She's Here! Introducing Zara Eve!

So, on the 10th of this month we finally got to meet our new little bundle of joy 'Zara Eve'.

Born weighing just a tiny 2.94 kilos and measuring 46cm in length, this little girl already has the whole household wrapped around her teeny little fingers.

I had an elective caesarian at 37 weeks and 5 days due to the constant pain and problems I was having in my pregnancy and even though she was almost three weeks early we were very lucky that she was completely healthy and had no complications at all.

At the moment we are still getting into the new baby routines all over again that we have been out of for quite some time since having our 4 year old son but the second time around is definitely a hell of a lot easier in my opinion. You just seem to go with the flow a lot more because you realise there's no use in fighting it.

One thing that just melts my heart is how in love our son is with his new baby sister. He hardly lets her out of his sight and thinks she is the most beautiful thing in the whole wide world. It's just so wonderful to watch him hold her and interact with her.

Hopefully this new addition won't affect my blog posting too much as she seems to be a very settled and easy going baby so far. I know this can change in a heartbeat though so I'm taking advantage of things while I can, especially since hubby has taken three weeks off to help out as well. I've already gone back to working from home a few hours a day and have plans to take her into the office with me in a couple of weeks to see how we go.

In case things do take a turn for the worst and I don't make an appearance on here for a while, I sincerely apologise now in advance :-)

I hope everyone has had a lovely weekend!

Michelle xx

I'm Not Dead!

But might be just a little bit pregnant!

Yep, you read it right. I'm now just over 12 weeks pregnant with our second child and it has been the roughest 12 weeks of my life to date.

I could seriously pinpoint the day I fell pregnant this time because it all went downhill from there. I've had the worst nausea since November, I keep getting debilitating migraines for days on end (and can't take anything strong enough to deal with them - ouch!) and am seriously ready to go to bed by 2pm in the afternoon. I think that is what has been hitting me the hardest out of everything, the fact that I am just so exhausted in a daily basis and there is absolutely nothing I can do about it but ride it out.

So, this has been my excuse for disappearing off the planet for the past couple of months. I have had to rest a lot and have been struggling to concentrate on more than a little bit of TV and candy crush most days so blogging has been the furtherest thing from my mind.

I have missed it terribly though and am keen to try and make the effort to put some time aside to get posts up again. Unfortunately, with running my own business (which I am in the process of hiring another employee to take some strain off - can't wait until that is finalised!), looking after my almost 4 year old son and trying to make the hubby feel like he doesn't have the most miserable wife on earth, it may take me a little bit of time to get back in the rhythm of this blogging business but I will do my best.

I will tell you that this past couple of months has been a huge shock and eye opener to me though. I hardly had any morning sickness or pregnancy symptoms at all with my first child and just cannot believe how awful I have felt with this one. I'm really hoping that things are improving a little bit from here though as I don't feel like vomiting every minute of the day anymore (a big yay!) but I still am very, very tired every day and the headaches don't seem to be letting up much as yet.

At least I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel!

Have a great week everyone!

Michelle xx

I'm Still Alive

HI all, just wanted to leave a quick post to let you know that I'm still here but just needed to have a little break for a couple of weeks.

I've been trying to wear way too many hats lately and it finally caught up with me in a very stressful way so unfortunately I had to let a couple of things go for a little bit and blogging was one of them.

We're currently renovating our house and the trials of that plus trying to run my own business from home while also trying to be a good attentive mother to our very active and demanding two year old and everything else that just keeps popping it's head up in life has been exhausting lately so something had to give.

I will definitely be back in a couple of days once things have settled down a bit so please stay tuned!

I hope everyone has a great weekend!

Michelle xx

My First Gingerbread House

Yesterday I participated in a Gingerbread House making class with a couple of friends that a local community organisation in my area runs every year before Christmas.

I'd seriously been looking forward to this class all year after seeing the creation that my friend did last year when she went.

Here is what I managed to pull together in just over an hour and a half:

 

The class is only $30 and you get the pre-cut gingerbread pieces supplied plus a bag full of icing as well as a container completely full of every lolly imaginable to let your creative side run wild. They even sprinkle the whole thing with icing sugar when you're done which makes it just look awesome and then wrap it up all nice and pretty.

I haven't had so much fun in ages and I was really surprised at how easy it is to actually create something like this. I can't wait to do it again next year.

I have no idea what I'll do with this one now though. I don't eat gingerbread so it may be up to my husband and toddler to polish it off I think as I'm not too sure it will stay very fresh if we wait to use it as a centrepiece on Christmas day.

What do you think? I must admit that I'm quite proud of my creation being that it's my first ever attempt.

Michelle xx

Great Space Ideas

I finally decided the other night that I want my own space at home for any scrapbooking or crafty things I do. At the moment I use our dining table which is just plain annoying as I have to keep packing everything away constantly, then I forget where I'm up to and by the time I get everything out again either my mojo is gone or the time I had spare is gone (my 15 month old has a tendency to wake up whenever I decide to be constructive when he's sleeping!)

So, with my new mission fresh in my head I decided to hit up Pinterest for some inspiration. Can I just say that this site is DANGEROUS! I have found so many new uses for this site over the past few weeks and could easily lose hours on there if I was allowed. Anyway, here are some of the ideas I found that I just had to share because they were too good not to:

 How cute is this? Such a simple space layout that wouldn't cost the earth and doesn't take up too much room.

 This is just too cool. A great way to transform an old cupboard or storage unit.

 If only I had a whole wall to dedicate to something like this......

 What a great inspirational wall decoration, and so simple!

 An awesome way to use up old jars instead of throwing them out.

 You could use anything for this. A shower caddy, spice rack, the list is endless.....

So, now I have some ideas I just need the funds to put them into action and some spare time. Unfortunately, both of these things are something that I tend to have lacking most of the time so for now I can just keep wishing and hopefully one day I can finally have my own space. In the meantime I'll just keep dreaming and stalking Pinterest.....

Does anyone have any other great sites I should check out for inspiration??

Michelle xx

My Non-Valentines Day Romantic Dinner

I just had to share a little about the beautiful and romantic dinner my husband prepared for me last night.

I must say one thing about my husband, when he's in the wrong he'll certainly do his best to make up for it and last night is proof of this.

And the reason I got so spoilt? Well it was all because he felt guilty about completely forgetting about Valentine's Day and not even giving me so much as a card or a 'Happy Valentine's Day honey' on the day. This is because he's been so caught up in a project he's doing for work and working ridiculous hours because of it and therefore just plain forgot about the day.

Now, I'm not someone who needs a ridiculous amount of money spent on me for dinner or with flowers, etc, but I do like a little something done that just shows a bit of effort and though and that you are still special to the one you love. My present to him on Valentine's day was a 'Love' book which I filled out with our whole history of memorable times together plus a heap of fun and silly quotes/sayings and tid bits of our life together so far. This took me ages to do so I will admit I was a tad miffed when Valentine's Day came and went and it didn't even get the slightest acknowledgement from hubby.

But, he certainly made up for it last night. Firstly, he organised his parents to take bub for the night and after I'd dropped him off there (while hubby was at home apparently busy making dessert) I came home to this taped on our front door:

Then, when I walked inside the dining table was cleared and set with candles, wine and a menu of what we were having for dinner:

Also, he'd run a bath for me while I was gone and lit candles in the bathroom as well and timed the entree so I had a good half an hour in the bath first before dinner began.

So, the dinner was absolutely delicious. I forgot to take photos of the actual meals but he even went to extreme effort in presenting everything on the plate like a fancy restaurant would.

After dinner, there were even cocktails prepared and they were my favourite Margaritas!!

I did manage to take a photo of the table after dinner, so this is why there are no table settings left, but it shows the candles he had going and the printed menus (yes, he chose the ugliest tablecloth I think we own):

Don't I just have the sweetest husband ever? I can't believe the trouble he went to to prepare all this and he even did three loads of dishes in between cooking to keep the kitchen tidy!! He based the dinner around the show 'My Kitchen Rules' where you create an instant restaurant at home. So cute!

So, do you guys think he made up for forgetting all about Valentine's Day? I certainly do :-)

2012 New Year Resolutions

I know I'm a bit late in making this post but it's taken me a few days to actually decide on what New Year Resolutions I'd specifically make. I didn't want just the usual boring ones that I never seem to stick to. I wanted to make ones that would inspire me to improve as a person and ones that I knew I could actually stick with achieving.

So, in no particular order, here are my 2012 New Year Resolutions:

1) Be less stressed - I admit it. I am a huge stress head. I am very routine focused and struggle to function when my routines are disrupted. Something that I have struggled with greatly since having a new baby as there are no such things as routines anymore. I am also a big thinker and I struggle to 'switch off'. This year I really want to focus on not letting things get to me as much and just try to go with the flow a bit more.

2) Get back to my pre-baby health - I've struggled with losing my baby weight and now it's almost been 10 months I don't think I have any excuses anymore. I am going to aim to do some form of physical excercise at least 4 times a week and get back in the habit of walking our dogs when hubby gets home and can take bub off my hands, at least while the days are longer and I can take advantage of it being light a bit later in the day.

3) Be more adventurous - As mentioned above, I am a routine freak and therefore don't handle change or spur of the moment things very well. This year I want to try and embrace being a bit more adventurous and agreeable to things that are not in my comfort zone.

4) Make better use of my time - I used to be the most efficient person around pre-baby. Now, I am the best time waster known to man. There just isn't enough time when you have a small baby who craves your attention every waking moment and the productive time I do get when he's sleeping is what I really need to make better use of so that I don't feel so overwhelmed and lose days without getting anything done that I wanted to. I'm going to make a plan of things to do when bub is having his two sleeps a day (normally this is when I catch up on sleep or just crash on the lounge until he wakes up!) and I am going to stick with it. If he wakes up early or only has one sleep on a certain day, I'll just try and catch up the next time he sleeps for longer. This will hopefully assist with Resolution No. 1 above too.

5) Be more creative with my hair and makeup - This is not such a serious resolution but it's still something I want to try and achieve this year. I've gotten really lazy lately due to only working two days a week and the fact that I don't have to dress up in my corporate wear with full hair and makeup done every day anymore. My current job is still in the same industry I've always worked in but it's in a much more relaxed environment so I really don't have to make any effort at all with my appearance when I'm there. This has made me lazy on other days as well and this has to stop. I have to get out of my 'pony tail' rut and start actually making an effort again with my hair (I haven't actually had a haircut since March last year!) and I also need to start circulating my makeup a bit more. I get favourites that I use every day because they don't require thinking and I'm normally rushed but I want to start getting creative again and actually putting time aside to try and look nice again.

6) Finish my CPA - This is more of a goal than a resolution I guess but it's still something I want to achieve this year. If I keep going with the last two subjects I have left and actually pass them I'll finally be qualified by the end of this year. I'm not actually sure what I'm going to do with this once I've gotten it though. At the moment I work for myself doing contracting work so I have the flexibility I need with bub but can still earn some money but if the right offer comes along I may decide to go back to commercial work. We'll just have to wait and see.

7) Make more of an effort with hubby - We seem to be like ships in the night lately where we pretty much just pass each other in the hallway on our way to doing whatever we need to do. Poor hubby has two casual jobs he's trying to juggle on top of his regular full time job just to make up for the income we lost when I stopped working full time and this means there is very little time we have just to ourselves anymore. I want to aim to make more effort in the small amount of time we do have so we don't end up being no more than just roommates under the same roof.

So, there you have it. They're not exciting or anything but they are all things that I really want to make an effort in achieving this year.

Has anyone else gotten on the New Year Resolution bandwagon?

Something A Bit More Personal - Our Fur & Feathered Family

Today I am having a day off from being a human mum due to having huge amounts of studying to do (yeah, I'll get to it later!) so my husband's mum has the little man today to give me some free time.

Walking around our house which is now childless made me think about how even when I am alone in the house, I'm never truly alone due to all of our fur babies wandering around. Unfortunately due to bub coming along the fur kids haven't been getting the amount of attention they used to get when they were our only kids but I do my best to make them still feel special all in their own way.

Anyway, I have decided to show everyone our fur and feathered family and share with you their stories.

First up is the one I still consider my first born even after bub came along. Her name is Evie and she is a 6 1/2 year old tri-colour Beagle. She is my baby :-)

Evie is the only good thing I got out of wasting 8 years of my life with my ex. He bought her for me as a present one day when I was at work and so she could be company for our other male staffy. When we split I kept her and he kept our other dog. It felt horrible splitting them up but neither of us wanted to be left without a dog so that's how it ended up.
I still remember the first time I saw her. My ex had hidden her in our bedroom when I got home and she gave herself away by giving a little yap from behind the door and when I opened it, there she was in all her puppy cuteness sitting on top of the pillows on our bed looking so excited and happy. I fell instantly in love and she has been my best little buddy in the world ever since. I would swear on my life that she knows what I am thinking most of the time without me having to say a word. She was my rock in what I call the 'bad time' between my ex and I breaking up and before meeting my now husband.

Next to join the clan was Cleopatra. She is a 4 1/2 year old tortoiseshell who has a bit of a Jeckyll and Hyde personality which I just love. You never know what you're going to get with Cleo and it's always so fun:

Cleo came into my life when I was doing a bit of part time vet nursing. She was one of a litter from the Cat Protection Society that the vet I was working at was trying to get homes for and no-one wanted her because she had a horrible scar on her nose where she'd been in a fight with one of her litter mates. She ended being the last one left for about a week that still hadn't gotten a home and I just couldn't resist her cheeky face. I'd never had a cat as a pet before as my family were always dog people so I was very nervous taking her home and wondered what on earth I was going to do with her. My husband also was not a big fan of cats and pretty much told me I wasn't allowed to get her. Well, I knew my husband would come around as soon as he saw her and I knew Evie had a good temperament so after my shift one day I took her home with me. Evie fell in love with her straight away and even though my husband wasn't too impressed when he walked in to see this little kitten on my lap, he is now officially a cat person and loves her. I knew he'd come around :-)

The third instalment in our household was Peking the muscovy duck. Peking was left at the same vet where I got Cleo as she was bought for some kids by their grandmother and their mother didn't want them to keep her. She was the tiniest little yellow bundle of fluff when she was dumped and my husband had always had a bit of a love for ducks and geese so one day I thought 'how hard could a duck be to look after anyway?'. Well, after my shift finished one day I took this bundle of yellow fluff home and the look on my husbands face was priceless. He was like a kid who'd just gotten the best present he'll ever get in his life and they have been best friends ever since. Peking is now about 4 1/2 years old and is the ruler of our backyard. She also thinks she's a dog after being brought up alongside Evie and sometimes sits at the back door trying to get in:

The next fur kid to come into our life was Caesar. Caesar is a 3 year old domestic long hair who we think has traces of Ragdoll due to his tendency to be like a big boneless fluff monster sometimes. Caesar was the tiniest kitten who just grew and grew and grew to be now over 7kgs of pure cat! He was a surprise xmas present for me in December 2008 from my husband (the newly reformed cat hater) and was part of a litter I was helping to mind at another vet who were dumped with Cat Care. I helped desex the litter one day and went home raving about how gorgeous these kittens were (something I did quite regularly) and there was one in particular that I really loved and kept taking about. Well, the next day as a surprise my husband went and picked up the kitten he thought was the one I fell in love with and when I came home from work there was this tiny bundle of silver and white fur sitting in out lounge room. Unfortunately I had to inform my husband nicely that he wasn't actually the kitten I was raving about so he offerred to take him back and swap him. Hell no! Once an animal is in our house it's part of the family so there was no way this little fluff ball was going anywhere now. Anyway, I think Caesar's story is one of fate as he's the most gorgeous cat known to man and just loves to play with our dogs and our other cat Cleo and we couldn't imagine life without him. He also has a purr that you can hear three rooms away which to me is just the best sound on earth:

Lastly, the final addition (sa far) to our clan is Barney. Barney is a 3 year old tan and white Beagle who we adopted when he was 16 months old from Beagle Rescue. Poor Barney was dumped at Wagga pound for reasons unknown and when we saw photos of him on the Beagle Rescue site we fell in love and couldn't help but go and see if we could adopt him:

Barney, we very quickly realised, has a big discipline problem. He tends to ignore any form of training and just does his own thing. After almost two years of being ignored, we have now given up and just let Barney be Barney. He's got the most loving personality I've ever known in a dog and is best friends with out little bub. He's also got a bit of a man-crush on Caesar and we sometimes catch them grooming each other when no-one is looking. So cute! Unfortunately in January this year Barney was diagnosed with canine epilepsy which means he is on a miriad of tablets twice a day now for the rest of his life. Even though we have the epilepsy managed to a certain degree, he still has a cluster of seizures now and then throughout the month but this is just something that we all have to get used to living with. Other than the seizures, Barney can live a completely normal doggy life so long as we keep up his medication.

So there you have it. I apologise that this post ended up becoming a bit longer than I anticipated at first but as you can probably tell I am very passionate about our fur babies and just couldn't imagine our household being without any one of them. One day I will achieve the impossible and get them to all be in the one photo. I don't know how I will do it, but I'm determined to!

Does anyone else have favourite fur babies (or feathered) that are an integral part of their family??

I am now my own boss......

Well it's official, I issued my first ever invoice under my new little business name yesterday and it felt so weird! I was extremely nervous filling it out and printing it off and handing it over. I was just waiting for the person I billed to look at it and laugh or criticise or something even though we'd already agreed on my fee beforehand!
I still have my normal job as an employee in an accounting firm two days a week and if this new business takes off I'll most likely let that go and just concentrate on working for myself and building up my little venture. I can't wait for all my hard work and effort to go to purely benefitting me instead of a rich boss. It's going to be so satisfying (as well as a little scary too!)
By the way, my new business for anyone interested is Beagle Bookkeeping Services and, as the name suggests, I'll be doing accounting and bookkeeping work, mainly on a pick-up and drop-off basis so I can do the work from home and not worry about child care for my little bub. It's going to be very weird being out of the pressure filled environment of professional accounting and auditing which is what I've done for the past 13 years but I think this little business will be a good venture to balance my work life with my new little family without the stress I get from my other job.
Who knows, once I finally manage to finish my CPA qualification I may decide to become a tax agent too which will mean a whole knew range of services I could offer. Baby steps though....... for now I am just getting enough satisfaction from looking at my first ever invoice and I can't wait to do some more!

My House is Overweight

I had an insightful thought the other day.... Can houses be overweight?? You think about it, being overweight is having extra kilos that really aren't necessary, well, that's exactly how our house feels at the moment and it's really starting to bother me.

So, to start on my journey to rid my house of excess 'kilos' I started by cleaning out my makeup supplies. This is something I've been wanting to do for so long but when I have a 5 month old everything seems to just take forever to get around to these days, but yesterday was 'D' Day for my makeup. Everything that was old, dry or unused for a very long time is now gone.

Then, my second project was my shoe collection and if anyone knew me personally you'd know how big a project this was to tackle. A big thank you to my husband for keeping bub occupied for the afternoon because it took me three hours (yep, 3 hours!!) to go through all of my shoes and decide what I was going to keep, what was going to get thrown out and what could be donated to charity. Two garbage bags and one big red, white and blue storage bag later and my shoe collection is now so much lighter. One thing I realised after doing this project was just how many pairs of thongs I seemed to accumulate whilst being pregnant because, as we all know, thongs are a pregnant girl's best friend and I literally lived in them towards the end. I'd forgotten about half of them there were just so many. I'll never need to buy another pair for years!!

Anyway, I now feel so liberated and am thinking about what other excess kilos I can get rid of from my house next weekend when I can again put my husband in charge of bub for a few hours. I'm thinking the linen cupboard may be my next victim........

Hope everyone had a great weekend!
Michelle

Not a Good Day

Well, today was very disappointing......
On Friday's I usually have a personal training session which I started up almost two months ago to try and shift all the unwanted pregnancy weight that seems to have taken hold and won't let go no matter how hard I try. Well, I couldn't go today because I woke up feeling so nauseated and had a migraine from hell! Very unhappy.
Funnily enough it's one of the simple things I look forward to the most every week and now I feel extremely deflated because I couldn't go this week. Oh well, I'll have to try and work twice as hard next week now :-)
I actually haven't been to the gym once this whole week which makes me feel even more guilty. At least I can hope that I'll get more use out of my time starting from next week as I have discussed with my boss that I want to drop back down to working only two days a week like I originally planned when I went back from maternity leave. I somehow got sucked into working an extra day from home but with a small baby it was taking me up to three days just to get one day worth of work done!! This in turn meant no study time was being put aside and don't even mention time for housework!
So, as of next week hopefully life will be a little less stressful and I can enjoy our bub a little more by giving up that extra work day. Financially it won't be so good but I guess you always manage somehow......
At least I got some good cuddle time in with bub today while I was feeling sick. He seems to know to behave when I'm not well which I'm so thankful for. The rest of the fur-kids were happy too judging by the fact there were two dogs and two cats sharing the bed all day with me and bub because they wanted the warmth. Needless to say it was very cosy!