I've Been Tagged

Last week Catherine from A Time to Create tagged me with 8 'getting to know you' questions and it's taken me a while to get around to answering them! Oops!

1. What is one thing you cannot stand?
hmm, I've got a few. I can't stand hypocrisy. I can't stand people being rude or mean to their children. I can't stand bad manners. I can't stand it when Matt doesn't put the lid on the milk properly!!!!

2.  If you could go back to your childhood what cartoon or TV show would you pick to be your favourite?
My brother and I absolutely loved The Mysterious Cities of Gold. Ooo, Astroboy was pretty good too, we'd play Astroboy and I'd make my younger brother dress up as Astroboy's sister Uraine while I got to be Astroboy! Good times, good times.

3. What is something you do or have done that would surprise a lot of people?
Almost all of my new friends (who I've made since moving 18 months ago) are really surprised that I used to be blonde. Super blonde, foils, the whole kit and kaboodle that involved 3 hours in the hairdresser on a Saturday morning every 6-8 weeks. And too much money to mention. I did love it though. Oh to have two incomes and that much spare time again!

4. Do you believe in ghosts?
I don't know. Sometimes.

5. When you go into a store what's your weakness? Something you just can't help buying more of.
Cookbooks. I have so many, almost 2 shelves of our bookshelves are cookbooks. I read them like novels. Absolutely can never have too many, and they are one of the few things that I'll buy for myself.

6. What's the funniest story you have on your significant other?
This one is tricky, there are a few! My favourite though is when we were living in Cairns and Matt had a job to do up in Cooktown (he works in property). Back then, Cooktown was really small, no street names and definitely no house numbers on any of the properties. We had a map of the property he was supposed to look at, but that was all. We followed the map (with me navigating, Matt driving) to the property, Matt got out and had a wander around and decided we were at the wrong place. I told him it was right, but we still had to drive around for another hour (maybe more, it was 9 years ago) looking for the property. We got completely befudddled and he eventually conceded that the first property was the right one so back we went. He still (9 years later) refuses to admit that I was right in the first place! Ugh, men and maps!!! Oh, he absolutely refused to stop and ask someone too!

7. What is your proudest moment being a parent?
I think it has to be whenever Elliot just turns around to Matt or I, or his Nan or Pop or uncle and gives them a big cudle and tells them he loves them, completely out of the blue. He does it quite often and it melts my heart every time.
Oh, there was also a time we were at the shops and a baby in a pram near us was crying and screaming and Elliot turned and asked me why the baby was crying. I said it may be tired or just upset about something and he replied "Oh, it's Mummy should give it a cuddle. Why doesn't she put it in the sling? That'd make it happy" I love my boys!

8. If you could go back and relive one day of your life which would you choose?
I've got two, the day each of the boys were born. For Elliot I'd be more demanding of his time with me in the recovery room after delivery, I'd stand up more for myself. For Archie, I'd wait longer before going into the hospital so his labour could have been really established and maybe have avoided another c-section. Oh the 20/20 vision of hindsight.

So there we go, a bit more about me!

Now, I'm tagging

Messyfish
The Clip Cafe
Gina at Clutterpunk
dillpickle unfinished

My Creative Space

Elliot and I have been working on a joint project this week, stamped Thank You cards to send out for Archie's Baptism.

We bought blank white cards and a 'thank you' stamp which we used with a regular green ink pad. We then potato stamped a cross onto the cards with regular blue paint.

Simple, cheap, quick and a great craft project for toddlers too!

Check out more creative goodies at Kootoyoo.

Up in the Air I Fly!

 

Head over to Faith, Hope & a Whole Lotta Love for more Wordless Wednesday pics.

Playing with our Food

I have been so blessed with my boys that I haven't had to struggle to find healthy food that they will eat. Sure, Archie picks and chooses his vegies (he's going through a zucchini phase at the moment) and he's always been a big lover of meat and carbs. Elliot on the other hand, lives for vegies and cries if he can't actually see them on his plate (funny wee man that he is) but on the whole, I have two healthy, strong, growing boys who love good food.

This doesn't mean though, that we can't have fun with our food!

Over a year ago our town hosted a Children's Day in the Park where all the local Kindys and Pre-schools, Child care centres, ABA, and basically anything child related set up a stall and had activities for the kids. Despite the snakes and lizards, fire engines and police cars, painting and playdough Elliot's favourite stand was the Government's Health Department that were giving away 'apple slinkies'. Now, I had no idea what an apple slinky was, but thought it sounded fun so over we went. Well, was it ever fun! A fancy machine that cored and sliced the apple into a spiral! (They were giving away the apples, not the machines! LOL!) After he devoured the first one, he asked me for another, but being the altruistic girl I am I said that one was enough and we had to make sure there were enough for everyone else. Turns out they were donated lots of boxes of apples and they didn't have many takers! Well, after a friend who works for QLD Health told us that I had to limit Elliot to 4!!!

So after all that waffling, here is the point of this post, a while back, I found an apple slinky machine! Yippee! Both the boys love having apple slinkies and it actually has proved to be a useful appliance for grown ups too because it can peel the apple, I use it when making apple crumble or stewed apples. It makes the job so much quicker! All I do is run it through the maching, which cores, peels and spirals the apple, then I just cut it into quarters. Done and done!

My wonderful boy loves the 'green spaghetti'!

Who wouldn't love this?

Food has never been so fun!

Monday Meal Plan and Random Recipe Review

Last week our Random Recipe was Maggie Beer's Lamb, Barley and Cinnamon Casserole from her wonderful book Maggie's Harvest. I absolutely love this book, I've read it cover to cover several times since I got it for Christmas last year from Matt and the boys. The cover is a beautiful fabric with embroidery and it is full of wonderful photography and sentimental stories of Maggie's journey in food. Oh, and heaps of gorgeous, seasonal recipes.

While I randomly chose from the 'Spring' section, the dish was really a very wintery one, but still very yummy. It was a bit of an all day affair because I made the chicken stock in the morning and as the casserole took 4 hours in the oven, it had to be in by 1:30 so we could eat at our regular nanna hour for the boys. The lamb and pork was deliciously melt in the mouth and the barley had soaked up all the juices and it was very much like a risotto. I was just about to type out the recipe but in the book Maggie mentioned she made it one the TV show, and all their recipes are on the web, so here is the recipe and a pic, a much better pic than I could have taken!

A short week this week:

Monday
Bean Burritos

Tuesday
Peppered porterhouse steak with mashed sweet potato and steamed veg

Wednesday
Steamed fish with brown rice and steamed veg

In The Light Of The Moon ...

Thanks for stopping by. Why not check out some more Wordless Wednesday pics?

Sleep, Where For Art Thou?

Over the three and a half years I've been on this parenting journey I think I've used just about every method of getting a baby or toddler to sleep there is. I have sung, rocked, danced, pushed the pram, bounced on a fit ball, driven, breastfed, patted bottoms, and even in one moment of desperation, control cried (all that ended up happening was both of us crying, and I swore I'd never do it again). All of this has taught me one thing. Babies (and toddlers and children) will sleep when they are ready to. All we can do is help them along the ride.

Elliot, now three and a half, has always been a good sleeper - once he's asleep! He is a deep and sound sleeper but not good at actually going to sleep. When he was a little over two he just said to me one day when we were having the sleep battle "But I just need people with me". What can you say to that? He has always needed and still does need someone (me, Daddy, Nanna, Pop) to be with him until he is asleep. Fortunately for me (cause I get him into bed and Matt does Archie) he seems to have found a solution, he goes to sleep in Mummy's and Daddy's bed on the condition that he's in there by himself. Later when we're ready to go to bed Matt will take him back into his room. If he wakes through the night, he simply brings himself back in with us and more often than not, neither Matt nor I realise he's there til the morning (or when we're up with Archie)!

 Elliot (7 weeks) being nursed to sleep by Pop

Elliot (14 months) waking up with Nanna after a sleepover.

 

And on to Archie. For every bit that Elliot is a deep sleeper, Archie is a light sleeper. He has the same issues as El with needing people, so someone has always needed to put him to sleep but then he's awake. And then back to sleep, then awake, then back to sleep, rinse, repeat. For the first, hmmm, probably ten months of his life he fed every 1-2 hours around the clock, day and night. To say it was exhausting is an understatement because while sometimes he'd feed back to sleep, more often than not at night, he was awake. Sometimes cranky, sometimes just awake and wanting to play. It was through all of this that we seriously started co-sleeping because we were just too tired to do anything else and anyway, nothing else worked!!! But eventually (and I mean, in the last couple of months) he's just gotten into a little sleeping routine that works for all of us. Matt takes him to bed in the evening and they rock in the chair and sing songs. When he wakes the first time through the night he comes in with us. Some nights he has a feed back to sleep, some nights he has a feed and isn't asleep but puts himself back to sleep and some nights he's not interested in a feed and just fusses around giving us pats and kisses and then puts himself to sleep, usually on top of the covers with his feet in our faces. He is generally only up once or twice a night now which I'm just over the moon about considering where we've been on his sleep journey!

Archie (4 weeks) have a nap with Nanna *

 Archie (5 weeks) sleeping in the sling which was a sleep lifesaver for both boys. *

I'm really pleased that both boys have found their own sleeping patterns because, as tiring as it has been, I can sit back and know that we listened to them and what they needed at the time. We respected them as little people and didn't impose unrealistic expectations which would have set us and them up for failure (aside from that one horrid moment of controlled crying, which failed dismally). We were willing to give them the time they needed.

* When going through all the baby photos for sleep pics, I realised that we don't have many of Archie. At first I put this down to being the second child, poor hard done by wee man he is, but then when I was talking to Matt about it he said "It's because he didn't sleep!"