Painting the weekend away

Wow, what a weekend. I embarked on too many projects for my own good.
Here I am Monday night, after a long weekend here on the West Coast, feeling sore and exhausted.
At least I have my glass of wine.  Ahhh, that makes me feel a little more relaxed.

 I decided yesterday that I really, really wanted to paint my lovely retro kitchenette. I realised about half way through that I severely underestimated the amount of time that it would take to paint it. I spent most of the day painting, while Joel was hanging out with Ez. I picked a mint green colour, thanks to some recommendations! It looks fairly average in this picture because I have so far managed only to complete one coat. Also the lighting in our dining room is terrible so it is almost impossible to get a good picture. But you get an idea, in reality it is so bright. I hope it is cool bright not crazy bright when I'm finished.

This morning we got up and got to work on painting the kitchen. It is something that has been bugging me for 4 years. I didn't want to paint until we renovated the kitchen, and by the time we renovated I was heavily pregnant and didn't want to paint. So, the gross, yellow, dirty kitchen walls have been silently driving me insane all this time. Until today that is. Seeing we have painting almost our entire house we have a good system going. I cut in and Joel rolls. It is mostly because Joel is terrible at cutting in, and I won't let him do it anymore. I have the steady hand, and he is colour blind which makes it even harder for him if the new colour is similar to the old.

Renovations with an under one year old in the house are intense. Especially a very active, very mobile 10 month old. When he was napping with were both painting, when he was awake Joel did the baby entertaining and I clung to the ladder hoping I wouldn't fall! It took me a few hours to do all the cutting in, and took Joel about 20 minutes to do the rolling. I think I got the short straw. Anyway, it is finally finished, and I am so happy.

Now I am off to crash on the couch with my wine and zone out to some tv.
I love completely projects on the house, but it is hard work. I don't think I want another 'fixer upper;

I hope you had a more relaxing weekend than us!!

My favourite baby lunches: Vegetable Pikelets

My favourite lunch to make for Ez is Vegetable Pikelets. The reasons I love them so much are that they are easy and quick to make, you can put them in a zip lock bag, you don't need to feed them with a spoon (which is perfect seeing he would MUCH rather feed himself and often refuses to be spoon fed), they aren't that messy so you can take them out with you without worrying too much about getting your Nanna's house filthy, I can eat them for lunch too if I want. Plus there are so many different varieties you can make, and jam them full of as many vegetables as you like so you know they are getting a healthy lunch. I got the idea from a good little recipe book called Baby Tastes (www.babytastes.com.au) but I just use whatever vegetables I can find in the fridge or freezer.

The basic recipe goes like this:

1 Cup of Self-Raising Flour
3/4 Cup of Milk
1/4 Tbsn Baking Powder
1 egg (if you have tried egg out for allergies already, but they don't need egg)

Sometimes I substitute some of the milk for yoghurt, mostly because I often don't have enough milk in the house and I needed some left over for my cup (or several cups) of tea.

I usually grate some cheese and add that in too! Mostly cheddar but sometimes I add Parmesan to mix it up a bit.

I've tried zucchini and carrot, grated. This is really easy because you don't have to cook the veggies first.

My favourite is pumpkin (butternut squash) and carrot. But you have to steam/cook the pumpkin first.

Ez loves Mushrooms (kinda unusual for a baby I think) so often I will add them.

Peas and Corn are also a good addition

Really you can add whatever veggies you have in your fridge, you can even do fruit as well. Just remember that the harder ones may need to be cooked prior to adding them to the batter.

Once you have mixed it all together, you just fry them up in a pan with a little Olive Oil like mini pancakes (which is really what they are) and hey presto!

Bag them up and off you go, or freeze them for later on.

Do you have a go to baby lunch? I am always looking for more ideas so I would love to hear, it is so easy to get stuck for ideas coming up with baby foods.

Karen xx

Wordless Wednesday of the Instagram Variety

I'm a big fan of Instagram, so today, I'm doing a Wordless Wednesday, with some of my favourite recent Instagram pictures! You can find me on Instagram I'm @yellowdandy

Three guesses who the pictures are mainly of.
P.S how awesome are these tea stamps? I have a big addiction to tea! (I'm a 6 cuppa day kinda girl, low caffeine though)

A Weekend Away

I'm just recovering from a lovely but exhausting long weekend away. I am learning very quickly that when you have kids holidays are not as relaxing as they used to be, oh how I took relaxing for granted when I was childless. Its different, but I still loved it, I feel need another weekend just to recover. Plus the little man has more teeth coming through so he didn't really feel like sleeping really well. I can't complain he was really so happy during the days.

We went to the South West (Dunsborough, Yallingup, Margaret River) with some friends, one of my favorite places, my perfect place to escape for a weekend and just chill out. The pictures are similar to our January camping pictures, because it was the same area. 

Somehow we spent both Saturday and Sunday at different Brewery's (Cheeky Monkey & Eagle Bay, the men's influence for sure), but I love the family friendly atmosphere and we were able to just hang out. I made sure I went to the bakery and got my cream doughnut, and yes it was amazing. 

I took a few pictures along the way, but someone never managed to get my good camera out. You can kind of get an idea how beautiful the South West of Western Australia is. I wish I had a fire like that in our house, it just makes everything seem so cosy and warm. It was chilly because it is Autumn,  so we could't swim, but it didn't matter, so many other things to do, like eat lots of good cheese, chocolate, bakery goods and bbqs! 

 Karen xx

Why I ditched the Baby Books

Have you ever read a book and thought, wow, thats me to a tee. This author knows everything about me, my wants and needs and how I operate. How I'm feeling, how to make me feel better, if Im hungry or tired (do you know where I'm going with this?), or if I have a tummy ache, or just need a cuddle from my Mum?

I haven't.

So why did I ever think that a book or multiple books were going to be able to tell me these things about my baby? Who is also an individual with personality and feelings. I'm not an expert, I'm just a Mum and a pretty new one at that. I'm not claiming to have all the answers, all I know is what I've experienced. I'm a Mum that ditched the baby books and I try just to go with my God given instincts as a Mother. Most days are good, some days are cry, scream, pull my hair out days, but that comes with the territory I suppose.

I followed a 'eat,play,sleep' routine from a few weeks in, it wasn't based on times, just the main goal was trying not to feed my baby to sleep, although of course sometimes I broke that rule too. Although I wanted to help him learn to fall asleep on his own, which any parent knows is one of the hardest tasks of all. I thought as a new Mum I was supposed to have a 'schedule' based on the time on a clock. I learnt very quickly, that this didn't work for us, it was too stressful, so I ditched it, and went with the flow. The only thing that remained the same on a daily basis was the bedtime routine, and that didnt always go to plan (still doesn't always). By seven months a more regular eating and napping routine emerged organically, meaning, I just tried to follow my baby's cues as much as I could. When he started eating regular solids I started feeding him around the same time everyday, and now at nine months it is fairly predictable. But, what I have learnt is that things change rapidly, a month ago he was napping 3 times a day for about 45mins to an hour each, now he does two naps of about 1 hour 45 mins each. How could I predict that, or schedule it out. He seems to change every week.

I've read books that say 'wake the baby at 7am each morning' pfffft my baby rarely will sleep until 7, he wakes sometime between 5am and 6.30am. if by some miracle he slept past 7, there is no way in hell that I am forfeiting a sleep in. Funnily I wrote this last night, and he slept past 7 this morning. I figure if he's asleep, he needs the rest. I go by the old saying, never wake a sleeping baby. It has to be around for a reason right?

So what's the point of this post? I'm asking myself the same thing right now.

It hasn't been easy, I'm pretty sure it was never supposed to be. Many days, especially the early ones have been soooo difficult. Sometimes it's easy to read all the books and then feel guilty and frustrated because it's not working the way they promised. Some families thrive on schedules, some don't, I didn't. As I'm sure you've figured out by now and this isn't a shocking new discovery: We're all different.

My point I guess is that by being true to myself, and listening to my Mummy instincts and trying not to get hung up on the masses of information out there has helped me in my journey as a Mum. Instead I try just get hung up on that little person who I am so blessed to have in my care. It works for us. I think this is what my Mum was trying to tell me from day one, but she didn't want to impose and tell me what to do.

What works for you?

Karen xx

Curing Olives: This is how we did it

After having Olive trees for the last couple of years, we finally decided to try our hand at curing our own olives.

This is what we did, and it seems to be successful, the olives are a little more bitter than the ones you would buy at the store, but still they are pretty good.

It does take a long time, and is a fair amount of work, for us it was just about seeing if we could do it, and trying it out. I always feel a sense of achievement when we make/ grow our own food!

We put the olives in a container with fresh water, and changed the water everyday for 10 days. (tip: fill zip lock bags with water to place on top of the olives so none of them are floating only half in the water, they should be completely immersed)

We found out part way through the process that we should have poked some small holes in the olives so the water and brine can seep into the olive. So before you soak the olives use a fork or similar to poke each individual olive.

We then made a brine solution 1 part Salt, 10 parts Water. The brine should be dumped out and replaced with a fresh solution once a week for 4 weeks.

After this we tasted them and woah they were salty, so we soaked them overnight in just water, which seemed to help a lot.

Finally, we made a weak brine solution (about 1/3 of the salt that was in the previous brine solution) to soak the olives in. We then added about 1cm of olive oil on top of the olives and brine, this is to seal the olives so the air cannot make it through to the water.

We've had it in this for about a week, and they are ready to go. Yum.

Ahh, edible plants, they are my favorite kind. We have olives across the road at the park, I'm tempted to go and pick them as well.

I would love to know if you end up trying this, and how your olives turn out. If you have any questions, I'll try to help!

Karen xx

How Awesome is this Fabric!

How awesome is this fabric!!

Right? I love it.

One of my friends from Mothers group and I went halfies on the international shipping, and put in an order.

I am still yet to do any real embroidery projects since the babe arrived, but at least I have this lovely fabric waiting for me when I finally feel motivated and inspired. Or maybe until I'm not so worn out by the end of the day, although that will probably be never.

Three of them are the brand Monaluna and the bicycle one is the brand Birch. We ordered it from Cedar House Fabrics. It was about $16 a yard ( wayyyyy cheaper than Spotlights crappy fabric selection, and it is organic!) shipping was $11, which is pretty good for international. www.cedarhousefabrics.com

Just if I actually finally taught myself how to sew, then I could make soo many lovely things.

I hope you have a lovely Saturday or Friday night, depending on where you are in the world!!

Karen xx 

The way I read blogs...now

It wasn't until recently that I actually decided to start following and keeping up with others blogs via Google Reader. I'm not really sure what I was doing before, but it definitely was not an effective way of following my favourite blogs, too time consuming and I was missing a lot of good posts. I wanted to share because I know when you are new to reading blogs you may not know that there is a super simple and easy way to connect and have all the blogs you read in a nice easy to get to place. I use Google Reader because it is the easiest for me, because I already have a google account, so it makes sense. But there are other readers out there too.

If you see a little symbol like this below, it is the RSS feed,  click on it and that is the easiest way to add new blogs to your blog reader! So simple!

I recently downloaded the 'Flipboard' app for my iPad and added my Google reader feed to it, and oh my, it is amazing. Its so easy because you can put your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Google Reader and whatever the heck else you want in one place. It is also really good if you have an iPhone, just a bit smaller obviously.

Until recently as well I was a 'silent' reader. I would enjoy a post and quickly move on. I guess I didn't know what to write and didn't want to come across as in genuine or someone who was just commenting to get more publicity for my own blog. Now I have become a commenting machine, when I enjoy something, I let the writing know, because I know how important encouragement is when you are blogging. I know how awesome it is when you get feedback and comments from your readers. Instead of writing to the big vast unknown you start to get an idea of the people who enjoy your blog, and that is so awesome. I don't get a lot of comments, but I know through my Google Analytics that there are a bunch of 'silent' readers like me out there. So, not begging, just inviting you to connect! I love to hear back, and I have just (finally) set it up so I can actually Reply to individual comments, hurrah!

So the boy is having a lovely long nap, so I am going to sign off, make a cuppa tea and sit down in front of the heater with my iPad and get into some good quality reading!

Karen xx

I like to Run Amuk

If you haven't been down to South Freo for a while you may be interested to know there is a new sausage place, caught your interest?

It's called Run Amuk and they make amazing gourmet Bratwurst hotdogs. We visited twice in one week because we couldn't stop thinking about how good they were. It is just down on South Tce about 100 or so metres from the South Beach roundabout. Its a fun little place with Where's Wally (Waldo for the Americans like Joel)  pages laminated to the tables and drum stools for chairs. They don't just make the average run of the mill hot dogs, they are good quality locally made sausages so your supporting WA farming. They have come up with a great variety of toppings that I wouldn't have even thought of before, I have tried the Stumbles and Minx and both a delicious, but Minx would rate as my favourite. I may never try any different ones, I am one of those people who finds the one they like and is too scared to try anything else in fear of wasting the experience. They even have a vegetarian option for those who desire. 

Check out www.runamuk.com.au for more details. 

Maybe we will see you there sometime! If you live nearby it is well worth a visit!!

Karen xx