things I love - mamas who blog

 

  and more! Just check out the links over to the right.

what we wore

This is what we wore on Saturday to go to our friends place. It was so chilly so we got all rugged up and had plenty of cuddles.

Lucy's cute cardi was made by her granny (my mama). She made it during the week before Lucy arrived. It's pretty lovely and reminds me of a week spent with my mama preparing to be a mama myself.

pray for elliot

I have been following the blog of a lovely girl called Jess who has just had her first baby Elliot.

Elliot has gastroschisis and has been in NICU since he was born.

He isn't a well little fella.

Click on the button to read Jess' blog and find out more.





Some good things to pray for would be

- That Elliot would start moving his bowel. This needs to happen before he can have his tube out and have regular feeds.
- That Elliot would grow bigger and stronger.
- That Jess and her husband would trust in the Lord.
- That Elliot might be able to leave hospital before Jess' husband has to go back to South Korea (He is a soldier.)

it's a...

Performance Anxiety

I'm just going to clarify straight up that this is not my belly. Sometimes I use pictures from the internet that are not my own because they are pretty/relevant/interesting/cute. This sometimes makes people a little confused.


Anyway. The little one (bless his non existent cotton socks) has performance anxiety.

He is getting to be quite an active little kicker which pleases me to no end. I could sit for hours giggling at his little soft nudges and squirms about my belly. I actually do giggle sometimes making Myles very confused as to what is funny. I can see the little kicks on my belly making it move. It is one of the most amazing feelings in the world. I feel so so blessed to be able to experience it. Such an amazing God given gift I want never to take for granted.

So naturally when I feel this wonderful feeling I want to share it with those around me.

"Come feel my belly" I say.
"The baby is kicking" I say.

People come running from all over to feel this wondrous thing.

and then...

it stops.

Poor little nervous bobkin. Too much attention. Too much pressure to perform.

I guess it will just have to be Myles and my special little secret.


Image Credit Kloska

The pursuit of busyness

I have had such a busy ole weekend.

On Friday night I had a lovely birthday celebration with my dear friend Laura.

This is us when we had just finished high school.



We had some pasta at the Italian Forum in Leichhardt and then went to San Churro for some tasty hot choc made with real chocolate beads.

I had the white hot chocolate.

On Saturday Myl and I took some kiddos from church to the UV festival.
That was fun. There were puppets and goats and singing and craft.
We got to ride into the city with the kids on the bus.
It was really nice. They are such lovely kids.

We went home for a short nap before doing some babysitting.
That was fun.
I think Myles may have scared the little babysiteee. Maybe it was his beard.

The next morning we had Sunday school and went to India.
We did bollywood dancing, made naan, learnt about the Toulmin family who translate the Bible and made some elephant masks.

I wish I had taken photos.

Then I had a practice for a kids play that was on this morning. Some lovely ladies asked me to play music for their play about the Little Red Hen. We performed it this morning to a group of very cute and excitable pre-schoolers. 

Hmm there is just so much to write about.

In the midst of all that Myl and I had a home date. We had some good ole devonshire tea.

I did take some pictures of that.

Scones with jam and cream and lemongrass and ginger tea. ( A birthday present from Nic.) Yum!

Needless to say our whole little family is pretty tired after the weekend.

BUT

We get to peek at the little one tomorrow!!!
So exciting.





It would make my day if you voted for my blog. :)

crafty birthday to you

Now I know it was my birthday a while ago...

Yikes it was a month ago today!

But I got given a Myer gift card and since Myer is right down there in the big city I hadn't been yet.
But yesterday after I finished work Myles and I had a spontaneous date to go to Myer.

Romantic no?

I had in my mind what I wanted to get and there it was on sale for 35% off!

This is the meet me at mikes book. It rocks my socks.
Its super trendy craft things.

There is a project in there to make some little baby shoes.

Im going to make them tonight.

It was so discounted that I could buy a whole other book with my voucher.

So I go this one.

They are softies.

They are super duper cute.

I'm going to make some for the little one.

Myles like the pink alien on the cover. I think I will make it first.

Just need to take a trip to Spotlight.



After our romantic time at Myer we went to one of our favourite places to eat.
Pancakes at the Rocks.

It was very good.
Little bobbin agreed.

free range or caged?

I was lucky enough to score a leftover ticket to go and see Lenore Skenazy of Free Range Kids yesterday afternoon with a friend.

Lenore let her nine year old son catch the subway home from the handbag department at Bloomingdales in New York after he had begged his parents to let him. She gave him a subway map, a ticket and some extra money. He arrived home safe and sound and happy.

After writing this in her newspaper column Lenore was met with a huge media backlash. She was interviewed by many people who were amazed that she could do such an irresponsible thing and labeled the "worst Mom in America."

Free Range Kids is all about letting your kids be kids and bringing them up to be safe and independent adults.

Today (mostly but not limited to the US) children are worried about and cotton wool balled so much that they do not learn to experience the world around them. Lenore gave a few reasons for this.

Media - We have news on 24/7. There used to be 30 mins of news each day on television. The media needs to fill up the time slot so we hear about every single child kidnapping or choking or accident of any kind. We watch shows like CSI which show us brutality that does not actually happen that much in reality.  These images play on our anxiety and convince us to keep children indoors so that we can watch more television.

Litigation - A popular childrens toy recently almost made a child choke. This toy had been out since 1994 and had no previous problems. Because of this almost choking the makers were so scared of being sued that they discontinued the line.

Experts - Everyone is an expert nowadays and everyone has written a book or brought out some new product to tell you that you are raising your child the WRONG way and that your fetus/infant/child/teenager is going to die or be seriously maimed by your negligence = fear.

There were so many baffling and funny stories that she told that asked the question who is the crazy one; The parent who trusts that the world is not full of murderers and molesters and lets their kid ride their bike to the library or the one who is so paranoid about everyone being a predator that they don't let their child out of their sight for a second?

link

Lenore is not saying that we don't care about safety or just let our kids wander the streets for their whole lives and she certainly is not so naive to think that there are no predators or kidnappers out there but she believes in equipping children with the knowledge and experience so that they can go out into the world and be safe and helping parents to not be reduced to quivering wrecks every time they think of their children doing something all by themselves.

It was a really amazing talk.

She has a book. I don't think you can get it in Australia so easily but it's on Amazon.

baby gifts

I was given some lovely little gifts for the little one.




















Paper crane mobile made by my mama.
The tag says
"May you know the joy of a little beak under your wing."



















Blanket crocheted by my mum in record time.
I think she hopes it's a girl just quietly.












Booties made by my mama. What a clever lady.













Booties from my friend Jen. Cutie pie moos.

wings of bluebirds

This is my idea of the perfect breakfast. PBnJ toast (separately) and tea.
mmmm

I found this photo on the tumblr of my friend Renee.
She is such a beautiful person and her beauty is reflected in her lovely blog/picture/quote page.

Check it out and let it speak for itself!

Image credit: Tumblr chaispice

i win i win!

My lovely bloggy friend Jess from Here Comes the Sun gave me an award.

Its very special.

Check out her blog. It is lovely and she is going to be a wonderful mama. I can just tell!

Baby shower ideas

My wonderful friend has decided that she wants to throw me a baby shower.
It wont be for a good long while but that is no reason why I cant plan away.

There is a really cool idea I had never head of before untill reading this post on "This Mama Makes Stuff."

Its about having an "Its a..." party. The idea is that when you go for the 19 week ultrasound you get the doctor to write the gender of the baby on a piece of paper and seals it in an envelope.

At the party you get your guests to tie pink or blue wool or ribbon round their bellies to guess whether they think the small one will be a boy or a girl. At the end of the party you announce and everyone gets surprised at once.

Those who guess correctly get a prize.

I don't think I have Myl sold on the idea but I think it's a pretty good one.

P.S If you would like to guess the gender already I've got a poll on the left hand side that you can vote on!

Image credit : This mama makes stuff

this little one is loved.

We had some friends over today for lunch.
It was really nice.

We lazed in the sun and ate fajitas and mexican rice and chatted and laughed and played big taboo.

They are friends I haven't seen in a while and it was good to catch up and love and share.

We shared our special news with them and it was so great to see it brighten up their eyes and make them smile.

At the end of the day one of the girls asked if she could pray for our
little family. So we stood round in a circle and they prayed for us.

I felt so so humbled.
How great is our God?
How great that he gives us these friends to love us and support us and share life with us.

They prayed thanks for us having them over and prayed for our marriage and our little one that it would grow. They prayed that the little one would grow up to love God and that we would love others together as a family.

It made me so happy to think of the little one being part of not only our lives but a whole community of lives and part of Gods plan.

We are not at all alone in this.

It blows me away.

And just then I was reading the blog She Breathes Deeply and was reminded of a beautiful song she has by a different band but I have by David Crowder Band. It's called "How he Loves."

Its just the song for the moment.

You can hear the song here

7 weeks 4 days.. lets just call it week 8