Sleepy heads

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Third time lucky?

Friday, January 28, 2011

I've started writing this blog post 3 times now, so hopefully I might actually post it this time! Life is so hectic and I don't know how it happened but our 6 weeks in Brisvegas is coming to an end. We leave on Monday and have had a great time catching up with people and spending time together as a family. It's been such a blessing having Hubs around to see all the changes in Chance that I've been able to see, and I don't know what I'm going to do when he has to go back to work a week after we get back to Wang! I really love all the get togethers and socialising that comes with staying in Brisbane, but to tell you the truth I'm ready to go home. That's really hard for me to say as I don't want our families to think that I want to leave them, but it's really tiring to be on our best behaviour for 6 weeks solid without much down time.

Having said that, I can't wait for the fam to come and visit us down south again asap. It's been so amazing having that support - always having someone there to take Chance for an hour while we grab some sleep or do some cooking or write a blog post. Like just now I heard Chance cry, followed by my Dad's voice saying "Hello there. What's going on? Maybe you need a cuddle." I'm really going to miss that when we leave. Just thinking about it is giving me a headache :-)

(Chance, 2.5 weeks old)

We're going to spend a couple of days is Melbourne catching up with friends before heading back to Wang on Wednesday. I'm a little nervous about being so far away from our support networks, and with Hubs working full-time hours, but I know we've made some really good friends who are more than happy to help out when we need or want it. In the mean time, I just have to remember that everything always works out. Not always how we think it will, but it works out none the less.

Thank you to everyone for all their love and support and best wishes over the last 9 weeks, and in particular the last 6 weeks. We've enjoyed the chats and the beers and games of ping pong and pool, and watching the cricket and tennis, and celebrating life's special occasions with you all. If I don't get to blog again until we hit Wang, please forgive me, and know that I have lots to share with you in the coming weeks and months.

Wifey  xx

Happy Birthday to meee!

Thursday, January 20, 2011

For those who are unaware, I am currently celebrating my birthday week! And it has been a cracker so far! I kicked it off with a great day on Sunday where we started with brunch with friends (mmmm.... pancakes....) and their darling little girl who has grown so much since we last saw her! We then headed over to visit Kate, Kyle, my Godson and his baby bro. We crashed their family lunch (mmmm.... lasagne....) and had a lovely relaxing time with them before they jetsetted back to Cairns. It was then time to head out to coffee with 2 very dear friends and we found ourselves at Freestyle in the Valley (mmmm.... lindt chocolate saucy pudding....) Again, a lovely, relaxing time was had by all and of course the food was delish!

But we weren't done yet!

We finished our day with a trip to the temporary Jazz Club. We had planned to go to the actual club but it was badly damaged with the recent flooding, so they moved it to the Australian Legion Memorial Club in the Valley. We arrived not long after 5:30pm and the band started about an hour later. Chance loved it! He was happy just to sit on my lap and take it all in. And then he had a little sleep and then he was ready to party again! We enjoyed great company, and tasty treats (mmmm.... pinot noir and cheese and crackers) and the music was lots of fun as well!

To cap that day off, Australia won their day/nighter against England! It doesn't get much better than that.

On Monday I caught up with 2 of my cousins for a bit and then Hubs and I decided to hit Chermside shopping centre for the afternoon, partly to get out of the heat and partly to look for something to wear to Chance's baptism. (What? Chance gets a new outfit, so why can't we??)

Tuesday was my actual birthday so Hubs took me out to brunch at Di Vita Cafe at Wilston (mmmm.... double smoked ham, corn and parmesan hotcake with bacon and eggs....) It was the first time we had left Chance since he was born and I think we did pretty well! My brekky was SO GOOD and Hubs' was pretty good too. We then lazed around for the arvo before heading over to Nanny and Grandpa's for birthday dinner. Only problem was, a massive storm hit and they lost power again so we ate pizza and pasta by candle-light! Very romantic! We then had cake for dessert (mmmm.... cheesecake) by which time the power had come back on (thank goodness we could turn the fans on!!) and headed home for a great night sleep.

I'll fill you in on the rest of my birthday week soon!

For me?

Friday, January 14, 2011

Hubs has never bought me flowers, he has only ever made them for me which I think is even better! So when he came in with this bunch I was blown away!


And then I realised he had been pruning the bushes outside and this bunch was on its way to the bin. Oh well. You take what you can get!

Photo time!

Thursday, January 13, 2011

Maybe Chance is sick of having his photo taken...

My beautiful boys

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

2 peas in a cute little pod

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

We made friends with a lovely couple of soon-to-be-interns at Wangaratta, Jackie and Darren, and it just so happened that Jackie was due to have a baby 2 weeks after us! It also just so happened that her little bundle of joy, Aidan, was born 3 weeks early, so he is actually older than Chance! We went over for a visit before we left for Brisbane and of course Hubs took the opportunity to take some lovely photos.



Aren't they just adorable? J & D are now based in Bendigo so we're hoping we can catch up with them some time in the next 6 months before we head to Mt Beauty in July.


Too. Damn. Cute.

We're okay

Hello lovely blog-readers. Just letting you know that we are okay and haven't been affected by the flooding in Brisbane. It's so sad to watch the news and see the disastrous affects this rain is having on the state - I've never experienced this kind of rain before.

Thanks for thinking of us.

Our first Christmas as 3

Monday, January 10, 2011

Hubs and I decided we would try not to have a crazy Christmas trying to run around to too many places this year, but it didn't quite work out that way. The good news is, we had an amazing day and wouldn't have changed anything! We did our usual Christmas eve at Nanny and Grandpa's place which meant lots of food, drink, prezzies, and far too much dessert! (Is there such a thing??) I don't seem to have many photos from Christmas eve, so we'll move on to Christmas day.

We went to church in the morning and caught up with some friends and introduced Jr to them, then headed back to Hubs' Mum's for breakfast and presents with the fam. We then went to my bro's place for Christmas with my side of the family which was, as usual, an absolute delight. There were 23 of us seated around an enormous table eating absolutely delicious food!


Khicken and Kturtle had only moved into this house the weekend before, so extra kudos go to them for a huge effort getting everything ready! And not that I can take (full) credit for our delightful little boy, but he was certainly a hit at the party!


We exchanged prezzies and stories and Chance got plenty of cuddles and kisses and even more presents! Not that I'm jealous or anything, cos I got the best present ever! Khicken and Kturtle uncovered my old teddy bear Gizmo, cleaned him up (with napisan among other things) and presented him to me! I missed you Gizmo!!




We then ended our Christmas day at Hubs' sister's place where there were kids, presents, freshly caught fish, a nerf gun that everyone wanted to get their hands on, and more kids. By 11pm we were pooped so we came home and crashed, only to be woken up by a very cute Santa's little helper a couple of hours later. 

As far as Christmases go, this would have to be one of the best!

Our anniversary

Saturday, January 8, 2011

There's so much I haven't blogged about and don't know if and when I'll find the time!! I have some time tonight so might line up a few posts for the next few days. Here we go!

Hubs and I celebrated our wedding anniversary a week late this year, with a lovely lunch at The Idle Book Cafe in downtown Wang, and the exchanging of gifts. Hubs gave me two gorgeous titanium tension-set rings that he ordered off an etsy site that I just happened to leave open on the computer. Hee hee! He gave me one with a mystic topaz stone in it for the birth of our baby boy (topaz is the birth stone for November) and one with alexandrite in it for our 3 year anniversary, just cos he liked it.


The previous week, I found some energy drinks in the fridge and asked Hubs about them, as neither of us drink energy drinks. His response was "it's not important" which means he's up to something. I asked if I would find out eventually and he said yes so I left it at that. And this was what he was working on:


I was super impressed and a copious number of brownie points were given. Even if he did spell "Wifey" wrong (hee hee). Love love LOVE the rings.



Hubs did very very well, and I think I did pretty well with his prezzie too. I wanted to buy him a leather belt, as leather is the symbol for the 3rd wedding anniversary (according to some). Of course the wrapping is part of the fun of gift-giving:


And the gift? A VW leather belt. You can't see it very well here unfortunately, and I'd take another photo of it but Hubs isn't home and he happens to be wearing said belt.



If you look really hard you can see it! We shared some lovely toasted foccacias and iced coffee and chocolate and afterwards headed across the road to do battle with Centrelink, but clearly I'm not going to tarnish this lovely story with that rot. 
Happy Anniversary Hubs!

The cliche continues

Friday, January 7, 2011

"Wow I can't believe how big he is!"
"He's just growing so fast!"
"I remember when he was a newborn and how small he was."
"Those chubby thighs are so adorable!"
"I can't remember my life without him."

Yes, I'm afraid I have muttered all of these phrases over the last couple of weeks. I can't help it! It's all true! He's even grown out of the newborn Huggies nappies and we've had to buy the 6-11kg ones that are for toddlers!* Crazy!

In other news, Chance had his first trip to Bunnings today! (See how he's looking for Hubs!?)



In the end it all got too much for him (and me).


I'm sure he'll be back again with Hubs some time soon though! We have a working bee planned for tomorrow at Hubs' Mum's place and we're REALLY hoping for a break from the rain! Fingers crossed!!!


*We only use disposables when we get lazy/when we run out of cloth nappies/ when the cloth nappies aren't dry.

Storage

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Why do we store stuff? Hubs and I have boxes and boxes of stuff stored at Hubs' Mum's place, cos we thought it would be crazy to take everything down to Melbourne/rural Victoria with us. Instead we took the bare necessities (and some extra stuff) and have bought bits and pieces, generally second-hand, along the way. It just seems such a shame that we have all this lovely stuff just sitting in a house, 2000km away, not being used. Having said that, I could probably only recall about 10% of the stuff that is in those boxes. If someone told me tomorrow that it had all been accidentally lost, I don't think I would be overly devastated about it, as I wouldn't really know what I was missing out on.

So why keep it all? We all know the reasons - "sentimental value" (Hubs and Wifey); "cos I'll use it one day I'm sure" (Hubs); "just because, okay??" (Wifey).

Hubs has organised a working bee this Saturday to go through everything, so it will be fun to look at what is there. And I'm going to try and be ruthless and get rid of a few things. Mainly books I suspect. And maybe some things that I've been holding on to for way too long.

Maybe I should give my mind a bit of a clean-out as well and throw out some stuff that's been hanging around, taking up valuable room. Like all the body-image crap I've been carrying around since I was a teenager. Or the desire to please other people all the time (though, I'm getting better at this one!). I wonder what else I'll find there that I could do without...

5.5 weeks

I know I know, another post about the baby. I promise I'll blog about something non-baby-related soon. Maybe :-)
We took Chance to the doctor for his 4-6 week checkup today and he aced it! Ha ha. Well he has put on 2kg since birth (yikes!) and now weighs 5.8kg. He has also grown longer and is 58cm (easy to remember!). He is going to be one tall lad, that's for sure. Anyway, I just thought I'd share those stats with you, as well as this photo:



I have to say, it's quite hard to think of things to blog about at the moment, as our whole lives are consumed by this little individual. I've thought of a few ideas but the inspiration isn't very forthcoming. I mean, there's only so much complaining about the weather and my lack of sleep that one could handle! I'll see if I can come up with something soon.....

5 weeks of fun

Monday, January 3, 2011

Our son is 5 weeks old and he has already done the following:
- enter the world (hey, it was hard work for him too!)
- had a road trip in the kombi
- attended a wedding
- been on a plane (see below) (thankfully he slept the whole trip!!!)
- had his first Christmas
- seen the new year in
- grown numerous centimeters and put on many hundreds of grams

Not that I'm bragging, but that's a pretty impressive resume for someone who has only been around for 35 days... Oh yeah. I'm going to be one of those parents!! :-)