A Peek At My Week

This week in the Friend family…

We recovered from our huge birthday weekend, swam in muddy puddles and spent a lot of time sitting inside wishing it wasn’t raining! That’s okay though, it gave us plenty of chances to play with newly acquired birthday toys and do lots of making (painting & glitter for Mayana, cross-stitch for me…). We had a wet Australia Day holiday, which was a bit lame, but at least we got a day off work!!

Mayana had her first day at Kindy (oh the excitement!!!!!) and had her first haircut in over a year. She bought nail-polish with her birthday money, and let me paint my nails with it too!

We had a quick beach visit, and Mayana was supposed to only swim with her feet, but of course ‘accidentally’ fell over and ended up swimming in her undies instead.

I of course have been very busy at work, and squeezing the most out of every single second when I’m not at work and am with my beautiful little family.

If you want to play along, please do… and leave me a comment below because I’m a sticky-beak and would love to see what you’ve been up to!

Baby Two | 26 Weeks

I have one question: How on Earth did I get here? This will be the last week of the second trimester of this pregnancy, and I swear that it took much longer to get to this point when I was pregnant with Mayana!

Baby Two and I are both well. Baby Two is a very busy little thing, especially when Mama is ready for bed. He always wakes me up in the mornings, and changes position almost as much as I do throughout the night. I’m feeling more cumbersome this week, but I think that is not helped by the terrible sciatica/lower back/hip pain I have been experiencing. The good news is that the hospital physio rang to say they have mailed me an appointment time, so hopefully that is not too far in the future and they can help alleviate some of that discomfort for me. 

I’m back into the swing of work now. I’m not loving sitting in a chair all day long. We were quite active over our holidays and being sedentary for the better part of my day is definitely contributing to my pain. Work is super incredibly busy and exhausting, but the upside of that is that the days go quickly. Nine more weeks and I’ll be on maternity leave. Fourteen more weeks and I’ll have a baby in my arms! I’m trying not to think too hard about all that is to be done before then!

At some point I’m going to have to start buying some boy things for this baby, or he is going to be wearing an awful lot of pink when he comes home!

Mayana gets more excited every day I think. She talks to Baby Two a lot, and tries to share with him – which usually means that I get a lot of random food shoved at my belly, like I need help getting my bump grubby! She uses her doctor kit to do Baby Two check-ups, and tells me that he is singing ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’ inside my tummy. We have been talking about names with Mayana, and she gets quite upset because as far as she is concerned Baby Two is his name. We told her that when she was inside my tummy we used to call her Raspberry, but we didn’t keep calling her that when she came out. That really confused her. She told me that she will call him Twinkle Twinkle. I think we’ll save that battle for later.

So overall, everything is well here. I’m enjoying being pregnant – loving this time of always having my little one with me. I love feeling him move, and sharing that with Peter.

Before I go, here is a comparison of 26 weeks in both pregnancies. I feel so much bigger this time, but going by this picture I’d say it’s actually pretty similar! What do you think?

26 Weeks with Baby Two

26 Weeks with Mayana

Living Up To Her Name

Mayana Joy – who just gives so much joy wherever she goes.

It’s been rainy here, and Mayana loves to jump in muddy puddles. As long as they’re not too muddy. She also prefers them if they have no icky grass that sticks to her feet and legs. The huge puddle of water that accumulates in the corner of our driveway is just perfect. It sure gave her a lot of joy!
(Before we get to photos I just have to quickly share the part where she really wanted to wear her goggles and floaties to go ‘muddy-puddle-jumping’. We settled on just her togs, instead.)





And to warm up after a spot of muddy-puddle-jumping, there’s nothing like a bit of a chillax in a nice hot bath, and this time we let her take her floaty boat. Bliss.

Party Like You’re Three!

We had a fabulous pancake party on Saturday, with wonderful friends and family, delectable pancakes and other goodies, delightful decorations, and most importantly, a very happy birthday girl!





We spent the morning preparing food and setting up the party zone: our beautiful front veranda. It was the perfect place to have a party.



We ate watermelon stars, frozen grapes, kettle corn, honeycomb, oreo lollipops, and shortbread. And of course, pancakes, with a great range of toppings: raspberry and strawberry syrups from The Berry Farm (one of our favourite places in Margaret River), maple and golden syrup, jam, butter, lemon and pink sugar, berries, ice-cream and whipped cream. What a banquet!

My Pop

We were very blessed to have some or our extended family travel for the party, and Mayana loved having her very special ‘best friends’ come too. This is the first birthday party she has had with other children in attendance!



Mayana requested lots of dancing, especially to ‘Party Rock Anthem’ which she calls ‘Shuffling’, and ‘Twinkle Twinkle’. I love her eclectic taste in music. I also love the way she dances to ‘Shuffling’.  She found a packet of sidewalk chalk while shopping, and asked to do that with her friends at her party, so we did.



She ate and played and danced and opened presents, and had a completely joy-filled afternoon.



Then it was time for cake.



I loved making this cake. It was quite a process, I can tell you. And I’m not going to lie, I’m still super impressed with myself for pulling it off.





My rainbow layer cake, with passionfruit icing. Mayana told me that everyone would love it, and she was right! It certainly had the wow factor!




It also tasted very delicious!
Mayana definitely had a very happy third birthday party, and has been talking pretty well non-stop about it ever since. I loved being able to create a special afternoon for her, and am so grateful for all the people who took the time to come and share it with her – especially those who had to travel! Mayana loved that she got to have three nights of sleepovers- first with Kami, Opa & Oom J, then a night with her Godparents, Daniel & Katherine, and finally a night with Nana Joy & Poppy Goose. It’s been so lovely to have everyone around, and make some awesome memories with our girl.

Now all the festivities are over, and we’re settling into this new era of three-dom. Such an exciting time!

I'm playing along for Point + Shoot with Louise. You should too!

A Peek At My Week

This week has, of course, been all about a certain cheeky little princess celebrating her third birthday! In between my getting ready to start a new year back at school, we prepared for her awesome birthday party, bought and wrapped presents and had the most wonderful few days celebrating with family and friends.

If you would like to give me a Peek at Your Week (because I’m a sticky-beak and I’d love to, you know), leave me a link in a comment! You can make a cool collage in Picasa (free download) and use your pictures from Instagram or whichever other way you capture your memories. And if you want to follow me on Instagram, look for @zoeyjoyful. See you there!

Beautiful Baby Two

On Mayana’s birthday afternoon, we had a very special appointment to go and see Baby Two on the ‘Hospital TV’ (as Mayana calls it). It was a follow up appointment because the radiologist who reviewed our 20 week scan was unhappy with the quality of the heart picutres, because Baby Two was such a wiggly worm that pictures were hard to get!

This time, Baby Two was much less wriggly, but in a strange position: feet practically in mouth and very scrunched up! Eventually the sonographer was able to manipulate things until she got pictures she was happy with. The good news is things are looking great!

I would like to share with you some pictures of our beautiful SON!

He was laying with his back to the sonographer, curled up into the foetal position, funnily enough! I love the clarity of this photo. So precious!

Precious little face..

Profile shot. You can see in this one how he has his feet practically in his mouth!

Oh I am so in love with this little being! I can see a sure resemblance in the profile shots to his big sister’s scans. What do you think?

This baby is also looking to be quite a bit bigger than Mayana was born. Apparently at the moment he is sitting on the 75th percentile for size. Mayana was born on the third, and dropped off the bottom of the charts before she was 3 months old! So it will be interesting to see how accurate this is when he is born. And it will be something a bit different if we do have a baby who has actual rolls – Mayana hasn’t had a one in her life!!

I’m so excited about this beautiful boy, and I can’t wait to meet him. Less than 15 weeks to go!

Birthday Interview {three}

Hello Three

Our beautiful girl turned three today.

She awoke to a phonecall from Kami & Opa, who along with their dog, Jack, serenaded her with ‘Happy Birthday’.

Then it was time to climb into Mama & Papa’s bed for presents!

I’m so glad I captured her facial expressions as she discovered each new gift.

A backpack for kindy (which she starts next Friday).

A fairy dress (which she wore for the rest of the day!)

A pair of sunnies…

Which made her very happy!

Charlie & Lola! Enough said.

And the infamous doctor kit. Which she found when we were unpacking our bags the other day. And got really upset over when we told her it wasn’t hers, and she insisted it was her Christmas present, which it certainly was not. As soon as she felt the package, she says, “Oh, this must be it – my doctor present.”

And she was right. She loves it!

I had time to squeeze in a quick facepaint before I headed off to work. For breakfast, she requested a yummy (boiled) egg, like she had at Camp Buma.

And we had her requested spaghetti bolognaise for dinner, followed by chocolate ice-cream, with candles in it. We’ll do the cake thing at her party on Saturday.

Other birthday highlights today included a visit to the library (one of her favourite places ever), coffee at Milosc (our favourite local cafe), watching her new Charlie & Lola DVD, and going to see Baby Two on the ‘hospital TV’.

We have also filmed a very cute little interview for her third birthday, a tradition that we hope to keep for each of her birthdays. I’ll share it once we’ve put it together properly.

Happy birthday my beautiful princess, I love you so much. Thank you for being your awesome self!

The Eve of Three

Today was Mayana’s last day of being two. Tomorrow, my beautiful 5lbs 2oz baby girl is turning three!

I feel like I should be saying, “Oh she’s growing up too fast!”, but I can’t bring myself to do it. I am absolutely loving watching her grow up. I’ve said it before, but I can still honestly say that I have enjoyed every stage of her life so far. And this transition time between toddler and pre-schooler is fabulous.

I feel like I’m really getting to know my daughter. She has an amazing vocabulary and I love that she can communicate everything to me. She has strong likes and dislikes (she does, after all, have Dutch blood flowing through her veins!) and a wonderful sense of humour. I can never get over her capacity to love her family friends and family so fully – they are her world!

She’s not much one for toys, unless they are very open-ended and lend themselves to great imaginations. Because Mayana is most certainly in possession of one of those! I’ve even caught her involved in a very complex play session at a cafe wherein two sachets of sugar were having an elaborate conversation! Blocks and books are both firm favourites, as is her play kitchen that her Papa made her. She has recently started a lot of role-play, particularly to do with being a Mama to her baby dolls, and anything to do with princesses or fairies.

Mayana is incredibly inquisitive, and loves all things to do with numbers and letters. She often will sit up in front of the computer and ask to ‘work on her numbers’. She likes us to open up a word processor, and will sit and type letters and numbers. She can consistently locate the letters M, P, O, B, K, L, N, J & C (most of which she associates with people’s names). She can also write the letters M, P, O, B and almost pulls off a K. Her newest skill is counting, she is getting very clever with her one-to-one correspondence, and is starting to recognise numerals. It’s sometimes hard work to keep up with her!

Of course, Mayana’s greatest love is ‘making things’. She likes to paint, draw, glue… and loves scissors at the moment. She likes to draw a line of any shape on a piece of paper and will very carefully and neatly cut perfectly along it.

I am excited that this is the eve of her third birthday. I think this year will see a lot of changes in my little girl, and I can’t wait to see what she discovers next. I’m especially excited to see her grow into her role as Big Sister.

I can’t believe that come tomorrow morning I’ll be the mother of a three year old!

Let Us Make

One thing I really wanted to get done while I was on holidays was to properly unpack and set up my craft room (which Peter is still optimistically referring to as the ‘office’, but he’ll come around). Well I’ve cut it fine, but today, on my last day of holidays, it is finally done.

Before

After

Most excited about this new development is Mayana (who by the way is celebrating her last day of being two today!), because this means that she FINALLY has a making space again. We (and others) gave Mayana loads of ‘making stuff’ for Christmas, and she has been very keen to get creative with it all.

Mayana’s Making Space 1: easel & making drawers

Mayana’s Making Space 2: The making table (first things she tried out today was her brand new watercolours).

It’s good to have all of her things organised again. We have evolved into two drawers of ‘making stuff’, and she was most excited when she opened one that is entirely full of various kinds of paints (watercolours, finger paints, acrylics etc). I’ve also started a basket of recycled materials for ‘box craft’, which is something she loves to do.

As for me, I’m pretty happy with shelves for my scrapbooking and sewing materials, drawers for my yarn and patterns and fabrics- and to have it all organised and accessible is fabulous!

Now I just have to wait for maternity leave so that I have time to get into it all!!

A Peek At My Week

Hello from the weary traveller. We are finally back in Queensland, finally back at home, and looking forward to sleeping in my own bed tonight!

Here is this week’s offering of A Peek At My Week!



This was our last week of our wonderful WA holiday, and saw us taking in a few more wineries at the beautiful Margaret River and making special memories with our very awesome WA family. Peter and I also went on our first date in a very long time (San Churros for dinner, YUM!). We had a road trip to Geraldton – the furthest North we have travelled in WA thus far – and lapped up the hospitality of the Geraldton Bumas.

 Finally, yesterday, it was time to say goodbye to all of our Perth family, and our Perth holiday. I definitely was fighting back tears as I kissed my Oma one last time, and as we waved at the assortment of cousins and aunties and uncles who accompanied us to the airport.

We had such a wonderful holiday, I only wish we could have had just a few more days to spend with the family.

If you use Instagram (or even if you don’t!) I would love it if you would join in with this little meme, and share a peek at your week too! You can use the free software from Picasa to create a collage really easily, and just add the link for your post to the linky below!