A month in Review - March 2009

What we did:
Celebrated Lachlan's 5th birthday

Went to Canberra and to attend Andy and Liz's long awaited nuptuals.

Caught up with the lovely Cath and the boys in Canberra too - wonderful.

Finished up my short-term work contract

Celebrated Nanny's 77th birthday

Completed 1/2 of our rotating crop vege garden

Milestones:

Laura:

Speech has improved a lot, announciating a lot more.

Verbal reasoning has also improved, still a little stuttering when exciting, but becoming less and less.

Grew 2cm in one month! For the first time, taller than Olivia!

Olivia:

Becoming less anxious around new people, noticed it alot in Canberra, still standoffish but not anxious.

Olivia's been unwell a few times this month which is unusual - with both a cough and a virus.. all good now!

Eloise:

Can count to, and recognise numbers to 100 (and beyond)

Getting better with the backwards S and E's.

Had first 'home-haircut' and loved it! (she was really good and still too!)

Has decided wants to have a Barbie Themed Birthday party.

Organised or Tupper-tart?

It felt so good today to finally get around to tidying up my pantry. It wasn't in a huge mess but I had to put things in containers, and throw out some spoiled stuff. But I felt it was a work of art when I finished. Is this houseproud or pathetic!!??

This is only the start, my freezer and fridge are the same! I need a plastic intervention! Then again, I haven't bought any in a while... I've probably only bought 10% of my entire tupperware collection in the past 10 years... so obviously I'm not the nut I used to be but given the opportunity I would be updaing my modular mates for plain and self raising flours, white sugar which I seem to go through the most... hmm one day I'll have to have a party..

I put the challenge to you....

my mate Shell protests that she makes the best caesar salad, and I don't want to hurt her feelings, but clearly, she's wrong.... :)

I've made this for lunch two days in a row, because (cos) I have to use all the cos before it wilts... oh alright, dodgy excuse, but it's pretty yummy, being the best caesar salad in the world and all.

So here's my recipe:

Serves 1:

3 cos lettuce leaves, washed and drained

2 slices soda or italian hard loaf bread

1 clove garlic

parmesan cheese (I use Reggiano) finely grated (to taste)

2 eggs

1 tb white vinegar

2 pieces shortcut bacon or proscuitto if you have it

dressing (this actually makes 4 times the amount of dressing, but I just store it)

1/3 cup fat-free mayo

2 anchovy fillets, mashed

1/2 tsp worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp lemon juice

couple scrapes of lemon rind.

(combine all to make dressing)

Method:

put medium saucepan with water to the boil on stove

chop lettuce roughly and put in bowl

grill bacon and bread untl browned on both sides, chop bacon when done and rub peeled garlic clove on hot bread and chop into rough squares.

when water is boiling poach eggs by adding vinegar to the water and then with a large slotted spoon, circulate the water to make a whirlpool with the water and crack the eggs into the whirlpool. once last egg has gone in don't stir anymore, just let boil for another 1.5 minutes.

meanwhite, add bacon and bread to the lettuce, add 2 tb dressing, and grate parmesan liberally over the top and then drain eggs with the slotted spoon and add on top, toss the salad, whereby the yolk should into the salad.

Devour! (and yes, that is indeed a REAL pic from my caesar yesterday!)

Exhausted but the fruits of labour will ensue

2 of the plots are done. Hoooooooooray. They are incredibly hard work though. I'm sure I won't be able to walk tomorrow!

OK so our progress in pics:

Our assistant gardeners - don't you just love the candid shots? I just love this picture!


2 garden beds, finally cleared and bricked (work in progress yesterday and this morning) - then with first crop planted - Cabbages (2 varieties/rows), Broccoli,(1 row) Cauliflower (2 varieties/rows)


A family affair planting peas (2 varieties, 3 climbing frames)


I love our children love gardening as much as we do.


All beds are planted, time for a waterdown
2nd bed has peas, 2 rows bean seeds, 2 rows carrot seeds, 1 row wombok


Snail pelletting after putting the chicken wire on, what a task that was! 3 rolls of 10m chicken wire that we basically had to sew together width wise and then attach to the stakes so no possums, cockatoos or any other wildlife cannot eat our veges!!

So SUPER proud.

I've also scattered 8x seedlings of Marigolds throughout. Can't wait 'til it starts growing, and I want the other 2 beds desperately but I'm not in a hurry to kill myself doing it right now. Might do it with the mother in law over Easter - she has an amazing garden and I'm sure will have much to share...

Planning with Stocktake

Garden is coming along... we bought some new equipment this morning - being a decent spade and fork and some new gardening gloves given that my old ones had holes in them, defeated the purpose really!! Borrowed a decent sized wheelbarrow which is making easier work of transporting grass and bricks. One bed of the four is almost completely finished, just need to turnover the soil, and the second bed has had most of the grass removed.

I have worked out what will go in each bed - we have all our seeds, seedlings, stakes, chicken wire! I also bought some marigold seedlings to go around - they apparently deter pests - but I did get snail pellets and an organic vege dust as a precautionary measure.

So, organising where goes what:

Bed 1 - Potatoes, White and Brown Onions and Leeks

Bed 2 - Beans, Peas (snap and regular), Carrots, Chillis

Bed 3 - Wombok, Broccoli, Cauliflower, Cabbage

Bed 4 - Rhubarb, the rogue tomato plant that grew out of our compost,italian parsley, (I never seem to have enough in my herb garden, so replacing that space in my herb garden with a bay tree) and some space...

I'll have some updated pics tomorrow - a not-to-be-named-3-year-old licked our camera lens so the pics I took are a little let's say 'misty'... hehe.

Puppy love

For the longest time I haven't really been super-open to the idea of getting a family dog? Why? Because I suppose in my own way it would be like I would be replacing Leroy (aka fleaboy) my Jack Russell Terrier who passed away 4.5 years ago.

Leroy was my first baby. I got him with my ex back in 96. I lived in Sydney and Ex was moved to Canberra with the Navy so the assumption was there that I would move too... We went to Kelston Kennels at Bowral and he ran straight to me. I would travel to Canberra every weekend after work on the bus and hang out with fleaboy.. I think he was the final pull to Canberra thinking back, and some time later I thought I'd made a mistake.

Within 6 months of my arrival ex became the ex. I moved out and took Leroy with me as obviously that seemed the most sensible option as my job wouldn't send me to sea for months on end. After some initial disagreement (well not in my eyes the deal was done) Leroy and I moved into 'our pad'. I couldn't at that stage afford to move back to Sydney and rent a house that could contain a dog... so I stayed put thinking obviously fate had landed me there for some reason. That reason it turned out was I met my hubby.

Leroy and I came back to Sydney in May 1999, when the Canberra job market and life overall had nothing to offer me, and initially Leroy stayed with my Mum and Dad and their dog whilst I found a job, a flat and got my life back. Took 3 months.

Moved into our glorious semi in Fairlight where we stayed for the next 7.5 years. Leroy was my best mate, the *person* I came home to. The first part of *our family* with hubby. He passed away when Eloise was 4 months old from Addisons disease.

So, getting back to it, now I feel I'm ready to get a dog, it looks like I might be home to housetrain one and the kids will be home to give it all the attention it needs. But hubby after bein gon the puppy campaign for ages (the girls are desperate for one, even cry about neeeeding a dog and play games with one of them being the puppy every other day)... when I saw a beautiful dog in the doggie rescue site which is seriously 10 mins from our house - he said... no. In fact he said 'no. stop looking'.

I suppose expense comes into it (cost of the dog, kennel, food) and the possibility we may need to move to get ahead financially... but meh.. we could do it. The girls would love it. I'm ready for it.

Looks like I remain on the puppy campaign...

the term of the moment.... marshmallow!?

My children have picked up this word as a term of endearment. They call you a marshmallow, whether it be on it's own or if you ask them to do something 'yes, marshmallow'.... and last night kissing Laura goodnight - I got a sleepy 'ni-ni's...marshmallow'..........now it's better than any other name calling (which luckily we're not doing here) and it's a little funny but I have NO IDEA where this came from. Kindy has no idea either. Later... Marshmallow!

Tweet

Succumbed to pressure and registered on Twitter. Ellen's telling me to do it, Mia's telling me to do it, Lisa's telling me to do it... now I'm tweeting............let's see how long I can do it for..
Follow me on my menu to the right if you're a tweeter too!

Must be on the improve...creative day..

..or maybe it's because I had no choice! Mummy day today and we had a productive one at that! I made the girls some colouring books from the Ceebeebies print and colour site (just printed a whole bunch and put staples down one side) they loved it! Will be doing this a bit more.

Eloise had a breakthrough today with her reading, she understands S & H makes the sh sound and actually came up with some wonderful examples... both as starting and finishing words. I'm astounded at how quickly her literacy is developing... I'll certainly keep encouraging that! She might be a little like me - more literate than numeric - ironic given my career is around numbers and logic... mmm..

Did some baking today - some muesli bars and a banana cake - both turned out well.. the banana cake recipe had received much hype and whilst it is nice and moist, and delicious, it didn't quite 'blow my socks off'. Will definitely make it again down the track. Kids loved it.

Here 'tis :

Ms Butterfly's Banana Cake

Cake ingredients

2 eggs

125grams softened butter

1 cup castor sugar

1 ½ cups SR flour

½ cup desiccated coconut

½ cup coconut cream

1 tsp vanilla essence

1 cup mashed banana (2-3 ripe bananas)

Method

Preaheat oven to 160oC Grease round cake tin (I used a small springform pan and it made the outer nice and crunchy)

Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl (I put mine in a food processor butter, sugar, eggs, vanilla, coconut cream, dessicated coconut, banana, flour)
Pour into tin and bake for approximately 1 hour

Icing

Cream 25grams softened butter with 75grams softened cream cheese Mix in 1 ½ cups icing sugar and 1-2 tablespoons lemon juice or milk

Now the next one I made was Ms Mee-Mee's crunchy muesli slice/bars. The recipe I was given was 1/2 this size, but I think you do need to double it. I also substitued quite a few ingredients.... but it's still really yummy. Quite moorish actually, and my girls devoured it for afternoon tea.

Ms Mee-Mee's Crunchy Muesli Bars

Ingredients

230g butter

110g muscovado sugar (I used brown sugar)

2 tbsp molasses (I used treacle)

300 g rolled oats

110g pecans (I chopped these, goes a lot further)

110g sunflower seeds (I used kernels)

110g sultanas (I used craisins but would taste great with sultanas and currants too)

Method: Preheat oven to 200 degrees celcius.

Put the butter, sugar & molasses into a saucepan and heat gently to melt. In a bowl stir together remaining ingredients. Add melted mixture and stir Press the mixture into a shallow, non stick baking tin and back for 20 mins. (I reckon 15 in a fan-forced oven)

My much needed comedy fix!

Can't wait 'til Samantha Who starts up again ... screens on US TVs Thursday so hopefully Friday night I will get my fix! I missed the first season which broadcasted on Channel 7 some time ago but downloaded a few eps onto my iPod and then based on that got hubby to download the rest and we watched a marathon on our telly with some popcorn and had a good laugh.

Season 2 so far has been really funny, and of course I just love the relationships between the cast - looks like a lot of fun. Bring on the laughs!

Nostalgia in the kitchen

At the bottom of my blog I have recipes pop up from aussiecooking.com.au and one that just popped up now is Lemon Delicious. I haven't had that since I was a kid - I'm pretty sure it was a 70's fad like Steak Diane and Bombe Alaska (which incidentally I had for many-a-birthday-cake as I'm not a real cake fan)..

Recipe for Lemon Delicious Pudding:

Ingredients

60 g butter

3/4 cup castor sugar

2 tablespoons lemon juice

1/2 cup self-raising flour

1 tablespoon grated lemon rind

2 eggs, separated

1 cup milk

Method:

Beat softened butter and sugar until it is well mixed and then stir in sifted flour, lemon rind and juice. Combine the 2 egg yolks with the milk, then gradually add to the mixture, beating well as you go. Beat the egg whites until there are soft peaks, and fold into the mixture. Pour into a greased 4 cup oven-proof dish.

Bake in moderate oven for 35 minutes.

Might give it a go if I'm feeling more *rested* tomorrow.

Vege garden update

Well given I woke up feeling absolutely blergh, I didn't progress as much as I had hoped. The grass and roots were a lot thicker than I anticipated and the shovel we have now isn't as good as my old one (will need to get another for a shorty like me!! I like a handle on top)

So this is how we started - hubby mowed it on the lowest setting yesterday afternoon and then used our friends electic edger to cut out the border and cross-hatch for easy (supposedly) removal of the grass..

And this is how far I got by hand this afternoon - before I conceded I'd probably need to either poison or saturate the grass!

And my lovely hubby took pity on me and used his braun to finish it with the shovel (and is now totally shattered!)

Tomorrow I'll do the brickwork and move the grass scraps... that'll be 1/4 done! (apart from planting... soil is lovely and rich, lots of worms! It's exciting!

Just also want to mention I love this - I'm not really sure what kind of shrub it is, but it looks so magnificent against our back fence.. loving it.

My crazy babes

It was crazy hair day at kindy today. I didn't remember until this morning so no hairspray and no time for anything aerodynamic, and the fact that I woke up with a cold didn't help my inspiration any either!

But here they are, with crazy hair and crazier faces! Bless!

Blergh...

.....have a cold. again.... this one's with the dripping nose and all that horror. Don't like it. Makes me grumpy and whingy and altogether pathetic.I'm not good at doing nothing and *resting* like hubby tells me to. I must drive him up the wall. Love him to bits though.

Tonight I'll update you on the garden it's started :D

Happy birthday Nan!

It's my Nanny's 77th birthday as of a few minutes ago - I don't know why but I'm having a little bit of a worry about this, suddenly 77 sounds elderly, 76 doesn't. Odd. She's finally going to retire in the next 3 months of so I guess that might be contributing to it too...? She's amazing, I love her dearly.

Anyhoo looking forward to seeing her of course, and my sister and her family who are coming for lunch tomorrow.

Going to give a new salad recipe a bash:

Vermicelli Noodle Salad

Ingredients:

100 gm (1 bundle) rice vermicelli noodles

50 gm fresh bean sprouts

¼ cucumber, diced

5-6 cherry tomatoes, halved

2 tablespoons unsalted roasted peanuts

2 tablespoons coriander leaves, diced

Seasoning:

1 tablespoon sesame seed oil

4 tablespoons sweet chilli sauce

2 teaspoons sugar

2 teaspoons salt

1 inch ginger, grated

Juice of ¼ lemon

Optional: ½ green chilli, diced

Method:

1. Soak vermicelli rice noodles in boiling water for 1 hour.

2. Drain vermicelli noodles and place in large bowl.

3. Add cucumber, tomatoes, peanuts and coriander leaves.

4. In another bowl, mix sweet chilli sauce, sugar, salt, ginger, lemon juice and chilli. Add some boiling water to create a runny sauce.

5. Pour sauce over the vermicelli noodles and mix well.

6. Add sesame seed oil, mix well and top with some coriander leaves before serving.

What's that I hear?

A shift of thousands of hands to the sky?

Definition of Wowser:

Wowser around 1900 shifted to its present meaning: one whose sense of morality drives them to deprive others of their sinful pleasures, especially liquor.

Tony totally has a stick up his butt. I think it's so firmly lodged up there you can see it when he smiles. Just watching Q&A with Tony Jones, he seriously needs to get with the times. He's telling a priest that everyone needs to aspire to live good catholic lives, abstinence, anti-abortion-led narrow minded outdated and overall backwards way of thinking.

How about one word for you Tony, RESPECT. Respect people - be kind, Respect Choices - less judgement. It's the only thing I don't like about living on the Northern Beaches, I live in your freaking electorate.

Well there you go...

Says it all really. Finishing up the contract today all technical reviews are done... The world of e-recruitment will have to go on without me for now... actually I'll probably miss it. Steep learning curve but much more to learn, shame I won't get to complete that knowledge quite yet. Hopefully in the future.

Back on the job-hunt. boo-hiss.

Please I beg of you....you PROMISED.

John Farnham, STAY IN RETIREMENT. I cannot handle another 'Jack's Back' or 'this is the last, last, ok, penultimate, no really the last time'.

You had a small comeback gig at SoundRelief. You did a good thing. Now go back to your corner because mate, seriously, it's getting embarassing. Mostly for you. This is not a whisper!

Clickety Clack MOOO!

I just love this book, I do all the appropriate noises and tones of annoyance by the Farmer... the kids and I have a ball! I hope we never ever, lose this book and that my kids will read it to theirs. Must get a few extra copies to put away for them in their 'to keep' boxes. I think I'll also add 'Where is the green sheep'? We've got a hardback and boardbook of this..

Clickety Clack, Quaack.

My little green project

Well given today is St Patricks day it's a fit and proper time to make the commitment now to start up my rotating crop vege garden. Not too sure where in our humoungous garden and I'm not too sure how big I'm going to go at this stage, but I've been visiting gardenate today and have come up with my first lot of stuff I'm going to sow...

Tomorrow I'll take the kids around the corner (literally!! no more than 300 m away) to Bonds Nursery and pick up seeds and seedlings, they'll love the adventure and it's supposed to be another sunny day (woot!! Thank goodness we have a reprieve from the rain).

So here's what's on the list:

Either purchase seedlings or seeds to germinate:

• Cauliflower
• Leek
• Cabbage

Buy seeds or seedlings to sow straight away:

• Beetroot
• Carrots

May the luck of the irish be with me!

Getting my head around what comes next...

With the job market being what it is, unreliable, contracting rates going down and nothing really in my area of expertise on offer due to the cost to companies I'm having to re-evaluate whether I work at all this coming financial year.

With 3 kids 5 and under, there are financial benefits to NOT working believe it or not. But it means there are sacrifices also. No more city-kindy - which the kids love and I worry about keeping up their stimulation levels - it's not even negotiable at one day a week as even with childcare benefits and rebate it wipes out most of our benefits.

So I also look at activities for the kids in this area

Playgroup - which we abandoned when we first moved into the area because of inadequate fencing and little babies, I think (hope) things have changed where that's concerned - so that's Thursday with an activity.

Dance classes - I think the girls would love this and I can't imagine it would cost the earth - I can look into it..

Swimming Lessons - these are expensive, I know this but it might be something I do with 1 of the girls a term. I'm sure my Nan would love to help out and have some time with the other two whilst I walk one of the girls down and back. Will need to look into cost.

Then there is my stimulation levels. Can't even factor me into this at the moment...

There are certainly advantages, at times when the girls are requiring discipline that I'm not with them 24/7 to reinforce it, and it's a challenge doing that reinforcement on the 3 days a week I am with them 24/7. If they were at home, there would be more consistency.

Another consideration is school starting this next year for Eloise and being able to drop her off and pick her up is something I thought I'd only be able to dream of doing. That could be a reality.

I just worry it will create stress, with less money, and less outlets... but at least we will on a known income, it's really about weighing up the lesser of evils.

Greetings from Seedy Hotel in Canberra.....

Well it's not the seediest but it's not un-seedy.... a mixture of decors from the 60's through to the 00's..... but it's pretty cheap (well I think they should still knock $25 off per room but meh) and they have wireless internet access and some foxtel channels, a fridge etc so it's not all lost!!

Kids love travelling, they're into it. They have had a lot of fun trying to wreck the place, pillow fights being the activity-du-jour.

I'm just tired. Here for a wedding that hubby is best man for tomorrow... so a bit of running around at the moment. He's currently still out running errands and having bloke time I suspect (cleverly disguised as errands I suspect!)

Need a haircut BADLY. Will hopefully have time tomorrow. Having problem stringing sentences together in my brain I'm so tired, let alone getting them down on blog here! Night!

Not biased, I truly do have the most beautiful girls!!

We did a try on this evening of some of our winter gear as we're off to a wedding this weekend in Canberra and wanted to see if this stuff fit yet for a coolish evening - and quite obviously it does !
They are so cute, if only just a little bit cheeky! I love this line from Gymboree it's called Holiday Friend :)

An abundance of Eloise-isms today...

She's amusing at the moment!

A total crack-up was during homework where we were working on 'greater than' (meaning more than) there were pictures of 5 ducks on one side of the page, and 8 on the other. The idea was to count the ducks in each group, write down the number underneath and then circle the group with 'greater number'... so it goes like this:

M: So this group has how many?

E: five

M: and this group has how many?

E: eight

M: So which group has the greater number?

E: The one with five in it... I like 5, I'm going to be 5 soon, five's a great number!

After homework and morning tea (gotta love that it's hot-cross-bun season !) we headed to the shops to go the post office and to our real estate to arrange some deadlocks, and whilst we were waiting the Estate cleaner walked in. Eloise pointed to her unfortunate dentistry (gold tooth and a little gappy) and declared 'Oh that lady's lucky, tooth fairy is coming to her house!' Quite embarrassing!

Moments later, having a sausage roll lunch at the local bakery she asked 'when did Laura and Olivia meet each other'? hmmm I said 'In Mummy's tummy'. Olivia corrected me - 'No we met each other when we were born'. hmmm

'When did I meet Laura and Olivia?' she then asked and I explained that she met them at the hospital shortly after they came out of mummy's tummy.. but you had seen them before on special x-rays of mummy's tummy when they still were growing there.

Tide (my Dad) came to visit tonight as he's on a fly-by-nighter trip for work at present. Was lovely to spend time and the girls were SO excited. I decided to tell them at lunchtime because any earlier and it would have been too much to cope with all day 'when is Tide coming?' which unfortunately did happen A LOT afterwards! Showing off at the dinner table over-excited play afterwards, it was a big treat. Miss Mum and Dad being 10 minutes away.

3 functional specs to go, but a lot of revisions (well cosmetic changes client wants) to do tonight... sigh!

Countdown continues..

Oh dear lord I'm at the pointy end where there's a lot of unresolved stuff. Only thing that more annoying than the unresolved stuff is the auto updates window that keeps coming up every freaking 15 minutes! I can't be bothered shutting everything down so I can do the updates but I'm getting increasingly annoyed. Seriously every 15 minutes, maybe even 10. argh.

One of THOSE moments in parenting

Where you look for that hole in the floor to swallow you up.

This morning whilst getting ready for kindy Eloise was discussing how she was in my tummy by herself and her sisters were in there together .. then she asked 'Mummy, but HOW did I GET in your tummy, did you eat me?'

I paused, bit my bottom lip and said, 'No darling, I didn't swallow you, you were smaller than a little seed when you began to grow in my tummy'.

'Where did you get the seed mummy?'

Looking around for hubby desperately here for back-up, he appears, I breathe a sigh of relief and then repeat the question to hubby for his share of excruiating awkwardness. 'ummmm, ummmm'.

'Daddy gave me the seed' I say thinking (hoping) maybe that will be the end of the conversation. and then the question I hoped she wouldn't ask 'HOW did Daddy get me in your tummy?'.

I said 'It was Mummy and Daddy love, it was magic' (not far from the truth I suppose!) she seemed pretty impressed.

Think I'm going to have to research and discuss what we should say should this topic come up again, is 4.5 too young to discuss sex education? I do think so... maybe being frank about it might help? Don't know!!

Countdown

Alot to do this week and not a lot of time.

I've got 33 functional specifications assigned to me to write, and so far I have completed 21. I have until Thursday COB to finish all of them (3 working days). I probably shouldn't be blogging but it gives me encouragement to countdown... the most difficult ones are almost done (last of those will be done today) and then the last 11 are pretty straightforward (I hope).

Taking a trip down pictorial memory lane

I've just spent some well wasted time going through some old stuff I posted on a forum I used to frequent:

January 21, 2006 (Laura and Olivia are 1 month old)
can't quite believe I just wrote that, but yes, Olivia and Laura are 1 month old! It's kind of a blur to be honest.. not much sleep and days are only different when Adam is home..!

Laura has finally surpassed her birthweight - and was 2.99kg last Tuesday (2.90 at birth) and Olivia has well and truly overtaken her sister at 3.1kg (2.63 at birth) Friday week ago... they are still feeding 3-4 hours sometimes stretching out to 5 but that's rare...

Since Thursday both have been going through their 6 week growth spurt (a little early!) with always wanting to be held and settled to sleep and always hungry and letting out those lusty cries!

Challenging time when I'm home alone with Eloise but I seem to be getting through them, and repeating to myself 'this part is only temporary' (mantra! )

Both are becoming a lot more alert and Laura is a real nicky-nose - she was awake for 3 hours in a row today Both are strong but Olivia takes the cake, it won't be long before she rolls and already is dying for tummy time. When she lays down on your chest and you're laying down she can support her head up and looks around with great control... very scary stuff!

Both love their food, but of course very differently.. Olivia is the formula fed bubba and guzzles like it's her last beer! As a result, she's a very windy baby but she's slowly improving bringing up her wind (we have had seriously 1 hour winding sessions even with upright feeding and brauers colic relief!) Laura on the other hand savours all her breastfeeds and EBM and sits up and immediately belches - she would put a truckie to shame

They are so incredibly different and so lovely in their own ways - they have swapped the personalities they had in the womb totally - Laura is now the placid one and Olivia is feisty... will be interesting to see if they swap again, or become more similar...Laura has an ultrasound at 6weeks to check for hip displasia - given she was breech (just formality) and I'm going to try and get Laura into see a paed about this feeding issue with formula (as much as I enjoy bf long term it is easier to formula feed with my workload).

March 9, 2006 (3 years ago)
Point form:
*2.5 months old
*Loving tummy time
*Smiling and giggling (Mummy is soooo funny you know!)cooing and gaahing (sooo cute)
*approx 4.8 and 3.8kgs (getting weighed on Monday) (Olivia being the biggest)
*Sometimes sleeping through the night but seldom on the same night and usually only if Laura sleeps with me*Still BF Laura - trialling formula in a couple of weeks
*No time for myself... and I have alternating and sometimes days at a stretch when both need to be held all the time (I call these my BAD days) I can't tell you how many times I've been to the loo with a baby in my arms or in the Baby Bjorn.. I've mastered taking down my drawers with 1 hand!

Good lord. EEEk.

I also came accross these pics from about 3 months later...

July 2006 - Laura and Olivia enjoying rusks - 'Yay, we love rusks'

Olivia swipes Laura's rusk:

Laura notices:

Sugar..sugar..

I love birthdays and I love putting on a birthday party for my kids but I really don't like the sugar rush of birthday parties. That said, I love watching this game, every year at each of the kids in our best mates' family (they have three kids) it's a modern spin on bobbing apples, it's bobbing doughnuts!

The kids have a cracker of a time until either they lose the plot because a) they can't seem to get their doughnut in the mouth, instead, spreading sugar all over their face, or b)they actually do get a few bites into it and it falls on the ground or c) they finish it and there's no more donut.

It's pretty hilarious.

Happy 5th birthday Lachlan!! XX

Eloise loves this game, not sure if it's the added incentive of food and prizes.. hmm

And here's a sample of musical statues

And birthday cake appreciation 101