An update in pictures...

So much has been going on, and we've been so busy lately! It's late New Year's Eve, and we're at Mum and Dad's spending time with Lachlan while he's home (he's only back for 9 days!!). It's nice to see him, though sad that Meaghan is away in Europe so we're not all together as a big family. I'm missing her a lot - and from what I've heard, she's missing us too. She had a vomiting bug over Christmas too, poor girlie.

Anyhow, I don't really know how to sum up the last few weeks in words, so I'll do it in pictures instead. :)

Our Christmas tree - lights on:


Lights off:


And some of my favourite decorations:








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Our 3rd annual Gingerbread Day at Donna's - my house:

Our houses (nice look, Hamish!):


The fruits of our labour:


And on Gingerbread Day, Anthea got to have her first bath in a "big" bath (since we don't have a bath at our house) with her 8-year-old friend, Mairead - how happy does the bubby look?!?!

Christmas dress from Great-Uncle Jonathan:

Cute picture taken by Aunty Meaghan, the day before she left for Europe:

Mr. Fox - Annie's Christmas present from Uncle Lachlan:

First ever cuddles with Uncle Lachlan!


The chocolate piano I made for Lachlan:


Christmas Day with Pop (Alastair's Dad):

Daddy got a new computer game for Christmas... he was watching Anthea for me for a few minutes yesterday, and this is what I discovered when I came back:

And my parents earlier this evening... dressed up for a Dutch New Year's Eve/80th Birthday Party... how cute are they?!

Now, for some reason, those last two pics have decided to align left, and I can't fix it!!! Having tried several times, I'm just going to leave it - Happy New Year everyone!!! :)

Time goes so quickly...

My poor bubby has a cold, and has been so miserable and out of sorts for the last few days. :(

Hence my silence here... it will probably be after Christmas before I can update properly... but I hope you all have a lovely festive season! :)

Here's a picture of our dear girl a couple of weeks ago, before she got sick. She was in bed with us on a Saturday morning, laughing and carrying on! :)

And here's a recent family photo:

Just a quick one

I have much to blog about when I get a chance - we've been busy! The Christmas Tree is up, and we had our 3rd annual Gingerbread Day on Saturday which was enormously fun... lots of photos to share!

But for now, these will have to do. Dress - and photos - courtesy of my sister Meaghan! :)

Sooooo funny!!!

And this... ohmygoodness... this is classic. You have to check it out:

Babies

I'm still laughing. :)

For a laugh...

The 25 best/worst similes

1. Her eyes were like two brown circles with big black dots in the center.
2. He was as tall as a 6′3″ tree.
3. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had also never met.
4. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog makes just before it throws up.
5. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
6. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but a real duck that was actually lame. Maybe from stepping on a land mine or something.
7. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
8. The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.
9. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
10. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a bowling ball wouldn’t.
11. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
12. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you fry them in hot grease.
13. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
14. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil, this plan just might work.
15. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating for a while.
16. It hurt the way your tongue hurts after you accidentally staple it to the wall.
17. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.
18. The thunder was ominous-sounding, much like the sound of a thin sheet of metal being shaken backstage during the storm scene in a play.
19. The red brick wall was the colour of a brick-red Crayola crayon.
20. Fishing is like waiting for something that does not happen very often.
21. Her eyes were shining like two marbles that someone dropped in mucus and then held up to catch the light.
22. I felt a nameless dread. Well, there probably is a long German name for it, like Geschpooklichkeit or something, but I don’t speak German. Anyway, it’s a dread that nobody knows the name for, like those little square plastic gizmos that close your bread bags. I don’t know the name for those either.
23. Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter.
24. It came down the stairs looking very much like something no one had ever seen before.
25. The dandelion swayed in the gentle breeze like an oscillating electric fan set on medium.

Most, if not all, of these are submissions to a Washington Post contest.

Annie-the-Pooh and the Blustery Day :)

It was a cold, rainy day, and we'd been at a funeral... so she was tired and snuggly by the time we got back to Mum and Dad's house and I wrapped her up in her teddy suit :)

This one is a bit blurry, but don't you think she looks like a little
animal popping up out of its burrow?? :)

Cute and snuggly with Grandpa :)

Facebook addiction...

Last Thursday, I deactivated my Facebook.

It's a bit of a long story, but the short version is that Alastair and I have been thinking about it a lot... read lots of articles and stuff. We're uncomfortable with Facebook's privacy settings, amongst other things.

But since deactivating, it's become more than that. I didn't realise how addicted I was. I didn't spend hours each day on Facebook... I haven't had oodles of time to spare now that I don't have it. But I would check it quickly several times a day, (it might only take me one or two minutes) just to see what was happening... just to see what was going on... and I think it was actually a gossipping mechanism! I reasoned that I was just keeping in touch... but that's not really it. I was - or rather, I am - addicted to knowing what's going on. Not in a current-affairs-and-news kind of way, but in a who's-going-out-with-who and a what-is-so-and-so-doing kind of way... and that can't be a healthy way to spend ones life!

It's also become a habit... across the top of my browser I have shortcuts - email, online banking, blogger, weather... and Facebook. I check them all out of habit. On Saturday, before I knew it, I'd opened a new tab and clicked the Facebook shortcut. Given that my account is deactivated, it had a message to tell me that and to ask if I wanted to reactivate - and it was only when I read that message that I realised I was opening up Facebook without even thinking!!! That struck me pretty hard...

And so, I'm going without Facebook for now... and majorly suffering withdrawal symptoms, by the sound of all this! It reminds me of 1 Timothy 5:13 though, and I know Paul is talking about younger widows here, but read: "Besides that, they learn to be idlers, going about from house to house, and not only idlers, but also gossips and busybodies, saying what they should not." And verses 14-15 too: "So I would have younger widows marry, bear children, manage their households, and give the adversary no occasion for slander. For some have already strayed after Satan." Yikes!

And to finish... my friend Danielle's thoughts on Facebook.

Look at my little cutie!

Three posts in two days?!?!

Just a few more photos I wanted to share...

These first two are from Meaghan... and thanks to the "fish face" setting on her new camera:

Like mother...



... like daughter!



And yesterday we had a bit of a photo shoot with Mr. Elephant:

Extra photos...

Getting ready for Anthea's baptism, photos courtesy of Aunty Meaghan!

Update... finally!

The mastitis has cleared up, the baptism is over, and I've basically had a week at home - so good. Thanks to a number of things (including an email from my dear friend Andrea), I realised (after one of my Mummy's Magnificent Meltdowns on Tuesday night), that I have been pushing myself and my baby too hard in my efforts to be Super-Mum... and that I had to take a step back and re-evaluate everything. So this week, the floors have stayed in their needing-to-be-vacuumed state... we've eaten more meals from the freezer... and basically all I've managed to accomplish each day has been the washing and dishes. But, I have felt more rested and I have a happier baby for it... I have a more peaceful (though dirty) home... and my husband has come home from work to a happy wife... and that's what counts. Darling Donna always reminds me that some people actually have a DIRT floor in their home... SOME dirt on mine isn't the end of the world. :)

Today I had planned to go up to Newcastle with one of the mums from church to be a support to another of the mums, at the funeral of her dad... but with my tiredness and Anthea's fussiness, I had to opt out. I really wanted to be there for Jill to show my love, but my prayers will have to suffice, and I'll catch up with her next week or something... maybe a cooked meal will show my love more...

And so begins my life as Not-Super-Mum... and my life learning to say 'no' more often. Problem is, in order to get better at it, I have to practise...

"Not-Super-Mum"... sounds like a good alias... :)

Anthea is asleep at the moment. :) She sleeps well at night (7-8 hours), but I'm struggling with her sleep routine during the day... in that she doesn't actually have a routine for sleep during the day! She feeds 2.5 - 3 hourly, then some awake time... but sometimes she stays awake for the whole time til her next feed, and I'm not sure that she's supposed to!!! Anyhow... trial and error.... :)

She's growing up so much. The nine and a half weeks since her birth have passed so quickly!

In mid-October, we did a Friday-to-Tuesday trip down to Melbourne for Alastair to do the "Around the Bay" 100km bike ride, stopping overnight each way with Alastair's Nan in Benalla. I think I might finish this post in pictures...

Daddy with his baby, at his favourite landmark:



Anthea having morning cuddles with her Great Nan:



Outside Nan's unit before we left:



Having a picnic:





Cuddles with Aunty Donna:



All snuggly and cute:



Last Sunday was Annie's baptism day - 30th October 2011:



















And that will have to do for now... I have a few other photos I wanted to put up, but they're attached to various emails, and I need to find them, save them, etc, before I can put them up...