An Anniversary

Happy Six-Week-iversary William!!!!
WE LOVE YOU!!!

I won an award!!

Heather, at Want What You Have, has kindly chosen me for a blog award! My very first blog award. Thanks so much Heather! I'm so glad you enjoy reading my blog, and I feel special you chose me as I know you read many blogs. :) Thankyou, you really made my day!

The rules of this award are very simple:

1. Pick five (5) blogs that you consider deserve this award for their creativity, design, interesting material, and also for contributing to the blogging community, no matter what language.
2. Each award has to have the name of the author and also a link to his or her blog to be visited by everyone.
3. Each award winner has to show the award and put the name and link to the blog that has given her or him the award itself. Award-winner and the one who has given the prize have to show the link of “Arte y Pico” blog, so everyone will know the origin of this award.

I would like to award both Heather and Renata as they are my two most favourite blogs to read, but since they both already have the award, I'll pick 5 others!

1. Anna has a beautiful blog called Pleasantview Schoolhouse which is well worth a visit. It is always an inspirational read, and her son takes the most beautiful photographs.

Two friends I know who live nearby(ish) are:

2. Tamra from Risser Ramblings has a great blog; beautiful photographs of her lovely girls and for me, a great way of keeping up with the goings-on of the Risser family. Keep it up, Tamra!

3. Marlana, The Wandering Woman, is also an inspiration to me. We've only met a handful of times, but I wish we could see each other more! She has two gorgeous boys. She and her husband served as missionaries in Vietnam recently, and they both love and serve the Lord in an awesome way. Thanks for keeping me focused on Jesus, Marlana.

4. My friend Jen was my highschool buddy for many years. We've gone different directions now, but I still love her and love reading her blog. Jen - you are witty and never fail to make me laugh (and stop and think too) with your clever posts! Always love to read the funny conversations between you and Andrew. :)

5. Finally, I've just discovered a new blog this week which I've enjoyed looking at. I know Kelly, The Barefoot Mama, and I would be great friends if we could meet! She is interesting, feminine, and loves the Lord. I look forward to reading more from your site Kelly!

Well, this was fun. I'm off to have supper with my husband and watch lasts night's recorded episode of The Amazing Race. Have a great weekend everybody!! And congratulations!

WOOHOO!!!

Guess what? My beautiful baby bumpkin boy slept SO well last night!!! i am so excited, I just have to share it with you. :)
He went to bed about 7pm. I was going to stay up and watch The Amazing Race with Stuart at 9:30, but was really tired so went to bed around 9pm. I'm so glad!! William slept the best he's ever slept so far........ I woke up at 2:45am, and he (nor I) hadn't woken yet!! I had slept for nearly 6 hours without interuption...... the longest stretch of sleep I've had in a LONG LONG time. I was so excited, I actually woke Stu up to tell him! "Shhhh....." he said, "You're going to wake him up!" I was being pretty vocal about it. Very excited. :) Anyway, William woke about 15 minutes later to feed. He was so hungry and ended up over-indulging a bit, and hence pretty windy and restess the rest of the night....... but who cares, you take the sleep when you can get it, right? I love my little boy!

More sleepy pictures!!

Saraya

Elijah

It was so much fun looking through the old photos of the children this morning at 4am. :) Amazing what you can do with one hand while feeding and burping a baby with the other!

Wordless Wednesday - The rosemary is in flower

My Sleeping Babies......... and other sleepy matters......

Debi at http://bouffard11.blogspot.com/ has invited us to post our favourite "sleeping baby" pictures. So, here goes.




This is my beautiful Saraya when she was just a couple of months old. She didn't like to sleep in her bed, but always prefered to be cuddled........... I wasn't really a sling-wearer back then, which made things difficult. So, Stu would get home from work of an afternoon and I would pass him Saraya so I could get some work done! Here they are cuddling up together. I think Stuart enjoyed the excuse to have a rest after his work days anyway. :)



And here she is, big girl of 5, having a sleepover with her friend Daisy. Aren't they sweet?

This is my little man Elijah, about 4 or 5 weeks old. Saraya always liked to hold him and have her photo taken while he was sleeping! She is nearly 3 in this photo.

And this is Elijah at 2 years old doing a rare thing - having a nap in the afternoon! He had fallen asleep watching his after-lunch DVD. And cuddling his little baby doll, John. I love this photo.

This is my very favourite photo of William so far. The morning after he was born Stuart was cuddling him wrapped inside his dressing gown...... a very warm and cosy place to be!

Sleeping babies (and children) are just beautiful. So peaceful, and QUIET! Lovely.

I have a question for those Mummy readers out there. I have been blessed that William so far has naturally been a very good night-time sleeper. He generally settles between 6 and 7pm, and will sleep until 11pm or even 12 or 1am if I'm lucky! He feeds when he wakes, then feeds again at 4 and maybe again at 5:30 or 6am. Each feeding/burping is about an hour-long process. This is much better than my other two children, who would wake on the hour or two hour mark right through the night until they weaned at nearly 2!!
I feel the mistake I made with my other two is that I always fed them to sleep on the breast. I know this works for many people, but in all honesty it never really did for us. It just meant that they would wake, find they were not on the breast, and look for it, day in, day out.

William so far sometimes falls asleep on the breast (night feeds for instance), but otherwise is happy to fall asleep in the sling or just being held or patted on my shoulder. However, I would like to get to the point as he gets older where I am able to give him a feed and burp, cuddle etc. and then tuck him in his bed. I'm not willing to have him scream and cry himself to sleep - I would just love him to be able to self-settle I guess. Especially for a daytime nap when he's bigger. My others immediately stopped having a day sleep when they weaned...... I wasn't ready for them give up their nap, and neither were they really! They just didn't know it. :( I know friends who can pop their baby into bed at naptime and they go off to sleep. Am I kidding myself? How does one get to that point? At what stage do you start to put your baby into bed awake and have them go off to sleep? I would love any ideas or advice on this topic! I know how to settle my babies but am keen to learn how William can learn to settle himself to sleep if possible......

Thanks!!!

The hills are alive.........

.............. with the sound of music..................

Yesterday afternoon our family was fortunate enough to be able to attend a performance of The Sound of Music at the Brolga Theatre here in Maryborough. The company perfoming it was Savoyards, up from Brisbane where Stu and I lived and met before we were married. They've just finished their season down there and toured the show up here for one special performance (we like to think, just for us..... but it's really because our town happens to have a state of the art theatre :)). In fact, my grandparents founded Savoyards back in the 1960's. They mostly did Gilbert and Sullivan musicals back then, but now do all sorts of classic and more contemporary musicals. 10 years ago (the last time the company did Sound of Music), I played Liesl and Stuart played Rolf! Very romantic indeed it was, as we were dating at the time and madly in love at the tender ages of 17 and 18. Ahhhh......

Anyway, it was great to take the children to the theatre once again and expose them to a passion of ours. They are getting to love it too!! William slept through the whole show which was great for me (though my arms were like lead by the end of it). Isn't he gorgeous? 5 weeks old already!


And here are the promised pics of Medieval Day. The children did rotational activities like crown making, family crests, cooking some traditional medieval style food, jousting, etc. etc. through the day. Great fun!!




Stuart in his attire. Funny how it suits him. I often think we were born in the wrong era!! Either Medieval times or the Edwardian era for me................



Will managed to sleep through lots of the noise. Gotta love newborns for their portability!!

Happy Sunday everyone. :)

A day out

Yesterday Saraya's junior school was participating in a regional sports carnival. However, it was to be hosted by a school about 45 minutes drive from here, the students were to be transported by coach, and the day was going to be about 8 hours long for the kids ............ I decided that it was too much for Saraya at her age, and because of having a newborn I was unable to drive her myself this time. We all plan to be there next year!

Today the term ended with a Medieval Day. Yay HOLIDAYS!!! This was primarily Stuart's day (we both have an interest in Medieval history), and ran many activities through the afternoon. Both of the little boys and I were out at school for the day with Saraya (in costume!) and had a blast but are exhausted! More about today, tomorrow. :)

With the free time we gained yesterday, I decided to break out of our normal routine and do some fun stuff with the kids. It was great! We started the day with our morning jobs, and the children had some freeplay time and watched Playschool while I tended to William and packed some lunch to take out with us.

We were about to walk out to the car at about 10:30am but when I tried to find the car keys I quickly discovered they weren't anywhere here......... after phoning Stu, I found out he had accidentally taken them to work with him in his pocket!! Grrrrrr............................

Thankfully, another teacher who lives nearby was about to head home as he had forgotten his tennis gear. So he was able to drop the keys off for me! "Hooray!!!" chorused the children, having thought our day out was going to become our day in.

So, we headed into town. We met up with my friend Helen and her daughter to Ellie at the hall next to our church, to make princess (and prince) crowns for today.

William had a decent sleep in the stroller which allowed me to help the children with their artwork. Hooray for two free hands!

Then on to Queen's Park (our favourite park in town, just in our own street) for a picnic lunch and a play. "William's first trip to the park!" as Saraya exclaimed.

It's a gorgeous old park, complete with a traditional bandstand. Last time we were here, there was a brass band playing for a special market day event. Elijah decided that since there was no band this time, he would provide the entertainment.

Marmite sandwiches, grapes, dried apricots and some muffins for lunch.

This is the Mary River.

The fountain in the park is always surrounded by gorgeous flowers. You never know what colour they'll be from one month to the next.



Saraya decided to climb a tree on our way to the playground area. This resulted in both children ending up in the tree, Eljiah's first tree-climbing session. Fun, fun, fun. And we never actually got to the playground.............


This is a photo of William sleeping in the sling while the children were climbing the tree. He slept most of the day while we were out and about.

I need to go serve out dinner - everyone is exhausted and the children are getting fractious. Fun days out! Looking forward to the weekend tomorrow..................

Wordless Wednesday

Will we ever get well?

Wow, this Winter has surely hit hard. EVERYONE in town is sick with something. There are several tummy bugs going around, as well as a variety of coughs and colds and flus. The classes out as school are only half-full most days.

I work hard to keep my family healthy, and we usually manage to escape these Winter blues.... but not this year! Elijah and Stu and currently fine, Saraya is recovering well though still has a lingering cough.......... my throat however is quite sore, especially through the night, and my sinuses are all congested. Could be worse, and I'm eating everything good I can get my hands on and taking extra vitamins, and willing it to go away before it manifests! I don't have time to get sick. Poor little William is still struggling along, in fact this afternoon his nose seemed to block up again. One of his eyes is weepy and his nose is actually running this time - last week it was just congested inside, with nothing running out. Is it a new virus or just an extension of last week's?

Please pray for him, just that he'll get better quickly and that we won't have to end up back in hospital or needing antibiotics etc. etc. I hate seeing my tiny bub unwell!!

Stay well everyone. :)

Jane Austin heroines

Heather got me onto this........

Click on the Jane Austin link on the left below for some fun! (just scroll down...)

Female readers out there, take the Jane Austin heroine quiz and find out which heroine you are most like....... And then set yourself the challenge to read the relevant novel if you never have (or at least watch the film :)).
I am, apparently, Elinor Dashwood. I can see the similarities. With Emma Thompson's portrayal of the character that is - I have never actually read Sense and Sensibility, but LOVE the film. So my challenge now is to read it!

Have a great day everyone.

And so life continues...............

Life is settling down again. Ah, the beauty of normality!

William is recovering really well. He is still suffering with a bit of congestion and a slight wheeze, but his feeding and sleeping is fairly well back to normal. He is happier and more alert again, and it's so nice to have my little settled boy back!


It struck me today that when you have other children it's a beautiful distraction when things are difficult. And how they need you to just keep things as normal as possible. It reminds me of being in labour - such a great distraction having my older two children around, just being themselves!! Anyway, I think their zest for life is helping all of us move on from the difficult parts of this week. We've had a great Saturday today!

I just thought I'd post some photos of things Elijah was up to earlier in the week before William was unwell.

Captain Elijah - with a smile and a surly face. He's been playing lots of pirate games lately.

This is Elijah turning his Ukulele into a violin. Yes, he's using a hobby horse as the bow! Such creativity I never knew was possible in a 3 year old!!

We had fun blowing bubbles earlier in the week as well. I like this last photo. :)

Well, one more week of school before the Winter holidays begin! It will be so nice to all be home together for 2 weeks. Hopefully I'll be posting lots of pictures of our garden renovations! That is, assuming that they happen. Lots of great family time anyway. The times I always appreciate the holidays Stuart's job provides......... busy terms, but great holidays.