Stepping out...

I'm feeling very brave that I'm doing this....

I have decided that I will be attending a very exciting Blog Meet in Brisbane next weekend.

I think it's going to be a really fun night... and I especially can't wait to meet some of the awesome bloggers that are going.

Like Amy, who is a lovely girl who has become a real friend to me and has helped me through some pretty tough times with her wonderful emails.

And Danielle, whose blog is the first I started reading, and which inspired me to have a go.

And so many others. It's seriously going to be fun night.

What's more, my gorgeous husband and I are leaving our daughter with my wonderful mother, and having a night away together. Can't wait!

If you're in the area, you should really come along too... I'd love to meet you!

welcome home!

This afternoon we were very lucky to have a visit from my favourite Uncle Steve.
He's just home from a tour of duty in Afghanistan, and I'm very proud of him.

Mayana, who has only met him once before, immediately warmed to 'Gruncle' (Great Uncle) Steve, and cried when he had to go because she wanted to "come too".

Welcome home Uncle Steve. Thanks for stopping by! Love you x

SO looked after.

We had one of those weird adventures this evening... you know, one of those annoying things you'd rather not have happened at all. But the cool thing was, in spite of it all, God found a way to show me that he was looking out for us.

We've been having annoying issues with our car. Like, we'll be driving along and the car suddenly stops. Not so cool. It always comes good in the end, and we have been asking around about a good mechanic in our new town to try and organise to get it fixed.

So anyway, we randomly decided to go out to Subway for dinner with my sister. We got our sandwiches, jumped in the car to come home and ... nothing. That car wasn't going nowhere. So we decided to give it a bit of time. We went back inside and ate our dinner, back out and guess what.... still no cigar!

RACQ time. Only problem is, stupid me hadn't paid my membership fee. Drats. An extra $28 on top of my annual fee to waive the 24 hour waiting period, and we're sitting waiting for the RACQ man... who will take up to 60 minutes. With my sister and my starting-to-get-tired-and-cranky toddler.

Thankfully, only waited less than 20 minutes. Bad news was that the car was not going to start. The word 'towing' was mentioned. C-rap! Here we are on a rainy night, a good few kms from home, with no pram. Argh!

I was mere seconds away from a full-blown anxiety attack when - and this is the awesome part - one of my work colleagues ever-so-randomly pulls up next to us! "Can I take you somewhere?" she says. How wonderful! So we got home, and we didn't even have to walk! Pretty awesome stuff!

Just at that moment when it was all just about to get too much for me, God turns up and says, "Zoey, it's all good, I will stand by my promise and I will never leave you!" He's so awesome!

So the car is in the shop, and tomorrow we'll be a little bit poorer, but our car will start, and will hopefully not stop when we're in the middle of driving it.

And one day soon, because God looked after me with this awesome job and we can finally afford it, we will get ourselves an awesome and much newer car.

And I know God will look after us with that one too. Can't wait!

My Place and Yours

I haven’t played for a little while in forever, but now that we’re settled here I’m planning to get back into the swing of this blogging thing.
This week’s theme is, ‘Where do you blog?’.
And here is the answer:

I blog on my couch. With my feet up and my beautiful, green and aptly named laptop on my lap. And a glass of cold iced tea provided by my wonderful husband. Usually with the TV on (it’s Greys night tonight). I’m a wonderful multi tasker and gifted touch typist who can concurrently watch the TV screen and type. Much to the amusement of my husband!!
Where do you blog? Why not head over to Hello Owl and join in?

the new girls

Today we brought home with us the two newest members of the Friend family.

Yes the wonderful Chateau de Chicken has been completed, and now has two lovely new inhabitants.

My Poppy (known to Mayana now and forevermore as Poppy Goose) gave these two girls to his little Goose (Mayana). We’ll probably get another one or two down the track to expand the family a little more.

Mayana has christened them Nanna Joy and Aunty Judy (who is my Nanna’s sister – Mayana’s Great Great Aunty – who we also spent the weekend with). I’m not quite sure how they feel about that. For short, she calls them “Girls”. As in, “Girls! Climb up ladder, girls!” (after she had helped her Papa install their means of getting to their nesting box), or “Nigh-night Girls, see ya in the morning!” (when we were finally able to drag her away after settling them in this evening).

I really hope the novelty doesn’t wear off, because it’s such fun to see her so enthralled. Now fingers crossed their adventurous two hour journey in a box in the boot of our car hasn’t put them off the lay!

cousinly love

As well as singing on the weekend, we got to hang out with some of our awesome family who don’t see nearly often enough.

This meant that Mayana got to play with some of her cousins. Or second/third or something cousins. Cousins nonetheless.

It reminded me of how much our girl enjoyed playing with my cousin’s lovely Sunny earlier in the year. I get a real kick out of seeing the next generation of our family enjoying each other as much as we did when us cousins were kids.

My cousin’s daughter Kiera is just over a year younger than our Maysi. She just passed a bag of winter clothes up to Mayana.

The two of them had the best fun in the world riding the built-in Lazy Susan in Nana & Pop’s dining table.

 

My mum’s cousin’s daughter, Maya, was born about a month after Mayana. They two Maisies are sooo cute!

Willow Tree

On the weekend, my brother and sisters and I were asked to perform at a flood charity event as the supporting act for the wonderful Walmsley Brothers.

It was very exciting for us! We are a very musical family, and there is almost always a guitar out when we are all together. But it was the first time that us siblings have done something all by ourselves.

It was a bit of a whirlwind… we had a week to pull together an hour-long set-list, take photos, and come up with a name!!

Willow Tree came to me one night when I was dropping off to sleep. I looked it up and found Isaiah 44:3-4:

³ For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
   and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring,
   and my blessing on your descendants.
⁴ They will spring up like grass in a meadow,
   like willow trees by flowing streams.

Perfect. I love that it suits us, and has a meaning.

We mainly did covers… Brooke Fraser, Taylor Swift, Dixie Chicks… and Jordan even did a solo Switchfoot number (and was awesome!).

It was so much fun. We won our battle with the nerves, and from all accounts, I think we managed to pull off a pretty fabulous set.

I absolutely loved performing with my sisters and brother. I was proud of us, and I REALLY hope we can do it again some time.

(Plus it’s pretty cool that we can say we were the support act for the Walmsley Brothers!! – even if they are our cousins!)

Mini-Master-Chef

One of the things that we find helps us in the ongoing battle to trick Mayana into eating encourage our Maysi to eat, is for her to help us with the cooking. She absolutely loves getting in on the action, and as soon as we step into the kitchen, she runs in and says, “Cuddle please, Mummy!”… which is code for “lift me up higher so I can see what you’re doing please Mummy!”.

She gets to do baking with Papa at lest once a week, and helps me with dinner almost every night. And she sometimes even manages to be an actual help and not a hindrance. I love the time with her, even when it does take twice as long to do the job.

Last week, she helped me make Chicken Wontons.

First we laid out the wonton wrappers, then Mama put on a spoonful of chicken mixture. Maysi kept dipping her fingers in and trying to sneak mouthfuls of the raw meat. It took some convincing before she believed me that it just wasn’t the same as eating biscuit dough. Then Mayana painted on the water and cornflour mixture. This was her favourite part… mixing painting with cooking is almost too good to be true!

Then we folded over the wontons, and Mayana pressed them down… 

Just the edges! We didn’t want to squish the meat too much!

I wish I had a photo of the cooked product, but it was so yummy that it was all gone before I thought of it. The good news is, even Mayana enjoyed eating it!

And look… she even likes to wash up! A few more inches to grow and we’ll have her in there working for real!