family

Even after nearly four years of marriage (wow!!) I still wake up some days and get such a buzz when I see my husband sleeping there next to me, and remembering that we have a beautiful little daughter sleeping (or awake, lol) in the room across the hallway.

After growing up in the best family I can imagine growing up in, I now have my own family. Some days I still can’t get my head around it!

I was raised to place a lot of value on family, apart from God, it’s the one constant in my life – we will always be there for each other, and I know that if I ever need anything I could call any member of my family and they’d be there for me in a heartbeat.

My Mum and Dad have such a big impact in my life. Aside from being some of my closest friends, I everyday appreciate the way they raised me, prayerfully, with wisdom and love, and always with my best interests at heart. I love that they brought me up in the ways of God, and that they are such incredible role models for marriage and for parenthood – for both myself and Peter. We look up to them big-time, and totally value their input into our lives. We also love that they encourage us to live our lives, to make a life for ourselves and to be our own people.

My brother and sisters bring great joy to my life. I am so loving watching them grow up, watching their personalities develop, and just hanging out with them. They are so funny, and loving and kind and generous. Being married and living away from them has given me such a different perception of them all. I also love seeing them as uncles/aunties to Mayana – it’s so precious and I love sharing her life with them. I miss them SO much some days!

I love that my family has accepted my husband as one of their own – each of them absolutely adore Pete, and totally consider him as one of us. It makes me so warm and fuzzy knowing how well my husband and family get along with each other.

I can’t wait till December when our whole clan is off for a holiday to Perth together – I love that we can do stuff like that!

It’s so exciting that Peter and I now have our own family, and it is our responsibility to instil these same values into our children. We want to raise our children to live for God, and to have a relationship with Him. I so crave for our family to feel about each other as mine does. When our kids are teenagers, I want them to want to hang out with us, like we do with my parents. I want my daughter(s) to look forward to going out to coffee with me on a Saturday morning. I want my family to love family as much as I do.

It’s such an exciting time for us, moving from couplehood to parenthood… a ‘family unit’… such big responsibility, so much to consider and to plan for. I’m looking forward to seeing where life takes us as our family expands.

mmm yum!

My friend sent me an email a while ago with a really cool recipe for ‘ziplock omelettes’.

Basically, you crack two eggs into a ziplock bag, shake ‘em up to combine them, then add any extras you would like in your omelette, and give it another shake. Get all the air out of it and close the bag.

Then you put it into a pot of rolling boiling water, and cook for about 15 minutes. Open the bag, and pop it onto your toast, and voila, yummo!

So Pete and I tried it for the first time today. We put in bacon, feta cheese, tomatoes and mushrooms. It was soooo good, and will definitely be a regular on the weekend menu at the Friend house.

Cooking cooking cooking…

And ready to eat!

I’m not sure what Masterchef would think of it, but it works for me!!!!

My husband is so cool

See what he does for me!!!

Last night, I announced that I felt like having painted toe-nails – so he told me to go and get my nail polish… and did my fingernails too for good measure.

Thanks babe!

heart strings

Being a mum is the most incredible thing in the entire world.

There is such a jumble of emotions that are constantly sitting at the surface waiting for an excuse to irrupt.

Love, of course - an overwhelming love that is indescribable and you will never understand it until you become a parent.
Excitement - because this little person that was small enough to fit on the head of a pin when you found out about her is now a someone who you can hold onto, who depends on you, and who does something new and wonderful every single day.
Nervousness - because she is so completely dependent on you, and you don't want to let her down.

There are a whole gamut of emotions - you feel more than you thought was possible.

Yesterday, I had a uni assessment which was being filmed, and Pete is on prac - and I couldn't take Mayana with me. So for the first time, I left her with someone other than Pete or my parents - and it's the first time I left her when she wasn't asleep. I took her to playgroup, where my friends from church were, and left her with them. I was feeling totally fine with this plan - I wasn't worried about it at all, I completely trust the people I was leaving her with, Mayana knows them, I was only going to be a few hours. I dropped her off no worries, but the moment I got into the car I felt .. awful. It felt so wrong to be driving away from her. My head knew that she would be fine, probably wouldn't even miss me, but my heart so wanted to be with her.

My head was right. She apparently was really good, even had a sleep, and loved being fussed over by the little girls. And my heart was appeased by the precious smiles my girl gifted me with when I walked in and picked her up.

I now know what that old saying, tugging at the heart strings, really means.

Sweet Veggie Tales

We are a real Veggie Tales family. We love them. Mayana has quite a collection - about 10 different CD's, and we are starting a DVD collection too. They are just so cool, and super cute.

Every night, while I get Mayana ready for bed, I play the Veggie Tales CD, "Junior's Bedtime Songs"


I feed her, burp her and snuggle her as we listen to the cute little animated veggies singing lullabies.

My favourite song on the album is one that Junior Asparagus's mummy sings to him, called "One in a Million".

And every time it gets to this song, I get a lump in my throat. It's embarrassing to admit, but it's the truth. My mummy-emotions get the best of me. I snuggle my girl extra close, close my eyes and kiss the top of her head and just love her. It's one of my favourite moments of every day.

Way up above us, twinkling bright,
There must be a million stars in the sky tonight, tonight.
But don’t you worry, no need to cry,
You are the only twinkle that’s in my eye, tonight.

You’re more than one in a million,
No one can take your place,
Though I could try,
There’s no way that I could ever forget your face,

You’re more than one in a million,
No other ever could do,
Cause not even one in a million, could ever compare to you,
Could ever come close to you.

Through all the laughter, through all the tears,
Whenever you need me, I will be standing here, right here.
No need to wonder, don’t ever fear,
Though you may wonder,
I’ll always be right here, right here.

You’re more than one in a million,
No one can take your place,
Though I could try,
There’s no way that I could ever forget your face.

You’re more than one in a million,
No other ever could do,
Not even one in a million, could ever compare to you,
Could ever come close to you.
Could ever come close to you

*sigh*

Brisbane Adventure

Yesterday, Pete, Mayana and I, and my friend Jess, drove up to Brisbane, where we met Mama and Papa at Ikea!

I love Ikea, it’s such a fun place to shop. And it was even better that we got to hang out with my parents all day!

Papa was a total Mayana hog (hehe), and had a great time wandering around with her, putting her in random chairs, and taking her to choose the perfect stuffed toy (it ended up being a great big orange hippo- I’ll put photos of it on Mayana’s Blog).

Mayana doesn’t look so little in this chair, eh?

We bought a few things at Ikea, the ‘town map’ rug I’d been eyeing off. I really like it, it has such scope for imaginative play, and the Ikea one has some really great ‘landmarks’, like an igloo, a beach (complete with whales) and a castle on a hill!

We also got her this really cute mobile, which she fell in love with as they had one just like it hanging over the change table in the parent’s room.

I got some stuff for the kitchen too (storage containers, little shelves for the pantry, cake decorating stuff).

After Ikea, Pete and I went to his brother, Daniel’s place to meet our new baby niece, Hannah. Daniel hadn’t got to hold Mayana before either (they’d only met her once, at their wedding), so everyone got to have cuddles of their respective niece.

Pete with Hannah, Daniel with Mayana

We then went back into the city and met up with Mama and Papa again. That was a drama in itself. Our idea was to part at a train station, and train into the city so we didn’t have to worry about parking. We’ve done it many times, and it usually works well.. but not yesterday. We got to the train station with about 5 minutes to spare before the next train… which didn’t arrive! A voice came over the intercom telling us that there was a delay, and it would be 20 minutes late. Fair enough. I settled in, gave my girl a feed… finished feed.. still no train!

Eventually, we gave up, and decided to risk parking in the city. So we asked good ole tomtom to direct us, and ended up at the Myer Centre car park - $15 flat rate… nice!

Into the city… and off to STARBUCKS where I had me a Grande Double Chocolate Chip Blended Cream Frappuccino with Whipped Cream and Chocolate Sauce. Oooh yeah.

We walked around for a bit, and Papa spotted a chinese takeaway in a shopping centre which was selling off what they had left for cheap- he got 6 containers for $20! Not bad, fed the 5 of us well, we were so full!

We had such a lovely day together… Mama and Papa just couldn’t get enough of Mayana, and who could blame them!?

We definitely have to do it again…

Food, wine, arts and family

Today was a really lovely day.

After church (which was really good today), we spontaneously decided to head out to Hampton (just over 1/2 an hour away) for the annual Food, Wine & Arts festival.

I have decided I quite like a Sunday drive.

Mayana slept for most of the drive, and Pete and I chatted and held hands *sigh* .

The festival was lovely.. had a country market feel to it. Lots of little stalls with beautiful food, and wine tasting. Music being performed, people doing art demonstrations, entertainment.

We both really enjoyed it. Pete had Mayana in the Tomy sling, facing out, which she really loves. We can barely ever take more than two steps without being stopped and asked how old she is, told how tiny she is (*rolls eyes* – this can be hard to hear some days), and just being generally clucked over. She is a really, really, ridiculously good looking baby, even if I say so myself.

We tasted so much yummy food – jams and chutneys, gourmet muesli, oils, honey, fruit, breads, pestos, and even gourmet vinegar! (we bought one of those… and apple vinegar, beautiful can’t wait to use it on salads!) We also tasted a variety of semi-local wines, and some fruit ports and apple products – my favourites were probably the plum port and the jonothan apple and ginger juice… mmm

It was so nice to be walking around, the three of us, enjoying our surroundings and each other.

On the way home, we stopped at the Chocolate Cottage for afternoon tea. The Chocolate Cottage is a lovely place to visit.. has great food and drinks, and chocolate of course, but my favourite thing about it, is that it’s set on a beautiful grassy piece of property (the kind of grass that begs you to take your shoes off) with an incredible view. I love it! Peter had a ‘Pure Hot Chocolate’ (hot milk served with a mound of chocolate buttons, which you melt into it to your preferred strength) and I went back to my childhood and had a lemonade ice-cream spider.. yum! Mayana had a breastfeed, and eyed off my spider. She was totally wishing that spoon was heading her way!

The only unfortunate thing of the entire day, was that we were having so much fun, I completely neglected to take any photos…

a new craft… cos I really need another one!

It’s called “Punch Embroidery” and it’s SOOOOOO cool. This is the first thing I’ve made with it, and I’m looking forward to more experimenting. It’s lots of fun, quicker than cross-stitch, and a really pretty result…

Super-Mummy

[Step One] Peel, core and dice fruits (apple & pear), peel and dice vegetables (pumpkin & sweet potato).

[Step Two] Place in steamer, steam until soft

[Step Three] Puree, using blitzer, and place into icecube trays

[Step Four] Place in freezer. Once frozen, shake out into separate zip-lock bags, label & date.

[Step Five] Count down the days until Monday, when Mayana starts her proper solids diet!!!

I’m thinking of giving her her Farex in the morning, and some pumpkin in the afternoon.

There’s so much to think about… every book has different advice. What to give first: fruit or veg, what time of day to give solids, when to introduce more than one ‘meal’… My plan at this point is just to take things slowly, and see how Mayana goes with it all.

If anyone has any real-life advice (books are driving me batty, Pete told me to chuck them in the bin, I told him I can’t cos they’re from the library) I’d be very appreciative :-)

Zoey x

Welcome to Mothers Day

That was a text that I got from my gorgeous Nanna today.

My first mothers day! How exciting is that!!!

Mayana slept through till 5am today, bliss, since she has been waking up at around 2-ish AND 5am, which is sooo annoying when you’re used to her sleeping though! I am pretty sure that it’s her teeth that are bothering her, but anyway, that’s another story.

So, she woke at 5am, had a feed, and went back to sleep until we had to wake her to get ready for church! Nice!

Pete brought me breakfast in bed (Bircher and a cappuccino) at about 8am, and gave me my mother’s day gift:

Another Willow Tree for my collection! Woohoo!!! Apparently Mayana told Pete that this is the one she wanted to get me ;-)

We woke up our gorgeous smiley sleepy girl (she does the cutest smiles when she first wakes up), got her dressed for church, and actually got there early for a change!

I got a lovely gift from the church:

and today’s service was really beautiful.

After church we headed up to the gorgeous Beutel’s Lookout at Ravensbourne for a picnic. It is one of my favourite places to have a picnic, and we haven’t been there for ages.

We had a yummy picnic lunch, Mayana had her farex, which I had mixed with water because I forgot to express last night – she didn’t think much of that at all!! After lunch we just laid on the picnic rug and took photos and chatted… it was lovely.

I wanted to get some nice shots of Mayana with me for my first mother’s day. I think we succeeded…

This family shot would be perfect if Pete was looking at the camera…

Isn’t she looking bigger!? She has such a gorgeous little cheeky personality, and this photo really captures it. Precious little munchkin.

This is Pete’s new favourite photo of me… lol.

Candid shot of Mayana and I checking out the awesome view that God made for us!

I had a fantastic Mothers Day, and feel very spoiled by my bubby and hubby. I LOVE being a mummy.

Mayana also did a few ‘firsts’ today. She found her toes, and tried really hard to suck on them; She sat up all by herself, for about 30 seconds, and for about 5 minutes supported only by a cushion on my lap; She pulled herself up into a sitting position by grabbing onto her rings which Pete was dangling over her face. She also came to the realisation that she quite likes raspberries on her tummy. So much so, that she grabbed onto her Papa’s chain, and would use it to pull him down for another one, over and over again. Pete is uploading a video of this, I’ll pop in a link when it’s done. She’s so clever and gorgeous, and we love watching her discover new things about herself and her world.

I feel incredibly blessed today.

One Year Ago

A year ago tomorrow, the 9th of May, this happened:

I was on prac at Suncoast Christian College, and we were staying at my in-laws place (they were away). It was our 10th cycle of trying to fall pregnant. It was a Friday, I had been 'due' on the Wednesday, but wasn't going to allow myself a pregnancy test until Friday. I woke up Friday morning, feeling like 'it' had arrived. I got a little bit teary, and told Pete. He told me to take a test with me to the toilet just in case. I went into the bathroom and yelled out to Pete, "It's not here!". He raced in and told me to do the test. I did what I had to do, and placed the test on the bathroom bench. Pete went over to have a look, and I told him not to look at it until the 2 minutes were up. He turned around with a big grin and said, "But there's a line already!!!!". I went over and snatched it out of his hand, and sure enough, there it was!!! We both started jumping around and laughing and crying... after all our planning and talking and dreaming, it was finally happening: we were going to have a baby.

I went off to school that day with my happy little secret. I may have let slip to my brother and sisters over the next couple of days, but we decided to wait until Mother's Day to tell my parents. They were very happy and excited. Over the next couple of days we rang Pete's parents and siblings, and my grandparents, and visited Pete's Nan to tell her... everyone was completely stoked! But not as much as the two of us.


Well, you all know what happened over the next 9 months, you were right here reading and sharing it with me... I just can't believe that this... that Mayana.. all started a year ago! It does seem like such a long time ago, and looking at photos of my growing belly, reading my pregnancy posts... it all seems so surreal. It feels so weird looking at those bump photos, and knowing that was Mayana in there. It's so weird imagining the time before Mayana was in our life, before we knew our little Mayana Banana.

What an incredible twelve months to reflect on...

My new look … and a date with my man!

Yesterday I got my final birthday present… a trip to Mel at Salon Unique for a cut, colour and eyebrow wax. I got brave, and went for a whole new look. I’m SO happy with it!!!

I always love Mel’s haircuts, but I am in love with this one. I feel so good!!! And the colour is fabulous… will definitely be keeping it like this for a while!

As I mentioned in my last post, Pete also took me on a date last night! It’s our second one since Mayana was born, and it was lovely. He took me to one of our old haunts, Ma Mensa’s on Hastings Street. We used to go there a lot when we were going out/engaged. It was lovely, though not the same as it used to be, we’re thinking maybe it has new owners. Still good food though! I had a mushroom, sage and parmesan risotto, and Pete had a baked gnocchi dish. They were both delicious. Afterwards we bought yummy ice-creams and took a stroll along the beachfront boardwalk – another tradition of ours.

There is not much of Noosa Beach at the moment though! Instead of boardwalk, vast expanse of sand, water – it now goes boardwalk, rocks, water. The recent floods haven’t done it any favours, that’s for sure!

It was so nice to hang out with *just* my husband, and we even managed to not talk about Mayana the whole time! I think we need to take advantage of the baby-sitting offers we’ve had from our friends and reinstate our monthly date-nights…

We are home again now. It somehow took us over 4 hours to get home. Mayana wasn’t a very happy traveller unfortunately. I think most of the problem was that for the last week she’s had someone next to her in the car to play with, and she didn’t today and got bored. She wasn’t screaming the whole way (only parts of it) but she was fairly whingy for most of it. She was so happy once we got home though. She has discovered a new noise she can make today- and absolutely gorgeous little chuckle. She got a real little belly-laugh happening in the bath tonight, it was so adorable.

“Our Noosa Getaway”, or, “A Weekend of Madness and Mayhem”

This weekend is my Dad’s birthday. His birthday always falls on, or around the Qld Labour Day weekend. When we were little, he used to call it his birthday long-weekend, and I told my friends that the long weekend was FOR my Dad’s birthday. Hmmm…

I now know the truth – yes it was just one more moment of disillusionment to add to the crumbling trust I once had in my father … along with the time he had my sister and I convinced that our trip to the Noosa airport was going to culminate in us all flying to the moon.. but I digress.

The point is, we always take advantage of the long weekend to celebrate Papa’s birthday. This weekend, Pete and I took an EXTRA long weekend. We headed to Noosa on Thursday afternoon, and won’t be back home until this Wednesday! Gotta love the uni life, right!?

On Friday, we had a day at home, while most of the family was at school/work. I managed to get some uni work done, and Mayana had her first successful independent play session – she has finally discovered a toy that keeps her occupied for more than 1 minute!

We had afternoon tea with Aunty Joce (man she puts on a good spread!) and then Mama and Papa took Pete, Mayana and I out for dinner to the RSL while the others were at youth. Mayana was a very good girl, went to sleep with Opa (he seems to have that affect on her), and then slept the entire time we ate.. woke up just before we left and went straight back to sleep after a quick feed when we got home! Oh she’s a good bubby!

My Mama and I

A traditional Buma pose. This means Pete is truly really officially a certified (certifiable!????), bona fide member of the Buma family!

After a veeeeeery long drive, our favourite Donovans arrived at their Noosa holiday accommodation late Friday night. They had left the Brisbane area at around 6pm, and didn’t arrive in Noosa until close to 11pm!!! They came over the next morning, and we had a very yummy pancake breakfast. After that, we hit Noosa Civic, where we caught up with Mayana’s other grandies. We somehow managed to hang around there for a really long time, but didn’t actually seem to look in any shops… Papa and Bethanie made two incredible curries for dinner.. Chicken Massaman and Beef Green, mmmmmmmm, was SO good. We spent the remainder of the evening talking and laughing, doing what Bumas and Donovans do best: have fun!!

On Sunday, we had church. My dad lead worship (it was awesome by the way), and I got to play keys and sing! It was so much fun, I miss doing it so much and it has really made me feel that I need to get my butt into gear and see about getting on the music team at our Toowoomba church!

After church, we broke up into groups. Some people went jet-skiing on the Noosa River, some went to see the Wolverine movie, but Pete, Mayana and I were in the group that went to Kenilworth for ice-cream at the cheese factory, and then up to Montville for some boutique shopping. We were with my parents, Aunty Janeen, Alexie & Bethanie (my sisters) and Lockey (sis’s boyfriend). Personally, I think it was the best group and the best outing, lol.

I had a Rolo flavoured ice-cream and it was soooo good. Mayana was eyeing everyone’s off, and we told her that next year we will come back for Opa’s birthday and she can have her very own ice-cream! (oh, by the way, check out my new bling on my ice-cream hand. It’s SOOO cool. I got it with some of my birthday money.. it’s a gorgeous fuscia pink stone, with three cubic zircons down each side… I’ll have to post a proper pic later)

It is possible that the silliness began on this leg of the trip, because looking at this photo later on in the evening was the beginning of a couple of VERY silly hours, which you shall soon see evidence of.

Peter, me, Mama, Bethanie, Alexie, Mayana, Papa, Lockey, Aunty Janeen.

I think Montville would have to be one of my favourite places to visit when we’re on the coast. It’s so pretty, and I love looking at all the different shops even if we don’t buy anything.

We came home to a yummy-smelling house, because I had put dinner in the slow-cooker before we went out. After dinner, we may have done something slightly naughty involving mass amounts of sparklers, matches, cardboard tubes and duct tape. It’s possible that (very) tall bursts of sparkling light, roaring fire-ish noises, and many girly screams (mostly from the boys) were heard from the Buma back-yard, but there is no evidence that any such activity actually happened (it has all been disposed of rather thoroughly). lol.

So while we were watching the now non-existent footage of said possible event, we came across the photo that I showed earlier, which resulted in much hilarity. The suggestion was put forward that we should each take turns having our photos taken in such a pose, and then the camera should be plugged into the TV so it could be viewed on a large scale, purely for entertainment purposes! So that’s exactly what we did.

The idea is, you loosen your lips, and blow through them, the way that a horse would. Someone takes a photo of you mid-blow, and it results in the most awesome, if slightly unattractive, pictures you will ever have of yourself. We would probably have spent a good 1.5 hours doing this. This is just the kind of thing our two families get up to when we’re together, and should in no way put you off getting to know any of us. When you meet us individually, or in small groups, we are actually quite normal. So please don’t judge us by these photos. (and if you had ever heard my Aunty Janeen laugh, you would do anything you could possibly happen to be able to hear it again too!!!) We took a lot of these photos, but these are the best of the best…

from top left: Mama, Adam, his girlfriend Jess, Jordan, Rhaman, Alexie, Peter, Tjalara’s boyfriend Kevin, Tjalara, Me, Aunty Janeen, Papa. We’re an attractive bunch, no?

Once we had all calmed down, had a few puffs of the ventolin, and massaged the stitches out of our tummies, we had a play with the Wii for a while, and then one-by-one decided to hit the hay.

Today was Papa’s birthday. The Donovans came over for one last meal (a delicious feast of cheeses, crackers, dips, chips, olives, gherkins and other such scrumptious foods) before heading home.

Later in the day, Papa, Mama, Peter, Mayana and myself attempted a walk along the Noosa River, but it started to rain, so we stopped at the Noosa Villa for lunch instead.

And that has been our weekend!! It’s been awesome, a big few days and I’m seriously impressed with how well Mayana coped with it all.

Tomorrow I get my birthday present from my family… a trip to my favourite hairdresser for a cut, colour and eyebrow wax (apparently they’re going to fix my spastic eyebrow). I have big plans for a major change, but you’re gonna have to wait and be surprised!!!!

Tomorrow night, Peter is taking me out on a romantic date.. I have no idea what’s happening and I like it that way.

Hope your weekend was as awesome as mine!!

Zoey x

PS.. if you want a serious laugh, you have to check out this awesome song my brother wrote. He’s SO funny and clever.

Trust me, you REALLY want to click here and check it out.