Easter

Yep, Easter was a really long time ago.  Yep, I was really ill on the day.  But I managed to snap a few photos, mostly while laying on the ground and nibbling dry toast!  I had grand ambitions involving an elaborate egg hunt, lots of beautiful tiny gifts, toys and little books about bunnies hidden around the house and garden, but it didn't happen.  Nonetheless, The Daddy did a great job of scattering some small eggs and chocolate bunnies etc. around the garden, and I bought some gardening tools (watering can and shovel/rake/fork set) for Tabitha, which seemed appropriate for Easter, being about new growth and all that (whether you follow the Pagan or Christian traditions).

A dark chocolate mother hen sitting on eggs from Koko Black for myself (felt quite appropriate, really!) which is still mostly uneaten in the pantry, and a mixture of white chocolate, Lindt bunnies and 'junk chocolate' for Tabitha to find and The Daddy to eat.  I figured that this year, with Tabitha approaching 2, I'd let her get stuck into a few mini Lindt bunnies if she wanted to...

Tabby wasn't convinced that getting out of bed in the cold morning, in her PJs and silly ears, was a fantastic idea.

But she got into the spirit of things once she found her new gardening tools, and set about collecting all the pretty eggs into her watering can:

We helped her open a Lindt bunny, and she had no idea what it was, or that it was edible!  Eventually she took a nibble of the ears, thought about it for a while, and put it down to go play with her watering can.  So the first chocolate Easter experience was a bit of an anti-climax!  It's funny, even now that she's 2, she isn't really into chocolate - she'll nibble the head off a Fredo Frog if someone gives one to her, but looses interest after that.  She loves muffins, cakes, cookies etc. but isn't really into the straight-up chocolate.

My little sister decorated a pretty Easter tree.  When I was small, my mother used to do all sorts of Easter activities with me - dyeing and decorating eggs, decorating a tree, cotton-ball bunnies etc.  I look forward to introducing Tabitha to all of this in a couple of years.

Just as Santa likes his milk and cookies, so the Easter bunny likes his carrot muffins.  These were a nice breakfast treat:

Carrot Muffins

These muffins offer up a winning trilogy – delicious, healthy and easy to make.

Using oil in place of butter, and yoghurt in place of milk, and featuring a full cup of grated carrot, these are a nice healthy snack, and they freeze well too.

Ingredients:

3 eggs

½ cup sugar

½ cup canola oil

1 cup plain whole yoghurt

1 cup grated carrot

½ cup chopped walnuts

Optional – a few tablespoons of sultanas

3 cups self-raising flour

½ teaspoon bicarbonate of soda

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Method:

Beat together the eggs, sugar, oil and yoghurt.  Stir in the carrot and walnuts (and sultanas if desired).

Combine the flour, bicarb soda and cinnamon, then fold into the wet mixture – gently, until just combined.  Don’t overmix.

Place into a 12-cup muffin tin, lightly greased.

Bake at 200 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

Variations – you can use raw zucchini instead of carrot.   Just add 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract to the mixture.

If you prefer to use honey instead of sugar, replace the sugar with ½ cup of honey, and increase the cinnamon to 2 teaspoons.

Earlier this year...

Sorry, I know this is boring, but I want to pop in a couple of posts with photos from earlier this year - one for April, one for Easter, one for May, one for June - so that I have some photos of T on here, for my own memories, from this period.  The time period also known as The Days of Hideous Illness (a.k.a. Hyperemesis Gravidarum).

A highlight of April was taking Tabitha to the zoo for The Daddy's birthday (the big 3-0) - Tabby is kind of obsessed with meerkats, so any chance to visit the funny little creatures is always exciting.

Face of Awe watching her meerkat friends...

Such cute creatures.  Tabitha has a stuffed, fairly realistic toy meerkat who goes to bed with her most nights.

Even though T loves her food, she was so keen on the lions that she tried to share her banana chips with them.  She was surprised they didn't go for them...

Checking out more big cats.  Do you see a pattern here?  One of her first words was cat, she loves the meerkats, loves the big cats...  Yes, she's a cat lady in the making!

Wandering around with two of her favourite people - Daddy and Aunty Q:

Another of her favourite people - Grandpa Gra - holds her to have a close-up look at the swimming seals:

Daddy showing her the statue baby seal - I think that she preferred this to the real ones, because she could poke its whiskers!

We are incredibly skilled at posing for terrible family photos.  I'm not sure that there is a single photo in existence of our little family where we are all smiling directly at the camera!

In the above photos, I am just shy of 7 weeks pregnant.  The nausea first kicked in around the 6 week mark, by 7.5 weeks I was struggling to get off the floor, and by 8 weeks I was on medication (to stop the vomiting, as I was becoming dehydrated and starting to lose weight).  I stayed on the medication until 22 weeks, still vomiting most days, and still feeling incredibly shocking.  Now, at 29 weeks, I am *only* vomiting a few times a week, and apart from a couple of hours in the morning, I'm feeling okay, just very tired.  I tell you, if I had have been this sick when pregnant with Tabitha, I'm not sure there would have been a Baby #2!  With Tabby, I only had the ordinary 12-week morning/all day sickness, and certainly not badly enough to threaten hospital!  I have resigned myself, at this point, for being sick for the entire duration of the pregnancy, but I am very thankful that I am so much better now than I was for the first half - I have heard of women who have had the Hypermesis Gravidarum condition in full whack for the entire 40+ weeks!

Oh goodness, another one!

Hello.  It's been a few months or so since I checked in - but I do have a good excuse, I promise!  I'm now 29 weeks pregnant, and for the first 22 weeks or so I was abysmally sick.  Now I'm doing much better - although still vomiting most days - and starting to get a bit excited about the impending arrival of Baby #2.

A BOY BABY!

Tabitha is, as you can imagine, incredibly excited about her new brother.  In fact, she talks about him every day (and will even tell anyone who cares to listen all about how "mummy is going to push him outta her bagina!")  Sometimes, when I stroke my own baby belly, she calls out "no, it's MY brother!" and comes to cuddle the bump protectively.  I think she's going to be an excellent big sister - perhaps a little *too* enthusiastic to begin with, but I'm sure she'll get the hang of things quickly.  

Tabitha will be just a couple of weeks shy of 2.5 years when Baby Brother is due to arrive - although Tabby came a full two weeks after her estimated due date, so I'm not holding my breath for a punctual arrival this time either!  We were vaguely planning a gap of around 3 years between the wee ones, however we managed to make a baby on the very first attempt (a pleasant surprise after 8 months of trying for T!)  I'm pleased with the 2.5 year gap, though.  I think there are so many 'pros' and 'cons' for all different age gaps, so you take what you're given with grace and make the best of it!

What else is new in our lives since I last blogged?  A whole lot!  We've moved house, to a much bigger home that we finished building in April.  We've gone from a 2-bedroom flat with a small backyard to a 4-bedroom, 3-bathroom, 2-living area house (still with a very small backyard!).  It's wonderful having the extra space, and the new house has much more natural light, with 2 walls of north-facing glass bifold doors opening onto a small decking.  This natural light and sunshine has been an absolute saviour through my pregnancy sickness, keeping my spirits elevated and keeping Tabitha happy playing at home.

We've also acquired three new family members - beautiful Pekin Bantam chooks called Lacey, Dolly and Sweetpea - who keep us entertained all day long with their antics and quirks.  I'll write a whole post about them soon.  They've just started laying this week, and I have collected 5 perfect, tiny bantam eggs over the past four days, so at least two of the girls must be laying.

Tabitha has weaned.  Such a big change, such a tangible sign of my tiny baby's development into a big girl.  The weaning was, thankfully, an incredibly simple and respectful event.  I had found breastfeeding to be really painful since falling pregnant, however my milk supply had actually increased with the pregnancy, which is unusual, and Tabitha was loving all the extra milk.  As we approached her 2nd birthday, which coincided with the 18th week of my pregnancy (nearly the half-way mark), I began to talk to her about weaning, just gently discussing the idea that one day she wouldn't have milk from mummy, just from a cup.  She seemed interested in the idea, but I wasn't sure how much she was actually understanding.  

Then, the day after her 2nd birthday, I decided that the best and most respectful approach for us was to chat to her quite frankly and honestly.  I explained that feeding was sometimes a bit sore for mummy, and that she could keep having milk if she wanted to, but it would also be great if she wanted to have her milk in a cup from now on.  She thought about it for a minute, smiled, repeated to me, "Mummy's milkies are sore!  So I drink my milk in a cup now!" and she never asked for a breastfeed again!  She still talks about "when I used to have milkies from mumma" and sometimes pats them and says, "nice milkies!  I love you!" which is hilarious and cute, but she is perfectly happy with the arrangement now.  She tells me that she "drunk up all of mummy's milkies!  I finished them, now they empty!" but she knows that when the baby comes, I will make more milk for him.  Overall, I couldn't be happier with how the weaning went - she was cool with it, I was happy to have a break before baby #2, and we made it to our goal of 2 years.

So what will I blog about over the coming weeks?  New baby gear, my top picks for slings/cradles/clothes etc., things I've found useful during this pregnancy, the chooks, a bit about my plans for our new garden (still a 'blank canvas' to put it nicely), and of course some cooking photos and recipes.  Despite being sick, I've still been cooking, and I'm about to hire a chest freezer and start to do some serious large-batch cooking to stash away for when the baby arrives!

Here is Tabitha these days - she's grown a bit, no?  She's pictured here guzzling a blueberry smoothie and eating a bowl of blueberries, so excuse the purple face!

 

Anyway.  What's been up with you?!

Bendigo, Blondies and Basil

I haven't been blogging much lately - I am working on a pretty exciting new project, which is taking up a bit of time, and hopefully I will be able to reveal more later next month!


We escaped to Bendigo for the long weekend, visiting dear family friends on their beautiful property.  My parents and sister came to, and we all had the most relaxing few days.  We played with the animals (horses, cats, dogs, chooks, guinea fowl!), we swam, ate, drank, toasted marshmallows on their outdoor fireplace, and watched some spectacular sunsets over the bushland.  I have posted photos of their lovely property before, HERE - there are also some very sweet photos of Tabitha with the chooks.


Tabitha adores their larges dog, an ever-patient golden retriever, Jem:

Jem is licking her tummy!

It always makes me laugh that chooks will all crowd in and lay their eggs in the same nesting box, instead of using the others on offer:

Back home, made a delicious and relatively healthy dark chocolate and rolled oat Blondie (recipe HERE):

Tabitha and I are spending as much time in our little back garden as possible, as the sun puts in a fine effort despite the beginning of Autumn.  The hammock is in full sun, the basil and tomatoes are still thriving, the cats are loving the warmth.  


Here is Tabby in front of the basil:

And eating cherry tomatoes straight from the bushes:

I love her hair so much - soft and straight as cornsilk:

Eww!  Ate a stem by mistake!

One for you, Mummy!

Disturbing the napping cats:

This is a little patch of miniature violets which grow along the edge of the decking - Tabitha often picks them all for me, offering them in her chubby fists.  Melts my heart!

Enjoying a bowl of walnuts (along with a whole raw carrot, her favourite snacks).  A bit of an evil look on the face - "don't even think about eating my walnuts!"

Lovely girl, offering her beloved walnuts to Possum:

The days are long but the years are short.  Lately, I have begun to occasionally feel slightly panicky, watching this incredible little girl, where just yesterday I was watching a baby.  When I hold her at night, feeding her before bed, my heart overflows with love, and I cannot believe how perfect and warm and delicious-smelling she is.  I pat her hair while she has her milk, and her hand tangles gently in my own hair.  There is no greater moment, and I am blessed to sit here with her, like this, three or so times every day.


It seems like just weeks ago that I was cradling a tiny, soft, chubby, pink-cheeked little baby.  She is now the sweetest, most hilarious, kindest, prettiest little girl, and her constant wonder and interest in all details of life are so thrilling to me.  I desperately want to freeze time, to keep this fascinating, fascinated child, her hand in mine.  But it is not to be, so all I can do is treasure every moment.

Winter is Coming

The weather is cooling.  Lamb shoulder is back on the menu.  Rub the lamb with olive oil and some salt and pepper.  Slash the skin a few times, deeply, poke some garlic slivers in the slashes, sit the lamb in a roasting tray on top of a couple of rosemary branches.  Cover the roasting tray with tin foil, sealing well.  Crank your oven up as high as it will go, put the lamb in, immediately turn it down to 170 degrees, and leave alone for 4 hours.

Remove to a warm plate, cover, then make a gravy using the pan juices (pour off the fat), some flour, a couple of tablespoons of chopped capers, a tablespoon of red wine vinegar and some torn fresh mint.  If you want more formal instructions, I posted the recipe for the lamb and gravy HERE.

In the opposite end of the seasonal spectrum, I'm clinging to the last sighs of Summer with plenty of flowers around the house.  White roses with the strongest, most heady fragrance, lisianthus, white freesias.

The Daddy cooked!  He made an actual meal, and it was excellent.  Nachos, with a mixture of yellow and blue organic corn chips, homemade guacamole, and he fried up some onions, fresh tomatoes, and re-fried beans into a delicious, almost meaty sludge.  A bit of hot salsa, and some natural yoghurt instead of sour cream (full fat natural yoghurt - try instead of sour cream for dolloping on everything from soup to savoury pancakes to nachos, it's a winner).

In fact, writing that, I have a sudden craving for these wonderful nachos.  Perhaps I can ask him for a repeat performance on the weekend...

Oh, and I nearly forgot to mention - we sold our home.  On the weekend.  It sold under the hammer at an exciting auction, so we are most pleased!  Our new house, currently under construction, should be ready in the next few weeks or so.  Now, to prepare myself (mentally) for moving!