but only by a few weeks) great grandchild.  
  • I think this is the month we started the vege garden.
October:
  • Made Milly's 'nice and warm and soft' blanket (my first ever patchwork) and a drawstring bag.
  • We lost a good friend of Daddy's to cancer.
November:
  • Harvested our first and many cucumbers!
  • Tried to figure out how to stop the rats eating our tomatoes before they ripen.
  • Got a trampoline.
  • This must have been the month for family gatherings according to my photos
                                           

December:
  • Milly moved into a real bed and since then falls asleep on the floor almost every night and every afternoon.
  • Claire started to become a lot more interested in the world around her and started playing with toys.
  • I lost my sewing mojo and it's still not back, but I'm working on it. 
  • Breakfast got a whole lot more exciting with a new coffee machine and toaster! (I'm easily pleased). 
  • We got our first serious rain for the season and the water tank is still not properly installed!
                                                

So, it's been a hectic and bittersweet year and very emotional.  We had to say goodbye to too many wonderful people, but we got Claire.  We worked hard on the 'shouse' and we go to see family every weekend, which is why we moved here in the first place. I feel like I've learnt a lot from and about myself this year and I think it will be remembered as a pretty significant year of my life.  

                                

As a child we never did anything special for New Year's so it's never really been a big deal for me, but I'm learning that life happens very quickly and it was nice to take a moment (or a lot of moments over 2 days due to a baby that is refusing to sleep these last few days!) and look back over the year to remember and think about some of the important things that happened to us, that we were a part of and that we accomplished together as a couple and as a family, so happy new years and I know we have some exciting things happening this year and I hope you do too!