Mayana’s Week

  Mayana has had a lovely week… Another fun few days at daycare – where they are officially beginning the transition to the toddler room with her. I had to sign a form giving permission for it to happen about a month earlier than it ‘should’, as all the carers that have spent time with Mayana agree that she is more than ready! It makes us so proud listening to them all talk about how clever and advanced she is!

She is still loving this box. She crawls through it, over it, stands on it, puts her dollies through it. It’s definitely good value!

Mayana has been pulling this awesome cheeky smile when we ask her to smile for photos. I love it. She’s starting to look so toddler-ish.

We took Mayana to the Japanese Gardens this week, to see and feed the DUCKIES! It’s the first time that Mayana had seen them in real life, and she was beside herself!

We went out for a picnic with some friends from church, and Mayana got to test-run her froggy chair. It’s sure going to be getting a workout this weekend at Easterfest!

Mayana loves to read in the car…. And she seems to have developed a habit like her Mama… my hubby often finds me asleep like this with a book in my hands when he comes to bed after me. 

We keep telling people that Mayana is a climber – but even we were surprised when we found her doing this! She’s certainly very creative!

She’s also a very cool dude!

We tripped down to Brisbane this weekend to hit a bridal expo with my sisters and mum. Mayana was such a little trouper. She had a lot of fun, and enjoyed being the star attraction of the bridal expo! I think she got even more attention than the bride in our group! (See Mayana’s little backpack harness? Little Miss Independent is far too cool for the pram unless her legs are *really* sore, and would often rather not hold hands, thank you very much).

There’s that cheeky smile again!

Snuggles with Kami!

Okay guys, I’ve had enough of this place now!

So we walked over to the city – favouring the bike over the pram… apparently we possibly should have taken the pram.

After some shopping and Starbucks with Kami and the Tantes, we waved goodbye as they set off for the station, and the three of us headed back over to Southbank to take some photos in the gorgeous late afternoon light…

 

Man our baby’s photogenic!

I so love to sew….

The sewing machine has taken up residence on our dining room table for the last couple of days. Partly because I can’t find space for it on my office desk (we’re tackling that monster tomorrow), and partly because it is easier to keep an eye on our roving Mayana Berry from the vantage point of our dining room table, which is right next to her play area – also known as our lounge-room.

So I wanted to make Mayana some new pretty things. The child has a million clothes, but only one skirt. Which is why I decided a skirt was the way to go. I had also procured a delicious brown corduroy with purple flowers (with the $10 voucher I got in the mail for being a Spotlight VIP member) that I had high hopes for. So once I got this idea in my head, I had to go through with it. I may or may not have sat up until some ridiculous hour on Wednesday night honing my pattern and cutting out material. By the way, I hate cutting out, it is the suckiest part of sewing by far! And I may or may not have sat up to a ridiculous hour last night, eventually producing not one but TWO cute little skirts for my cute little girl.

BUT…. really, there are FOUR gorgeous skirts!! You see, I got very clever with this pattern, and made it reversible! So each skirt is really 2-in-1! Now how’s that for good value!

So without any further ado… here are pictures of my adorable new, designed by me, super-cool two-in-one skirts!

SKIRT ONE

SKIRT TWO

SKIRT THREE

So what do you think!????

There is also plans for a lovely little number with a cutie-pie ladybug print on one side, and red with white polka-dots on the other. Just you wait!!!

By the way, the third skirt will soon be making it’s way to be listed on my made-it shop, as will the red one! So make sure you keep an eye out!

Now, I should probably go and put the sewing machine away so we can use our table for breakfast tomorrow!

My Place and Yours

This week’s theme at Hello Owl’s blog meme is “The Top Draw”.

We don’t have that many drawers in our house… and the top drawer in my bedroom has my undies in it and you ain’t seeing that! The kitchen drawer is pretty boring – pretty much everyone’s top kitchen drawer looks the same aside from the cutlery design.

So anyway, here are two of the few top drawers in our home.

The top, and only, drawer of our telephone table. Also known as the junk draw. In fact, I was so horrified by its state when I went to take this photo, that I decided to have an impromptu drawer cleanout. I for one was incredibly surprised at the amount of junk that I threw out from this drawer. Who would have thought it held so much!?

So, what’s left in it? Hooks, and assortment, stored in a ziplock bag. Tapes for our dymo labeller. A few stationery items. Pete’s superglue stuff. Earplugs – we have quite a collection. My old glasses, and a glasses case full of glasses cleaners. And all our script repeats. 

And this is the top drawer of my beading cabinet. It holds: a stack of blue beading mats; small ziplock bags for when I sell stuff;  solder wire + my solder iron; a pencil tin full of jewellery pliers; some unsold jewellery; a stamp; some stray beads; crochet hooks, knitting needles and pens; and other various jewellery-making paraphernalia. 

Now go and play along!!

aaah.. books…

We went to the library today. We were well overdue for a visit (literally, Pete got an overdue notice in the mail yesterday).

I love the library- and ours is especially good. It is one thing about this town that I will miss when we leave. It has a particularly good selection of Christian fiction…. Karen Kingsbury, Lauraine Snelling, Janette Oke, Robin Jones Gunn… all my favourites, and so many new discoveries to be made! Love it!

They also have a great kids section, with lots of stuff to entertain the little ones, and millions of books. I love it so much.

I always come away with a heavy bag and very full library card. Mayana loves the library too, she LOVES choosing books, loves playing in the firetruck and with the other kids in the kid’s section.

Mayana’s selection of books from today… including two about DUCKIES!!! 

And Pete is the perfect husband who follows me around with a bag and carries all my books for me. And picks up a few of his own while he’s at it. Love it! He likes to look through the random music, and he’s found some great CD’s in his time.

We’re big fans of talking books too, they’re great for long car rides, and we found a couple of interesting looking ones today.

Oh I love the library… you should try it!

I just finished reading…

Teacher Man by Frank McCourt.

I’m so undecided about this one. I definitely didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it.

What really ticked me off was the face that he uses no speech marks. Ever. And he has lots of speaking in it. I couldn’t get used to it until about chapter four, but even that it gave me huge moments of annoyance. It made it so very confusing at times.

It’s full of sometimes amusing anecdotes of experiences Mr McCourt had in his teaching life. Some made me giggle, some were sad, and some I didn’t understand why they were in the book.

It was quite bitsy, and a little hard to follow at times.

I haven’t read any of Frank McCourt’s other books, so wasn’t at all familiar with his writing style.

I did enjoy reading about his teaching style, they way he learned through teaching, and there was an element of inspiration in there for me.

I guess I just couldn’t get past the style it was written in. I wanted to go through with a red pen and add speech marks and more punctuation and paragraphs!

It is worth a read though, so I hope I haven’t turned you off it!

Breadmaking…

When we were in Perth, we very much enjoyed all the fresh bread we got to eat. You see, a lot of our family over there have breadmakers, and make beautiful fresh bread nearly every day.

We had a breadmaker when I was a kid, but then my parent’s breadmaker died a little, and they lost their breadmaking mojo.

So anyway, we became inspired by our Perth family… and Pete has always wanted one… so we bought ourselves a breadmaker. And have been very much enjoying yummy fresh bread.

We have also discovered a lovely little breadshop here in our town, and have been trying out their various mixes.

So I thought I would write some little reviews on what we’ve tried so far. Partly just in case you want to try them, but mostly so I remember which ones we liked, and which ones not so much.

So, here goes.

This was our very first loaf. Multigrain. Actually multigrain has been what we’ve mainly made – as we bought a massive bag of multigrain mix. It’s only recently that we’ve branched out and bought a variety of different mixes. The multigrain is beautiful. We’ve discovered that if you add about 10mL extra water, your loaf becomes that little bit lighter and fluffier, turns out perfect every time. We also use 1-2tablespoons of rice bran oil, on the advice of our lovely breadshop lady. Beautiful.

The next one we tried was called Leckerbrot – a German mix. Full of seeds – different and more than the multigrain mix. Quite delicious, but we couldn’t tell *that* much that it wasn’t the multigrain. No photo of that one though.

Dark rye. This is my favourite so far. It’s so smooth and beautifully brown and delicious. Pete is still not quite sold on the slightly unique taste of rye, but I’m a most definitely a fan. It’s certainly on my list to buy again!

These are cinnamon scrolls. Kind of. We made a batch of the sweet bun mix from the breadshop, but we aren’t having great success with it. They still taste awesome, but they don’t look very bunly. We follow all the directions, but instead of rising upwards, they sort of just ooze. Help anyone? For those interested, to make cinnamon scrolls, you roll out the dough, brush with melted butter, sprinkle with a mix of blitzed pecan nuts, brown sugar and cinnamon, drizzle with more melted butter, roll up, slice, allow to rise, then bake.

Now these are not from my breadmaker, but I had to share because they’re so delicious. Blueberry muffins. They were originally going to be banana muffins, but I didn’t read the recipe properly and didn’t realise that I was supposed to substiute certain ingredients from the basic muffin recipe I was following. Oops. Luckily I had a packet of blueberries in the freezer. Yummmmmy! Maybe I’ll make banana muffins next week!

Just breathe and....

Fourth year of uni is scary man! Last week we had a ‘transitions to teaching’ session with a regional representative from the Department of Education and Training – telling us all about the processes we have to go through to become employed by Education Queensland.

I don’t think there was a one of us who wasn’t feeling a slight element of panic by the time the session finished.

It’s scary stuff! In the next few months we have to start applying for teacher registrations, and looking at submitting our portfolios to Ed Qld. Already!! We’ll have interviews with EQ in September/October, and be given a suitability rating, and then in the next month or so after that we’ll be getting job offers. Well, hopefully anyway! At the transitions session they made it sound like no one is getting jobs. I think the statistics they showed us were a bit skewed though because they were only referring to people who were offered permanent positions, and most graduates seem to get contracts - so a lot more people are actually teaching now than what their charts let on.

I’m really ticked off because my hubby asked the representative what would be the processes considering we’re a married couple both looking for teaching positions. She basically told him that whichever of us gets offered a job first, to take that one and both move ‘out there’ and the other can do supply work. Um. Okay. So only one of us is allowed to actually teach??? What if we get placed in a town which has a one-teacher school? One of us has to take a day off so the other can do supply work? Stupid system.

Speaking of which, it doesn’t sit right with me at all that you can’t choose where you want to work. They can just pick you up and plonk you wherever they see fit, and then you’re stuck there for at least two years! Sucks to be us, born on the coast, all our families are there and we have buckleys chance of getting a job there unless we commit to a few years in the middle of whoop whoop first.

Of course, this is all assuming we’ll work for EQ. Which I don’t want to, and have never wanted to. Independent schools all the way baby. Heck, I’d even be happy to do a few units of theology at the Australian Catholic University and teach for CathEd.

I’m holding onto my dream of getting a job at the school I did highschool at. That’s the goal.. the ideal. We’ll see I suppose.

I’m still not 100% sold on even going through the EQ interview process. You can do supply work in state schools without having done an EQ interview, and if you work somewhere other than for EQ, your interview only lasts for two years… so if for example I managed to pick up some contracts at a private school, and then wanted to look at working in a state school, I’d have to do another interview anyway!!!

At this point we’re thinking that if I don’t manage to land a job in a private school (and Pete does get a job) then I’ll look at having another baby sooner rather than later, and do supply work or short-term contracts in the meantime. And if I do get a job in a private school, I’ll teach for a couple of years (or whatever it takes to get maternity leave) first. *sigh*. Who knows!?

I have a friend who graduated last year, and she hasn’t been able to get anything and has gone back to teacher-aiding part time. The thought of going through four years of university with nothing at the end of it makes me feel a bit ill.

I’m also not coping well with the fact that we have NO IDEA what we’ll be doing next year. We can’t plan anything beyond our final prac, and that big question mark that’s left hanging scares the bejeezes out of me.

I’m trying my very hardest to hand it all over to God and remember that he has ALWAYS pulled through for us, time and time again. But I’m having trouble letting go, and my brain doesn’t stop nagging me, and at times I feel like I’m sitting on the edge of an anxiety attack all day.

Gah. Must stop thinking.

Mayana’s Week…

It’s been a pretty good one. We’re all feeling pretty settled into our routine now, and the week totally flew by.

Mayana has had an awful cold this week – one of the joys of daycare I suppose. Oh well, it all builds the immune system I guess. Her cough got bad enough that we took her to the doctors, but she told us it was just a ‘garden variety’ cold and she’ll get through it eventually. We’re dosing her up on Olive Leaf Extract and Inner Health Plus (baby versions of course). While we were at the doctor’s we had her weighed, and found that she’s sitting at 7.59kg. I was a little dissapointed, I thought it would be more, but her graph line is still climbing so that’s a good thing. She’s parallel to the 3rd percentile, probably sitting on the first or maybe just under. But the doctor did say that she’s happy as long as it’s climbing, and was suitably impressed with Mayana’s bubbliness and cleverness at pointing out her nose, eyes, ears and belly button. Beautiful clever bean that she is.

Anyway… here’s a few snapshots of her week!

Mayana took great delight in watching her Papa playing ‘Biggest Loser’ on the Wii. She was completely enthralled, and tried to copy his moves. So cute!

Girly-girl? Found Mama’s lip gloss and just *had* to have some. She thought she was so clever and pulled this killer pout for the next ten minutes or so, before discovering that it tasted pretty good and licking it all off.

Yeah baby!!! Her hair is getting thicker by the day… and Mama managed to scrape it into piggy-tails!!!!

Mayana discovered for the first time the joys of playing in a box! What fun…

See… check out that hair!!

Mayana adores colouring in. This week we bought her a pencil case, because the box her crayons came in was getting somewhat tattered. She thinks it’s pretty cool. However, she also thinks it’s cool to eat crayons…

On Friday, Mayana’s daycare teacher told us that pretty much the only thing stopping her from moving up into the toddler’s room is that she’s not quite adept at feeding herself with a spoon. So it’s time to perfect that skill. We bought Mayana some of those bowls that suction to the table, to make the learning a little easier. This was her first attempt at 100% independent use of a spoon… with lasagne. I was pretty impressed at how much she got in her mouth, and how little ended up on her tray and the floor…. can’t say as much for her face though!

On Saturday the three of us headed to the park for some family time. Mayana had a ball running around everywhere, playing with the xylophone and eating. She had a little oopsie, but the tears soon subsided when I produced a pretty pink fairy band-aid.

 

Sunday afternoon in the garden:

Haircut! Take two…

You may remember, a few months (wow that long!!???) ago I gave Pete my very first haircut, after a you-tube-hairdressing apprenticeship-in-45-minutes-or-less… teehee. It took two hours, but it was worth it!

Well, last night I took my second attempt. This time we were way more prepared and set up a huge old double bed sheet over the whole lounge room floor. Plus, between haircuts I had invested in a really nifty little set of clippers (to replace my crappy Silly Solly’s ones), from Harvey Norman’s grand opening sale – down to like $12.00 or something, from about $40!!!! So I had them, my awesome $9.00 Coles hairdressing scissors, a water spray and a hairdresser’s cape. And off I went.

This time it only took me just over half an hour! That impressed Pete immensely, and I am really happy with the cut. He is too, which is also a good thing.

So here he is, my spunky husband with his spunky new Zoey-cut :0)

So what do you think, should I go into business??

I like it pink

I’ve decided to join in the fun of ‘My Place and Yours’… a photographic blog meme hosted over at Hello Owl. This week’s theme is PINK, which being one of my two very favourite colours, is a perfect theme for my first game.

So…. some snippets of the pink in my place!

[My lovely pink mp3 player]

[Gorgeous pink silk flower arrangement. A 21st birthday present from my husband’s aunty.]

[My beautiful porcelain doll. A 16th birthday gift from my Great Granny Alice.]

[A small selection of Mayana’s vast amount of pink belongings.]

[Pink scarf and snugly fluffy dressing gown – a 21st birthday gift from my mother-in-law.]

[A left-over Christmas decoration. Oops!]

[My beautiful and bright pink office chair.]

[Pink detail in my bathroom. This green cute bucket is left over from my wedding – it was used to hold the bubbles… now it holds my collection of hair accessories]

[Yummy pink smelly things.]

[Our romance spot. The pink flowers are home to lovely little fairy lights. I think I need a new bedlamp though!]

Go on… why don’t you play along too… you know you want to!