June

:: cutting first two teeth
:: bowling green warming
:: Scott and his caravan
:: first ever family photo session (and not the family I made but the family I came from!)
:: packing up the father in laws house in Gingin - sold!
:: walks about town with Charlie on his trike. So cute.
:: the big snip

I've had this post (with out photos) ready to go since early July!! I was feeling slightly organised, ha! Another drink got spilled on my beloved laptop, this time my fault (an alcoholic beverage on a Friday afternoon) and it finally gave up the ghost. I am on a new to me iMac but I haven't loaded it with my timemachine backup of the laptop yet. Still googling how to get it back to factory settings/looking for my operating system disk...

Anyway, heaps to share, and I am one step closer to organisation, I've had my very first dishwasher for a week now and I am in love!

Mx

Wrap

I received my first woven wrap in the post* a couple of weeks ago and I am in love! Every day I have Mia up in this wrap. I started her off in a hugabub which was lovely for her newborn stage and which I honestly thought I wouldn't find anything I'd prefer more. That was until I met the girls from the wheatbelt baby wearers group. They introduced me to the addicting world of woven wraps and there is no going back, it's a whole other world of baby wearing, I wish I'd known about it with Charlie.  At least I had the hugabub with him and a couple of other carriers too.

I'm teaching myself new carries off YouTube until the next meeting when the girls can show me in person. I especially love the back carries for having Mia close but out of the way while I do housework. It's very practical, but also so fun!!! Lots of exclamations because I'm really loving it that much it's making me wish Mia would always stay little so I could wrap her or that Ian's vasectomy fails ;)

I got an Ergo the week Mia was born thinking that Charlie might want to be carried again once he saw the new baby being worn, but he hasn't unfortunately (just like I couldn't entice him back on the boob!). Well it came in handy for Granddad to take Mia for me while I went in for day surgery anyway and it's great for putting on quickly.

Do you have any experience baby wearing? Do you love it? Did it save your sanity?

Mx

*they call it fluffy mail :)
I bought cherry lace (the woven wrap) from the lovely Natalie at Woven Wraps Australia and desert rose (the ring sling) from the wonderful Jane at PixieMama. Both are Lenny Lamb brand and they both arrived on the same day!

We've Taken The Lid Off

We borrowed a loader and a tip truck for the cost of a carton of beer on the weekend and pulled all the cement tiles off the roof. I thought all the demo work had been done, I was wrong, it should be now, there's nothing left to rip out. Even the floor has been pulled up. That makes me a bit sad. We had old jarrah hardwood floors which are now firewood.

When Ian pulled the carpet up he started in the corner where we had a bit of a water issue and he found white ants (apparently they like a drink with their wood). To be safe he pulled up the whole floor so the pest inspector could check the subfloor structure. Turns out this is unnecessary, they just cut inspection holes through the floor for that, and there were no more ants to be found. Ian does not seem concerned, but I've wanted a hardwood floor for years, ever since high school and my friend Sasha's house, and there's the added expense of replacing the floor :( Anywhoo... moving on.

Ian is feeling very sore after a weekend on the roof (and he doesn't like heights!). And we're hoping for rain around here, for the farmers mostly but also to wash all the dust off our rafters. Here's to rebuilding!

Mx

May

:: The lighting of the fire for the season.
:: A strong urge to purge. I want to get rid of everything I don't want to move to the new house.
:: A step in the direction of my parents finally becoming empty nesters.
:: A birthday request getting family relationships back on track.

:: The craft fair (and finding the overlocker of my dreams!)

I hope May was good to you.
Mx

The Snip

While I was pregnant with Mia I was pretty sure it would be my last pregnancy. The first two trimesters were uncomfortable, I feel like I'm getting too old (36), our first baby was a lot of work etc. etc. But Mia is such an easy baby and I'm not struggling at all, I actually feel like I'm getting better at this mothering thing! So now I'm not so sure... I'm still fairly certain, but I have this strange feeling now that the Mr's vasectomy is only a month away.

When we only had Charlie I felt so lucky that I would have been happy stopping at one. Now that we have Mia I'm so enchanted and in love with her I feel like I dodged a bullet, but in the opposite way if that makes any sense? The bullet of not having her. I could have decided not to have another baby. That thought scares me. Now I'm wondering... how do you know for sure?!

Mx

April

The month of April saw
:: The start of renovations at the old bowling club/our new house.
:: Charlie testing me, really testing me.
:: Swimming weather and puddle jumping weather all in the same month.
:: Cooking by the day of the week. Saturday night is steak night!

Mx

The Old Bowling Club

Settlement has gone through! We are now the owners of the old bowling club in town. Or at least we are owners of the shell of the old club and half of the first green and the car park. Ian has been busy doing demo work on site to get the building back to a blank slate (the shire kindly allowed us early access before it was officially ours).

He has pulled down all the ceilings, jacked up all the tiles out of the male and female toilets/changerooms, pulled up the solid jarrah floor boards out of one room (and found white ants unfortunately) knocked out all the toilets, all of which has been hard work, but the thing that gave him the most trouble was ripping the urinal out. They put those things in reinforced to heck.

In a perfect world we'll be in by Christmas, but I've watched enough episodes of Grand Designs to know that it is a rare project that ever runs on time or budget, so I'm not holding my breath. I've told the other half I'll be happy as long as this is our last winter in this current house. Last winter I resorted to wearing a snow jacket inside to try and keep warm, ridiculous! With a new baby in the house though I've found a supplier for firewood and I'm going to run the terribly ineffective wood burner all day every day in an effort to keep her lips turning blue as I walk her from the laundry to the bedroom after bath time.

I'm pretty excited at the thought of being back in a house we own. I'll post our progress as we go along.

Mx

all photos taken by Ian except for the four tile mosaic in the middle

Tea Pot Tea Towel

I've picked up quite a few things from the local op shop in our small town, this tea towel being one of them. I thought I would use it to pretty up our kitchen. I think it's an improvement, though my husband didn't notice it when he came home for lunch today (at least that means he doesn't hate it!)

If this were our house I'd rip down that awful wallpaper boarder in a heartbeat and paint the walls. I daydream about how nice it would be to live in a house that was decorated/styled but I'd be happy at the moment to settle for clean.

I have plenty more op shop finds to show you when I get a chance to clean them up and do something with them. I was using this tea towel to dry my dishes, it is linen so does an awesome job. I've been meaning to post about tea towels and how linen is the only way to go (maybe I have already?) Anyway, if I haven't, linen is my hot tip. It actually sucks the water off your dishes instead of frustratingly pushing it around and not really drying.

I hope you're having good op shop juju at the moment if that's your thing.

Mx

I love you

The last week or two have been quite testing with out little man. I guess the arrival of Mia and the diminished attention that goes with that is catching up with him. We dropped his nap in the last couple of months too, so he is sometimes quite wretched by the end of the day. All of this is adding up to a Mumma who is not always handling things with as much grace as she would like.

It's just Murphy's law that one of my (not)finest parenting moments would be in front of an audience that left Charlie crying from a busted lip and myself in need of tears too (they came later). Hopefully the quilting ladies pitied me and didn't judge me too harshly. As I comforted Charlie and someone else comforted the baby I just wanted to crawl under a rock and bawl my own eyes out. I had carelessly dumped Charlie after picking him up off Mia yet again as she was sleeping on the floor of the church fellowship room. He didn't land well and he face planted. I was embarrassed and ashamed because I was too angry to be careful with my little boy. I was upset because I had hurt my child but in the moment I was more upset that I must have looked like a terrible mother in front of all those ladies.

Any way, I started writing this post because I wanted to remember that Charlie told me he loved me for the first time last night as I lay with him waiting for him to go to sleep. After loving someone with all your heart for two and half years it is nice to hear that they love you also, despite your shortcomings as a parent. I love you too mate, I'll try harder.

Anybody got any tips for navigating these trying times?

Mx

March

What a happy month

:: we had two wonderful trips to Perth

:: one for a family reunion

:: one for a friends birthday/Easter

:: we made it to Kings Park three times, I want to fit more of that in on our trips to the City!

:: a visit from Gandma/Mum

:: a visit from Pa

:: the start of afternoon visits to the Apex park

:: and I got two lots of garlic and onions in the ground :)

And lookyhere, I've got my month in review up before the end of the next month. Yay for me!

Hope your year is swimming along nicely, we're a quarter of the way in already!

Mx

Easter Weekend

Four day weekends are so good! Having the extra days made it so much easier to fit everything in on our trip to Perth. So many happy things. And on our trip home we even fit in a visit to my sister's block and a visit to Ian's Grandfather for Mia to meet her Great Grandpoppy Will in his new unit.

What did you do for Easter? I hope you had as much fun as we did.

Mx

I made butter!

 

And I'm ridiculously excited. I know it isn't very groundbreaking, it is so simple, but the fact that I got around to it and actually made butter makes me really happy. It's kind of like alchemy, you take one product and just by beating it you get two different products. Who knew you ended up with buttermilk as well? Now I'll have to make buttermilk scones to use up the buttermilk I've got stashed in the freezer. I should also make a pav with all the egg whites in there too, a little trick I learned from Nigella (the egg whites not the pav).

I also made yoghurt for the first time, another super easy thing to do, I don't know how successful it has been though, I had a quick taste tonight and think it will need a little sweetener, maybe it will taste better when it is more chilled.

Does making from scratch give you a thrill too?

Mx

February

 

was...

:: settling back in to home
:: finding that going from baby to two is not as hard as I feared
:: a visit from Nanna Cherie from SA to meet Mia
:: a fabulous beach wedding on Rottnest
:: Charlie's first night away from us (even though we were in the next room)

I hope your February was fabulous too. I'm enjoying the coolor weather that is coming with Autumn.

Mx

The Weekend

Grandma came for a visit on the weekend, these are a couple of shots I got of the fam while we waited out the front for her little red car to appear (excuse my kids hanging out in their undies). Mum is planning to come out and spend a weekend with us every month, this makes me happy and it's great for Charlie, he adores Branma (as he often pronounces it). Thanks for coming Mum!

Mx

January

Better late than never I say!



January was...

:: a fun family wedding where birkenstocks were acceptable footwear
:: waiting, waiting, waiting
:: the arrival of beautiful baby Mia
:: the return home

What a great way to start the year! I hold high hopes for 2013 :)

Mx