Another Weighty Issue!!

For this last month i'v been super motivated to be healthy and fit and guess what..... I HAVE BEEN!!  I'm so impressed with myself and my commitment to the cause this month.  I decided that enough was enough and excuses were no longer acceptable, and most important i found some like minded friends!! (Accountability is a hideous marvelous thing!)

This month i have worked on cutting out chocolate and bread....How's that going i hear you ask!?  Flippen awesome!! I'v had no bread, choosing instead to make myself healthy Pita pockets, and the chocolate? You know, the stuff i'm hideously addicted to....I managed to cut down, (The first day of my food diary does contain an entire packet of chocolate biscuits...ooops!) and then this week i thought, enough is enough!! I'm currently on day 4 with ABSOLUTELY NO CHOCOLATE!!  I know right!!!


I'v been exercising at least 4 x a week, but usually 5, and i feel fantastic!!!  Weight loss...only 2kg so far but i'm pretty darn impressed with that!! What's most important to me is that i'm so proud of myself for actually sticking with it!  And i'm so super thankful for my friends that are dragging me out for my walks (thanks Sally and Loral!)  I'm also amazingly thankful that my wonderful hubby has jumped on the bandwagon and is refusing to buy me chocolate (Silly Brave man).


So that's how that's going!! I apologize for the wordy post with no pics but i haven't taken any recent ones of myself!! 2 Weddings coming up though so brace yourself for some Picture-Mad-Posts!!

I'l leave you with this picture of the new Nude-Stretch-Pants!! These are awesome!lol!!  I almost cried until i realized you could see where the tights end at her ankles!!

Have a great Friday everyone!!
Toodles!  :)

The Paper Mama photo challenge - Friends

This week i had fun trying to think of who i was gunna take pics of for the 'Friends' theme!! Then i realized that my boy was holding the answer!!  Meet Donkey (in the purple) and Moo (the blue....well, cow...possibly bull)!!
Lachys been attached to Donkey for quite a while now, and Moo's just joined the ranks of toys that go everywhere with us, so these are his friends!!

Lachy, Donkey and Moo!

Check it out at The Paper Mama photo challenge!!

This little piggy....!

After waiting all day for the rain to stop and the sun to come out, i found a wee patch of fine weather in which to torment my wee man with a cute suit (courtesy of his aunty) and a camera shoved in his face!  After learning a teeny bit about aperture and ISO and other things i cant remember choose not to mention, i went out and tried my luck!!  I also learnt a bit more about sharpening a pic when editing, and played a wee bit trying to catch the fading suns rays with minimal success!
So the following pics are the results of our wee outside adventure, and i figured, even when my photography skills have failed, my sons just so damn gorgeous that he makes them look good!!

Ps: Please ignore the unhappy look on his face, he really did enjoy this novel form of torture wee family adventure and i'm sure he'l love these pics even more at his 21st birthday!

Have a great week!
Toodles  :)

Watermarking!!

This evening i finally found out what all the fancy names across peoples pics are and how to do them!!  I must confess i'v only done it because i think it looks neat (and makes me feel a bit flash!), but it's a really good way to ensure no one steals your pic's and claims them as their own!

I found this awesome tutorial here on Paper Heart Camera's site (among heaps of others!) and now i have my very own watermark!! It's a basic one for starters, i'l try and get a bit flasher later on when my photography skills improve a bit more i think!

Check out my Watermark!!

So what do ya reckon???  Makes my pic look a bit flasher huh! (If it can get any flasher with that gorgeous wee man in it!!)  I'v also been annoying having an in depth discussion with my hubby about fancy sounding things like aperture and shutter speeds and i think tomorrow i'm gunna go take my new found knowledge and see what i can snap!! Yay!! I'm ridiculously excited about this!!

Anywho, I'l be back tomorrow to show my efforts!!

Toodles  :)

The Paper Mama photo challenge - Red

This is my entry for The Paper Mama's photo challenge this week!!!

This is Lachy in his Racing Bucket!!  He's so scrummy!!!

These are a few of my favorite things!!

 At any given time, i have favorite things in my life that i just love and can't do without!  I thought i'd share some of them with the world at large!!

#1    Always my two most favorite things in the world!!!! (These two are necessities!)

#2    Teething Munchkin

My boy absolutely adores this lil' toy!! Stuff it with solid, cold apple/pear and let him munch away!! He can get the flavor through the mesh but not any solids, and the texture and coolness of the mesh are just lovely on his gums!! (he also flips it around and gnaws on the rubbery handle for something different!)

Lachy modelling the teething munchkin!!

#3    Daisy

I love this perfume, not just the smell (although that's delicious), and not just the cute bottle, but because every now and then it lets me remember that i don't always wear trackies and singlets and smell like baby spill ups!!

#4    Healtheries Green Tea with Strawberry

I hate green tea.  I think it tastes like rotten grass unpleasant, which is a bummer because i'm so aware of how amazingly good for you it is!!  Then my wonderful hubby bought this stuff home..... Strawberry flavored green tea!  I must confess that i was skeptical about the ability of the strawberry to mask the hideousness diverse taste that is green tea.....but it DOES!! And it's delicious!!!  Because it's a limited edition tea, i sent hubby back to the supermarket to stock up!!

#5    Top Gear!!

I love this show!! Honestly, they're completely pompous, arrogant and sarcastic, but so hilarious!!  They take the piss out of everything, and the fact that political correctness doesn't even cross their minds is kinda refreshing and reminds me not to take life too seriously!!

#6    My Books!

I looooove reading!! I'm a serious nerd at heart and always have been!!  I'v gone from Famous Five to the Babysitters Club and Sweet Valley High, to Dean Koontz and Bryce Courtenay!  Some of my fav' authors are Patricia Cornwell, Jodi Picoult, Diana Gabaldon, Wilbur Smith, Stephenie Meyer (of course!)...I could go on all night!!  I love being able to lose myself in another world as i read, and i cant wait to teach my son the same!!

So there's a few of my favorite things!  I'm off to try and read now (since pregnancy i'v developed the annoying habit of falling asleep mid sentence!)  Have a great weekend everyone!! :)

Toodles :)

DIY Divas!!

Last night i had the most enormous amount of fun pretending that i knew all about DIY!! I was invited along to a women's night at the local hardware store by a good friend, and thought it would be a bit of an interesting/educational gathering with everyone trying to sell us something.  What i found instead were a whole lot of interesting activities and games that made you feel like you could possibly build a house!

Painted planter box!! (The wonky ends were totally on purpose !)

I built a planter box (they even let me drill some holes), also got to paint my hands, jeans  and the floor planter box, we learnt how to make quick easy art work with napkins, glue and a small canvas, I changed a car tyre in 2 mins and 54 seconds.  Using a skillful netball throw, threw 8 rugby balls into the mini concrete mixer in a minute, sliced (i'm not even sure what that means) a golf ball into tub to win a chilly bag (using my hockey skills), cast a fishing line into a chilly bin from a couple of meters miles away to win a fish measure thingy-me-bob, and most exciting of all, i won a spot prize!! Yayyy!! It was a bucket full of...well...handyman stuff that i'l probably never use but my hubby was pretty stoked!

My pretty art!

And for the whole night no one tried to sell me anything and i was constantly offered wine, juice and cheese (hmmm, we never did find the other nibbles!)  And even better, i had Lachy with me the whole night and he was just the most AWSUM TROOPER!!  He slept for about half an hour then just stared at everything from his pushchair, occasionally holding a wee conversation with anyone that stopped to talk to him!  He did have a horrendous and scary screaming fit wee melt down in the last 5 mins, but then it was home time and he was my perfect wee gentleman again!!  My babies AMAZING!!!

DIY Diva's (kinda)

 I had so much fun!! Thanks Rach' and Charlotte! You ladies are amazing!!  I'm really looking forward to next year!! My mission for next week is to find some herbs to put in my SELF MADE planter box!!Oh the fun i shall have!!

Toodles!!

A little bit of everything!

  What a great weekend! And there's still one day left to it!  Thursday evening was spent shopping with family, where we finally purchased our 'sample selection' of ready-made cloth nappies (sample selection meaning we only bought 5 so we can see how they go before we commit to the brand!)  I'm very excited bout finally trying them! I actually followed the manufacturers instructions and soaked them for 24 hours before use too!  We put the first one on bubby when we got home today (i didn't think that the duration of a fun run was the ideal time to try them out!) And lo and behold he filled it not 5 mins after i put it on him!! (This is a pretty big thing cause bubs has been having lotsa tummy troubles lately) I'm pleased to say that it held! It went past the liner and onto the actual nappy, but no further, so i'm stoked!!  So i also got my first lesson in how to scrap the poo out of the nappy!! Exciting times i tell ya!!

   Friday was spent relaxing then a nice walk round the lake with hubby and bubby, then off to the supermarket for some home made pizza ingredients!! Yummo!!  And most shock-horror of all, we settled down with our pizzas and watched the first game of the Rugby World Cup....and really got into it found it vaguely amusing.  Actually, i was more impressed with how skinny some of the All Blacks ankles were!! Oh our pizza's were delicious too!  Mine was bbq/hickory sauce, capsicum, pineapple, bacon, roast chicken and cheese.  Glens was a bit fancier (For his more refined tastebuds) with Cranberry sauce, chicken, bacon, and brie cheese! Nom nom nom!!

Mine on the left!! Yummo!!

Today (as the result of a split second decision last night) we dragged ourselves sprang out of bed and went to participate in our first family fun run/walk!!  What a blast!! 6km along the beautiful Waikato river!! And how did 2 unfit parents with a disobedient pushchair manage on this manic venture you may ask...?  Like troopers!!

Contemplating the scooter in front of me!

After the first km i was red faced, puffing and straining and seriously considering taking out the little girl in front of me so i could steal her scooter!!

What's even more interesting, my 'unfit' husband remained pale, with a slightly faster than average resp' rate and barely broke a sweat!! What gives!!??  I blame the fact that he didn't have to manage a rogue push chair that contained Bubba the Hutt!!

By the end of the 6 km i was near death and looked it, however, our aim to complete it in 1 hour was pretty spot on (1 hour 43 seconds) and we beat the target person that i was trying to beat right at the end with 250 metres to go, after she overtook us right at the start with her fancy pants aerobic stroller!! Hah, take that!!  We also got the bonus of having a wee quick catch up with our midwife which was awsum! (We tried to keep her in sight during the fun run but she annihilated us!!)

And so here i am on the couch broken arsed and refusing to budge regrouping and considering whether or not to double inner Lachys nappy for in case he sleeps through the night! (I'm hopeful!).  I'm also considering whether to start my new b/feeding top tonight or tomorrow....given that my eyes are shutting as i type and i'm still finding the name Bubba the Hutt hilarious, i think tomorrow might be best!!

So enjoy the overload of pics!! I love looking at pics so il assume every one does!  I hope everyone elses weekend has been amazing too, and that things haven't been too crazy with sports or nasty weather!!

Toodles!!

Another Breast Feeding issue!!

What a week!! Finally settled into our fab'new home, and Lachys cold didn't turn into anything more than a cold!Yay!! Unfortunately he hasn't pooped for 7 days now! :(   I know bubbys can go for a while not going, but he screams with every attempt and has been refusing his booby juice!! It's been heart breaking!!

 And with that experience i have to, not apologize, but maybe admit my lack of...empathy maybe (Is that the right word)??  I'm not a militant breastfeeding mama.  If you can't, for whatever reason, i believe that that's totally ok!! (Even if you simply choose not too, that's up to each parent!).  I'v had a few friends that have had to give up breastfeeding for their own reasons, and i was (i hope) full of supportive comments for them.

 I'v heard their thoughts of feeling like a failure, but yesterday i was finally able to understand it to a smaller degree!! It's not just the feeling of failing because 'breast is best', it's a feeling of not being able to provide for your child, and of your child rejecting you, and losing that bond that you had through breastfeeding!  And thinking that you've lost that connection with your baby, and wondering what your doing wrong, and thinking why doesn't my baby want me anymore??!!(and probably a lot more that i didn't encounter in my 12 hour drama)  And i only had to experience that for a day! (Fortunately my boy has kinda decided that i'm not so bad after all)

So hats off to those women in my life (you know who you are) and even those that aren't, breast or bottle, you've soldiered on and both you and your bubbys are smiling and happy!!  That's what matters and you've had the strength to get through it with grace!!  (Haha, i'd have made such a good 'woman hear me roar' hippy!).  So yeah, i just wanted to say, you guys rock!!

Id also like to brace ya's all for more photos to come....I HAVE MORE FABRIC!! I'm gunna be attempting my b/feeding pattern again with a slightly heavier fabric and in a smaller size, and hopefully i can refine it a bit!!  Not to mention more photos of my delicious wee man, hopefully smiling and with empty bowels!!
Have an awsum Wednesday!!!

Ps: I'v been walking!! Its great...Lee jeans here i come!!
Pps:  It was hubbys first fathers day, which he had to work so i thought we could pxt him his first fathers day message!! Excuse the old phone photo quality, but i love my old faithful phone and refuse to upgrade cause i wouldn't be able to work a fancy new phone don't want to! :)

At our 7am feed :)

Getting hungry...Nom nom nom!

Time Flies!!

My son is 3 and a half months old!! Its crazy!! He just got so big and started doing stuff and getting even scrummier!!  And then i realised that id hardly taken any fotos of him in the last couple of weeks, and instantly went into a mini frenzy in the 5 mins before his bed time! Poor kid must think his mum has a flash attached to her head, he always looks so concerned!

Wearing Big boy trackies!

I found this one for his daddy, the Star Wars fan!

Considering munching his tasty toy...

Deciding to munch the pillow instead!

Look at me being all strong and tall!!

Tell tale drool patch....He's spied something tasty looking!

I thought since i tend to waffle and go completely off on little tangents when i write posts, that i'l just quickly jot some of the things that my amazing and marvelous lil' guy can do!!

• He can now dribble with amazing proficiency
• He can reach out and grab things!! (letting go hasn't been achieved yet and has caused a few tears)
• He screams squeals laughs out loud, especially when its daddy-play-time
• He can and does put everything in his mouth to gnaw on, leaving buckets of drool behind! (i cant be the only one out there who finds this gorgeous!)
• He can hold a conversation with his wipes box for a good 5 mins!!  His chatter has taken on a few more sounds other than Gorilla, and now include Mouse and Excited/Happy Gorilla!!

While he was lying on the floor the other day i saw him actually see his hand, and then with the hugest go cross eyed type concentration, he brought his hand to his mouth and started to chew on it!!! I cant begin to explain how excited i was by this!!

We're thinking about cloth nappies now too, which is gunna be fun given my lack of laundry skills!  But we would like to try to be a wee bit kinder to the environment and so it'l be worth the effort i think! Iv heard lotsa good things about them, and depending on the type of laundry products i use, we should be able to save a lil' bit too.  Bad things iv heard include nasty nappy rash stories and some leakage tales that i could'v done without hearing! Mind you, this week 2 outfits and one blanky have been permanently scarred by explosive side seepage, so there really wont be much difference there!  I'l keep ya updated anyway, and i welcome any feedback/comments/suggestions from other cloth nappy users out there!!

Toodles for now!!!