Mayana’s Week

Seriously, my daughter is just so cool. I love her so much, and I have so much fun being her mum! She is so delightful, and cheeky and she already has a wicked sense of humour.

We’ve had a great week together, aside from an ongoing runny nose/cough. She’s on olive leaf extract and inner health plus, the occasional does of Demazin, and constant squirts of fess up the nose. Not sure what else I can do! It doesn’t help that it hasn’t got much warmer than 16degrees this week!

I don’t think I’ve mentioned that Miss Mayana is now the proud owner of SIXTEEN teeth!!! How amazing is that!? She has her 8 front teeth, all her eyeteeth, and her first four molars. She is also already beginning work on her two-year-old molars. Amazing. And can I just say thank the Lord for her teething necklace. I don’t think I’ve blogged about that yet – but it does deserve a post of its own so stay tuned!

Anyway, here are some gorgeous photos of the lovliest 16 month old I know *sigh*.

This is where Mayana now spends a lot of her time. At the little table and chair we got on our Ikea trip a few weeks ago. She loves it. See also how she’s found framed photos of Peter and I which she keeps there. So cute.

Mayana’s play corner, which she’s getting better at keeping tidy. I also made the little cushion that’s on her stool.

Mayana helped Papa do some baking this week. They made jam drops, using Nana’s recipe. Yummo. They were nearly as good as Nana’s. Has anyone else ever noticed that even if you use your grandma’s exact recipe, they’re never quite as good as hers??

Here is Mayana discovering the joys of raw cookie dough. I myself have never been into it, so it’s something that she and her Papa can share between themselves.

And here she is poking the holes in the bickies ready for the jam. Cutie-pie!

We had a pajama day this week. One of the days where it didn’t get higher than 13 degrees. Brrrr. Mayana and I sat on the couch and read books. Love it!

Spaghetti and cheese on toast for breakfast makes Mayana VERY happy…

I’m so glad I captured this moment. How precious can she get!  She loves her Papa very much.

My adorable princess! This dress is now being worn by its third generation. Special huh?

And that’s about all I’ve got for ya this week..

Hope you enjoyed it!

Pie Night

I bought a pie-maker from Aldi for $15.00! It’s so cool, and so easy to use. So we’ve decided that Sunday night will be Pie Night, and we’ll try a different pie filling each week.

Tonight, we did the savoury lentil pie (recipe link is in my menu plan post from this week, only I used half a pack of baby spinach instead of broccoli). It was super quick and easy, and so delicious. Mayana absolutely adored it, she ate more than she has at dinner in weeks (for some reason she’s not been big on dinner for the last few weeks, and it’s often a bit of a battle).

Lentils scare me a little. It’s from a bad experience I had when I was a young-un. You see, I was at a friend’s house, and we were offered pies and sausage rolls for lunch. “Yum!”, I thought, and tucked right in. What they had neglected to mention was the fact that they were lentil pies and sausage rolls. And that most definitely was NOT what I was expecting. And it was kind of gross. So I haven’t knowingly eaten lentils since then. And I was feeling very brave about attempting dinner tonight.

But it was great. I served it with mashed potato seasoned with celery salt, nutmeg and garlic. Yummo.

 

  Here was Mayana’s before and after:

Definitely a winner in this house, you’re sure to see it again on the menu plan!!

Please Don't Bridezilla

Okay so I've had this weird recurring dream lately.
About my sister Bethanie.
Turning into THIS:

A Bridezilla. I'm not sure why. She hasn't actually given me any reason to feature her in such a way in my dreams. Who knows? All I know is I hope it doesn't happen!

I'm pretty sure it won't. At the very least, two of her three bridesmaids are already married, and I'm sure we'll have lots of wise old-married-women (*smirk*) type words to share with her. And if not us, my mum definitely will. Just to segue for a moment, did I mention that my whole little family is in this bridal party? I'm a bridesmaid, my gorgeous husband is a groomsman, and our little Berry is the flowergirl! Back to the story.

So if I was going to tell you my wise old-married-woman-type words on this subject, this is what I'd say: DON'T STRESS!!!! Yes, it's an important day, and a happy day, but at the end of the day, it's just a DAY! (Whoah I don't thikn I've used the word 'day' so much in one sentence before!) What I mean by that is, people put SO much stress, effort, time, money, and in some cases sweat and tears (hopefully not blood) into the planning of a wedding, only to find that six hours later, it's just a distant (albeit precious and beautiful) memory. Don't get me wrong, I certainly put a lot into planning my perfect day, but I came to realise that I should be putting a heck of a lot more into planning for the marriage, than for the wedding day. Because it's true what they say, marriage isn't always a bed of roses. And it lasts one heck of a lot longer than the wedding day! Some days are hard, and sometims you have enough of hanging around the one person ALLLLL the time, and sometimes you just need a girlfriend, and husbands don't cut it. Sometimes they leave their little bits of hair from shaving allll over the sink, and forget to hang their towels up, and have to be reminded to do 'their' chores every single day, and leave the margerine on the bench every morning (don't worry, I'm sure my husband has a list of annoyances about me also).

Sometimes, you actually have to make an effort to not go to bed holding a grudge (which by the way is one of the most important rules in our marriage). There is also lots of stuff that you should talk about before you actually get married. Big things, like having an idea about where you'd like your future to take you, how many kids you'd like to have and when, where you stand on discipline for children, financial stuff..who's going to take care of which responsibilities... stuff like that. But there's also lots of little things, like are you each going to have equal share in household chores, or who is going to do which chores; how you feel about people staying with you; where you are going to keep the toaster (ok so that one's an in-joke); man I remember even having discussions when we were first married about the way I fold underwear! Ha.

We actually did an awsome pre-marital councelling course, through an Anglican Church group (though the program itself is secular) called Kinnections. We did one session with a group of other engaged couples, and one on our own. They taught us LOTS of communication skills - which we took on board and still use to this day. And they had this massive list of the little things which you should talk about before you get married, and we got to go over them and have Big Discussions, and go into our marriage with a pretty clear understanding of each other, and 'us' and what we wanted and what we stood for. I would recommend it to anyone. I think it cost us around $150 for the two sessions, but I see it as a very worthwhile investment into one of the most important things in my life.

So anyway, what I'm saying is, the wedding planning and leadup and the day should just be FUN! It's a time to share with family, and friends. A time to get closer to your mum. A time to let your friends spoil you, and let lots of well-meaning people shower you with advice (just remember you only have to take on the stuff that you want to!). And it's a special season with your husband-to-be that can never be repeated. I think it's sad how we will it away, instead of embracing and revelling in it. Happily-ever-after lasts forever, after all.

So anyway Bethanie, my dear sister. Chillax, enjoy, don't rush, breath and smile. We're all here for ya, and we all want to make your day and all of the important days before it, really awesome. Please don't make my dreams come true!!

Watchya Got Cookin’

I haven’t done one of these posts for a while, but I’m particularly proud of this week’s menu plan, so here I am.

We’ve just come back from shopping (and by the way, I HATE packing groceries away!), and we spent around $130 for the fortnight, including things like gladwrap and tinfoil, plus things like garlic, jars of antipasto stuff, and a pack of puff pastry which will last well  beyond this fortnight – as well as a LOT of fruit for the fruit-bat in the family, who is also known as Mayana.

I’m trying a few different things this week, which if you’ll remember is something on my 24 by 24 list. For instance, I’m trying a couple of meals featuring lentils, because I’ve been inspired by the very inspiring Jaydee to incorporate more lentils and pulses into our diet.

So, what are we eating? Here goes…

1. Beef & tomato Rice – I’m going to try the new McCormick rice cooker meal base.
2. Tuna Mornay served with mashed potato.
3. Bolognaise with veal ravioli.
4. Lemon & herb roasted chicken served with steamed vegies and rice.
5. Big Breakfast – This has become a Friday night tradition for us. We have bacon, eggs, tomatoes, hash browns and toast.
6. Home-made pizza with home-made garlic foccacia.
7. Lentil & vegetable cottage pie.
8. Chicken green curry with coconut rice – another McCormick rice-cooker meal base. Cheating I know, but it’s handy to do something easy after a long uni day!
9. Spaghetti bolognaise.
10. Vegetable and lentil pies. Stolen directly from Jaydee’s blog.
11. Slow-cooked sausage casserole.
12. Kangaroo roast dinner. I think I’ve said this before, but you really should try kangaroo. It’s delicious, cheaper than beef, high in iron, ridiculously low in fat, and very good for you! Plus, apparently they do less damage to the environment (methane-wise) than their mooing counterparts.
13. Roasted butternut pumpkin and apple soup. I’m using this recipe also to try out the new Philadelphia cheese cream substitute.
14. One take out night. Because everyone deserves one of those a fortnight!

A lot of these meals will have enough leftovers either for lunch or to freeze for another night next fortnight. So we’re looking pretty set! 

What are you eating this week?

Some Mayana

As I mentioned earlier, for some weird reason we’ve been incredibly slack with Mayana photos. This must, of course, be remedied. Here is my meagre offering for this week…

Mayana ‘doing her makeup’ before we left Nana & Pop’s. She seriously stood there for over 20 minutes, in front of the mirror pretending to dip my makeup brush in my blush pot (well it had its lid on), and brushing it over her face. That’s a long time for Mayana to be doing anything! It was so cute!

Rugged up for a Toowoomba morning. There’s something particularly snuggle about a toddler in a dressing gown.

Our min-maestro. We have reinstated my keyboard back into the loungeroom. I didn’t realise how much I missed it! Mayana is in love, and drags the step stool over every chance she gets. She’s even figured out how to get the drum-beat going. My wonderful husband even captured all her cuteness on film, and you can watch her here. (Enjoy!)

Talk about bed-hair!

Argh. Love her to bits!!

Home and Away (but not the TV show)

So yes. We are home. In freezing Toowoomba world.

I’ve been a slack blogger, but I have a good excuse. It’s called uni, motherhood… life.

Uni is a lot of it. We had this assignment – a 25 minute micro-teaching presentation for our SOSE/HPE course. It was worth 50%, and was due last Wednesday. We started it the Friday before. Eeeep! Luckily for us, we pulled it together brilliantly, and even if I do say so myself, we did a really good job at it! As a rule, I HATE group assignments, but I must admit it’s pretty handy for your group to consist solely of you and your husband. No marks yet, but I feel confident. So one more assignment, and one exam, and uni is done for this semester. Then one more semester EVER. Yeah baby! More on that later.

Motherhood is the best. Mayana is so awesome. She is so funny and cool and I just love her guts. I have been terribly slack with photos. And not just here, I mean photos full stop. I just went searching my computer for some photos for a Mayana-fix, and I realised there are about 10 photos of her since we’ve been home! Oh dear! It’s very sad. More on THAT later too.

And life, life is crazy. Busy and fun and crazy, just the way I like it. Which is where we get to the Away part of the title. Because that’s where we were this weekend. Away. On the beautiful not-so-sunshiney Coast.

We were there for two big reasons. Number one was ‘On Stage’ which is the biennial variety show that my old school puts on. It’s the last one that will have a Buma-type child in it (well until our kids all start going to school there of course!), because my baby brother is in grade 12 this year. He’s so talented, and he was pretty much in everything. He also performed his funny ‘Stalker Song’ (if you do a search on this blog, you’ll find a YouTube link). My hubby filmed it, and is working on getting the new version onto YouTube, so stay tuned for that one.

Here he is playing acoustic guitar in the jazz/blues band.

And here is his bestie, Mel, who is an incredible dancer.

The second reason we were there was for my gorgeous sister Alexie’s 18th birthday party. It was pretty cool. We went to a local pub, where we had booked out one end of the veranda. We ate, drank and were merry. It was a lovely time, and the kind of 18th birthday party that any parent would be proud of. Alexie was especially impressed that the bartender invented her very own cocktail, the ‘Alexie’, just for her. How very Rory Gilmore, no? Here I am with the stunning birthday girl.  
And here are the four of us gorgeous Buma-type girls.

Spunky us.

Alexie and her bestie, Pina Colada. Oh and Rhett.

On Sunday we got to witness our lovely friend’s daughter’s baby dedication, then catch up with Peter’s side of the family. Mayana quite enjoyed playing with her cousins

After a final visit with Kami, Opa, ‘Lala’,  ‘Boo’, ‘Lochloch’ and ‘Doordee’ (yes she now names them all), we hit the rode, and arrived home at about 8.30 last night. Phew. What a weekend!

sail away…

So what do you think about the whole J-Watson thing? I’m kind of torn.

I didn’t really think too much about it before she left – apart from a mild interest about her being from the same sort of area as me…

But she’s back now, and I have thought about it, and here’s what I’ve decided.

I think, that as a person, she has done an amazing thing. Something that would never even enter my mind to even have any kind of desire to do. Not just the sailing part, (I mean let’s face it I don’t know a rudder from a stern – are they even on a sailing boat??), and I’m not a fan of waking up all through the night for any reason, let alone to go out into the wet darkness to adjust sails! Besides which, I think my brain would explode if I had to live in solitude for 200+ days. Honestly. So yeah, what she has done = wow!

However. At 16??? I mean, yeah, good on her, BUT I am afraid to say that I wouldn’t even entertain the idea of my sixteen year old child head off solo around the world for the better half of a year. I mean, my umbilical cord might snap or something! Okay, joking, but the risks and looming ‘what ifs’ would make it a big fat from me.

Also, I find it kind of lame when Mr Rudd gets up and calls her a hero. Like I said, I think she’s an amazing kid, and it’s no small feat what she’s done, but hero? I think not. Having said that I’m the kind of person who gets quite riled hearing any kind of sporting star referred to as a ‘hero’. They are not, in my most humble opinion, heroes.  You might call them ‘freakishly talented’ (as I heard one footballer called tonight on the news), but for me the word shouldn’t be used lightly, and should be reserved for people who, I don’t know, actually do something heroic.

At the moment, I kind of wonder how Miss Jess is coping, with the crazy media bombardment after being in complete solitude for months on end. Talk about overwhelming! And imagine trying to settle back into real life after an adventure like that! Anyway, I’ll be she’s loving being back with her mummy. I sure would be!

A little bit fancy…

Remember one of my 24 by 24 was that I wanted to try some new and interesting recipes…. well the journey has begun.

Check out our awesome dinner from last night.

Malaysian Laksa with chicken.

I cheated a little by using a jarred Laksa paste. I think it would be yummier with a paste made from scratch, however it would be a lot more labour intensive, and this was a pretty good second-best.

Yum!

Things I’m Thinking About…

It’s good to be home. There are many reasons I’m happy to be home. Here are some of them:

• sleeping in my own bed is heaven. Don’t get me wrong, the bed at Nana & Pop’s is good, but there’s just something perfect about sleeping in your own bed.
• We can choose what we want to watch on TV. And it doesn’t include 5 different news programs each night. And it does include Masterchef. Every night.
• Shops are close by. A month in ‘the bush’ has shown me that I’m more of a city girl at heart than I even knew. I missed the loveliness of retail therapy – with more choice than just IGA & Wayne’s World.

The weirdest thing about being home is that weird sense of not being able to feel ‘at home’. Because of another case of crap with our (not so) charming property agent. She did a routine inspection while we were away, then rang to let us know that she and the owner were disgusted with our home. This is why: There were three (clean but worn) nappies rolled up on the bathroom floor; A small basket’s worth of clothes on our bedroom floor; and (shock horror!) lots of stuff in our office, including a bag of brochures from the wedding expo, a bag of sewing stuff, and the gift bag which my birthday presents came in. That was all that was on the floor. To be fair, our office is kind of cluttered. You see, we had a baby, and she kind of took up our spare room. And I am a craft fiend with way too much scrapbooking, sewing and other miscellaneous crafting regalia. We are kind of growing out of this unit. Three’s a crowd in here. Oh, and the rest of our home was completely sparkling clean, by the way.

So yeah, I’ve been having minor anxiety attacks since the lovely phone call we had, to the point of actually throwing up. I hate the way this woman affect me. I think it’s the fact that she has a fairly significant element of control over such a huge part of my life. I’m reminding myself daily that no one has the right to make me feel vulnerable in my own home, and that as long as I am damaging no property and paying my rent, I can ‘keep house’ however I dang well please. Despite rude property managers.

We’ve signed up to 6 more months here, then we are out of here baby. It’s kind of nice to have a date on it. I just don’t want to resent my last few months here.

Moving on.

I miss my Nana and Pop. I liked hanging out with Nana and a cup of tea after school, and chatting about our days. Mayana misses them too. She was even asking for Nana yesterday.

I’m glad prac’s done. I did really well by the way – I got the highest mark you can get, and also got some great feedback. We’re almost sure that we’ll go back to the same school for our internships.  Now we have 2 assignments due in the next three weeks. We did about half of one today, and have barely looked at the other.

Mayana had an awesome first day back at daycare. She was so excited when we got there. She grinned and waved us goodbye without a backward glance. Apparently she was greatly missed, and her carers were all so happy to have her back. She was super happy today, as she got to play with bubbles (one of her favourite things in the world), and sing “Old MacDonald Had a Farm”, and show off all her animal noises to everyone. She can do pig, bird, duck, chook & dog. It’s very cute. Her other favourite song is that one about frogs singing ladi-dadi-da instead of galoomph galoomph galoomph. She’s so cute, she makes my heart explode!

It is cold in Toowoomba. Like, really cold. Our first night back it was 5 degrees, and last night it was 4. Every room in the house aside from our bedroom has been insulated, and you can really tell. It’s like sleeping inside a refrigerator. Time to pull out the electric blanket methinks. Mayana has been going to bed in a singlet suit, a wonder suit, flannelette pyjamas and a sleepy bag. She looks like a Michelin man, but she’s warm at least!

We’re going to Ikea in the morning. I’m pretty excited. I love Ikea. I didn’t get a mother’s day present this year (did I mention the lack of shopping opportunities in Dubsie-town?), so Pete promised me a trip to Ikea instead. The other weekend, we were online window-shopping on the Ikea website, when my mum sent me a random text message saying, “we’ve decided to go to Ikea today”. Slap in the face. Lol. We’re going to by an easel, and a table and chair for Mayana. I’m sure there will be a few other goodies that find their way to our trolley also.

And I think that’s about all that’s going on in that head of mine for now. And Pete wonders why I fob him off when he asks me what I’m thinking. Pfft. Too much to explain!!

another Mayana (aka Miss Doolittle) fix

Mayana has had another busy week. She’s loved her time with Nana and Pop, and I think they’re all going to feel quite lost when we leave later this week!

Here are some of my favourite moments from the last week-and-a-half or so…

I just love this photo. I think she’s practising her Blue Steel or Magnum look. Lol. She’s the biggest poser in the world!

On the way to Noosa last weekend, Mayana somehow got her hands on her Papa’s packet of liquorice bullets. This is how we found her when we got her out of the car. We showed her in the mirror, and she was very upset at what she saw! The next day, we found five naked bullets… seems Mayana preferred to lick the chocolate off and discard of the liquorice!

 

Mayana had her first all by herself ice-cream cone last week. That little tongue was worming its way in to the ice-cream, and it took a lot of convincing her that she could eat the cup too!

Mayana and Pop have a very big soft-spot for one another. Whenever he sits still for more than a few seconds, Mayana is there for cuddles. She sits on him, or near him… and she especially loves it when he has a bit of fruit he can share with her!

  Of course, she is still likes to steal Pop’s chair or bed at every possible opportunity. As soon as she sees Pop drag his mattress into the lounge room, those little legs scream across the room in a race to beat Pop to it. Eventually she settles for lying down with Pop for snuggles.

Argh! She just gets more gorgeous every day!

On Saturday we went to the local show, where Mayana was delighted to visit the little animal-petting farm. She was beyond excited, and just didn’t know where to go first! Sheep… goats… ducks… chooks… alpacas… even some deer! It was all just too much. She absolutely loved it, and we ended up going back to visit about four times. Lucky it was free!

The look on her face in this photo says it all!

Mayana and Bambi!

Another incredible experience for her was in the chook-judging shed. She was mesmerised by all the ‘tweet tweet tweets’, as she christened the chooks, but you should have seen her face when we stumbled across this gorgeous DUCK! Mayana was in love.

So as you can see we’ve had quite an exciting few weeks. Busy, fun… and we can’t believe that it’s nearly been a month since we got here! Two more sleeps, then it’s back to reality…  

Labour Day Weekend

Remember this?

Well, we all have decided to make our Donovan-Buma labour day long weekend celebration a regular, annual event!

I was like a kid at Christmas all week, I was soooo looking forward to it. I guess all this prac made it feel like a really well earned break!

So straight after school on Friday, we jumped in the car and headed off to Noosa! Well I should say in the *cars*, and Pete and Mayana took ours, and I got to drive my lil sister Alexie’s first car!

I must say, it was a bit tough having to be in separate cars, being stuffed after a long week at school and then having no one to talk to to keep me alert. But we got there eventually.

This year’s celebration was slightly more relaxed and not quite so crazy as last years. But it was still fantastic!

On Saturday we hit the shops, and I bought myself two pairs of new shoes. Oh how I love new shoes. I’m also passed that love onto my daughter, who spent the rest of the weekend showing anyone who would look her two new pairs of shoes!

On Saturday night, (after one of the most delicious Papa-made chicken penang curries ever) we did something very exciting. Peter and I had our very first night away alone together since we became a Mama & Papa!

I think I found the very last room that was available in the whole of Noosa for that night – at a cute lil B&B not too far from my parent’s house.  And despite everyone’s oh-so-hilarious jokes about our “nookie night”, we did have a lovely time away together.

Free champagne and chocolates, a lovely room and the best husband in the world… what more could a girl want!

Here he is modelling the bathrobe:

And here is the closest you’ll ever come to seeing me in a bathrobe on this blog:Teehee.

Breakfast was beautiful – everything about it: the food, the company, the atmosphere and view… just lovely.

After watching a movie (Mao’s Last Dancer – good but I like the book much more!), we headed back to the madness. We hung out at my parent’s for the afternoon, and after church in the evening we went out to the awesome Rock’n’Roll cafe in Pomona. Seriously, if you’re ever there it’s a place you MUST visit.

As you can see, Mayana was incredibly excited at the prospect of sharing her Papa’s chocolate thickshake. Though I think it was more her thickshake than his by the end of it. She drank well over half of it!

On Monday we had an awesome brunch all together, before heading up to Montville to enjoy the gorgeous views and shops. Have I mentioned how much I love it up there?!

Mayana enjoying her first ever taste of a lollipop

We arrived back in Mundubbera at about 8pm Monday night. Back to the grindstone on Tuesday.

It was a fabulous weekend – I love our big joint family fun and I am already looking forward to our get-together next year!!

Wall Art

No, I’m not talking about those pretty wall art decals you can buy… I’m talking about Mayana’s version of wall art. Which consists of standing up on tippy-toes to pinch a lead pencil from the telephone table while your great-Nana is in the bathroom, and sneaking down the hallway with it before proceeding to create a masterpiece along the entire hallway wall!

Thank the Lord for Chux Magic Erasers! -- though Mayana wasn’t too impressed as she watched me scrubbing her artwork from the wall!

Boondooma Homestead

I know. I’ve been slack. But I’m here to make up for it, stay tuned for a total post overload!

Stepping back in time here… back to ANZAC weekend.

We made the hour-or-so-long drive to the beautiful Boondooma Homestead. Each ANZAC weekend, the homestead plays host to a music muster. We had originally intended to head out for the entire weekend and camp out. However, because of our busyness, and because my Nana was worried that the music wouldn’t be our cup of tea, we ended up just going for the day.

We made it out there in time for their lovely ANZAC day service, which was followed by a beautiful church service held on the lawn outside the old homestead.

We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the old buildings, listened to the music and hilarious bush balladeers, eating the best damper I’ve ever tasted, and just enjoyed hanging out.

It’s a beautiful property. One of those places that makes you wish wall could talk. A house like that would have so many stories. Generations of people lived there, loved there, married, had children, worked, saw droughts, bad times, good times. You can feel the history. It makes me want to write a book or something!

I thought you might enjoy some of our photos. We really loved it out there, and want to go back camping for a weekend… one day…

The back of the homestead. The church service was held to the right of those trellises there.

I want this bedspread. I’d like to think that I’ll make myself one day, but I can see myself going batty trying to make that many yo-yo flowers!

Isn’t it all just so intriguing!?