Day 121 - Henry's Wardrobe

With Henry's late sleep yesterday we never made it to the shops, even though that had been the plan. I really wanted to get him some new winter pyjamas and a couple of long sleeve T-shirts so I went over to Target this afternoon after work.

I never thought that I would enjoy buying clothes for Henry as much as I do, mostly because there is not as much of a range available for boys, compared to girls' clothes. However,  I probably wouldn't get such good value for my money if I had had a daughter instead, because mostly all the chain stores think that all little girls should be in pink... everyday, every clothing item, all the time. By the way, Henry has worn pink a couple of times... it suits him, in a manly way :)

Day 120 - Time Management

Time management worked out really well today. Earlier in the week I had started painting the room with help from Glenda, I had spent some time another afternoon finishing off the first coat (except for the big section behind the very heavy bed) and then the project had stalled.

With Henry usually going down for his sleep at 12 noon, I coordinated things with Dale so that I was free to start painting at 11am. By noon, as I painted I listened to Henry singing away in bed to himself and listing all the people in our family (Mummmeeee.... Daaaddeeee..... 'Naa! - That's Jenna for those not in the know). By about 5 minutes to 1, he finally went quiet and slept for a peaceful two hours, just in time to wake when I was washing out the brushes.

I am really happy with how the room looks, but will wait until all the furniture is put back into place before taking photos.

Day 119 - Making Do

It seems that a slippery dip and swing set may be a good birthday present for Henry this year. He loves the slippery dips any time we go to a park. Today when Henry and I got home from a morning birthday party, Dale had his bike trailer out, which has a ramp for getting the bikes in and out. In his own head, this must have looked like a slippery dip to Henry, who climbed to the top, plonked himself down and attempted to slide (it was more of a wriggle) down!

Day 118 - Bed Time

I took this, tonight not long before Henry went to bed. He has become quite fond of his little teddy bear that was a gift from Peta's family and the matching monkey that Jenna bought for him. They appear to be from the same range and they have cute little matching faces. I just think Henry looks adorable clutching his teddies, because he doesn't show this softer side all the time!

Day 117 - Smart Cookie

Although he doesn't quite know the words for it yet, I have noticed that Henry is starting to notice the colour of objects. This started one day in the garden when he was picking his favourite African Daisies. I asked him to bring me a purple one; I don't really know if he knew what I was going on about, but he did learn to say the word purple.

Today I found that he is able to sort and stack his blocks by colour as well. Notice that although the green and orange ones are both triangles, he sorted them by colour? He is also able to say the word orange now, but it may take a bit longer to match the words to the colours!

Day 116 - Beginning Pilates

After a quiet Anzac Day holiday at home with the heater on, I have to admit that I did not feel like going out for my first Pilates class which started at 5pm. As a further part of my mission to get those separated abs back together after having Henry, I have signed up for 10 weeks in a beginner class. Luckily, even though all of the other classes are full, 5pm must be an unpopular time, as there are only three of us in the class. I am not fussed by this, as it means we should get more one on one time with the physio.

Wish me luck!

Day 115 - Lesson Learned!

My photo today looks like some kind of bizarre negative thing! Embarrassingly, I only took two photos today and didn't look at either of them straight after I took them (mainly because I was making sure the assembly was running properly). Lesson learned. My camera was on a different setting that Dale had been playing with and I hadn't reset it yet. I had to play around with this a lot so that you could even see the bag pipe player's facial details and it is kind of interesting, but not how I would have chosen to have this photo!

This is Mr Sweetapple, who played the pipes at our school's Anzac Day ceremony today.

Day 114 - Back to the Grindstone

Well the April holidays are well and truly over and I think this really hit me when I looked in my diary for the week! Only Monday and every day has notes and appointments already. At this point, Saturday and Sunday look to be free and I think I will be very much looking forward to those two days!

Day 113 - Down by the Wharf

Ice cream was on the agenda for this morning, after Dale had promised Jenna one on Saturday morning. She certainly wasn't going to let him forget that one!

We took a little drive down to the Marina where we had a look at all the fishing boats that were around and where we took a lot of photos in our attempts to be a bit artistic! Dale really was... check out his cool photo at Another Project 366 Sheep Joins the Herd.

Anyway I particularly liked this one of Dale and Jenna, because it wasn't great weather and the sky looks pretty dramatic.

After ice-cream, a wander and a pit stop to buy some local smoked prawns and mussels, we were on our way back to Canberra.

Day 112 - Side by Side

After a morning at the markets, where Glenda ran a stall selling produce from the community garden, including her jams and chutneys and where Jenna spent about half an hour choosing some cowrie shells from the jewellery stall (I felt just like I was waiting outside of Diva for her) we came home for some lunch and for Henry to decide he didn't want a sleep. Conversely Dale did want a sleep, so Jenna, Henry, Glenda and I took a walk down to the beach. In a semi attempt to get Henry to fall asleep we even wheeled him down in the stroller. That didn't work.

Anyway, Jenna and the little green machine had a great time running about the beach, even if Henry did sit down in the water by accident in the first couple of minutes. Keen to get Henry into the water, Jenna did her best to entice him. Henry had other ideas about those little foamy waves surrounding his feet!

Day 111 - Reunited at Last!

We drove down south to Eden this afternoon for a visit with Dale's Mum, Glenda. Jenna has been staying with her Nanna Glenda all week and we will be bringing her home at the end of the weekend. Unusually, because Jenna has been away, Henry hasn't seen his sister all week. The look on his face when he saw Jenna up in the windows at the front of the house on our arrival, was priceless! Henry chose Jenna to read him his bed time story tonight.

Day 110 - Boo!

I tried to get this photo this morning, but didn't quite get it quick enough! Henry was having a good old game of hiding in the kitchen cupboard; he tried opening the doors as quickly as his little arms could manage so that he could scare me with a big 'BOO!' Anything to put off a nappy change huh?

Day 109 - An Early Night

It is very rare for me to have an earlyish night and it explains my lack of a good photo subject today, but because of a bad headache (the second this week) it was my only option when nothing was working to get rid of it! Maybe it is painting the spare room that does it... wondering if Dale should finish the job for me?!

Day 108 - Peta's Birthday Portrait

Happy Birthday Peta!

Peta and I went and had coffee this morning at Art Oven in Manuka and followed up the coffee with a little trip to the portrait gallery. Having not really been for a good look there before (even though I have been there a couple of times) we were looking forward to enjoying the collection. Additionally we were very happy to find that the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 was currently on exhibit. You can see the photos that were on display here. I had a few favourites, including Mum by Christopher Pearce, Romela by Regan Kennedy, Frog Hunter by Mathew Abbott and Nikki and Nick by Emma Phillips. The one I liked most though was Caravan Kids by Jennifer Stocks.

Outside the exhibit, Peta and I enjoyed playing with the photo corner which had been set up for taking our own portraits! Here is Peta in her birthday portrait. I look forward to seeing what she has come up with for my portrait!

Day 107 - Spare Room Gets a Much Needed Makeover

It is my intention to not show too much in this photo, because I would rather show the whole finished room later, but as it was what filled my day today, it had to be my photo subject! With Dale's Mum Glenda on hand to help, we covered all of the egg yolk yellow feature wall (what were they thinking?) that was just like the yellow feature wall in the main bedroom (now covered and replaced with a metallic paint). We decided that the spare room didn't need a metallic wall, so it will all be done in the same colour. I love the metallic paint that we chose for our room and it was a lot of fun to apply, but I do know that one day it will be difficult for someone to paint over and it was easier today to do the whole room in one colour. Thanks to Glenda for all of her help, especially when I may have caused the big 10L paint can to spring a leak down the seam...

Day 106 - A Visit to Googong

We went for a little drive out to Googong this afternoon to take a look. We met up with Peta and Shane and their girls along the way, stopping first at the site of the new housing development and then on to the Googong Dam which is a really pretty place. Looking out across the site of the housing development, we could see flags that were marking out streets and were able to make a good approximation of where we were on the map. It was interesting to think that in the years to come, there would be a town in this big empty space.

Day 105 - Fun at the Park

I found it hard to choose between 2 photos today, but I have to go with this one, which shows the fun cheeky Henry had at the park this morning. On our own for the day, with Dale in Goulburn, we walked to a local park first thing in the morning, where Henry played for ages on the fixed equipment. There were only a couple of things that were right for a kid his size, but he made his own fun, running around and making a bit of noise and just generally loving being chased!

Day 104 - Henry's New Trick!

Henry has discovered a new trick that he can do, in the last couple of days... walking down the stairs - no hands! The first time he did it, he stood on the bottom step, bent forwards and back a couple of times (a bit like a cocky Dale thought) and then made the great leap! At the bottom he either runs into the waiting arms or shouts out a big "YAY!" with his own applause!

Day 103 - My Crazy Boy

Yes, Mum if you are looking for the flour sifter, it's right here... on my head... Henry enjoys going through the kitchen drawers in the kitchen and this time he liked what he found so much, he left with the flour sifting colander in his possession to be used as his latest hat. Quite the fashion icon is my boy!

Day 102 - Orange Splendour

Another item on my to do list for this week was to give the Commodore a bath and to take some photos so that we can get around to selling it. Here she is in all her orange splendour, ready to be listed online... well as soon as Dale gets his car back which is a long and frustrating story... so for now she gets to stay :)

Day 101 - My Own Gardening Assistant at Last!

Dale didn't need a whole lot of convincing to take today as annual leave, his only problem was that the day was intended for doing gardening. As day care was available to us, Henry left us to our own devices for the day as we finished off getting our front yard into order. Last holidays I laid down pine mulch in half of the front garden and it has worked really well as weed control. So today we did the front half which is the most visible to the street. We got through 3 cubic metres of the mulch which surprised us, all laid down on about 50 copies of the Sydney Morning Herald. And Dale hardly complained at all... well maybe just a little...

Day 100 - House Inspiration

It has been really inspiring to see all the beautiful display homes that we have looked at over the last couple of days. As we left Sydney this morning, we took a detour to Catherine Field on the way home to have a look at one last house that we had on our list. We were glad we made the detour as it was beautiful. So from here, we need to decide if we are interested in buying into Googong which is the new development taking shape just outside of Canberra. Nonetheless, looking at all these houses has given me plenty of ideas for our own house, no matter where it is.

Day 99 - Happy Easter!

Well the chocolate did come later and indeed this little egg cup that the Easter Bunny brought Henry did have chocolate in it, but I managed to get Henry to eat a proper breakfast first! He did enjoy his first ever boiled egg out of the shell too. I am looking forward to next year when Henry understands a bit more and we can have a real proper egg hunt in the back yard. Happy Easter!

Day 98 - Kitchen of My Dreams

So at this stage maybe it is a bit of a dream, but Dale and I had planned to look at some display homes this weekend. There is a new land release coming up in the Canberra area very soon and it has gotten us both thinking about building a house for the first time. It is very inspiring looking at all of these beautiful houses and looking at how fashions in homes change has been interesting as well. We do have a big house already, but I always find that the utility areas such as the laundry, kitchen and walk in robe could be bigger. This is the kitchen of the house that has captured my heart at this stage... with all that storage for appliances and even 'a butler's kitchen' (seems that is one of the latest things), I can just see myself cooking up a storm in here!

Day 97 - Birthday Girl

Well it isn't Robbie's birthday until Monday, but we enjoyed a birthday gathering at Robbie's place in the Blue Mountains tonight. As you can tell in the picture, Robbie was very pleased with her ladybug birthday cake and we all enjoyed the cake as well, which was delicious! Happy Birthday for Monday, Robbie!

Day 96 - Term 1 Done and Dusted

The Easter Hat parade signals the end of term 1, and that is where we, thankfully, found ourselves today. I love the effort that many families go to, to make Easter hats and I even remember doing Easter Hat parades when I was at primary school myself... although I am pretty sure that my Easter bonnets were unlike some of the wild creations that I saw today! This little boy kind of reminded me of a canary and I like how a masquerade mask was used in it!

Meanwhile the term has ended and I am looking forward to getting all sorts of things done these school holidays, as usual!

Day 95 - Work Catch Up

Wednesdays are my afternoon when I am able to stay a little later at work, as Dale picks up Henry in the afternoon (other than that he always does mornings). I try to get as many things done as I can, such as marking, photocopying and like today, hanging up artwork (I use clothes pegs). As it is week 11, the motivation to get a whole heap of things done was a little bit lower than usual today and I left early to finish my easter egg shopping.

Day 94 - Quick Recovery

Somehow I have gotten out of taking Henry for his last two lots of vaccinations. Today Dale took him for his latest round and when I asked later how it went, Dale noted that Henry did cry but he got over it very quickly and I do think that this photo with his Daddy demonstrates that! Now if only he could get over the pain of his latest teeth we would all be sleeping a little easier!

Day 92 - Coffee Anyone?

No it's really only milk froth, but Henry does love a babycino. Today when Dale had a short black I grabbed an extra miniature cup for Henry so he could have one like his Dad. At first he seemed to think he wasn't allowed to drink from it, but it didn't take him long to get used to it and produce this cheeky grin!