12 days and counting....

This will be my second year that I am dumping the family and disappearing into the wide blue yonder.....to go scrapbooking! And I can tell ya, it's GREAT! No kids, no husband, no cooking, no organising, no calves to feed, no chastising, no bedtime rituals....and most importantly, NO NAPPIES! For approximately 60 hours, I am free. Liberated. Able to be creative. Think of no-one else except for myself.

And I'll probably miss the kids to bits! (Oh ok, and Mark too :) )

I fly out for Sydney on Friday 8th and return late, late, late on Sunday 10th. Hopefully this year, I will avoid the migraine that plagued me at last year's Little Scrapbook Shop (LSBS) retreat. But then, I was 20 weeks pregnant and leaving Tom for the first time over such a long period. But nothing disintegrated whilst I was away, no-one sustained any permanent injuries, everyone was fed and clothed and looked after. No doubt, they will all have a ball without me again this year. So I feel much more relaxed about going. My only niggling concern is for Bridie who is still breastfed and will need to make the transition to formula for the weekend. She's had a couple of cracks at the bottle already and I'm confident that she won't starve.

Calving has officially finished for this year - well the rearable heifers at least. We ended up with 128 heifers, 8 bulls and 2 Belted Galloway calves that will grace our freezer in a couple of years time. I sent all our registration stuff off to Holstein Australia, so we should get a mammoth amount of certificates come through in the next few weeks.

AI (artificial insemination) has commenced with about 40 cows already done. This year, for the first time ever on our farm, we are flushing one of our cows. Our show cow (Craiglands Luckystirke 2843) failed to get into calf last year, so we decided that we would flush her. For those that don't know, this is where you give the cow drugs to superovulate her (produce lots of eggs), then AI her, then a week later, flush the embryos out and then put them into other cows (known as recips or recipents). The benefit of doing this, is to get as many calves as possible from a cow with desirable genetics and type, in the shortest amount of time possible. So instead of getting one calf per year (and hoping that you get a heifer), you can potentially get 8 calves in one year with all the same genetic merit and increase the chances of getting heifers amongst them all. I have to admit to being unnaturally excited about all of this. I just love this cow and I am so keen to have some offspring from her that we may be able to take into the show ring.

at the Colac show 2007

She has already commenced her fertility treatment, and will be AI'd on Sunday. The flush is scheduled for Monday 4th August. Maybe I can take a heap of photos of the flush and scrap those the following weekend.............

Getting creative

Over the past week or so, a couple of friends have done their bit to increase Australia's population by giving birth to healthy babies. One had a boy and the other a girl (nicely evened out!). So I got cracking and whipped up a couple of cards.

Recently, I have discovered Snapfish. For those that are unaware, this is an online photo processing group. Cheap (but not cheap in the nasty way), quick and good quality. I tend to print photos off at home on our own printer as I need them, but I have recently had cause to print a lot of photos at once. This gets mighty expensive when doing it at the local photo shop or the electrical stores. So Snapfish has saved me a lot of money in getting snaps printed off. One of the prints I had done, is the only one of the 4 of us, taken just after Bridie was bought home (it is also the photo I use in our profile on this blog). It's not a bad one, so I thought I would scrap it. It came up really well.

Our house has also been hit by some lurgy lately. Both Tom and Bridie have been suffering with croup - in Bridie's case, badly enough to see a doctor. Mark complained of feeling unwell and I too wasn't feeling 100%. Just that time of year I guess.

AI (artificial insemination) of the cows begins next week, which means that basically we move from one busy period straight into another. We've almost got 130 rearable heifers for this year's calving (whoo hoo) and with the birth of some cross bred calves, calving season is almost finished. For me at least. Which means, more importantly, that I won't have to get up at 4.30am every morning for much longer (even bigger whoo hoo!!)

Happy Birthday Thomas!

Yes, 3 years ago today, I was in hospital having just gone through a scheduled c-section (for a breech presentation), feeling the worst for wear as the drugs were wearing off, looking at this small wrinkled little bundle and thinking "Oh my God, what have I done!?"

I had never held so small a baby (not without any direct supervision anyway) and here I was, being allowed - nay being EXPECTED - to be the indirect life support for this tiny human being. I felt overwhelmed, nervous, unsure, frightened, full of doubt.........but I would honestly lay down my life for this creature without a second thought. And that was in the first hour of meeting him.

I could not in good faith say that the past 3 years have been a fairytale cohabitation of our family, particuarly in the recent 8 months or so, when the "terrible twos" really started. I'm not sure that they have officially ended now that he is 3, moreso just evolved into something else that is going to test us and make us doubt our abilities as parents. The person that coined the phrase "life wasn't meant to be easy" was obviously a parent with a toddler. But even on the worst days, he will say something funny, or give you a look, or a kiss, or a smile and everything is once again right with the world. For 5 minutes at least.

Today was his day though, and he thoroughly loved it. I know this, because as I was putting him to bed tonight, he said "I has a good time at my party mummy and all the dinosaurs and kids". Awwwwwww. Makes all the running around, shopping, food preparation, loot bag organising, cleaning, decorating, spending, [sharp intake of breath], worthwhile.

He is good for about 1 weeks worth of brand new dino wear at a time. The DVD can play new dino shows non stop whilst he plays with new dinosaur PlayDoh. He can introduce new dino figurines to a re-creation of Jurassic Park (although he could probably tell me that not all the dinosaurs he has lived in the Jurassic period). At bedtime, he can be lulled to sleep under a handmade dinosaur quilt, by my dulcit tones reading from one of the many new dinosaur story books . You get the drift of what our house looks like don't you????

The other cool present he received - from mummy and daddy! - was one of those Fisher Price kids digital cameras. I've had it in the cupboard for the past 8 months or so intending to maybe give it to him for Christmas as I wasn't sure if he would "get" it or not. But for the past few weeks, he has been carting around my tripod saying "click" and giving us the imaginary photo. He has wanted to use my digi SLR, but this is never going to happen, so we figured he would be ready for a real thing of his own. And it has proved to be a real winner. He is more than capable of working it and I have to admit that there are a few photos that he's taken that are quite good. However, after downloading the images off the camera and onto the computer, I was scrolling through them when I came upon one of my boob!! He'd obviously snapped me when I was feeding Bridget. Needless to say, we will have to be careful when we are in the shower from now on.

All the commercialism of birthdays aside, I am just so happy that he is healthy, bright, happy, developing normally, smart (sometimes too smart!) and for the most part a great kid to be around.

HAPPY 3rd BIRTHDAY THOMAS!


the start of many dinosaur presents


Say cheese......


Quilt made by Nanny


cake made by mummy


Hip hip hooray!

PHOTOS TAKEN BY THOMAS ON HIS NEW DIGI CAMERA


Daddy


Mummy


Biddy - a captive model (she can't run away from the lens!)

Tick, tick, tick...

My life has seemed to be ruled by the clock this past week. Or should I say more accurately, the calendar. End of financial year is a little bit like "hurry up and slow down". You know that you need to clear a lot of debts to manage tax, but on the other hand, you need to make sure that you have enough cash on hand to pay for ongoing things too. Add to this, the fact that on July 1st we changed over to a new record keeping software package which will include payroll (something we have done manually since the inception of staff in our business), trying to get the finishing touches done to our new office (including new computers, lines, phones, office equipment etc), implementing a new herd recording software package, updating all the calvings for this year to be registered in the coming weeks, getting things organised for Tom's upcoming 3rd birthday, making a flying dash to Melbourne to attend a 1st birthday party....it's no wonder that I came down with a migraine last week.

On Thurday morning I felt a bit 'off', by Friday I was really starting to suffer. Come Saturday afternoon and I really had the makings of a migraine and on Sunday I spent the day either hunched over the toilet or trying to convince myself that my head was really not going to explode. I should have gone to the hospital for a jab, but with 2 littlies I just couldn't face it. So I ate panadeine forte and tramal like lollies.

To top things off, last week one of Mark's wisdom teeth gave way and he had to get a temporary filling. Turns out he needs to get all three remaining ones removed, but he needs to see a specialist as they are fairly well embedding in the jaw bone. After getting the temporary filling, he ended up with an infection in the gum line and had to go back to the dentist for antibiotics and some emergency work which involved some excruitiatingly painful treatment (so I'm told). He walks into the house yesterday morning and says "Panadeine forte....NOW". Ahhhhhhh, bit of a problem there. I took the last one for my migraine. Fortuantely, I did have a script so I filled that and have been dosing him up on antibiotics and painkillers for the past 24 hours. Poor bugger. He doesn't usually even take panadol, so for him to take such strong pain killers.....it must be damn painful. I'm so glad it's not me.

The dinosaur party is rapidly looming. It is this Sunday and I haven't done a thing. Shopping and house cleaning tomorrow, cake baking/decorating and other food preparation on Saturday. Isn't funny how the time spent in getting organised for such a small event is disproportionate? I mean, I'll probably spend 10 hours all up getting prepared for a party that is going to last 3. But at least the kids will be happy and after all, that is the MAIN thing.

ETA: I just remembered that due to my migraine, I have neglected to record a significant milestone for Bridie. She is now on solids. On Thursday last week we started her on farex and breastmilk. She loved it (as you can see in the picture!). She is now just over 6 months and I think she is really ready for solids. Unlike Tom who started solids a little earlier and it was sometimes a battle to get him to eat. Bridie was weighed on Thrusday as well at the MCHN and she weighs 6.220kg.


Yum yum....

Out of the mouths of babes

A couple of weeks ago, Mark was playing baseball and at one point in the game slid into home base, removing a substantial amount of skin from his knee and elbow. Whilst I like to think that he is being a bit soft about it all, I have to admit, it does look pretty painful. And it seems to be taking its sweet time to heal as well. Tom is not helping the healing process by taking part in nightly wrestling with Mark and knocking the scabs causing cracks and more bleeding.

I finally got sick of hearing about how sore the wounds were so I went out and bought some of that spray on bandaid. For those that have never seen it, it is sort of like a glue that covers wounds, supposedly acting like an invisible bandaid. It smells like nail polish remover. It should say on the can "use in a well ventiliated room" because after using it, I could smell it for an hour.

Anyway, Mark was reading Tom a bedtime story when I presented him with the can. Mark sticks his leg and arm out for me to spray. Obviously it not only smells like nail polish remover, but also stings like it too in cuts, because Mark complained bitterly about it. I retorted by telling him not to be such a girl and to just put up with it.

Tonight, I was getting Bridie ready for bed and Mark was getting Tom dressed after having a bath. Tom looks at Mark's scabby knee and says "ouch Daddy, sore baseball knee. Mummy will put some spray on it and then you'll be a girl".


Ha ha ha.....out of the mouths of babes!!!!

The faze continues

Each term, Tom's daycare centre runs a particular theme. This term it is caterpillars and bugs, and they are also learning about road safety. I think this is great, as someone other than me, gets to go over and over and over the same topics. This is great, of course, until it comes home.

Over a year ago now, one of the topics was dinosaurs. Tom had never seen toy dinos before, never watched a DVD with them on, never uttered their names, but ever since 2nd term 2007, our house (and our lives) are filled with the giant lizards. So much so, that I am starting to wonder if there are any more things that can be manufactured with dinosaurs featuring on them. It appears so.

Watching a show on the history channel on Austar the other night about dinosaurs, I learnt that they have recently seen a big revival. They apparently make more comebacks than John Farnham. I just thank my lucky stars that my son happened to be a toddler in one of those comeback periods. I mean, whatever would we fill our lives, our house and Tom's bed with?

What amazes me, is the vast, VAST array of merchanidise that can have a dinosaur slapped on it. Our dino dollar has been spent on doona covers, sheets, books, toys (of all sizes), lollies, clothes, gumboots, DVD's, web downloads, prints, cups, and drink bottles. These do not include the things that other people give Tom or make for him. My mum is making a quilt for his bed and it features about 15 of the buggers. My aunt made him a mozzie canopy with them on it.

I cannot complain too much, as I have contributed to the faze myself. But in my defense, I didn't know how far reaching this would end up. For Tom's 2nd birthday, I implored mum to cut out these huge dinos out of plywood and I painted them. They were initially just for party decoration, but they ended up coming out so well, that we have put them up on his walls in his room. And of course, it is me, not Tom, that buys all the books and dino paraphernalia. And it was me that suggested that we take a day trip to the Otway Fly (Lavers Hill) to see the dinosaur walk that they have constructed.

We set off this morning telling Tom that we would see some dinosaurs and he was so excited. The walk from the car to the visitor's centre is a short walk, and as you approach, you spot your first dino.....the King Lizard himself. The T-Rex. Tom takes one look and FREAKS!!! It is one thing to watch them on DVD or to look at them in books, but it is a hell of a lot different when one is towering over you and you are just a small boy. It was all we could do to get him to walk past it.

Thinking that he would warm to the idea of seeing them up close, we started off for the "Prehistoric Path". Oh God, how wrong we were. Even his 2nd favourite (T-Rex is his fav), Stegosaurus, did nothing to quell his nervousness. He hung around Mark's neck like some expensive peice of jewellery. But after abandoning the dino walk and taking the tree top walk, he was ready to face them again. I mean, he'd mastered walking high in the tree canopy on a walkway that you could see through. No mean feat for an almost 3yo!

As the photos show, he did put on a brave face and eventually went up to them, but there was no way he was going anywhere near that T-Rex!

I asked Tom what he wanted for his upcoming 3rd birthday party. "Dinosaurs" was the answer. But what about pirates? Or cowboys? Or underwater creatures? Please Thomas, anything but dinosaurs! But no, dinosaurs it firmly, stubbornly was to be. So I got out my pencils and good paper and set to work creating some invites based around the good ol' dino theme. At least I can recycle the decorations from last year.

So after about 15 months of living with this faze, I'm not sure that I can call it a faze anymore. It doesn't seem to be waning at all; his interest is as strong today as it ever was. And good on him. Maybe it'll be something that he creates a career out of. Maybe it'll bring him fame and fortune. And maybe it'll all be over next month. Who knows. But I do know that when (if) it all comes to an end, the toys, books, DVDs, clothes etc.. that we have will be no good to pass onto anyone else, because they are the best loved, most well worn kids things we have in our house.

With the raptor

With "baby" steggy

Being protected by daddy from T-Rex

Birthday invites

A day of firsts

10.5mm of rain overnight. VERY happy with this. That amount of rain will kick things off again nicely.....the pastures were starting to feel the effects of a dry start to the winter period.

The freezer full of meat has raised its own unique problems:

1. accessing select pieces of meat from a chest freezer that is packed CHOCKERS; and

2. no available space to store 'normal' stuff that usually gets kept in the freezer (such as chicken, bread, butter, ice-cream etc).

As a result, a second freezer purchase was in order, especially seeing as Mark has alluded to the fact that an annual kill might be on the cards. So if I am looking at needing to store vast amounts of meat on a regular basis, then I can't do it in the freezer we have. Or at least not with that one alone. So I bought an upright frost free one and it is, as I type, chilling nicely so I can pack it tomorrow. The upright is going to address the issue of storage and the ability to locate a piece of T-Bone without the need for a microchip, GPS reader and the local SES brigade. And it also takes up less space.

Family-wise, we had a couple of firsts today that should be noted. Tom went for his very first haircut this morning. Yes, he is 20-something days off his 3rd birthday and he has never had a haircut. He was lucky to have ANY hair by the time he was 2yo! I had to laugh though at the amount of hair that was removed. Almost bugger all. It was all we could do to collect some and keep it as a memento. Here I was holding an envelope under the scissors, trying to catch every strand of hair, hoping that no-one sneezed or breathed too deeply and blow it away! Although it was really not much off, it was the dangly wispy bits and it does look a bit neater. And Tom thinks it was just wonderful. Mark and I both prepped him before he went in and although he was a little shy to start with, he happily sat on my knee and let the girl do her job.

1) Prior to the haircut ; 2) Getting started (note how long the top is!)

3) Enjoying the treatment

4) The finished result

The second first we had today was that Bridie sat in the high chair for the very first time. We normally have her in the kitchen with us when we are eating dinner, but she is placed in her rocker. Because it is on the floor, she squarks and grizzles because she is just not in the action. But to place her on your knee when you are trying to eat...forget it! Especially now she is making a grab at everything. So Mark put her in the highchair for a bit and she loved it. So from tomorrow, we are going to have Tom sitting in a bumper seat (portable high chair) on one of the dining chairs and she can have the high chair. Oh, my kids are growing up too fast.......