Updated from the slackest blogger alive!

I can't believe it's been over 4 months since I last blogged anything. it's not as if nothing is happening, it's just that I've been completely slack!

Recent news is:

We went on a holiday to A's family shack. I was feeling really down because it was James' 4th birthday so we packed up and away for five days. It was just what I needed to gather my thoughts and find my groove again.

the kids at the beach around the corner from the shack.

Crab that was at the beach. There were THOUSANDS of them, you could actually hear them scrabbling across the sand.

A wave breaking on the rocks at the lookout near The Blowhole

View from the lookout about 100m above the Tessellated Pathway

Angus enjoying the evening constitutional on crabby beach

Waves crashing into the blowhole. We happened to go on a day when the weather was wild 

so it put on a spectacular show for us.

echidna on the path near the blowhole look out. It was quite unphased by the tourists!

Devil's Kitchen

So it was a fabulous holiday. We went swimming on every day but the day the mercury hit 13 and we were all nearly blown away in a gale, but that was the day we went to the blowhole and the weather was perfect for that! The kids went canoeing, fishing (Spike caught a flathead and was very chuffed), swimming under the jetty (where we saw a stingray) in the warmest water I've ever swum in, bush walking, we played board games and card games and I read three books. Perfecto!

New, old birth photos.

I just went through all the photos on the computer and realised that there's a few birthy ones I'd like to add! Consider it a second, pictorial birth story. Full birth story (with other pics) is but a click away!

About an hour or so in, just settling into the pool.

Getting heavy now.

Midwife telling the kids all about it, baby is actually past crowning in this pic! Not that you can tell from this angle

OMG it really IS a baby! Like OMG! Who knew!?

I waited four births for this photo. The photo where my face has every emotion under sun written there for everyone to read. Every woman should have a photo (or five) like this.

Me, high on hormones, him high on new life

Daddy's first cuddle

Big sister's first cuddle, she hates this photo, but I reckon at 4:30 in the morning, after you just saw your baby brother being born it's a pretty good one!

First cuddle with big brother

And I'll leave you with a photo of the person whom all the fuss was about! This baby is a homebirth after two caesareans, yes two, and a previous stillbirth. When people ask me why I wanted a homebirth I answer 
"because I've done it in hospital and it stank"  




  If I can have a homebirth, you can too!

Time for an update!

It's been a while since I've updated the blog, but I'm finally getting around to it. Since last time we've done heaps to the house and garden. The inside of the house has gone GREEN! The lounge room, hallway, our bedroom and Stylish's room are done and now A is working on Spikee's room. Stylish did her room pretty much by herself.

We've planted a lot of seeds in the side vegetable garden and in the hothouse. Lots of herbs, strawberries, leafy greens for salad and cooking, and other fruity veg too. I'm watching the seeds daily, desperate to see them coming up, they seem to be taking their time and it's really worrying me because I don't want to have to replant them all if an entire crop fails. I can't for the life of me imagine why they would ALL fail though!? Perhaps I'm just not being patient enough.

Our bare rooted apples, plum, nectarine and cherry are all going green, one of the apples has about four flowers on it, but the raspberries are also worrying me because they're not doing anything. Spring has sprung so I really would think they'd have atleast the a sign of green shoots by now. 

Angus has had his first birthday. We had a quiet family gathering and ate pizza and cup cakes. 

What's white and fluffy?

SNOW!!! 

The hill with snow icing on top, taken from our front doorstep by Stylish

Mount Wellington, taken from the Tasman bridge while we drove over it.

The day before Spikee's birthday we went to get last minute party supplies and when we drove through Longley there was snow beside the road so we pulled over and threw it at each other. Stylish had decided to stay home that day so she missed out, but she noticed snow on the hill so she took pics of it for us. Spikee thought snow was excellent! 

Today we're more or less stuck in the town because the rain has caused the Huon River to burst its' banks and the roads are flooded, and who wants to drive on the icy roads anyway! Luckily we're well supplied. The weather has been crazy, much more extreme that locals can remember it being for about 20 years. We had several black outs the other night, one on Spikee's birthday night when we were without power (thank heavens for the wood heater!) for a couple of hours. We played snakes and ladders by candle light. It was actually nice being all snug and warm and just being a family with no technology however we didn't complain when it all came back on. 

Mother's Day

Today was mother's Day. It was a really lovely, simple, stay home family day and the only consumerism we partook in was one pair of lambs wool slippers. The kids made me a card each and Stylish did all the dishwashing for my present. A gave me eggs benedict and a clean house. 

This evening a good friend and her kids came over for dinner. We had lime, chili, garlic, and cayenne roasted chicken thighs on the bone and lots of vegetables. Spikee is the same age as said friend's son so they played contentedly all evening and we watched "It's Complicated" and breast fed upside down babies and folded the clothes. It was a really enjoyable movie, and a lovely day all round. Best Mother's day ever!

Autumn is upon us

You can feel a definite chill in the air now, but for the last few days the weather has been beautiful in the afternoons. Last night before bed I let Vinnie out to pee and I could hardly see the front fenc through the mist. I love mist! I never knew how much I loved it til it was a regular part of my life. It was cooooold out there standing in it, but I think I'm going to enjoy winter with the fire, and weather watching on the hill.


We've been taking Vinnie out as much as we can, knowing that soon it'll be dark and rainy and too cold to enjoy the out doors as much as we have been over the Summer months. He's improved so much with his training. It's a beautiful sight to see him running freely at the park, he runs so fast, you can really see the cattle dog in him when he's running.

We went for a walk over the Easter long weekend and discovered a new park near the bowling club. The river goes through it and it's beautiful, open and sunny. We've spent every day over there since then, with Vinnie running wild and the kids skipping stones on the river. Today they banked lots of them up in the current to see how the water changed course. There are lots of toadstools there and they look so pretty, Spikee thinks that faeries live in them, and was very upset to see one that had been deliberately smashed. 

We had a wonderful Easter weekend, we made a big pink marshmallow rabbit and a berry jelly one, too. And we enjoyed lots of other tasty treats like home made hot angry buns and, melting moments with mandarin icing. The family were planning on coming down but they ended up canceling, but they're coming over next weekend instead and everyone is really looking forward to it. We also celebrated Mabon, just to completely confuse things! We went walking and collected a basket of beautiful coloured leaves, red, yellow, brown, faded green, and sticks and some rocks, which we had in a basket on the coffee table. We're going to tie the sticks in a bundle and put them in the fire to welcome the Dark Mother, next weekend, and the kids are going to read Mabon poems.

hot x buns

where the faeries live

the dog, enjoying the park

pink rabbit with crazy son!

latest harvest

pink rabbit with jelly rabbit

kids at the river

A Merry Giftmas To All!

Today is our first christmas in our new house, and Angus' first giftmas! We decided to spend the day at home with just us because we'd never done that before. We had a bbq with free range pork, lamb, sweet chili prawns, potato salad (with home laid egg mayo), green salad, and corn cobs and baby carrots. All served with home brewed lime and chili beer - oh so good! - or ginger beer depending on the age that appears on your license.

After lunch we had to get busy cleaning up and getting organised for our trip up to visit A's parents. We have a friend coming to water the veg and throw food at the cat and the LOTL. We are taking Vinnie with us. Stylish washed the dog, and Spikee picked up his toys, under duress.

This morning's present opening was exciting for some members of the household, and the bounty included such highlights as a remote control car, frog trinkets, and bright and colourful things that rattle.

For dinner we're having ham sandwiches on sour dough rye bread with home made tomato relish and we'll take our giftmas lunch left overs for a picnic on the drive up North. Right now the kids are in the front garden playing with the remote control car and the baby is enjoying things that rattle and a cuddle with Daddy.

MERRY END OF YEAR!

The Hot House in Summer!

This is the candle christmas tree I got at the tip shop for a pittance. Everyone laughed at me, but now we all think it's really pretty! I was right, I told you so ner n'ner n'ner ner!

It's freezing here, despite being more than a week into Summer. We've had the fire burning tonight and last night despite it being out for over a week now. I lit it tonight, I think I did a rather deft job of it for an L plater! Stylish did it last night and I was really impressed with how well she did it too. With the fire burning it's lovely and toasty warm in here, but I'm not looking forward to winter.

The dog was caught "playing chicken" today. He was only being friendly but that's too rough for teeny tiny little T-Rex Family, we're concerned she'll die of shock over night. The LOTL (Ladies Of The Lawn) have been keeping us beautifully supplied with lovely home laid eggs. The little ones started laying after a few days with the emus, and since then they've really started acting like chooks, they come out of the shed by themselves and peck around on the lawn eating bugs. Send well wishes to T-Rex Family. I'll keep you posted on her status.

This afternoon I finally managed to put Angus and his reflux down for long enough to do some gardening in the hot house. I really enjoy gardening. We filled up the raised beds in the hot house with potting mix, then planted out the rocket seedlings, and pak choy, and put the newly planted peat seedling starter pots with mesculin straight in. Then we planted more lettuce, spinach, rocket, and pak choy in seedling starter pots. We also replanted some of the seeds that never sprouted properly in the first planting. I'm not sure why they didn't come up because I've never had that problem before. Hopefully we'll have better luck this time round.

Beer making is going well, and A has just bottled about 50 bottles of chili and lime draught. We cracked a bottle of the raspberry and one of the blueberry to taste it. The raspberry tastes amazing! The blueberry is nice but not as flavoured. The ginger beer has become a bit of a habit now, A feeds it every day and bottles it every week.

Tomorrow is meant to be the family xmas lunch but it looks like it'll be raining all day. What a shame. Oh well, there's always next year!?

The Garden Underway!

T-Rex Family, right, Klukky, left.

12 tonnes of wood and a chook shed

The veggie garden beginning.

Today I planted a heap of seeds in little peat seedling starter pots which you just put straight in the soil when they're ready. I planted cucumber, oregano, sage, coriander (in a mini green house), zucchini, dill, pak choy and a few other things too. We also bought 6 tomato variety seedlings. A has been industriously digging up the garden where the hot house will go. We've measured it and decided to get some cheap raised garden beds, we'll put a trestle over the top of them for pots.

The cat is settled in nicely now, and he hasn't given the chickens (now named T-Rex Family and Klukky) any grief so far. Speaking of the chooks, I should probably do a more formal introduction! We have been lucky enough to be given two teeny tiny bantums. So tiny that we call them phantoms. They came from the home of an animal hoarder who had fourteen of them all living in a small chicken run, so they're extremely unused to free ranging and they are very shy when it comes to people (although they seem to be accepting A, and they cluck at him when he makes chook noises at them). They won't come out of their shed unless we go in and shoo them out, which we do gently, once a day, so they can begin to recover from their agoraphobia. When we do make them go into the garden they usually spend a little while scratching about before they go straight back into their shed. They're the cutest little things, once they settle in we plan on getting a couple more.

We've decided to make all our giftmas presents this year. We're giving people a bottle of home brew, a bbq spice rub, and a citrus fruit with cloves stuck in it to make their house smell lovely. There will be a large family gathering just outside Hobart which we may or may not decide to attend. It's hard to decide coz being in our own house means we'd quite like to spend the day here, but we've never done giftmas with this branch of the family and they'd probably like to see us and the kids. Our giftmas tree is ready to be put up so we'll do that over the coming week or so, A and I seem to be more excited about that than the kids!

It's Really Happening!

I went to the real estate website to send a link to a friend who wanted to see the house we're buying and there it was .... it says UNDER CONTRACT!

Now we just have to have a baby, organise removalists, pack every thing up (the worst bit!) and head on down to OUR HOUSE so we can start renovating and making it OUR HOME!

I've been watching a few housey type shows on tv and getting lots of ideas. I really took to a purple colour that I saw painted in someone's kitchen, but I'm wondering if it'd suit the sort of thing I'm after. I really should spend more time watching this type of show than gory forensic crime shows .... maybe.

As for having the baby, I'm 39 weeks or there abouts, that's based on a really rough guestimate, I have no idea how pregnant I am really. It's safe to assume that any day now could herald the addition of a new family member - one without scales, fur, fins, or feathers! I'm at that point where I am totally over it and my energy level has dropped to below zero, and I'm having lots of pre labour signs.

39w, birth pool ready to go!

Plodding Along

The cat contemplating migration ...

We're well on our way to home ownership now! The deposit is paid, all that remains is the irritating business of conveyancing, and settlement. So not terribly long after we welcome our new baby I expect we will take possession. Which will e a whole new set of issues, like insurance, and trying to work out what we can do from over 1000km away to make moving in easier!

I wanna get a few things done before we move in, and I wanna have a better idea of what some other things are gonna cost. I'm thinking I'll send a friend over to the house as soon as we take possession, and get her to measure the walls so we can estimate paint costs using the bunnings paint calculator.

We have a rough idea of what colour we want the walls to be, I want brown, not too dark not to light, warm, rich brown. We will give the kids a good helping of freedom in what colours they choose for their own rooms, and Stylish will probably be allowed to paint her own room. The kids both seem to want a similar combination of turquoise and mauve. I'm ok with that, and paint can be repainted when they decide they hate it!

We've finally got some sort of a plan organised for moving our cat which is a relief. A friend of ours will board him, then stick him on a plane. I want to be semi settled, with all our stuff moved in, if not unpacked before he arrives, because we really don't want him running off which he is prone to when moving house. He's 9 now so he's pretty settled, plus he's been in this house for nearly 5 years. I was very concerned about boarding him professionally because that would require vaccination, and we would like to keep him unvaccinated. He's lived 9 years without a problem, I'm prepared to bet that vaxing him would be the start of his health problems.

I'm now 38w round, or so I estimate, I really have no idea. I've been doing pre labour stuff on and off for a week now, and my blessingway was last Saturday. I had a gorgeous day surrounded by wonderful women, and Stylish did a henna drawing of the Egyptian frog Goddess, Heket, on my belly.