Thursday, October 19, 2006

Dearest Daughter - link

Have a look at this link: Dearest Daughter

Wednesday, October 18, 2006

You will all be relieved to know...

the blue gell in ice packs is non toxic and after a very long soak in a bath your toddler WILL return to their original colour. Thankfully we have dark blue carpet. The jury is still out on her clothes.

Monday, October 16, 2006

We hand in the keys to the old house on Friday.

FINALLY! It is done - well almost. The place is almost completely finished with now. We spent the day out there packing and cleaning yesterday. The kids were so good while we were out there. Wandering around the trees and listening to the birds I felt a little wistfull, but the move is a good one. The thistles and prickles I had to pull out of Erin were testament to that.

Erin:
is growing up so fast! Today she helped me in the garden and was an actual help. Yesterday she did SUCH a good job helping me pack up around the old house. While she is still deffinately a two year old with all the accompanying tanties and boundary pushing behavior, I have been so proud of her lately. The way she is with Billy is just beautiful to watch. Last week she brought out a hat (knitted red hat with ear flaps) and put it on Billy and said "Oooohhhh gorgeous!! Gorgeous boy, gorgeous Billy boy! Gorgeous Billy boy in a gorgeous hat..." She has been hugging him and playing with him so much lately. She mothers him and her toys. One morning last week she ran up to me with her toy monkey and said "Look Mummy, baby monkey!" then pulled up her pyjama top and 'fed' the monkey LOL. She was in shoe heaven when 5 pairs of shoes that I bought on e-bay arrived. She has tried every pair on at least five times. She did stop my heart a few days ago thought when she wandered out the front gate and accross the busy road after the dog. My back was turned for about a minute and they both took off. The gate is now kept closed at ALL TIMES.

Billy:
ROLLS! From his back to his front. He usually has a go at doing this during nappy changes - the troublesome tike! He is just so precious. I am having difficulty trying to get him into a routine even now at four and a half months. He is a shocking catnapper. He also still wakes up at least twice overnight - but can I tell you a secret?? I love getting up to him overnight. In those quiet moments I get to just focus completely on him. He is in his cot now but because he is still waking him overnight so much I have put him in my study rather than putting him in with Erin. Today he was sitting on my knee while I ate and he kept grabbing at my food. he will grab anything now. I have to give him something to play with while I read to him or he tries to eat the book! He belly laughs at Erin heaps now, especially in the bath when he is on his belly laying on my arm. He and Grizzabella spend a lot of time gazing at each other. There are some new photos in the photo album and some of them have Billy with Grizz. Some of my favourites that I have taken recently are of Billy on his belly with Grizz on hers looking into his eyes :) I have some great ones of his grins too - check this out!



His eyes are still so blue. His dedication is going to be on 2nd of December at 4:30pm.

The house:
well, it's a mess - again. I just can't seem to get myself organised without my computer. Hopefully once the keys are handed in for the old house Jon can fix up my computer. Infact, now Jon will be more available I have a great big list of jobs for him - mwahahahaha! But don't tell him that. I am hanging out for my kitchen cupboards now it looks like Billy will be on the move soon. Crawling babies and stuff in boxes just doesn't mix.

The garden:
is starting to look a little overgrown, but once the lawns are cut it should be OK. The mild detergent doesn't do anything. I think the bugs put out a call to their mates to say there were free showers! So I got some white oil today and sprayed the little buggers. Hopefully that does the trick. I also used it on some scale on a few of the camelias. I got a compost bin that I put up this weekend. I filled it within a few minutes putting it up. Hopefully we will get some great compost which we need here. The soil is very sandy here so it needs lots of organic matter. We have planted 3 types of potatoes in tyres. As they grow, I will stack up more tyres and fill them up with mulch. Where the mulch is against the plants they will grow more spuds so we will end up with lots of yummy spuds! We have also planted some sweet peas and sunflowers in boxes outside Erin's window and in the garden. The sweet peas are dwarf variety that don't need to be trained up on trellis or stakes and have big flowers.

Craft:
has taken a bit of a back seat at the moment because I have been doing a bit more work as a moderator for my online Mum's group. I have done a bit more on my lovely jacket though. I am knitting it out of a yarn that is part tencil and is so soft to work with, but still very easy to knit. It is a purple, plummy type colour and is beautiful. Of course, it will take me a year to knit it!!

Jess


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Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Adult world...

Adult World Must Let Girls Be Girls

Please read this article, pass it on, discuss it with your friends and family - especially those with little girls. The content of this article is so important. Just my bit to get this subject into the public arena a bit more.

Oh, and is a music clip along the same lines to lighten the mood if you have broadband!

Date night!

We had our first 'date night' last week. I made a special tea for Jon and I, gave Erin some little party pies in the shape of animals, rice and veg and some apricots and custard for dessert and put her through the bath while I had a shower. Then I put my party dress on and put Erin to bed. After the kids were in bed, we had a romantic dinner just the two of us! We will be doing this regularly from now on and it was just lovely.

Erin:

is doing brilliantly. She did a somersault today. No prompting, nothing. She just did it! Then she walked over to a gardening book that I have and picked it up. She looked at the cover (which had a picture of chillies growing on a bush) and said "Chillies Mummy, look, chillies for Erin, mmmmm yum!" I promptly rang Jon and said "I may have carried her in my womb but she's your child!" I don't know how she even knew what they were! She is nuts about the food at the moment. Yesterday while I was cooking lunch I got a running commentary of "Poor Erin! Erin needs food, oh poor Erin. Some pasta please Mummy? Some Muffins please Mummy? Some peas please Mummy? Some cheese please Mummy? Oh poor Erin, Erin needs food!...." Her language is getting even clearer. She is now very fond of telling me that "It's not quite bed time Mummy, no, not quite bed time". Usually on her way to bed LOL The tantrums have abaited somewhat as she is getting better (although she is still a snot monster!) which is a relief all 'round! She still has the firey temper though, and always will in my opinion.

Billy:
is just precious at the moment. The grins and belly laughs are just awesome! He has moved to his big boy cot because he kept hitting his head on the end of his bassinette. I probably could have (should have!) moved him sooner but that would mean admitting he is getting big *sniff*. His grasp is very confident now and he grabs toys in the bath to chew on. I am going to get a bath seat for him because he is just too heavy for me to hold up in the bath now the great lump! He has a devoted follower in Grizzabella the wonder hound. I have some great photos of her with him which I will share soon. Whenever he is out there she is laying near him or hovering around him. He thinks she is just brilliant (as does Erin, how many other dogs let you draw on them with chalk??!) and she is just besotted. Billy has been spending a fair bit of time outside with the warmer weather and is trying out some of his shorts and short sleeved rompers. He chats VERY LOUDLY a lot of the time to anyone or anything nearby.

The house:
has had an exciting addition! We have end tables to our couch! They match the bookshelves. We bought them from Chickenfeed. They are 4 cubes, 2 with shelves and 2 with cupboard doors. They stack one on top of the other and we have 2 each end, 1 cupboard and 1 shelf. The surround sound speakers are now at ear level and there is somewhere safe(er) to keep the remotes.

The garden:
is going great guns. I gave all the camelias a light haircut to get them back from the driveway and/or encourage bushier growth and more flowers for next season. Erin loved this because she would sit under where I was pruining while the leaves and flowers fell down around her. I have also started rescuing a peach/nectarine tree. It is a wonder the poor thing is even standing! If you ever had one of these, you'd know that they need a bit of TLC, pruining, feeding, pest and disease control. Well, this one has had NONE of that. It had garden rubbish piled up around the base to about half a foot up the trunk and was amongst long grass. I pulled all this back to find about a billion and one slaters infesting the wood in the trunk, I figure the birds will make a bit of a dent in that population now it is all exposed. Then on closer inspection I noticed quite a few pests on the actual tree. I put doublesided tape around the trunk and left it a couple of days to see if I could get and idea of what was going up and down the trunk. The simpler question would have been what ISN'T going up and down the trunk! Slaters, ants, aphids, mites, you name it. Because it is still early spring I didn't want to just kill them all because a small population of these types of things creates a food supply for the preditors. Preditory insects usually emerge later in the season when their prey is plentyful. So I have just sprayed a weak detergent solution to kill off the population a bit to get it to a maniagable level. I will do this a few more times and see if the population slows down a bit. It looks like we will still get a crop. There are small fruits all over the poor tree! It is just a matter of looking after it so it doesn't drop the fruit before it is ripe.

Craft:
I have finished a mock cable beenie for Katie and Jeremy's baby and need to start some matching booties. I have cast on the first few stitches of a jacket for ME! yay!

Jess



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Saturday, October 07, 2006

Free Hugs



This is awesome, although I wouldn't want a free hug 'cause I like my personal space thankyou! This may not work too well if you don't have broad band, but give it a go.

The story is, there was a guy in Sydney who was giving out free hugs. The 'officials' banned him, but he started a campaign and he's out there giving free hugs again. Very 'fight the man'!

Monday, October 02, 2006

Kids and I have colds

The kids and I have colds today and feel awful so this will be short!

Erin:
is beautiful as usual! She had been so good considering how awful she feels. She loved having her Nanny and Poppy here for the weekend. She didn't have one full blown tanty all weekend! There was one beauty last week after playgroup though! She got a funny rash last night that appeared and spread suddenly then disappeared within a few hours, very weird. She seems fine now though. I am bidding on some megabloks for Erin's Christmas Present on e-bay and she keeps wanting to look at the picture of them so I guess I have chosen the right gift for her!

Billy:
is growing like a weed! He slept for over 6 hours straight last night, even though he is sick. I have parked his bed in the hallway and like having it there. It is out of the way and I can get to it easily. I feed him overnight in the lounge which stops me falling asleep which means we both get a better night's sleep. I'm not too stressed about him still feeding overnight, he is growing at such a rate he needs the extra food I think! He has given up the dummy. He lost interest in it a bit and I figured, why push the issue!

The House:
is a mess, let's not go there.

The garden:
is growing almost as fast as Billy LOL. Having Kester here has been enlightening. She identified most of the plants. The plant that I love the smell of at the front door is called a Daphnie!

Craft:
It's all happening slowly!

I had better keep going.

Jess


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