And we're home

We're just home from our little holiday to Jervis Bay and a night in Sydney. It was so lovely and relaxing and despite a forecast before we left of a week of rain the weather was really good!

We did lots of beach walks and snorkelling, book reading and tennis watching, the Picasso and Harry Potter exhibitions and by pure good luck in our timing the Chinese New Year parade and fireworks too! Oh, and my first ever trip to an Ikea store!

Back to work tomorrow, but only 10 weeks until I finish up! Hopefully I'll find time between the unpacking to catch up on your blogs in the next couple of days. Hopefully I'll find the other camera cord so I can share some beach and snorkelling photos too! For now though, here's a couple of pics I love!

Axel getting in the way of A's packing!  "Please take me with you!"

Illumination in Sydney during the Chinese New Year parade.

Busy week

After being a homebody most of last week, I've been out and about catching up with people this week.

It started on Saturday really, we went to visit friends who have just come back from their honeymoon to see their beautiful wedding pics. I made profiteroles with custard and raspberry for dessert. They were super yummy and much easier than expected - with the added bonus that they used up 8 eggs! Our chickens are such good layers.

I've been to see the Handwritten exhibition at the National Library - if you are in Canberra it's well worth seeing. It's free but you are meant to book a timed entry ticket online.

On Monday I did my first pre-natal yoga class and really enjoyed it. I went in feeling pretty average and came out feeling great!

Yesterday I went into work to get my timetable and class lists - hopefully seeing these will stop the 'back to work' nightmares I've been suffering! Then I met a friend and saw the Japanese movie Arrietty. It was very sweet and I loved that because it was a kids movie I could understand most of the Japanese without needing the subtitles. I also went and bought a set of maternity jeans - so comfy

From Jeans West

Today I caught up with a friend I haven't seen in over a year! We are so incredibly slack and have trouble planning stuff during the school year so it usually takes a spontaneous phone call and a lot of luck for us to get together. It was so good to catch up!

When I've been home, the sewing/house projects have taken a serious back seat to the tennis. I'm afraid I'm a little addicted! We're off to the coast for a couple of days soon so I'm justifying it by thinking I need to get my fix now as I'll miss most of the final rounds!

Finally, a picture of the bump at 20 weeks! And of another maternity purchase - this one was online (and on clearance) and I'm pretty pleased with it! Please excuse the mess - this will be Baby A's room as soon as we sort out the 'office' stuff that it is full of at the moment!

The Name Game

I can't believe we're half way!

I also can't believe that two years ago I spent a good portion of my summer holidays drooling over wedding dresses online, this week my attention has been on cloth nappies! Who would have known there were so many options?

Anyway, that's not what I want to post about. We were talking last night and decided that we should really start thinking about names. But where to start? 

Back at our wedding we had little moleskine notebooks on each table with questions for our guests to answer. There were 'sensible' questions like "What is the secret to a long and loving life?" and ones that we hoped would give us a laugh, like the one below.

What's this got to do with baby names you ask? Another page in the book read...

Good for a chuckle but ultimately not all that helpful. 

A's mum gave us a Baby Name book but with names like Egberta* it pretty much fits into the same category as the wedding comments above.

The best starting point I've come up with is my name, which was my mother's maiden name. She didn't have any brothers to carry the name on so I got it. If we have a boy, I'd like to do the same as my maiden name could also be a first name and of all my 15 or so cousins, none of them will pass the name on! Interestingly, our married name could also be a first name so that could be a nice 'tradition' to start. I'm off to write a list!

Do you have a story for where your name came from? Or advice in picking one for your child? I'd love to hear it!

*Apologies if you are, or know an Egberta!

From the garden

A whole salad, fresh from our garden! Delicious!

Check out the size of these ones! We must be doing something right!

Baby gifts and football musings

I know it's a bit late for Christmas, the Easter Eggs are out already so I really should move on but I thought I'd share these goodies anyway. At our work Christmas lunch one of my colleagues asked if I thought little Baby A would get any Christmas presents this year. I laughed, thinking 'how silly', but of course when you add some excited grandparents to be the mix this is what you get!

Not a bad haul really! The book is very sweet. There is just one thing I'm not really impressed by - notice the colour theme? I think my MIL is trying to have some early influence on Baby A's choice of football team! A and I have already agreed that the influencing rights will be based on who wins the match between our teams (Essendon and Hawthorn) in July 2012! I am still considering writing a personal plea to James Hird to let him know exactly what is on the line here!

God forbid we let our child pick their own team! They might choose Collingwood or Brisbane or Carlton which just does not bear thinking about! There is a football story about A's father that always makes me laugh. When he was in primary school he came home one day and said to his mum, "I'm going to barrack for Collingwood." His mum quickly replied, saying, "Ok, well if you barrack for Collingwood, you know you'll have to always eat your cauliflower at dinnertime because that's what Collingwood supporters do." After thinking about it for a while A's dad came back and said "I've changed my mind, I think I'll barrack for Essendon instead." He couldn't think of a vegetable that sounded like Essendon so figured he'd be safe! How cute!

Anyway, speaking of family, I need to go clean up as I think we might have A's mum passing through tonight on the way to visit her dad in Taree.

Have a lovely day!

Adventures with a sewing machine

Being on holidays, with lots of time on my hands makes me want to do stuff I wouldn't normally bother with - like sewing. I'm not particularly talented at sewing, in fact it's hard work and I need clear instructions, but I think I'm getting better.

Before I get down to business with this post I'd better introduce the star of the show... my Nana's sewing machine. Apparently it was the first one she owned after the peddle version. The instruction manual introduces the 'latest' in Elna stitch technology developed in 1969 and presents some stunning pictures of  what one could create! Are you ready? I'm not sure you are....

However, laughs and stylish pictures aside, good old Elna is a sturdy workhorse and I can understand the very useful instruction book so I think we're on a winner!

So yesterday, a rainy Sunday, with the help of a Cuddly Quilt Kit from Spotlight and quite a few hours of patience this is what I achieved.

Finished size 76 x 91cm

Not too bad, huh? I did feel absolutely exhausted by the end though! 

This one will go to M + D, friends who are due the day before us!

There are no 'in progress' or 'how to' pictures as I needed all my concentration for the quilt. I will say though, it's really the logistics of cutting the right pieces to the right size that was the challenge, the sewing in itself is just lots of straight stitches in straight lines. So certainly not impossible for a novice sewer. I may even make another one yet!

Ta-da!

So, here it is. The very-nearly-so-close-I-can-taste-it finished front courtyard (or whatever the correct name for the space is).

Firstly, some of the early before/progress shots...

And now, an after...

Another before...

And an after with the shade out

And some more pictures because I'm feeling pretty pleased!

Took a lot of convincing but A finally let me write our names
in the concrete drain...

...so long as I covered it up with some pebbles

After my jitters yesterday I've decided I really do like the black. It does make the area look a bit smaller but I think it looks more defined and, well, finished. 

So, what's still to do? It's really just the patch of dirt you can see in the 5th photo. We haven't decided what to do with that just yet. Garden? Garden with path? Suggestions welcome!
Also on the list is sanding and doing the front door the same colour as the bifold doors and probably painting the front step in Domino as well. A powerpoint out there would be nice too, so we can remove the cord running out the bedroom window to power the awning!

For the moment though I think we've earned the right to sit back and enjoy and start shopping for a nice outdoor setting!

For a look back at the whole process click on the 'frontyard' label.

Paint it black

Today's project is painting the retaining wall. It's been a long time coming but finally we've had a few days in a row without rain! If nothing else, at least all the rain meant we had to leave the render for more than the recommended time before painting.

When we first looked at pavers we liked two colours in combination - Athens (which we chose) and Prague. Prague was a charcoal colour which we considered using for a border. In the end we decided with the strange shape area we had a border probably wouldn't work and as a alternative we'd paint the wall as close to Prague as possible. A trip to our second home (known to most as Bunnings) and we found a match in 'Domino'.

One coat went on this morning and after being used to the bare render for the last couple of months it looks very different. If I'm being honest, I'm a little unsure about it but it will probably just take some getting used to! A second coat and a picture will be on the way tomorrow!

2011 in review

We are home from our little holiday to Victoria to see the family and catch up with friends. Had a lovely time despite having a ridiculous cold for most of it! Oh how I miss cold and flu drugs!

I always get to looking back over the past year a bit late, but am going to run with it anyway. So here, in no particular order, are some 2011 highlights...

Finding out we are expecting Baby A!

The belly at 18 weeks

An amazing snow holiday in NZ including 2 days heliboarding

Raising our little chickens - Lucky, Luna, Hermione and Professor McGonagall

Finally making some progress with the landscaping of the front yard

Celebrating our first wedding anniversary with a visit to Sculpture by the Sea in Sydney

There are many other less exciting but equally good things I could add to the list - dinners with friends, visits from and to family, waking up to find Axel snuggled next to us, the simple joy of making a salad completely from our veggie garden or a pavlova from our chook eggs. I really do feel incredibly blessed and very grateful for life in 2011. 

Now for 2012, changes, challenges and all!