Impatient...

Almost everything Beth says now is followed by the word "now"...

This morning I got woken up by -
"Mummeeee! Mummeeee! Mummeee Now!"

Then later, right after breakfast, I was faced with this little mantra -
"TV... TV... TV... TV NOW!... Mummeeee.... TV... TV... TV... TV NOW!" (yes, that'll do your head in after about 5 minutes...)

This afternoon, I got this -
"Bubbles... Bubbles... Bubbles NOW!"

Are you seeing a pattern here?

Gotta love demanding 2 year olds...

Oh how delicate she is...

An example of how delicate our little girl is... This afternoon, Beth was making me play chasey with her around the backyard... (very tiring... she loves it when I pick her up and swing her around or tip her upside down... this is the only time she likes rough play!)... and once I'd had enough, I asked her if she wanted me to blow bubbles for her and she said "yes"... She's a sucker for chasing bubbles... Anyway, I blew a huuuuge stream of bubbles at her and as they popped on her skin she rubbed herself and said "Owwwwwwww..." She had me laughing... "What do you mean "Owww..."?" I asked her... "Bubbles don't hurt you."... and she grinned at me and I blew another lot of bubbles into her and she called out "Owwwwwww..." again... she is such a "precious" thing!

Other things that are happening at the moment... She's picking up words left right and centre... Some new recent words... "purple", "biscuit", "scissors"... (yeah, I was so impressed when she said scissors! I was actually only half paying attention to her and she'd picked up some blunt craft scissors and was bringing them to me and saying "SCISSORS! SCISSORS!"... that really woke me up and made me pay attention!)... she tries to imitate most words when I ask her to say them... sometimes the words don't sound anything like what they're suppose to, but at least she's trying.

This morning she started counting her fingers as we were in the car taking Phan to work... She even started at "One" (which is new... she's never been able to say "one" before)... and she counted to 4 correctly before randomly saying numbers out of order... she can actually almost count to 10 now... except that she can't say "Five" or "Seven" very well.. but all the other numbers are pretty good. She's also started to become a little demanding.... she now says "Ti-ti NOW" (Ti-ti is what we call the dummy)... and "Up NOW"...

Our latest venture is potty training... I've just started this week and we've had some little successes in the last couple of days (after one rather dramatic mishap that involved Beth stepping in her own poo on Monday... I won't bore you with details, but suffice to say that was a messy experience!) Anyway, yesterday she did a small poo on the potty, but stopped halfway through when she got freaked out and stopped when the Australia Post guy came to deliver a parcel. Today, we got a small wee in the potty (after spending like 1 hour on potty... tell you what, this toilet training thing is not something that can be rushed!) and a poo tonight... so we're making some progress... I'm trying to take a relaxed approach and just getting her used to sitting on the potty and knowing it's there... I'm happy with what we've achieved already... Oh and those Huggies Pull-up nappies that they are always advertising... with their "wetness liner" to help with toilet training... I think they are a crock... Beth still wees in her nappy and has no idea (or maybe she is rather content to feel wet?!)... her pullup was totally soaked and she didn't have a problem with it! I think they'll be handy for when we go out... but I'm going to have to put her in cloth terry pants or something so she can really tell when she's wet... Anyway... enough talk of toilet-training... it's just our "new" thing at the moment, so I thought I'd mention it... but I expect this phase to go on for a little while...

The Prequel to "Boost Juice Makes Me Happy"...

Okay - I took this footage before the video footage in the previous post... I thought it had been lost, because I didn't hit save properly, but I was lucky enough that it did save. So here's Beth... getting "happy" on the boost juice. Oh to answer Bao's question and in case anybody else is wondering - no, Beth doesn't finish one of these large cups of Boost juice... between the two of us, we get through about 3/4 of a cup (well, until we're down the ice slush and can't slurp it up the straw anymore)... Although, if I didn't wrestle the cup off of her to get my fair share of drink, Beth could probably drink most of the cup by herself... she's a Boost juice fiend! :p

I should explain why we were at Chermside today having our Boost juice - I had to take Phan's car in for a wheel alignment and the tyre place is really close to Chermside, so we just walked there and spent an hour and half there while the tyres were being aligned. I managed to run a couple of errands and I got to pick up my eternity ring that Phan had got for our 5 year wedding anniversary. I'll take a photo tomorrow when the light is better, but I love it... it goes perfectly with my engagement and wedding rings. I decided it would be better for us if we stopped and had a drink for afternoon tea instead of browsing the shops and spending money! :p We had a fun afternoon anyway...

Oh... and the reason I had Phan's car was because the airconditioning broke down in my car on Sunday and we had put it in to get fixed on Tuesday ... the air compressor died and they've had to order a part in from Melbourne to repair a pipe... so hopefully it'll be ready tomorrow... it's unfortunately going to be a very expensive repair ... I think having working airconditioning in my car is going to be my Christmas present!

Boost Juice Makes Me Happy...

I honestly have no idea what they put in Boost juice... but it does something weird to Beth and makes her *really* happy (we only get the watermelon crush flavoured one..) -

How Fascinating The Christmas Angel Is...

Playdate with Veronica...

We had a playdate with our friend Veronica today... We went over to her place and had a lovely time... Beth was a little nervous at first (as she always is in unfamiliar places), but she quickly starting getting into all of Veronica's books and toys and everything was fine and dandy. There is a pool at her place too, so we spent a lovely half hour in the afternoon having a play in the water (it wasn't terribly hot, but it wasn't cold either)... Beth had a blast! She actually was happy to be in a swim ring (without an attached rashie top) and swam around and kicked around in total glee! Gave me a nice break from having to hold her and deal with a wiggly squirmy child! I got to relax and float on a noodle and chat to Julie (Veronica's mum)... aaaah... bliss! We're hoping to make this a regular thing in the new year (once I rearrange our swimming classes and KindyRoo classes)... we think the girls could end up being good friends - Veronica is only 1 month older than Beth and they have similar personalities (stubborn!) and habits (they both are addicted to the dummy!)... Veronica is such a little sweetheart... she's like a "little" big sister... if Beth is getting upset or annoyed, Veronica comes and pats Beth's head and says "It's okay." (although, Beth doesn't really like the head patting thing...)... There was one point where the girls were trying to throw and catch a plastic blow up beach ball between each other... Veronica kept throwing the ball and it kept hitting Beth in the head or face and Beth started getting annoyed and didn't want to throw the ball to Veronica anymore... she only wanted to throw it to me or Julie... very funny... my girl is such a precious thing who doesn't like rough play. A true girly girl!

Still wanting me to open the fridge...

But she's not quite as unhappy in this shot - more of a pleading face...

Life's Tough...

I get this facial expression a lot from Beth when she wants me to open the fridge (*right now*!)so she can raid it for something to eat or drink...

Hope the weather holds off...

More storms predicted tonight... last night was finally a quiet one... I'm sure Energex, SES and other emergency crew were grateful for a night's rest.

This morning we've put up our Christmas tree... a week earlier than we normally would, but we're over-compensating for not being able to put it up last year. We had a great time putting it up and Beth has been really good around the tree... She helped put the baubles on it... and she only touches the decorations gently once they're on the tree ... I had heard lots of stories from EB of people with toddlers who put their tree in playpen so their kids can't destroy it, or just abandon the whole Christmas tree idea until the kids are older... so I think we're lucky that Beth is reasonably sensible... Well, as sensible as you can get at 2 years old. I did buy a whole heap of shatter-proof ornaments yesterday though ... just for safety's sake...

We're heading over to our neighbours house for a street bbq/party tonight... It'll be nice to meet a few more people from our street... So, a heads up for the family, we may or may not be on Skype tonight for a chat... depends on how long it takes for Beth to wig out... :p... We tried calling everybody last night, but seems everyone had things to do...

Amazing footage of the storm from Sunday -

Just came across this youtube link -

The mad weather continues...

Last night was a wild night weather-wise... Thunder and lightening, constant heavy rain and loud wailing from the wind... this went on for about 2 hours at our place, from about midnight to 2am... I got woken up by the thunder and the wind a few times it was that loud...

Tonight we've had an unreal lightening display... again lots of thunder... and we got hail as well... it didn't last quite as long... maybe about 20 minutes... although we did see exactly where water leaks in from the sliding door. We had a couple of power flickers, but the power managed to stay on thank goodness... Although Phan had already lit a candle just in case the power did go out... I think I'm going to go and buy a decent lantern or something next week, just so we don't have to sit in such dim candle light when there is a blackout... I'm sure that we're going to have another power outage this summer (if not several)...

I went and checked out a weather forum tonight at http://www.weatherzone.com.au... now I have been on my fair share of forums (from parenting/photography/digi-scrapping... even some techie forums back in the days when I was a software engineer)... but this weather forum... Whoa! The people on this site are a total different kettle of fish... they are too geeky/nerdy/weird even for me... I have no idea what they are talking about, except when they post photos! There are people called "storm chasers" who actually actively go looking for storms to take footage of and take photos... and while it makes for interesting viewing, I think they are totally mad for going straight into these storms!

Looking at the BOM radar, it looks like the storm has almost finished going past Brisbane.. so here's to hoping tonight is not as crazy as last night...

The Two Year Old Birthday Compressed into 2 Minutes...

Turn your sound on if you have it... :) It's taken a couple of days to pull this together... it was a lot harder to do than I thought... lots of photos to sort through and try and pick the best and then do some kind of pp-ing (yes, it's a bit dodgy, but it'll do for the purpose of this slideshow) and then sync-ing it all up with the music... I'm not going to pretend these photos are amazing or anything... I spent my time enjoying the party rather than trying to take photos... so the photos are a mix of happy snaps that Phan, I and our friend Gina took. Hope you enjoy watching it.

I actually have a few more photos to share from the day, but I couldn't squeeze them into the slideshow above, so I'll be creating another slideshow without music sometime with those photos and repeating some of the photos with some captions to explain what's going on... But just quickly... I know you're going to wonder what the last series of photos in the slideshow with Beth in the pink top are all about.... Those photos were of Beth in the state she was in just prior to the party starting... she'd already been pigging out on the party food and was a messy, happy and full camper... it was hilarious and I just had to capture it!

Happy Birthday Our Beautiful Girl...

Elizabeth has turned 2! Where did that last year go? It feels like I've only just had time to inhale and exhale and the last 356 days have flown by.

What a day we had! We were woken up at 6:45am... Beth was excited about it being her birthday... I think she's really developed an understanding about how much fun it is when it's your birthday ... it helped that we had balloons all over the house, so the first thing she saw were the balloons and then she started chasing balloons around our bedroom. We brought out her presents and she kept doing this excited "Oh!" noise with the most adorable matching expression... and when we brought out her wrapped easel she went "Wow! Wow! Wow!" ... it was hilariously cute! She opened the personalised ABC book I had made for her with photos of her and us and things she knows... she loooved it the moment she saw it and recognised everything in it... Next she opened the package with a cute little saucepan and utensil set we had bought from Ikea... She loooved that too... and when combined with the next package she opeend which contained the felt food, it went down a treat... she loved putting the food in the saucepans... She finally opened the big easel package... and wanted to open the box right away (however, we had to distract her with balloons for the moment, because the easel needed assembly!)

After that, it was onto practical stuff... breakfast... getting ready... and some last minute preparations...

We had a wonderful little party on Sunday morning with a few of our little friends ... This has been our first "kids" birthday party we've thrown where the focus has been on the kids having fun... and I think we managed to achieve that... our little guests started arriving from 10am and were entertained by the masses of balloons that Phan had blown up last night... Once all our guests were here, we played a game of pass the parcel (with a freddo frog wrapped in each layer as it was unwrapped and then a box with bubble blowing things and kitkats in it at the end for everyone to share).

The bubbles were a cue for all the kids to go outside, run amok and blow bubbles... Phan and I had decorated the pergola with vertical hanging streamers which looked really cool and the kids loved running around amongst them... we all lasted about 15 minutes before everyone (well the adults anyway!) started wilting in the heat... it was forecast for 31 degrees... and boy did we feel it! So back inside where everyone tucked into some food... Beth and I had a lot of fun on Saturday making and baking little goodies for the party... we had honey joys, cheese and corn muffins, jelly oranges, fruit platter, mini quiches, mini teacups... Once everyone had their fill of food it was birthday cake time, which was a bit of a hit with the kids who wanted to pull out the flowers before Beth had even blown out the candles (very funny!)... And once the cake was demolished, we opened the presents and one and half hours had flown by and our party came to a close. She got some lovely presents - a collection of Mem Fox books, a cool arsty crafty Eric Carle book, some beaded jewellery, a huge tub of wooden blocks (awesome because I was thinking of getting them for Christmas!) probably her most favourite present from the party was an umbrella with "In The Night Garden" characters all over it... Beth is totally obsessed with the umbrella... it's a very cute umbrella - I can't wait to take some photos of her with it...

Beth is quite a shy child, so overall she was pretty good with having the little friends over... whilst she didn't looove having the crowd and attention, she didn't hate it either... just a little bit nervous now and then... but the balloons made her happy whenever she got a bit worried!

After the party, Beth crashed and had a massive 2 hour nap... and once she woke up we chatted to the aunties over skype so they could see Beth open the presents they had sent up for her birthday... She loves the bath magnet things that Bao got her (tonight she had a ball playing with them) and she is so funny with the animal figurines Emmi got for her... she keeps making the animals kiss each other... (apparently the tiger and the horse get along well enough to kiss each other)...

After that we headed out to have dinner at Trangs... it was actually quite a blessing that we went out for dinner, because I think it would have been very scary to have been at home when the massive storm hit... Beth had her favourite pho for dinner and then whilst I was finishing off my dinner (the bun bo hue is sooo yummy and addictive here!) Phan took Beth for a walk outside with her "In the Night Garden" umbrella (it was actually raining which is why we had the umbrella with us)... while they were having a walk, a little boy who was about 4 or 5 came up to them and asked to have a look at it - it's obviously a very popular and very cool umbrella to have!

Back home through the crazy devasation of the storm... Beth had a micro sleep in the car (which was kind of good so we could sort out what kind of damage the house had sustained and then sort out candles and torches so we could see where we were going)... and then had to wake our poor girl and give her a bath in candle light (she was a bit nervous about that!)... and then we spent the rest of night sitting in the living room in candle and torchlight... cooking our play felt food in our new saucepans and eating it... Beth looved cooking the food and feeding me and Phan... over and over again. I think the lack of power made Phan and I go a bit loopy... we started making bets about when the power would come back on and then laughing like lunatics about random things... Beth must have thought we were crazy... although she did laugh along with us... she must be crazy like us... it was kind of nice to have that quiet time together as a family on her birthday though... whilst not the most ideal way to end her 2nd birthday, it was memorable in a funny way for the family time we spent together...

Post coming later with photos... I've got to sort and put them together... stay tuned... :)

Happy Birthday For Yesterday Elizabeth & Unreal Storms...

It was our girl's 2nd birthday yesterday... (I would have posted an entry yesterday, but we had a black out... but more on that later) I'll be having a big blog post later about our day and all that happened... but I just wanted to quickly post to let everyone know that we're all okay.

We've had the worst storms in 20 years hit Brisbane yesterday afternoon/night... We actually went out to dinner to Trangs last night (special birthday dinner treat for Beth), but while we were out a MASSIVE storm came through... on the drive home we saw the signs of devasation... we passed at least 2 huge trees that had fallen down and were blocking the left lane of the road.. and lots of small trees had lost their branches... it was a total wreck. We came home and were greeted with a blackout, water had seeped in through the sliding door and a few windows, debris in the backyard... We had bought an easel as part of Beth's birthday present and I had unfortunately left it out under the pergola and after the storm it was totally destroyed... the wood has splintered and broken in half in parts and there are bolts and pieces everywhere... We'll have to get her a new easel now (which isn't a bad thing - the first one was a bit dodgy!)

I think we were lucky to escape with just that damage... Our suburb is listed in the top 3 suburbs affected by the storm... and hearing stories at swimming and on the news... people have lost their roofs... had trees fall down on their houses... schools are closed due to damage and powerlines falling down ... we are just so happy that we are safe and that our house is intact.

The blackout actually lasted 16 hours for us... we were lucky there was enough hot water for Phan to have a shower this morning and Beth and I went to swimming and came home to find the power back... I am so eternally grateful to have the power back... as I write this there are still something like 55000 SE Queenslanders without power... As my sister so eloquently put it in an email to me... "We *NEED* electicity!"... and isn't that the truth! We are so dependent on it...

Anyway... I have to go audit the fridge and chuck out most of the stuff (I'm figuring 80% of the food and fridge is going to be off after not being on for 16 hours!) and then pop out to the shops to restock and buy more batteries and candles in the event of another blackout (there's another storm on Wednesday apparently)... hopefully the shops are functioning okay... I hear the woolworths near our place had part of the roof blown off... and apparently there's and IGA in a suburb nearby selling icecream for a dollar on the proviso it's eaten in 24 hours!

Well, there's my little update for now... I'll be back later...

A little sunflare...

This is what I ended up submitting for this week's sunflare assignment based on my unsuccessful shoot last Friday - we were supposed to capture joy and sunflare in the photo... but the sun hid behind a cloud just as we were heading out to our park and Beth was being silly rather than joyous, so I just had to be content to capture the sunflare without the joy and I had to do some serious pp-ing to salvage this shot. I am going to attempt sunflare again in the same location with the same outfit... with hopefully more sun and more joyousness from Beth!






















Birthday preparations are coming along nicely... going to do a heap of baking tomorrow and make Beth's cake... Phan has to mow our lawn (which is seriously growing weeds *everywhere*!)... Thanks to everyone who has posted presents for Beth's big day (Bao & Ty, Emmi & Mike and The Mitchells)... we've received them all and are just waiting for Sunday to arrive so we can open them all! :)

Stir, Stir...

Beth's favourite past-time at the moment is stirring... she especially loves baking... but in the absense of cake batter and a wooden spoon, a plastic bucket and spade will do...

Word Explosion...

In child development books, they often write about how kids go through a period of learning words really quickly... a bit of a "word explosion" ... I'm sure Beth is going through one right now... she's picking up a heap of new words and sounds every day and is really starting to make the association between words and objects now... especially when she wants something and she can say the word...

The "word explosion" began on Sunday morning at the unearthly hour of 6am... when Beth decided she'd had enough sleep and wanted company... I tried to pull her into bed with us, but she lasted all of a few minutes, because she hopped off the bed and promptly found the Women's Weekly birthday cakes book . All last week, I tried to show her this birthday cake book in the hope one of the cakes would catch her eye and she would want that for her birthday... but every page was met with a resounding "Nooooo..."... but at 6:30am on Sunday morning, (of all the times!) she decided to look through the book several times and point out things and tell us what they were... all in a *VERY LOUD* voice... She was very proud of her newly acquired vocabulary and obviously, early Sunday morning was the best time of day to share this new skill.

We had Tuyen and his gf come and visit us from Sydney over the weekend... we had a great time... It took Beth a couple of hours to warm to them (the initial half hour was terrible, Beth was doing this hilariously, sad cry... so hard to explain, but if you could have seen the expression on her face!) and after that she was fine. She even honoured them with goodnight kisses last night and tonight before they left! (This is a big deal from Beth, who is very particular about who she shares her kisses with! Although, did I mention she kissed baby Isaac goodbye on Friday? That's huge progress from her not even wanting to be near him!)

We went to Seaworld yesterday (for the second time in 6 months) and Beth enjoyed it a lot more this time.... she didn't wig out at the shows and loooved watching the waterskiiing show (it was her total favourite... she loved pointing at the boats and yelling out "BOOOOOAT" everytime a speedboat went past).

I'm tired... I've had another busy day - I took Beth to swimming this morning, dropped Tuyen and his gf off at the train station so they could check out Southbank, did a load of laundry, grabbed a 5 min nap, baked a dozen cupcakes and decorated them (trial run for the real birthday cake on Sunday), made my famous prawn dumplings (yum! Haven't made them in a while...), got dinner going (chicken wings and rice), ironed shirts for Phan (he's ultra busy at the moment trying to do stuff for his PhD)... and thought about birthday plan's for Beth's birthday on Sunday!

I still need to make a second attempt of capturing somethign for my photography assignment this week and I need to do a heap of things for Beth's birthday, so I'll probably not blog again until after the birthday do!

So till then... stay cool and groovy... I'll be back with some photos soon...

The Oversized Yellow Polka Dot Hat

I've had a bit of a mad day... I don't know what came over me, but today I did 2 loads of laundry, made a curry for a friend who's just had a baby a week ago (I wanted her to have a little break and not have to worry about making dinner for a night), did our grocery shopping, visited my friend to drop off her dinner and do a mini photoshoot of her little man, cooked our own dinner (pork spareribs... yum!) and then at 5pm, I decided to take Beth out for our own photoshoot to try and do this week's photography assignment (which is to capture sunflare). However, the sun decided to thwart my plans by hiding sporadically behind a cloud and Beth was decidedly uncooperative and insisted on running away from me whilst shouting "Chaaaase! Chaaase!" ... Ever tried taking photos and chasing your child at the same time? It's hard and exhausting work! (It didn't help that it was *really hot* and quite humid, even at that late hour of the afternoon.) I got nothing that even remotely resembled sunflare in the shots I took today (and I had a really bad focus strike rate due to the running child!) ... Towards the end, I gave up and tried to take some random shots without the sunflare in the hope of getting at least one good shot from this shoot...

Obsession with "Cheers"...

I've mentioned previously that Beth loves going "Cheers" everytime I'm having a drink... in fact she loves going "Cheers" everytime she has a drink too... Actually, anybody holding a cup is fair game for her! She also loves trying to share her drinks... she will hold her sippy cup up for me to have a drink and won't put it away until I have a drink (or rather, I pretend to have a drink and exclaim how "delicious" her drink is)...

Anyway, I just had a share a funny little story... it happened on Wednesday night... which was a not-so funny night, because Beth decided to wake up 10 times (literally) between 10:30pm and 1:30pm... By 2am, she'd done my head in and I'd had enough and was letting her have a little cry to try and settle herself and then Phan went in to settle her... he went and got her her sippy cup and when he gave it to her to have a drink, in her half awake state she held her cup out and went "Cheers!"... and Phan had to quietly not laugh and tell her to lie down and go to sleep... which she did... and then she slept 'til morning. She's just got an inbuilt "Cheers" radar... :)

A Day In The Life Of Julien The Dog

I found our latest assignment for Evolve really quite challenging... we were supposed to use a willing model... and because I had no willing models (Phan being in Japan and Beth being totally anti-camera!), I cheated and opted to use Julien...
We had to shoot the same subject with different backgrounds... the aim being to see how different backgrounds influence a photo... We were challenged to find different backgrounds in a familiar environment (ie our house)... I was really nervous about shooting this assignment... I found it really difficult... but in the end, I quite enjoyed it... I really had to think and consider the photo compositions, so even though these photos are not spectacularly amazing, the whole thought process was a great learning experience for me... I also tried to incorporate different lighting into the photos to influence the way a photo feels... Although I'm not thrilled with these photos, I'm excited about what I learnt...

For all you stationery freaks out there...

which would just be me and you Donna! :) Because my friend Donna is obviously a bit of a weirdo like me and has a bit of a thing for stationery, I'm posting some pics of the japanese stationery Phan brought back for me so we can oogle and drool together -


The cute little bag it all came in... I actually love the little paper bag (yes, I know, I am really odd).

















What was inside the bag.






















A close up.























Inside the notepads.





















The photos don't really do them justice... they have the most divine, delicate texture... I don't know if I'm ever going to use them... for now I'll just look and touch them... (I'm sure you all thing I'm totally nuts!)

Daddy's home!

And we are all very happy campers... So good to have him back. We picked up Phan at 8am this morning... he'd been on the overnight flight and was tired, but he came to KindyRoo with us and then after that, while Beth had her nap, he had a nap on the couch too (very rare for him... he's known for being anti-napping!)

Oh, I have to tell a funny story... Phan didn't know what to get Beth as a present while he was in Japan so I told him, no soft toys (I have a soft toy embargo on the house, we have too many!)... and then suggested he could try and find a bento lunchbox for her (you know, the compartmentalised kind they have for sushi)... so he comes home with... wait for it... *5* lunchboxes! My goodness, she's got one for everyday of the week! He cracks me up! He also got her this really cool set of wooden nesting japanese dolls (like the russian babushka dolls, but japanese instead!). He didn't buy himself any electronic toys (like I thought he would) and the only thing I asked for was some Japanese stationary... so I got 3 little notepads of gorgeous Japanese writing paper....

We've had a lovely day together... Phan got to play chasey with Beth in the backyard this afternoon and then they watered the plants together... And then they played basketball... She has really missed him and loves having him around again.

And this is why...

you don't leave your child unattended for a minute with a cup of water and their lunch! Beth was having rice, egg and cha for lunch (yes, totally refo, and she loves it!) and she decided to dump the last few bits of her rice into her cup of water....





















Today was such dreary, overcast weather... (but rather warm and muggy). I was going to try and take photos for our latest photography assignment today, but the weather and the lighting was less than desirable... and I have a totally non-willing model! So hopefully tomorrow will bring us more light and more joy...

Beth is making me laugh a lot these these days... she will randomly try and feed me whatever she's eating... she's obsessed with going "cheers" everytime I'm having a drink... sometimes she insists on hugging four of her soft toys (pink bear, yellow duck, blue hippo and pink pig) all at once in the mornings and making me carry her our her room while she is cuddling them all... when you ask her how old she's going to be, she says "TWO!" really proudly, whilst holding out only one finger... I'm just loving this interactiveness I'm getting from her and it makes me wonder what is going on in that little mind of hers!

Woo hoo... I made curtains!

I made these curtains for Beth's room ('scuse the dodgy photo and the creases... I think I need to iron the curtains a bit!)... There are vertical blinds in her room, but they aren't blockout, so I've been wanting to make her some cute, bright and fun curtains from blockout fabric ever since we moved in... How hard can curtains be to make...? Well, if you know what you're doing, it's really easy... but for me, the ever challenged sew-er... it took a lot of research on the net to figure out what the hell I needed to do. I had an "Ah Ha!" moment of enlightenment a week ago when I discovered that there is this stuff called "Pencil Pleat Tape" which you can buy and and that was what I needed to make the pleats at the top of the curtain and you can use it to attach curtain rings to the curtain and hang them up. Once I figured that out, the rest was easy. These curtains took about 1.5-2 hours to make and cost me a grand total of $40 to make... if I was to buy them ready-made, it was going to cost me $120! I am so proud of my achievement (even if the workmanship is a little dodgy, but seriously, who looks at the details of curtains?!!!... and I love that there is now something handmade by me in her room now... :)