A few firsts
Since Chloe started feeling better on Saturday she has been reaching a few milestones. The first is using the
toilet to do "Yucky wee,wee" and "Yucky poo." As the
plumbimg isn't hooked up and there are no actual toilets yet we think that it is safer to leave her nappy on.
Chloe is also deciding that she doesn't need us to help her fix her breakfast in the morning. I came in to the kitchen after my shower to find this little
possum munching on cornflakes and roller oats, saying "
Mmm mmm breakfast." (Daddy was nowhere in sight)
The last first was decided by Mummy and that is moving to a 'big' bed. Not that this bed is very big but I just wanted to see how she would go if she wasn't 'contained.' She has had 2 day sleeps and one night sleep and so far so good. I think I might bring have to her cot
mattress down from the attic and that can be her new bed until we move into the house.
We have walls
(On the outside anyway)
The house is now cladded and at lock up stage except for the garage door which we can't put on until the garage has been plastered. Eden decided to spoil himself and hire a plasterer who is coming early next week and has a good size crew working for him so it shouldn't take too long (that is opposed to Eden plastering with me as his sidekick).
It will be funny to see what Chloe thinks of the house when all the internal walls are in and she can't walk through the frames like she does now.
Not well
The last few days have not been fun as poor little Chloe has been struck down with her first tummy bug. This has meant a lot of clinginess, whinging (completely understandable) and alot of bad sleeping habits forming. Over the last four days she has had most of her day sleeps and parts of her night sleeps in our bed and I know I am most likely going to pay for it later but it is what she needs (and it is what I need to stay sane). I have done what most parents do when their child gets sick (and often the most damaging) and scoured the internet for what to do. Everything that I have looked at says different things (and I have only being looking at medically reputable sites) in relation to how long it will last and what to do. Oh well the joys of motherhood, hopefully she will be well and back to her old self soon and until then at least we are getting the chance to collect lots of Wiggily dollars off the nappies :)
An afternoon with Kelsea
Today Grandma got to babysit Kelsea which meant that Chloe was able to have a play mate for the afternoon. They are really starting to warm up to each other and enjoy being together. They like to copy each other which is cute until one starts to squeal and the other decided to copy that too. We went outside for some fresh air and the girls obviously both have the same obsession with little treasures (rocks from the drive) and both ended up with little handfuls of them.
I tried to get them excited by the Autumn leaves but they were more interested in the swings. Maybe if a rack a big pile to jump in the might get as excited as I was about them.
Tiny Little Shoes
Today I was lucky enough to be invited to Sherri's baby shower to help celebrate the soon arrival of her little bundle on joy. No clucky feelings yet as most of the time placenta brain mixed with chasing after a toddler doesn't leave brain cells or energy to remember that I am pregnant but I'm sure those excited feelings of anticipation will soon come.
I made the baby a little pair of shoes and I think I might start some for our own little one. Any idea's for unisex ones?
Mixing
I know it might look like painting to you but she calls it mixing. Chloe is not always overly fond of going to the house to work (I think it might have something to do with both her parents being preoccupied and never letting her play with the things that she wants to). While we were talking to Simon about having the kids at the building site with him he said that when he was painting he gave the kids a little bucket of paint and a brush and let them 'help' paint in a room that had not been painted yet. So on or last trip to the hardware we bought Chloe her very own paint brush and gave her a bucket of water instead of paint (smart idea with the water as she was one damp toddler when she had finished painting). I hope I don't come to regret letting her help paint by finding her in six months time helping to paint the already painted house with a pastry brush and something like yogurt or tomato sauce :).
A New Dress
I thought I would try my hand at making Chloe a new dress as she is starting to grow out of all of hers. It wasn't what I pictured when I first started but I love the way it turned out and Chloe doesn't seem to mind wearing it. Thank you Grandma for playing with Chloe on Saturday afternoon while I obsessively sewed while I kept repeating in my head "just five minute more and then I will leave it" until all the five minutes added up to enough time to finish the dress. We will have to see how it holds up after a few washes and I will have to keep reminding myself not to pull at any dangling threads as the whole thing might unravel :)
Better than Betty
I thought I would never say this but I finally got my hands on a brownie recipe that is better than Betty Crockers Triple Chocolate Brownies (I know I can hardly believe it either :). I have been on the brownie search for a couple of years though I haven't been looking overly seriously as I didn't like getting my hopes up only to be disappointed with some second rate browines. Now thanks to Mel I no longer have to rely on a little red box when I want a chewy fudgy chocolaty fix (and they are so simple). The only problem is now that I don't need there to be a little red box on the shelf in order to get my fix I may find myself getting it a little more often then I should.
Here is the recipe for anyone who is a brownie nut as much as I am (I'm sure Mel wont mind me giving it out as she shared it with Relief Society for Enrichment.
Mel's Sand Art Brownies
The reason they are called sand art brownies is because you are suppose to layer the dry ingredients in a nice jar and give it away (I wonder if I will every get that far)
1/2 + 1/8 cup of flour (plain)
3/4 tsp salt
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 cup flour (plain)
2/3 cup brown sugar
2/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup choc chips
1/2 cup white choc chips
1/2 cup walnuts.
Layer ingredients in the order listed in a canning jar.
Cover and store or give as a gift.
To prepare:
Preheat oven to 180 C. Grease a 9x9 inch baking pan.
Pour contents of jar in a bowel and mix well.
Stir in 1 tsp vanilla
2/3 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
Beat until just combined.
Pour into prepared tin and bake for 25-30 minutes.
Just a little question; Are brownies a breakfast food?
There's a house with a roof (a whole roof)!
Well the roof is finally all up. It took some time as Eden had to pick his times to go up with the windy rainy weather we have been having lately. Jared, Chrish, Nick and my Dad were all a great help with Jared and Chrish even spilling blood in the process so a huge thank you to all who helped get the roof on. As you can notice the windows and doors are also up as is about half the sarking (?) and as of this afternoon half the garage was also cladded (I am really bad at taking regular photos). It is all coming along nicely but I'm not going to start planning the move in yet as I know that there is just as much work to do once it is locked up as it takes to get it to that stage.
It's finally done!!!
I thought it would be a nice idea to make each of our children a handmade present at least for their first birthday. For Chloe's present I decided to make a felt book using the letters of her name. I started it a few months before her birthday to allow myself plenty of time. I was making good progress so I started and finished some other projects. Then there were school reports to do and moving (and everything that that entails) and somehow Chloe's 1st birthday came and went with her book only being half finished. I then gave myself till her 18 month birthday which is now only three weeks away to have it finished and as of last week the book had made barely any progress since her birthday. So last Tuesday I decided to be strict with myself and not start anything new until the book was done and it was finished by Friday.
Chloe is not overly impressed with it as she has being playing with the individual pages on and off for nearly six months (she is actually kind of frustrated now that she can't used the pages to make mini beds like she used to).
The front cover- "C C Chloe like C C caterpillar"
A weaving page and "C C car"
"H H Hickory Dickory Dock" and "L L ladybug"
"O O octopus" and "E E elephant"
The back page full of buttons with a few to show her that Mummy loves her.
Wheel Burrows and Bonfires
Today Chloe and I decided to go help Eden at the house for a few hours (though when we got there we realised that there wasn't very much a I could do with my little side kick tagging along. We did find some floors that needed sleeping and some rubbish that needed moving. Chloe thought that traveling in the wheel burrow would be fun and so on the way back from the rubbish pile I put her in for a while. She decided that a while was not long enough to be in there and wanted to stay, even when I started loading it up again. I had my camera with me to take some progress photos and instead ended up with Chloe photos.
She started playing peak-a-boo after a while and I hope this isn't the beginning of her posing every time I take the camera out (as much as it is hard to get good shots when they don't pose, to me when the good ones do come they are always 100 times better then the posed ones).
Eden decided to have a bonfire to burn off some of our rubbish. I tried to talk him out of it with no luck. So armed with the neighbours hose and a box of matched Eden lit the fire. It took about half an hour to get going but after that it took off. Chloe though it was great and kept saying fire and blowing even though we were sitting away from it. At one stage when Chloe had finished her drink she tried to throw her sippy cup into the fire as she had seen Eden and I throwing the rubbish into it. She must take after her dad as far as ball skills are concerned because she was a pretty good shot (lucky she doesn't quite have the strength to make the distance yet as we would have been one sippy cup down). The evening was really pleasant and we could have stayed up with the fire all night but we had a hungry Chloe and it was already and hour past her bedtime so we decided to come home. Maybe next time we will pack dinner and a blanket. I know this is a really poor photo and it does no justice as to how big the fire was as it had already burnt down alot but at least our first family bonfire is documented.
The sunset from the back of our block (I'm glad that we have lots of big windows and glass doors throughout the house to catch all the views).
Chloe the Chicken
Today Chloe decided that being a chicken was more fun then being a little girl. Every day we let the chickens out to roam around and today Chloe went roaming with them. The chickens love being out as the get to feast on the grass hoppers. Chloe thinks that they are so funny as the dart around chasing the bugs (it does look funny) and chases after them
squealing with delight. I explained to her that they were getting the buggies as that is what they eat. About a minute and a half later I thought Chloe was bending over to smell the flowers but then she went to smell the grass. When I asked her about smelling the grass she said "Buggy, buggy." She was pretending to be a chicken!
She followed the chickens around the house and the yard bending down pretending to get the buggies. I hope she doesn't start eating them herself, though it
definitely wouldn't be the first time :)
When the little flock of chickens, with the tag along, got to the fence where all the
Autumn leaves are starting to collect they started scratching around as chickens do. Chloe thought this was very amusing and did what any apprentice chicken would...started scratching.
It was all fun and kept her amused for about twenty minutes (eternity for a seventeen month old) until the chickens decided that the bugs in the sheep paddock were too tempting. As hard as she tried poor Chloe had to give up being a chicken with her feathered buddies (for today anyway).
A week with Scarlett and Jony (Part 2, everything else)
While Scarlett and Jony where here the main priority was getting the house wired up, so when the boys were busy working on that Scarlett, Chloe and I went off is search of yummy food. Scarlett loves Mersey Valley Cheese but I can't taste the difference between it and Ashgrove Cheese and couldn't be bothered going all the way to Burnie so first stop was Ashgrove Cheese (again). After a few tastes we left with our little carry bag of cheese we headed off to Anvers (again), not for the chocolate but for the hot chocolate. We had a quick look around and then hopped back in the car heading off to Turners Beach for some strawberries. I thought Chloe would enjoy picking the berries but she just wanted to eat them, so she ate while Scarlett and I picked. By the time our basket was full Chloe had had her fill (for now) and was happy to carry the basket back for us, quite pleased with our little bounty.
On one of the days when the boys had finished the electrical work we all decided to go to Sheffield and Tasmazia for the day. We didn't really take any photos of the murals in Sheffield as it was too cold to take hands out of pockets. By the time we got to Tasmazia the weather was a bit warmer and the ever camera shy Jony decided to pose for some photos (with his little side kick of course).
Chloe loved the little village that they have as all the houses are her size.
Jony posing ..... again.
Upside down Chloe at the upside down house with Scarlett (the poor child, all the things we put her through).
We spent ages in the hedge maze, or I should say I spent ages in the hedge maze. Everyone else had made it to the end and were calling out directions to me and it still took me forever (I am utterly hopeless with direction and directions). In the end we never made it to the middle of the main maze (the 3 Bears Cottage) though Jony swears that he saw the roof.
Jony being the city slicker liked the idea of milk straight from the cow so one afternoon we went over to Kim's dairy and he got a crash course in milking off Scott Christie.
Though he and I obviously missed what Scott said about moving when the cow lifts its tail and from how disgusted he was about it I can almost guarantee his milking days are over.
The boys also went fishing and spotlighting and we all went to Launceston a couple of times to go to City Park to see the monkeys and to the Gorge. Chloe is probably so sick of her car seat after the last few weeks and Scarlett and I were resorting to great lengths to keep her entertained while in it. These recycled glasses that Scarlett got at the Jack Johnson contest bought us some time...even if it was only two minutes.
Chloe is also deciding that she doesn't need us to help her fix her breakfast in the morning. I came in to the kitchen after my shower to find this little possum munching on cornflakes and roller oats, saying "Mmm mmm breakfast." (Daddy was nowhere in sight)
The last first was decided by Mummy and that is moving to a 'big' bed. Not that this bed is very big but I just wanted to see how she would go if she wasn't 'contained.' She has had 2 day sleeps and one night sleep and so far so good. I think I might bring have to her cot mattress down from the attic and that can be her new bed until we move into the house.
