Wagga Wagga adventures

We recently spent a few weeks in the largest inland town in New South Wales... Wagga Wagga!

Ben was doing some work there and the trip perfectly coincided with flooding in the area. Above, you can see the flood plains of the Murrumbidgee living up to their name. The town centre, north, west, and east Wagga were evacuated but luckily we were in the southern end of town which is higher up. Luckily, the levies were about half a meter higher than the flood peak and the centre of town did not get innundated.

The boys (all three of them) loved the aviation museum at Temora. It was so wet that day that the rain was coming in sideways and I thought we'd be spending the night there because even the LOCALS were worried about road floods, but we made it back to Wagga alright.

The roundhouse train museum at Junee was a favourite with all of us and we even got to see the turntable in action! Sailor didn't seem especially impressed at the time, but later when the boys were watching Thomas the Tank Engine, he hooted excitedly in recognition of the steam trains.

At Blowering Dam in the Snowy Mountains we tried to see how far we could throw rocks into the water and Little Man loved throwing the clay chunks and seeing them explode on the embankment. Sailor slept in the car.

I fell in love with this town during our stay. The people are so friendly, there are no traffic jams, a great public swimming pool, beautiful surrounding countryside, and best of all there's heaps of Catholics there!

Here's hoping we get back there one day...

A first birthday adventure

Sailor turned one last week!

While he was happily oblivious to the fact that he turned one, we lapped it up by enjoying some cake and taking the children to a wildlife park near us which is one of those places which has kangaroos and emus wandering around posing for German tourists.

Highlights of the day involved watching Little Man trying to hug the neck of an emu, watching Little Man slip not once but twice in a concoction of mud and roo poo and walking stiffly away, watching Little Man try to catch a quoll and me pushing the pram for 1 km along a hilly bush track up and down log steps (while Ben was elsewhere enjoying a bush tucker tour!). Throughout a lot of this, Sailor was blissfully asleep.

The best part of the day was that the kids conked out early, and I now am a fully rejuvenated mother!

Seaside tonic

What is the best cure for a tired and grumpy toddler?

An evening visit to the seaside of course!

 Involving a splash...

... a scramble...

... and a bird as big as yourself...

Nine months later...

I do believe it's been nine months since my last post... The reason? Pregnancy equals illness for me and while this time round it has not been as bad, I had no energy to do anything but the bare minimum. I am not one of those ladies who glows!

So our gorgeous little boy number 2 (aka Sailor Boy) was born on the 8th of Feb 2011 in a fantastic speedy delivery of 30 minutes. No time even to get to the gas! Two days later I was struck down with Bell's Palsy and rushed off to hospital after dinner with a numb left side of face and an uneasy feeling that I had suffered a stroke.

More on all this another day, but suffice to say that after three weeks of looking creepily like I'd had a botox job gone wrong, with a permanently open left eye, I slowly began to get some movement back, Thank God my face is now back to normal.

Our little bubba is now four months old and despite being a very refluxy baby is starting to settle down

Now, I can start to think about blogging and crafting and reading!

Hurrah!

Melbourne holiday

We visited my sister and her family in Melbourne last week and had a fantastic time!

Our Little Man got to spend some quality time with his cousin who is three months older. LM followed his older cousin around the house, mostly in awed silence at his chatty, busy cousin. Below my sister is blowing bubbles for them which is always a thrill.

Melbourne was REALLY cold, wet and windy but we still managed to fit in lots of activities, including...

A fun, fun swim at a local indoor swimming pool...

A trip to the city by train...

The best ever visit to Collingwood Children's Farm...

... which allowed our Little Man to get up close to all the animals..

and a visit to an organic farm in the city in which the cousins were far more interested in the bicycles than anything to do with growing vegetables!

Best of all the cousins grew closer and loved playing together.

I'm back!

After some severe morning sickness and a bout of Gastro to boot, I am now somewhat back to normal and have the energy to blog again!

My sister and I think we caught the Gastro bug from some sour cream that we had with wedges at a cafe. It could have been much worse than a few days of (extra) vomiting and the runs, so I'm thankful for that :-) A few days in bed was the best remedy.

I've been wanting to post some more about Ben's work on our flat and one of the major things he did was to paint the brick veneer wall in our living room. The dark brick made that part of the room a gloomy space and was somewhat dated. 

Ben used  Porter's Paints interior Limewash and had a big job with the porus brick absorbing all the paint.

After all his hard work, the wall came up a treat and the room looks much more spacious now.

Two adventures

On the weekend we visited a place called the Brick Pit, which was obviously once a quarry for making bricks. It's now an environmentally protected area due to a rare green and gold frog that lives there and it was turned into a great aerial walk which circumnavigates the pit.

It took a while to convince our Little Man to stop taking the exits so we could do the full walk, but he finally got the idea and we walked the whole way around :-)

On Monday, we had the chance to catch up with two friends with whom I volunteered in Indonesia about five years ago. Bev lives up by theLakes and Mel and her Indonesian husband Dikky were visting. We took to two hour drive up there to have lunch and catch up after a long time apart.

It was a very happy reunion for me. It brought back so many memories of Indonesian life and the friends I made there. It also allowed me to reflect that at that time I could not have imagined my future as it is now, and how happy and blessed I am with my little family.

Bev lives right on the water and on such a calm day, the water was glassy and smooth. A view one could never grow tired of!

Thanks to Bev for her hospitality and for such a great lunch. Even though Dikky and Mel were exhausted from travelling they made us welcome and it was a day I'll never forget.

"We forgot to take his plug out for the photo!" says Bev.

Latest news

We've been quite busy here lately and here are a few things that have been happening:

1. Our Little Man was sick with a 39 degree cel. temperature on Sunday. It was his first 'big' illness, poor thing! He lay in our arms all day and was burning hot. We took him to Emergency and they said we could wait 3.5 hours or go home and see if he get better, so we went home and after a somewhat disturbed night he was better the next day.

2. I'm pregnant! Seven weeks so far. I've been vomiting as usual but this time I seem to be able to keep it more under control with Maxolon and vitamin B6 tablets. Please pray that all goes well with the pregnancy!

3. My ever-resourceful husband has amped up the renovations on our flat and in between work, caring for me, and helping our with our Little Man, he's been painting, fixing lights and chipping off the cork veneer from the kitchen walls. An amazing man!

I'll be posting pictures of what he's done to the place when I get my act together.

4. I've joined a FANTASTIC mother's group which answers all I'd been looking for in a group. There are many mothers connected to my Catholic primary school and they are all fun-loving yet take their faith seriously, and many want to homeschool! What's more they are lovely ladies.

Helping hand

Our little man loves nothing better than to help his dad.

My Amazing Brother

I have one younger brother (besides one in Heaven) and he is a pretty amazing guy, so I'll tell a bit about him. He was homeschooled all through high school in a time when homeschooling was not yet as big as it is now in Australia. Most people were against my mum and dad's decision to homeschool him.

He didn't do the HSC or a literature degree but I'd say he's better read than me (in all the books that count). He overcame a great many difficulties to complete a music degree in Classical Voice and he has one of the most beautiful baritone voices you will ever hear!

He has now just completed a diploma in IT, and was consistently in the top three in the class. Before the course has even ended he's been snapped up by a data company and he started his new job today! All this and he and his lovely wife are expecting their first baby in October!

So not only is he clever but he's funny, caring and in general a great brother to have. I'm so proud of him!

Pop and Grandson

If this photo were in a competition, I think it would win "The Best Grandather with Grandson Photo" category:

Wordless Wednesday - Father and son

My other clever sister

My older sister, Emma, is another talented member of my family.

She is a professional jeweller and made for me a BEAUTIFUL rose-gold and green-gold quartz necklace for my wedding day, which you can kind of see in the picture below:

She mostly does custom designs for people, and she also creates beautiful devotional pieces:

I love them all but the geometric crucifix is a definite favourite of mine.

So nice to be a member of such a talented family!

Stay tuned for my talented brother...

My Monkee-obsessed sister

... created this Monkees picture for me. That's me playing the tambourine!

Clever, isn't she!

I wonder why I look so nervous? Is it because Mickey, my favourite Monkee, is standing behind me?

Two cousins

My sister, her husband and their little boy (three months older than my Little Man) are up from Victoria for a few days and today I took our Little Man over to play with him.

They were so cute together, and with Nana!

They were a bit wary at first... (it's been several months since they've met)

But our Little Man was soon keen to give his cousin a kiss...

... but then our Little Man poked his cousin in the face and it all ended in tears!

How high is your voice when speaking to toddlers?

... because my voice goes REALLY HIGH when I'm speaking to our Little Man...

But I just read this at http://www.dailymontessori.com/

Speaking in high pitched tones as when they were babies "can impede in their language development in learning how to really talk. Toddlers need to be spoken to like a real person and not ‘like a dog’ anymore. They are smarter than we give them credit for and absorb everything that is said to them. This is a sensitive period for language in children so take advantage of it and model it properly.".

I'm not sure if they mean simply the high-pitched tone or also speaking in 'motherese' to de widdle wums.

I definitely never spoke in fractured English, but my voice at times can reach decibels only heard by dogs ... I think I'll start using more of a normal tone with our Little Man now, except when I greet him in the morning. If you can't go high then, well there's no hope for the world.

Lake visit

Yesterday we took our Little Man to visit a lake near our place.

It's so beautiful there - a lush haven in the city.

He was fascinated by the assortment of water birds there, including a massive gander, which liked having his photo taken:

I'm glad one of you is looking at the camera!

I had to restrain our Little Man from grabbing their beaks. Dirty things!

Looking out over the water. We really should do this more often!

A Maiden Upstairs

My sister Bridget has just created a fantastic blog:  A Maiden Upstairs. She'll be writing about a lot of things she does as a homeschooled teenager.

I'm lucky to have her as a sister. Who else could I go to the beach with and quote the whole of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers while playing in the waves?