Bump Update: 33 Weeks

Just look at this thing...it is huge! I am certain I am bigger this time around and after a recent growth scan, it appears I might be right. I don't have big babies usually but this one is pretty big for me. The scan indicates it is already 4 pounds and after having a 5 pound Rosie (at full term!) and a 7 pound Harry, the sonographer indicated this one could even make it to 8 pounds. I am sure this doesn't sound huge to many woman but I for one am quite scared at the prospect! 

My expanding bump!

This little bub is measuring just on average for weight but is on the 98th percentile for height. Harry was the same and I remember packing a carefully chosen Size 0000 outfit for him to come from the hospital in. The top and pants both ended up being 3/4 length on him! The night time "get ups" are definitely on the increase now and I am averaging between 3-5 trips to the bathroom a night. I guess it is nature's way of getting me used to all the night time feeds I will soon be facing. :)

Overall, I feel pretty good and am finding it so much easier to dress for a summer pregnancy this time around. I wear dresses most days as they are comfortable and cool to wear in the summer heat. I remember struggling to make my 2-3 pairs of winter work trousers look different each day, despite wearing them 5 days a week for weeks on end! I love feeling the baby move and kick, it is so reassuring and I never get sick of it. For the most part the kicks are gentle but every now and again I get a boot in the ribs. It is such a busy time at the moment with family and work commitments, however I can't help but think that this is such an amazing season of life to be in and I have never been happier. I love my family, I love my work and I am truly blessed. :)

Landscaping Lessons!

A few weeks ago I mentioned some of the landscaping madness going on at our house. It is still very much a work in progress but I thought I would share a couple of the lessons we have learnt recently.

The first lesson is: If a truck comes to deliver a large load of soil, it really isn't worth it to push them to drive through a small set of gates in order to dump the soil closer to your intended project.

This was unfortunately a lesson we had to learn the hard way. I have to say, I was dubious from the start but I am married to an optimist! There was literally 5cm to spare on each side of the truck but it had made it through.

All was going well until the large load was emptied, somehow causing the truck to no longer fit through the gates! I think it had something to do with the shift in weight after the truck was empty.

This marked the beginning of a very complex process to remove the truck and keep the fence and gate intact. The truck driver and Taff worked closely together and all was looking good...until the very last moment when we heard a crack. The truck had taken out the fence! This wouldn't usually be the end of the world but this fence is one of our pool boundary fences so we needed to address it immediately.

Thus began the search for a fence builder...and fast. This then led to landscaping lesson number 2: Do not try save money by choosing the cheapest quote you can find, you get what you pay for. The builders we went with were only a couple of hundred dollars cheaper than professional fence places and in hindsight, this is only a small amount in the bigger scheme of things.

The first day they were onsite was looking good, until after several hours of work they (and we!) discovered that the gates had been built wrong. The fence is on a slope and they hadn't taken this into account, instead building a completely straight bottomed gate, leaving a nice little gap for young children to crawl under and get into the pool area.

To their credit, they came back and finished the job and rebuilt the gates but Taff spent the last two hours "supervising" their work and asking them to redo things! Not one for confrontation, I chose to hide inside at this point. :)

So finally the new fence and gate were finished and after a couple of days of uncertainty, we actually quite like it now and think they did a reasonable job in the end. There is still much work to do to get it looking finished but we have plans to sand it and paint it further down the track. Still, it is functional and 100 times better than the old brown fence. In the end it was a good thing the truck smashed the fence as it accelerated a project that had been a very low priority prior to that. I am also sure this won't be the last lesson we learn in landscaping! :)

Organising a Pregnancy

A few months ago I blogged about the organising system I use for vouchers and coupons. It is still working really well for us so I decided to use the same technique to organise all the pregnancy information I have been inundated with over the last few months.

I used the same type of mini folder I used before and decided on some categories which would help to organise all the information I had. Some of the categories I chose included Pregnancy Diary, Blood Test Forms, Scan Forms, Test Results and a place to store pregnancy and baby specific vouchers I have received.

I have found this a fantastic system which keeps all my important information together in one place. This means that when I have a midwife appointment or scan, I just grab my folder and no longer need to go hunting for scan forms or other loose documentation.

It is a quick, easy and inexpensive solution to something I struggled with a bit during my last two pregnancies. I was forever writing things down on tiny bits of paper and then misplacing them. I am sure a more organised person wouldn't have need for such a system like this, but for me it has really worked. :)

Oh and look what I picked up for the nursery. As soon as I saw this Zuny giraffe a few weeks ago, I fell in love with it. It is actually a paperweight but I thought it would be nice touch in the new baby's room. :)

30 Week Bump Update

It is hard to believe I am into the last 10 week stretch of this pregnancy! Things have been moving along swiftly and I am growing fast. I am now well and truly into maternity clothing for the most part and I have been surprised at how well I have coped with the hot weather thus far. To be fair, it hasn't actually been "that" hot and my weight gain is only up 1kg in the last 5 weeks, so that has made this summer pregnancy much easier to deal with.

I had my glucose screening test a few weeks ago and failed. I never had this problem with the first two and the prospect of having gestational diabetes was quite worrying to me because let's face it, everything worries me! Last weekend I had my follow up GTT (Glucose Tolerance Test) and yay, I passed! I have since found out that it is quite common to fail the screening test and have to go back for the two hour GTT. Sitting around at Labtests for two hours was a pain but I made the most of it by taking in a pile of writing to be marked.

Speaking of work, I am back now and working for the first school term. This will take me right up to 38 weeks and things are busy beyond words at the moment. I have very long 'To Do' lists each and every day and am doing my best to tick everything off so I can tackle the next task. On the topic of lists, I am really far behind in organising things for the baby this time around. I usually have a fully decorated nursery and everything prepared by about 18 weeks, but this time the nursery is a mish mash of all sorts of things floating around.

I have found it hard not knowing the gender of the baby this time around and being able to get the room all prepared in advance, in the way I would like. I think that for me personally, I much prefer finding out, rather than waiting for a surprise! I put it down to my control freak nature. :) The other week we did get some storage organised for the nursery though and Taff refreshed his flat pack assembly skills on an Ikea Expedit cube storage unit. I LOVE the Expedit's and would love to get another for our front entrance way.

For the storage underneath, I found some white POLO cube boxes from Freedom and they are a perfect fit for the Expedit and hold quite a bit. These will be great for storing wraps, nappies and all the other things you accumulate when you have a small baby. Well, that is my 30 week update! Soon I will share the way I have been organising all my pregnancy medical "stuff" so that I can keep on top of appointments, etc.

Back To School Treats: Double Chocolate Muffins

My family are not the greatest fans of muffins...but these scrumptious ones are an exception. Perfect as a back to school treat!

Double Chocolate Muffins

1 1/4 cups flour

1/4 cup cocoa

2 tsp baking powder

1/2cup sugar

100 grams melted butter

2 eggs

1/2 cup strong cocoa drink (the original recipe calls for strong coffee but we are not coffee drinkers!)

1 cup chocolate chips

Method

Sift flour, cocoa and baking powder into a bowl, stir in sugar. Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients. Melt butter. Beat egs and cocoa drink together. Add butter,egg mixture and chocolate chips to the dry ingredients. Mix quickly with a fork until ingredients are just combined. Three quarter fill greased deep muffin tins with mixture (I often use cupcake wrappers to save time). Bake at 190 degrees for 20 minutes or until muffins spring back when lightly touched. Serve warm and dusted with icing sugar. Makes 10-12.

I bake most weekends to prepare for the school week ahead and these muffins keep well and are a great addition to your repertoire.

A New School Year Begins

Another school year begins. Rosie is in Year 3 now and it was Harry's first week of school this week! It is hard to believe that he is now 5 and all grown up. :)

Both were super excited about starting school and had been looking forward to it for quite some time. Harry has enjoyed trying on his unform periodically during the holidays, "just to make sure it still fits" and was up bright and early on the first day.

Rosie and Harry are both really lucky to have great teachers and the first few days have gone very smoothly. They love getting up each morning and going to school and that is such a blessing to me. Being a full time working mum, we are up fairly early and they are now at an age where they are largely indpendent in getting changed, getting their own breakfast and packing their school bags.

With baby number three arriving in a few short months, it will be quite a shock to the system to go back to nappies, sleepless nights and having a little one who relies solely on us to take care of all his/her needs. I am quite scared about it! lol. Things have definitely got easier as the kids have grown older but I figure we have been through it twice before and survived, and hopefully we can do it again!

Oh and I had to share a photo of Harry's new chair bag that I made. A couple of years ago I made Rosie a school chair bag and this one isn't nearly as fancy, but I found this blue skull fabric for $5 a metre and whipped one up for him. It isn't the flashest, but at least he likes it. :)

We are all looking forward to another great year at school! :)

Landscaping Madness

Things on the blog have been quiet lately (sorry!) but there is a reason. We are in the thick of some much needed landscaping at our poor neglected house.

There has been major plumbing work going on downstairs as we are having our pipes replaced...here is some of the evidence laying on our drive way. :)

As is often the case, the interior has been our priority since we moved in and after making lots of cosmetic changes inside such as new carpet, polished floors and painting, etc, I guess it is fair to say that we ran out of steam...for quite a while. This is nothing unusual for us and sometimes several months can pass before we feel like tackling anything else.

Remnants of a large soil delivery outside the old built in BBQ...still not sure what to do with this area?

Our house is 50 years old and many of it's features are original, including most of the landscaping! There are lots of poorly positioned trees, overgrown patches of shrubs and weeds and pool tiling which has suffered from subsidence over the years.

Greenfingers couldn't collect our bag this month, as their access was blocked with rubbish and soil! lol

There is a lot of potential, BUT there is a lot of work to be done before we even get close to reaching that potential. Being seven months pregnant, I'm afraid I haven't been much help physically in the work being done outside for the last few weeks, but I have been very supportive and tried to keep a supply of snacks and drinks going for Taff as he toils outside in the rain and sunshine. :)

Clearing out the garden

We have had some high points and low points, which I may expand on at another time, but at the moment our property looks like a dumpsite. A couple of days ago I decided to walk around with my camera and snap some of the landscaping chaos that surrounds us at the moment, just to share with you. :)

Mini piles of rubbish, waiting for the skip to arrive

Taff has been slowly gathering piles of rubbish and green waste, strategically placed around the yard in anticipation of the large rubbish skip we plan to order for the coming weekend! I LOVE getting skips and there is something so satisfying about throwing out your rubbish and having it driven away a couple of days later. :)

This little pile has been here for about 18 months (blush)

We have had a family working bee, builders working on a new fence (I will share that story another time!), tiles being painted, new grass seed sown and tomorrow these ugly little babies (trees at the front of our property) will be gone forever as they face the chop from the experts! I can't wait to come home and see them gone, ready for the next project...a front fence and driveway gates.

Major tree work to start tomorrow!

In the meantime, enjoy the photos of all the mess. I am sure they will make you feel like your backyard isn't as messy as you once thought! lol. :)

Christmas Card Organising

I know that Christmas has well and truly gone and we are now two weeks into the new year...but I thought I would share my method for storing Christmas cards.

Being a school teacher, I receive a lot of cards every year and they are all very special to me. Some of the words my students and their families have written have brought tears to my eyes and I cherish these and wanted to find a way to store them securely.

Every year I have bundled them up and placed them into my Christmas storage box but this year I found a better solution. My scrapbooking hero, Becky Higgins, has produced these fantastic pocket pages which fit into your standard 12"x12" album and are PERFECT for storing all your precious cards.

I simply labelled them with the year, added a cute Christmas tag and that was it. I have now added the pocket to the end of the December section of my 2011 Project Life album and all my special Christmas cards have been saved to enjoy in the coming years. :)

Bump Update: 25 Weeks

I am not a fan of photos of myself these days but after going through two pregnancies with virtually no photos of me in my pregnant state, I thought I better bite the bullet and at least start taking the odd shot every now and again. It is hard to believe that I am virtually in my sixth month of pregnancy now! I remember the time passing by so slowly when I was pregnant for the first time and now that we are on number three, life is a lot busier and time seems to fly by. I have made a few personal observations after being pregnant this time around. The last time I was expecting a baby I was in my 20's and now that I am well into my 30's, I can definitely feel the difference! I have a lot more aches and pains to contend with this time and I am pretty sure I have been waddling for the last few weeks. At least it feels like I have!

 On the plus side, I have only put on about 2-3kg so far but I imagine that number will increase a lot in the next few weeks. With Rosie and Harry I gained about 7-8kg all up and I am hoping for the same this time. Thankfully, my morning sickness has well and truly gone and I don't need to be eating every few minutes to keep the nausea at bay. I am also able to stay up a lot later than I did in the first 18 weeks so it looks like my 'night owl' tendencies have returned. This little Bubble likes to kick me a lot and I never tire of the feeling. I am cherishing each and every kick, knowing that once the baby arrives, I will miss that feeling. So that is where I am at! 25 weeks down and a few more to go. :)

Donna Hay's Mango and Banana Gelato Recipe

I am a huge fan of Australian author and food stylist, Donna Hay. At the moment her Fast, Fresh and Simple television series is screening here in New Zealand and I have fallen in love with this delicious, simple summer recipe.

It is a super easy to make, very healthy and although I don't really like mangos on their own, I LOVE them in this recipe! Rosie and I decided to make this after we had some leftover mango at Christmas and we were able to make this together with minimal fuss and effort.

Donna Hay's Mango and Banana Gelato

2 bananas chopped (We used three as we wanted a more banana flavour)

3 mangos chopped (We used one as that is all we had!)

280 grams thick, natural (sweetened or unsweetened, depending on your tastes) or vanilla yoghurt

 That is it! As you can see, you can adapt your quantities quite easily with this recipe, depending on what you have.

1. Place the banana and mango in a sealed container and freeze for 2–3 hours or until frozen. Place the frozen fruit and yogurt in a blender or food processor and blend until smooth. Serve immediately or place in a sealed container and freeze. After freezing allow to soften for 5 minutes before serving.

This is a great guilt-free alternative to ice-cream and has the taste of summer. Give it a go!

As 2011 Draws to a Close...

As 2011 draws to a close I have been reflecting on the year we have had as a family and all the memories we have created together. It has been a wonderful mix of great times and like everyone else, has had it's share of challenging experiences too.

We have faced the trial of my husband's redundancy and the uncertainty this brings to your life. The fear of the unknown has always been great for me and it has been a real trial of my faith to trust that this challenge would pass and that something would pop up.

Thankfully, something did and I have learnt a lot from this experience. I have learnt never to take any job for granted and to prepare for times of trial. It has also made me change my perspective of my husband's work and to accept and deal with all the aspects that go with his career, such a long hours at the office and time spent away from family.

Instead of resenting this, I have made a conscious choice to accept it and remember the ways we have been blessed, rather than focusing on the things we can't change. This has helped me tremendously and I feel a lot happier in myself. This in turn gives me strength to keep going and trying my best to become the mother I want and need to be for my children.

I still have a long way to go and I am far from perfect, however I am looking forward to continuing to work on this in 2012 as we face the challenges that come our way.

On the flipside, I have had the most fantastic year in my work as a teacher. I am truly blessed to have a job which I love and this year in particular, has been a highlight. I have had 31 of the most amazing, bright, thoughtful students and I can honestly say that it has been a pleasure going to work each day with them.

My work is important to me, however I am aware that it does consume a lot of my time and energy. This year I felt that all that effort was worth it and I was so proud of each and every one of my students and the progress they made. When you spend six hours a day with a group of people, you become very close and I was very sad when the year drew to a close. It was one of those special classes that helped make 2011 such a wonderful, memorable year for me. :)

2011 has also marked a milestone in little Harry's life. On 20 December he turned five and bid farewell to his preschool days. He has loved his time there and it has made such a difference to me as a working mum, to know that he is being cared for in a loving, supportive environment.

He is always happy to go each morning and greet his teachers and friends and I know that he has many fond memories of his time there. Rosie has also had a wonderful year with a fantastic teacher and has continued to grow in confidence.

She is a naturally shy girl, but has gained so much confidence in herself through her dancing and performing. She has also turned into a little bookworm, something that makes me very happy as I was a bookworm from a young age and loved to read.

Overall, it has been a wonderful year and I am so grateful that much of it has been documented through Project Life. It has been a challenge to keep up with this project all year, however it has been worth it and I am grateful we have a beautiful keepsake which has captured the history of our family.

2012 will be an exciting one for our family. We are especially looking forward to welcoming a new baby to the family in April and I can't wait to get stuck into preparations for the new little one. I am looking forward to digging out all the little clothes and setting up the nursery. I have already begun "nesting" and my "to do" list is a mile long at the moment.

I am aware that life doesn't stop once you have a baby, however with a five year age gap I am also a little worried that there is a lot I have forgotten! I am also hoping to document the baby stage of this new bub a little more thoroughly than I have for the first two.

I am looking forward to 2012 with a sense of excitement. In the meantime, here are a few snapshots of the last few days of 2011 for the Bennett family. We have had a beautiful Christmas with our family, lots of time in the pool, a hike up Rangitoto and fun at the park. We are looking forward to creating more beautiful memories in the months to come. :)