Tag Archives: Family

A Tale of Two Cakes

Posted on October 10, 2010 | 9 comments

You may have already heard the tale of the (thankfully not chocolateless) chocolate cake… it’s already quite famous, you know. But on my return from the stashbusting expedition*, I found another waiting:

BirthdaySponge

Sponge cake with strawberry jam, fresh strawberries and cream. Drooooool……

(Dermot’s first ever sponge cake, he will have you know. What do you think Liesl, should we enter him for next year’s Melbourne Show?!)

HappyBirthday

My birthday (one with a 5 in it) is, in fact, tomorrow, but Sunday is a much more celebration-friendly day, which is why we did it all today. (There is, however, an ominous bag of goodies awaiting kids-in-big-bed time in the morning. In the immortal words of Lola,I can’t wait, I can’t wait!)

Yummy

It was delicious! (There’s none left, by the way… but it’s not quite as bad as it sounds, we did have guests come for yummo roast-chicken dinner as well, we didn’t polish off the lot by ourselves!)

All that and the Finders Keepers market yesterday with Niamh too. An entirely satisfying weekend!

*If you follow that link you can find a picture of me blowing out the candles – I am clearly moving very fast… which is when I am at my most photogenic, I think**! Thanks Cam 🙂

**I also have quite the photogenic foot, as seen over at Bec’s place. I point this out only to reassure you that I am not kicking Houdini-dog in this photograph, but merely scratching his chin with that foot (which left him in raptures, and my hand quite untainted by Houdini-dog smell!)

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Posted in Family, General Ramblings

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Censored

Posted on June 21, 2009 | 9 comments

It is now official. Too many people I know read this blog. I am now officially self-censoring. Do you think it’s strange that it’s easier to discuss certain things with complete strangers than with friends and family? Anyway. That’s me. Strange. So I’m not going to have a big old whiney rant, because all you out there who know me would just tell me to pull my socks up and get over myself. (Probably with good reason!) So let’s just have a picture from today, before today turned to shit.

Finn… and Finn:
FinnandFinn
(photo credit: Dermot)

Now. I would like a do-over on June please. And maybe also May. And some sleep (a lot of sleep). And no more family diseases for the rest of the year.

It’s only fair.

…

PS. Dear Brown Owls and Owlets who we met at the Aquarium today: We did have a lovely time, honestly. 🙂 Thanks to Pip and to Suze for organizing the excursion.

PPS. Dear New Readers: I don’t usually use bad words on my blog. Much :giggle:

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Posted in Family, The Kids

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Retroblogging (via Finn)

Posted on June 10, 2009 | 6 comments

So, forever ago, Mothers’ Day happened. Remember? I kept meaning to tell you about mine, because it actually was pretty darn perfect, as far as Mothers’ Days go. Then time slipped away from me (as it does), and I thought it was probably beyond reasonable. But I’ve since remembered that Finn actually documented the day, and so here, in his words, is our 2009 Mothers’ Day:

We went to the Yarra Valley Dairy and we had some dairy foods. Then we went to a winery. Mum and Dad tasted some wine. Then we had some food at a café. My sister and I had ice-cream and Mum and Dad had scones, jam and cream. I had lemonade and my sister had pineapple juice. Mum and Dad had coffee. Then we went home. We had a great Mother’s Day!

He forgot a couple of things – like the perfect bedtime the night before (all three – no tears – a feat that has not been repeated), Rohan treating us to the best night of his four-week-life, the wee bit of fabric shopping in Healesville (fabrics shown in this post), and the foray into Kennedy & Wilson in search of chocolate-y goodness. But I think he captured the rest of it perfectly… I wonder when he’ll want his own blog?

Mothers-Day
(I don’t like this photo of me a whole lot, but I’m taking to heart the recent advice of Miz Booshay and “getting in the picture“. There are so few photographs of me with my kids, and I’ll regret it later, I know. I need to just get over my issues. At least in this one, three out of the four of us are actually looking at the camera. Rohan can be excused just this once 🙂 )

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Posted in Family, The Kids

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This Boy

Posted on December 31, 2008 | 3 comments

Finn's Birthday 2008

Is pretty great, actually 🙂 I still can’t quite work out where I misplaced the last six years, but just look at that – we have a six year old! Happy Birthday Mr Finn!

The last couple of school weeks were pretty full-on for the boy. He was thrust suddenly into the world of car-pooling after I broke my wrist; he was one of the narrators in the Prep end-of-year concert (amazing me with his stage confidence – such a different boy from way back then); sickness descended once twice more upon the Sugarlemon household; as did headlice (blech); mid-illness, we survived a whirlwind (early) birthday party (tenpin bowling again this year, since *someone* (cough) didn’t manage to book the swimming party in time); there was a flurry of excitement over a Student Achievement Award; two days were spent at this swish school learning Chess and geometry and other fun stuff; then finally there came the last day of school for 2008, which ended with a bit of a teary meltdown (as Claire can attest!) Not surprising, really. (Thankfully, Santa drove our bus on the way home, so all was restored.) Then came the anticipation and actuality of Christmas, which as always is a story unto itself.

(Actually, all of those should have been stories unto themselves, but as usual, I’ve been a bad blogger, and this is the seriously condensed version. With many parentheses.)

But today, finally, a day just for Finn. And it was pretty excellent. Low-key, just the four of us, but with the requisite amounts of sugar and fun, I think. Still transport-less (cast comes off in 5 days, hip hip hooray), we took a train into the city for: Krispy Kreme doughnuts, Myer Christmas windows, Madagascar 2, Sushi, Pork dumplings, and Max Brenner hot chocolate. Thoroughly exhausted, we staggered home, where Niamh and I had to sleep it off for a while. Later there was some of this, lots of this, an excellent round of this, then early fireworks (televised) for the kids, and finally, blessedly, they’re asleep, and I’m just trying to keep my eyes open until at least the first few seconds of 2009. Happy New Year, everyone 🙂

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Posted in Family, General Ramblings

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Lost: One Centre of Gravity

Posted on November 25, 2008 | 9 comments

Many of you know already (Facebook is the place to announce all the importancies of life these days, dontcha know?), but for those who don’t, let me tell you how I spent a few perfectly good hours last night.

In the emergency department, having my arm plastered.

Fun, no? Yep, instead of spending those few perfectly good hours at Brown Owls making tea lights like I was supposed to, I decided to take a detour straight off the chair I was standing on, and fracture a formerly perfectly good left wrist, which was (formerly) good at doing all that stuff like writing and stitching and driving – stuff I now won’t be doing for a good 6-8 weeks, give or take.

Bum.

I’m having trouble coming up with a silver lining to this one, but I will say that hey, at least it wasn’t, say, my leg, and it’s definitely a good thing that Baby Three is unharmed (my overwhelming concern as I fell, and probably the reason I broke said wrist in the first place). In fact, Baby Three (s/he of no good nickname) spent the night partying, as I lay mostly not-sleeping (damn, casts are hard to sleep with).

Will be spending next 6-8 weeks berating self for stupidity of standing on chair when 19.5 weeks pregnant. And feeling thankful for wonderful friends who have come to the rescue of this currently no-car family (did I ever mention that Dermot can’t drive? Yeah, makes it just that much more fun :ouch: )

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Out of Uniform

Posted on June 25, 2008 | 5 comments

Finn’s school had a dress-up day today to raise money for another local school recently damaged by fire. The theme was SUPERHEROES & CAREERS. I know. Weird combo. Don’t ask me.

Anyway, I spent yesterday on the sewing machine (pants, apron, super big toque) and today our little super hero went dressed as a chef. (Niamh decided to get in on the crazy hat action too :giggle: – told you she really liked it!)
Chef-Finn

I have another post lined up for you – almost as cute as this one – but I figure that you’d die of shock if I posted twice in one day… so you’ll just have to wait!

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Posted in Family, Other Craft, Sewing, The Kids

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What We Did

Posted on April 29, 2008 | 4 comments

Finn-The-NobbiesKoala-Phillip-IslandNiamh-The-Nobbies

On the long weekend we went to Phillip Island.

We saw koalas and penguins.

It was very cold.

We all got sick.

The End.

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Posted in Family

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Spooky

Posted on April 20, 2008 | 5 comments

For some time, I have been under the impression that neither of my kids looks like me. (Well, apart from the eyebrows, of course). How wrong I was:

Finn-Dec-07Mel-Kinder
(Finn December 2007 vs Me circa 1980, both approximately 5 years old)

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Posted in Family, The Kids

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Term 2, Week 2

Posted on April 16, 2008 | 6 comments

It’s difficult to get inside the brain of a 5 year old boy. Most of the time, I guess you probably wouldn’t want to! But we’re dealing with a few problems with Finn at school at the moment, and I’m just finding it so hard to help him through this. Mostly, I end up feeling I’m doing all the wrong things, and some of the time, I know that I am (see: irrational yelling, behaving worse than a child myself sometimes). After dropping him off each morning, I’m all kinds of tense for the rest of the day until I pick him up. I keep expecting school to call and ask me to pick him up because he’s done x or y. Logically, I know it’s not that bad. I know that he (mostly) has a good time once I’m gone, that a good portion of his behaviour in the morning is due to separation anxiety. Logically, I also know that he’ll eventually get over his apparent phobia of the school toilets (won’t he?!). That school won’t always feel like a prison sentence to he and I both (oh please?!)

But damn it’s hard right now.

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Posted in Family, The Kids

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Too Late?

Posted on January 7, 2008 | 6 comments

Is it too late yet to say Happy New Year? And, uh, Merry Christmas, as well? (I don’t do ‘Happy Holidays’ – despite my pagan leanings, I’m pretty firmly in the ‘Merry Christmas’ camp!)

I kept meaning to blog, truly I did. I missed so many important moments. Here’s the ten-second run down of that-which-was-never-blogged:

  • Finn’s birthday party (Ten pin bowling, wheeee! The birthday boy bowled 96 to take the game – never mind the assistance of bumpers and a ramp!)
  • A little bit of frantic pre-Christmas crafting (Bags, bags, bags… I do promise photos, once I liberate them from the various cameras about the house)
  • Niamh deciding a week before Christmas was a good time to start climbing out of her cot, thus introducing us to a whole new set of bedtime challenges
  • Christmas itself (Cue yet another emotional meltdown from moi – 3-days of family festivities (his family/ my family/ my other family) is just a wee bit more than I can take, apparently)
    Finn turning 5
  • Finn’s NYE birthday (My boy is five! Last year Scienceworks, this year the Museum. Lots of fun, but I wish we hadn’t been so rushed)
  • NYE party and overnight stay out of town (Thank goodness – we were about an hour and a half out of Melbourne, so no overnight low of 30°C for us – we had a pleasant drop down to 17°-ish)
  • Resolution making (Yes really – me! Never mind that I apparently jinx myself out of achieving goals – I’m quite determined that two-oh-oh-eight is going to be a whole different story. Stay tuned)

So Happy New Year then. May it be a wonderful and productive one for all of us. Also, may it bring more blogging and less blah-ing for me. Back soon with those photos, and not far around the corner, a name change and a facelift.

Erm… for the blog, that is, not me 😆

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Posted in Family, General Ramblings, The Kids

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