Tuesday, April 13

Cuddles & Kisses


Cuddles & Kisses


She is just sooo sweet and delightful!

Wednesday, April 7

More of the Baby Bump...


30 weeks & 6 days


Oh... and I just thought I'd mention, most of the photos on my blog from the last 6 months have kind of disappeared... I've had to make my flickr stream (which is where I host my photos) accessible to friends & family only because I had a random girl want to use photos of Beth on her orkut page (I've read about it happening before... I think it's a popular teenage thing to do in South America where they create fake profiles on orkut (which is similar to facebook), but using other people's cute kids photos and try and outdo each other in the cuteness stakes... it's really quite bizarre! I know of a lot of talented children's photographers who had it happen to them, but I never thought it'd happen to me!), So all the links to the photos have changed and thus, are broken on the blog... I will try and fix them (I've done the photos from the last week or so), but it may take some time... My blog will stay public for now, but if I get anymore weirdos I may have to make my blog private... we'll see how we go...

The Beauty Of Motherhood


The Beauty Of Motherhood


Well... I'm almost 31 weeks now... We're now counting down to the arrival of the baby in single digit weeks... *where has the time gone*?

Took some photos of Elizabeth, the baby and me this morning... I feel like it's such a special time right now and I'm just trying to capture some of our special times, breathe it all in and enjoy the feeling of spoiling and concentrating all my energies on my girl while she's still an only child and all the while, I'm growing this new life inside me and wondering what kind of little person we are going to be adding to our family.

I love this photo ... it just encompasses everything I'm feeling right now... (And do you know what we were talking about while I was taking this photo? I was bribing her with the promise of a little chocolate easter egg if she would let me take some photos... :)... Like I said.. I'm enjoying spoiling my girl a little... *laugh*)

Monday, April 5

Movenpick


Yum...


We have recently discovered Movenpick icecream... Oh.My.Goodness... it's icecream to die for... It's a little on the pricey side (probably not anymore than any other decent icecream chain like Cophenhagen or Andersens), but worth every cent... Swiss icecream of amazing quality! There is a little shop run by a most cheerful, friendly asian guy in Southbank which we've now frequented twice... I can see us making a few more trips there in future... :) So far I've tried hazelnut (mmmm), vanilla (made with real Madagascar vanilla bean flecks through it), Swiss Chocolate (this is *THE BEST* chocolate icecream I've ever tasted, it's amazing, it's chocolate icecream with chocolate flakes through it!) and Maple Walnut (their best seller, and I can see why!)... yum yum yum yum! Beth (who has a habit wanting icecream, but then usually ends up staring at it and letting it melt), has actually devoured the vanilla and chocolate icecream here.. so it must be good!

We've had another fun family day together today... Spent a good few hours at Southbank... Beth got to play at Streets beach for a good 40 minutes or so (our child is so water mad!)... She would have loved to stay longer, but the water was a tad chilly... Then we had lunch at a lovely little Italian place "La Vie" before having our amazing icecream for dessert... Then Beth ran through the grasslands and played on a playground for a bit more before we headed home... A great day out for all of us... I might be back later to post some shots of Beth frolicking at the beach... but for now just a few more shots of the girl enjoying her swiss chocolate icecream today...


Movenpick

Sunday, April 4

Rejoice - Christ Has Risen! Happy Easter Everyone!


Happy Easter!


We've had a busy and fun-filled Easter so far... Good Friday, we spent the day rearranging the bedrooms to start setting up for the nursery... The old guest bedroom is now the guest bedroom/study and the study is going to be the nursery. Basically, the guest bedroom/study is all setup... and now it's just a matter of tidying up random things (and I mean really random things!), putting together the cot (Phi - just a heads up - you're going to be helping Phan when you come up... :)) and Phan putting up the curtain rails in the nursery.... it's coming together slowly... We went to the 3pm mass on Friday... I didn't let Beth nap at home (she'd woken up late and I didn't think there was much chance she would nap before we left)... but what ended happening was about 10 minutes after mass started, she fell asleep in Phan's arms... and stayed that way for almost the entire duration of the 80 minute service! Poor Phan got a dead arm from having to support her heavy head!

Saturday, we did a daytrip to Seaworld to make use of our annual passes which expire in a couple of months... Beth had the most fun she'd ever had at Seaworld... From the moment she woke up and we told her where we were going, she was *sooooo* excited and chatted away about seeing dolphins, sea lions, penguins, pelicans and "friendly sharks" (her words!)... She's really reached that age of getting excited about stuff now, so to see her reaction to all the different marine life and describing all the things she saw was such a beautiful breath of fresh air... When you ask her about the best part of the day she says "Riding the blue truck with Daddy" which was a ride at the kiddies Sesame Street section she went on with Phan, followed by "Riding the merry-go-round with Mummy"... And then her other favourite part was "The Sesame Street Concert"... Ah, she's come so far... I still remember the first time we ever went to Seaworld when she was about 18 months and she totally freaked out and cried at the crowds and the larger-than-life Sesame Street Characters!!! She also totally loved watching all the other shows (dolphin and sealion) and burnt a heap of energy running around in the waterspouts...

Here's a video snippet of our girl playing in the waterspouts (apologies for the size - it's 114MB)... I remember her about 10 months ago being quite hesitant around the waterspouts at Legoland and San Diego Seaworld... but now she's a completely different child around them... so carefree and joyous!





Oh, now that Beth is now 3 we also had to buy her a ticket... there's a deal going on for QLD residents through myfun.com.au that you can get a pass to 3 worlds (Seaworld, Movieworld and Wet'n'Wild) for about $50, which gives you unlimited access to any 3 of those worlds until the end of June.. And seeing as that is basically the cost of a ticket to Seaworld alone... so we signed up for that for Beth... we had to get her special "QLD VIP" card made up at the end of the day... she was tired and a bit cranky, but she actually took a really photogenic photo on the id card... *AND* she got perked up and got all happy when she saw it was her very own personalised card... I told her the card meant that we could use it to come back again some time... And then 15 minutes later as I was putting her into her carseat and she was analysing her card some more, she said to me "The card means we can come back again tomorrow..."... LOL... She had so much fun she wanted to come back again straight away! Phan and I had a huge chuckle, we were exhausted from the day and couldn't imagine coming back again 2 days in a row!

Our major achievement of the weekend has been getting rid of the dummy! We had been talking about giving the Easter Bunny her "tee-tee" (what we call the dummy) and her bottle for a couple of weeks now... I said if she gave the Easter Bunny her tee-tee, he would leave her some chocolate and maybe even a toy... So last night, early in the night, we put out the easter basket and put her dummy and her bottle in it... She was really good about it... We thought we were going to have a hiccup when later in the night she said "I want the tee-tee in my bed", but I just reinforced, if we left it for the Easter Bunny he would leave her something... we wrote him a message asking him to take the dummy and to leave her a toy... :)

Phan put her to bed... and at one point as she was putting her toys in her bed she started to say "I want... I want..." and I thought she was going to ask for it, but I think she remembered what we had said and stopped herself.

The night went pretty smoothly... she woke up a little upset at 11:30pm (but I think that was due to overtiredness from our big day... she does this even when has a dummy), only took a couple of minutes to calm her down, take her to the toilet and get her give Jemima, Dr Dougal & Flower Bear a big cuddle and she was back asleep... Then I got awoken at 3:30am by her crying and I thought "Oh no, this is it, she's going to ask for it"... but no... What had happened was she had rolled and fallen out of bed and was lying face down on the foam mattress I have next to her bed ... poor thing... it was quite funny... so another toilet stop and I bundled her back into bed and she was back to sleep... She called out for me at 7:15am this morning... I was sure she was going to ask to go out and see what the Easter Bunny had brought... but no... she asked me to lie in bed with her and cuddle... and 10 seconds later and fallen back asleep again and didn't wake up 'til 8am! I was itching for her to wake up and see what the Easter Bunny had brought her... :) When she finally did get up and walked out to see what was in her Easter Basket, she was *SOOOOOOO* excited... The first thing she went for was the purple chocolate cadbury easter bunny we had got her... she had eye-ed that in a catalogue a couple of weeks ago and had mentioned it a few times, so we knew she would love it... she was ripping the foil of him the minute she held him! I had to make her stop and look at her other stuff... then she found some of the little eggs that were also in her basket... and lastly, she went through all the new toys she got... She got a brand new white bunny (Fluffy the Rabbit), a plastic chopboard with a cut-able watermelon and banana (it was like $3 at kmart) and she already has a corn and carrot version that she won at Emily's bday party a couple of months ago), a fairy book with magnets (we've had this book for ages and had forgotten about it, and we discovered it on Friday while we were rearranging the bedroom and study, so I thought we'd throw it into the presents) and lastly a new stainless steel butterfly water bottle for her to use at kindy (just something practical, but pretty... :))... The Easter Bunny spoilt our girl a bit today, but I think she deserved it after doing so well without her dummy! I think she thinks the Easter Bunny is better than Santa too... LOL...

After all that, we had to get ourselves moving and ready for mass at 9am... I asked Beth if she would like some breakfast and she says "Yes please... I'd like some chocolate... " ... LOL... so she got to eat the ears of her chocolate bunny for breakfast, followed by some vegemite toast... And then off we went to mass ... Beth insisted on bringing her new friend Fluffy along with us and she spent most of mass talking to him, cuddling him, brushing his fur with her hands, putting headbands on him and even dancing with him... so cute. We also bumped into Vicky and Claire towards the end of mass... The girls were so excited to see each other... Claire had a little pink ballerina bunny with her and girls were showing each other their bunnies and then playing together and chasing each other...

And the rest of today has just been laid back... after the busy last couple of days, it's nice to just relax and take it easy... Beth has been pigging out on chocolate (it's only one day of the year and she is soooo excited about her chocolate... After about her 5th egg though, I made her stop and said we had to save some for tonight)... and we had a nice afternoon nap (sans dummy with no problems at all... although she chattered non-stop to herself for about 15 minutes before falling asleep)

So here's a few happy snaps I took this morning of our girl really enjoying Easter this year...



Thursday, April 1

A Happy & Blessed Easter To You All


Happy Blessed Easter


A Happy and Blessed Easter to you all... please stay safe over the long weekend! Well, it's all fun and games here in our household at the moment. The egg shaped easter basket in the photo above was a creation from kindy, which was done over two weeks... Beth loooooved making this basket... Last week she was telling me how she stuck pieces of paper over a balloon to make the basket and then this week how she painted it and put glitter on the handle and filled it up with coloured streamers. The lovely kindy teacher even hid some little chocolate eggs in the basket while they weren't looking so when we got home we found a lovely surprise... :) We've actually had a little hiccup with Beth not wanting to go to kindy the last 2 times... something happened on Thursday last week which upset her (can't exactly figure out what, but I think it's something to do with bumping her arm and hurting it and a yellow saucepan in the sandpit... someone not sharing it with her perhaps?), so last Friday, she was a bit hesitant about going to kindy, but was happy once we got there 'cos she got to do some painting. Then today we had a lot of tears about not wanting to go to kindy... she said she felt sad about going to kindy and that she didn't want to go... didn't explain why... I felt bad about making her go, but I talked it up and told her she would probably get to do some painting and drawing today and that she would have fun with all her friends... It took a lot of convincing, but we managed to get out of the house to kindy and once we got there, she had such a sad face on ... no tears, but you could tell she was holding back the tears and trying to be brave... Her teacher felt so bad seeing her upset and did a great job of distracting her with the thought of painting her easter basket... I still felt terrible leaving her, but I hoped she would have a good time once she got busy... When I went to pick her up, she was all happy and very excited to show me her painted easter basket and an easter egg picture she had decorated and telling me about a game they played called "Bunny, bunny, where's your egg?"... She had a really good day in the end and her teacher said she had settled in really quickly and been fine all day, so I was relieved about that... When we talked about her day over dinner she said she was feeling happy about kindy, so I'm hoping that feeling carries onto next week!

So here's Beth having some fun with her basket when we got home from kindy today... Taken with the new 85mm f/1.8... fun... but being in my less than mobile state with my ever going belly, it's taking a bit of work on my behalf to use... I'd forgotten what it's like to use a prime after using my zoom so much!


The-Awesome-Easter-Basket