Monday, December 29, 2008

Christmas at our place

Here are several photos of our lovely Christmas-time....

We didn't get the kidlets Christmas Eve this year, so it was a lonely old time with just the three of us. We sure missed em! They were back Christmas morning, after my parents and sis arrived. We had pressie time and a fabulous lunch with a ham that D cooked to perfection - picture below!

Pressie time! Lolly got a xylophone from Mum, same as I got my first Christmas! She has had a great time playing with it since, she really gets going!


Snail got a Leap pad, here she is going over to show my Mum! (I think she likes it :-))



Here is Smash with the now-traditional hide-behind-Elmo Christmas shot (We already owned Elmo, he wasn't from Christmas).


Christmas dinner was delish - thank you D!

The Ham of excellence!


Lolly's Chrismas dinner! Some potato, asparagus tips, and some ham - Yum!


Lolly tries a little ham bone...


The wreckage of a good meal.


In the afternoon, D went to collect strawberrypot, my SIL, for more xmas fuds (D made pork belly that was to DIE for!) and pressies. Here is Snail with her new Bunny, Millie.


Kidlets went back to their mother's on Boxing day, and we've had a quiet time here since then. I'm getting used to having D at home! He has 3 weeks off starting Friday, which we are both looking forward to - kidlets back Friday as usual, too.

In Lolly news, she has 2 !!!! teeth! The first cut about two weeks ago with our colds and sore tummies from Sydney. It's the bottom left. Its neighbour has also poked its head up in the last couple of days!

Tuesday, December 23, 2008

Christmas preparations!

Some photos from the last few days I thought I'd share :-) First, our collection (okay, so only two so far) of foolish and annoying singing Christmas animals! The penguin was D's choice for this year, to join last year's gobble gobble turkey.


Christmas is very tiring. Snail needed a little rest while putting up the decorations!


View from a sling, Lolly in the Maya Wrap ring sling, out in the garden while D was planting the old Christmas tree out in the yard.


The old tree in a new home! We had this one for three years! It looks short here, but is actually down a level.



Here is our new one....



Our gorgeous girl - 9 months old!


Our other gorgeous girl, 9 years old!

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Meet our demands or teh mouse getz it!

Strawberrypot, we have teh mouse.

Meet our demands or teh mouse getz it!


We mean business!



If you want to see teh mouse alive again, be at our place for Christmas dinner, with presents! And possibly pudding!

Or the mouse is for it!!!!!

We mean business!!!!

Christmas Lolcat...

Monday, December 15, 2008

Sydney!

Bub and Smash and I went on an adventure to Sydney last week! There was a festival weekend there with some friends, and we went down early and came back late to see some family and some sights.

Lolly and went down on Thursday, with a dear friend and her gorgeous girl. We stayed right in the city, in a nice apartment just off Oxford Street. Okay, so it could have been airconditioned in the bedrooms and had less drunk people walking past at 3 am yelling abuse at each other, but hey, it was okay. Well, we were completely lacking in sleep for the first couple of nights, but we lived... Here is Lol in her 'Security' shirt when we arrived.



On the Friday I took Lolly out to meet her great-grandmother and great-uncle! It was a fun train ride, and we had lunch and went back to Grandma's for a bit, then trained home. It was lovely to see them!! Lolly liked the train and slept most of the way.


Saturday morning Lolly and I went to pick up Smash from the airport, then we all went on a bus adventure to a Sydney online friend's to meet up with the festival people! It was so great to meet everyone in real life, and to see all the lovely chidlers and bubs, a really wonderful day.

The group met up again at the beach on Sunday, a lovely small netted beach on the Harbour, with a great cafe to provide much needed caffiene! Lolly had her first dip in the sea, though I had forgotten to charge the camera, so no photos :(. We had a lovely day all round.

Sightseeing on Monday with friends on the Harbour. Here is Smash doing some street theatre!



Taronga Zoo on Tuesday, which was great fun (though I was a bit sick) - here is Smash and R watching the bird show.


Smash and Lolly outside the reptile house.


And, thanks to M, who took most of the wonderful photos that day, some giraffes!


We were all very tired and happy to be home again Wednesday. It was a wonderful trip, lots of good friends, nice food, good chats, and fun times.

Lolly and I have been sick ever since with a tummy bug and then a cold, so no news since, really. Snail is on holidays now too, Lolly and I are home recuperating in front of the telly.

Wednesday, December 3, 2008

Green memes #1 and #2



I got tagged with 2 green memes by my friend anastasia_wolf at Live Dreaming :)

1) Link to Green Meme Bloggers. (use image if you like)
2) Link back to whoever tagged you. (no need to wait to be tagged!)
3) Include meme number
4) Include these guidelines in your post
5) Tag 3 other green bloggers.



I tag Strawberrypot at Postcards from the Hedge,

Pagan Rach, whose lovely blog is at left of the middle,

and Possum, whose consumption challenge is blogged at Possum's Journey.



So here goes!

1) Name two motivations for being green?

Common sense. We are clearly living in an unsustainable way. There is a limit to what the planet can take.

Responsibility. When you know better, you should do better.


2) Name 2 eco-UNfriendly items you refuse to give up?

TV - and it's a biggun!

A car. We live a fair way out in the sticks.


3) Are you at peace with or do you feel guilty about number 2?

Currently at peace-ish. We are looking to minimise our impact and offset the less sound aspects of our lifestyle, so there's definitely guilt too!


4) What are you willing to change but feel unable to/stuck with/unsure how to go about it?

Locally grown and bulk food. Convenience still wins the day a lot here ;)


5) Do you know your carbon footprint for your home? If so, is it larger/smaller than your national average? (http://www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx)

Don't know, but it's about average (don't have the figure...). Looking to lower it, definitely!


6) What's eco-frustrating and/or eco-fantastic about where you live?

Eco-frustrating - distance to things, we do a lot of driving and have 3 vehicles.

Eco-fantastic - acerage! We have great plans for sustainability here, and the space to do it!


7) Do you eat local/organic/vegetarian/forage/grow your own?

Some local, are starting to grow our own.


8) What do you personally find the most challenging in being green?

At times it feels like a constant guilt and constant struggle that will never be "done". It also seems insurmountable. So many issues, just the one family!


9) Do you have a green confession?

I love driving! Oh yeah...the open road! I feel bad about petrol, but fervently hope that some substitute is eventually widely available so we can all keep our cars!


10) Do you have the support of family and/or friends?

Yes, family and friends are supportive and/or green themselves.


------------------------------
Geen meme #2

1. Do you use baking soda toothpaste or baking soda shampoo? If not, would you consider it?

Nope to both of these, would probably try the shampoo.


2. Do you make any home cleaning products?

Yes, I've made "smelly disks" from baking soda (use in nappy buckets/stinky zones/bins). I also use plain vinegar and baking soda for a lot of jobs.


3. What is your top green issue at the moment?

Growing our own food. We have the motivation, and the space, and we've started out, but time is against us. It takes ages to set this up, we are moving slowly.

4. Given unlimited cash, what is on your fantasy green wishlist?

Permaculture gardens all done (that is, Dave no longer has to work, so can garden more!), solar power, solar hot water, more water tanks, some cool bikes to tow the kids in, more land and trees to plant on it!

5. Have you implemented any new green act/behaviour/product this month?

We had a water tank installed in the past few weeks. It's plumbed to the loo, and also will water our vege garden.

Photo Op

Well, D and I were out Christmas shopping on Saturday and accidently bought me a new camera! Apparently, despite protestations to the contrary, Dave was planning one as my Christmas pressie! So I am now the proud owner of a Canon EOS 40D!!!!!

Here are some shots...





In other news, Lolly and I are off to Sydney tomorrow! A friend and I are going to a festival there over the weekend! Smash is flying down on Saturday. We are staying for a couple of days sightseeing, and seeing my Grandma (Lolly's Great-Grandma) as well. Gotta pack!

Tuesday, November 25, 2008

Water, water, everywhere!

We have had a few water themed events here over the past couple of weeks! Of course, there are the floods and storms of the past weeks, we were fine here, thank goodness, didn't even lose power! Just near us some roads were out - Dave took some shots of the flooding nearby (this was on Thursday last week):



We had our watertank installed (just after the big storm the weekend before last, in time to collect rain all last week!). It's a 5000l tank and is plumbed to the toilet. We're also going to use some of this water for the vege garden. Not that we've needed to water the garden in a couple of weeks with all the rain! We got a great deal on the tank, installation and all for the price of the rebates! Yay!


And, finally, we all went swimming in the spa for the first time this season. This was Lolly's first ever swim in a pool! She loved it! Snail is a total waterbaby and loves to swim, so was very happy to hop in and play. Smash helped!


In an unrelated photo op - here is Lolly investigationing Pippin our dog. Needless to say, Pippi is a very loving creature who is great with kids!

Monday, November 17, 2008

Lolly at 8 months!

Lolly is 8 months!

Taking an idea from a lovely blog an online friend of mine has – From Boob and Beyond – I thought I would write about what Lolly is like at 8 months of age, the grand old age of which she has reached today! Here is Lolly at 5 days old.


And here she is on Saturday, two days ago.


Lolly is a happy, smiling, grinning, laughing soul. She is very amused by the world in general, especially funny faces, noises, the pets, the Dadda, and Smash. She finds life to be delightful. She loves to be tickled! Tickling causes squeals of delight, and anticipation of delight. Lolly getting tickled by the Dadda:

She loves to grab everyone's hair, Snail is not a fan of this!

Lolly is thoughtful, and loves to investigate things. She uses her hands, she points at things, practising with her index finger. She has a wonderful thinking face. Here, she is investigationing the camera.


Her current interests include Mr Fish, the inside tubes off toilet and paper towel rolls, and tags of all kinds.

She has a new interest in board books, and likes to flap the pages back and forth (and eat the corners, too). Some of her favourite things to play with are an old remote for a TV we don't own anymore, and a wireless Mac keyboard with no batteries. She pokes the keys and bangs other toys on it, and particularly enjoys doing this while I have the other (working) keyboard on my lap! She likes noises made by toys clicked together. She loves to sit with toys all around her and play, so long as she can see the mumma at all times!

I wanna change the channel Mumma!


She is a keen conversationalist, and loves to talk. She chats a lot, and makes fun blah blah noises, and general burbles, and funny sounds on my shoulder or her own arms. Sometimes she mimics our sounds, and we suspect she'll be saying 'dadda' in no time! She recently learnt to click her tongue, and likes to do that with us. She likes music and will burble along to songs.

She enjoys food, even if only in little bits so far as she is breastfed.


Her favourites include banana, potato, apple pieces, and rusks. She loves to sip from cups, we give her tiny sips of water in a cup to play with sometimes, she really enjoys that.


Lolly is very social, and enjoys all the friends we go to see. She likes to come shopping with me, she will happily sit in the sling for ages just looking at the shops, people, noises and lights. She likes to sit on my knee for a coffee (the coffee is for me, LOL) at cafes. She naps in the car, but sometimes doesn't like that we live a little far out and the car trips can be long. She loves to see Nanna and Granddad. But sometimes other people are better viewed from my arms!

Bath-time with Mumma, Dadda, or both, and/or Snail is good fun! Splashing and kicking is great and so is sitting on a lap and watching the water from the tap on her hands. There is a bath toy turtle that has a good head for sucking on, and washers taste good too.

She has all her day sleeps in Mumma's arms, unless we are in the car. She goes to sleep quite late at night, and likes to sleep for 10 or more hours overnight next to her Mum. Many feeds, but still, we both get a lot of sleep! Although I'll add the disclaimer for this morning, she woke up before 6am, we went back to bed at 7.30, but Mumma and bub were up at 8 when the plumber came to fit our water tank. Sigh. Good for the watertank, bad for bub and I. We are somewhat tired and a little grumpy!

This is a little glimpse of Lolly-grub at 8 months old. She is a joy, and has brought great happiness to my life. Thank you, Lolly.

Sunday, November 16, 2008

Weather and other meanderings


Yesterday, Lolly and I were driving in to a local shopping centre for the sling meet, and it was the most beautiful day, one of those Australian spring/summer days where the sky is that perfect blue colour, and everything (due to the recent rain in these parts) is so green it needs to be in capital letters - GREEN! It is HOT as all get out, but gorgeous too. Here is our back yard, or the tree tops of a bit of the bush out the back, anyway.



We sling meet-ed away, and then came home to help the Dadda dig a hole. Our rainwater tank is being installed tomorrow, and it needs a bed of stuff to sit on. D was going to dig a trench for the run-off pipe, but was too overcome with a cold to bother. We're hoping the installation people will do it!

Here is said bed of stuff, with Dave cutting down the metal pole of the washing line, behind a magnificent looking Bajak. Not bad for a dog who is 16 and a half!


So here are some more shots... I have been experimenting with the video camera (that also takes stills, obviously!), and can get some okay shots, but it is frustrating as it focusses where it likes and won't do what I want it too. Just more amunition in my campaign to get a new digital SLR, since I can't tolerate the slowness and lack of instant gratification of the regular SLR anymore, despite many of the shots still being good!



Here is one of me! I don't mind it, and I usually hate photos of myself...


Today, D, Lolly and I went into Southbank for a walk with the babywearing group. It is International Baby-wearing Week and this was one of the festivities. It was VERY hot (again with the capitals!) and Lolly was flushed and bothered. Dave and I are both a bit low with colds, so were a little anti-social. Still, glad we went.

This afternoon it stormed most spectacularly here, we took Lolly outside for the prelude, lots of wind and spots of rain, we ran for the entry-way as the big deluge began! She loved it all! Legs going miles an hour, smiling and laughing at the sky, maybe it was the positive ions! Here is a not so great shot of the rain over the valley as seen from our side yard. We stood out for ages, Lolly really liked it, at least until it was time for booby and a nap :-).