Baboushka's Birthday pt.2

Uh-huh, there's more. The weekend after little Bushki's birthday we had a big party for her down at my mum's place in Kiama. I cooked like a mad woman, overcompensated as I tend to do (we're still trying to finish a giant wheel of Brie and one of those big Toblerones), and Baboushka had a blast. So, er.. more photos!





Here's my grandmother with her three great-grandchildren. How incredible must that be, to know that, essentially, you're responsible for 3 generations? Three. Entire. Generations. It boggles my mind. I'm looking forward to grandmotherhood :-)



Bushki and her Unkie Dave.



We'd been trying to teach her to blow out her candles - she whistles and plays Pat's old school recorder, but no dice with candles.

Oh, and I found my dress at Salvos - a sixties Hawaiian barkcloth number for $7! Score!



Aw, here she is with Nanny and Grandpa.

And having some walking practice with her papa. She's taking steps, but not proper walking yet, unless someone is holding her hand.

Phew! Last one. She was so so so tired at the end of the party, but in true Bushki fashion she remained stoic and awake to wave off every last guest.

PS: Promise my next post will contain something other than copious pictures of my wee lady ;-)

Baboushka's Birthday

I've been meaning to share some photos of my little gumnut's birthday for a while now. I felt like a giant dork taking the camera everywhere, but I reasoned that it's the kind of thing she may well appreciate when she's older. And it's the blogging thing to do, right?


Her Unkie Mont was down from Brisbane for a couple of days, it was lovely to have him around (not least because he carried her everywhere).


She's incredibly fond of her crazy, giant uncles. I suspect she's going to grow up with a unique (read: warped) sense of humour if they have anything to do with it.




We had lunch at Bento, a teeny-weeny sushi place and one of our favourite haunts. $8 for miso, vegetable sushi, pancake and potatoes. Ridiculous and awesome. Baboushka had an enormous bowl of avocado and rice.




Then Pat and I took her out to another favourite place of eating, a Greek restaurant with fantastic skordalia, melitzanosalata and vegetable moussaka.


Needless to say, we had a couple of interesting nappies the next day...

Happy Birthday!

To my little sweet-pea, Happy Birthday for yesterday! I can't believe you are already 1 :-)

La Cigale

Sorry for the intermission! I blame yuletide and its accompanying craziness. We had about a hundred things on before December 25th and everything, coupled with faltering technology, not to mention thwarting the plans of possibly the cheekiest baby on the planet (lucky she's also one of the sweetest ;-)), has meant that, you know, I've been a big lame-O.

However, I did remember to take that photo. Here it is:


Baboushka and I went down to Jervis Bay that weekend for some q-time with my dad, who'd been away in Adelaide. We had a lovely weekend, despite both of us being under the weather. Poor little Babs had a nasty ear infection (which I didn't know about until I took her to the doctor the next week) and managed to soldier on regardless.

These were the runners-up for the Point + Shoot activity:




Peas in a pod, those two ;-)

9 months

I remember, back when I was drifting about in a sleepy, milk-scented fog and everything about being a mother was brand new (and daunting, to say the least!), 9 months seemed like it was eons away. And yet, here we are, with crawling and size 1 onesies (!) and mashed vegetables and two adorable little toothypegs, and it feels like no time has elapsed at all.


And, I forgot to mention, pulling herself up with every stick of furniture in the house, and ignoring toys and baby-safe items in favour of anything and everything that is not. Like my knitting needles. Gotta run!

Flickr

Sorry for the slack posting, my dears - it would appear that I've been two-timing my blog with Flickr. Oh, new and innovative ways to lure me to the computer ;-)

I'm going to attempt to juggle the two. Along with chasing after Baboushka - even though she hasn't yet mastered crawling, she gets around quite well. The other day I left the room and returned, only to discover that she'd manoeuvred herself backwards and under the sofa. Bad mummy.

She's also taken to making her way over to the bookcase and taking books out, and we had a bit of carnage yesterday. She ripped her first page out (a milestone?) of 'The Monster at the End of This Book', one of my own childhood favourites. Luckily this book managed to avoid the same fate:

Rollip, Rollip!

Thanks to Cristy of in a garden...somewhere, I have now discovered Rollip. I adore the old-school look of Polaroid pictures, and I've always been tempted to buy a Polaroid camera but haven't been able to find the film for it.

So, naturally, as soon as I read Cristy's post, I rushed as fast as my little fingers could type over to Rollip's website and started playing. I predict many, many more hours of Polaroid-ising my photos for fun. I had a go at trying out the different effects using a few of our Brisbane snaps:





And speaking of Cristy, if you haven't already discovered her blog, do yourself a favour and get over there! The segments on her gorgeous girl Lily's lunchboxes are particularly amazing. I wish my lunches were that good ;-)

Gratuitous cuteness

Here's Baboushka with her new and awesome toy, a giant Chibi totoro! Her dad is a big Miyazaki fan - heck, so am I - and he couldn't resist ;-)

6 months

Well well, my little sprite, you're half a year old :-)

Sibling times!

Even though I miss my brothers like mad when I or any of them are living far away, the rad times and crazy hijinks we enjoy when all four of us are together are worth it. I love them to bits and I'm lucky that three of us are currently in the same neighbourhood, and our fourth brother is only a cheap flight away in Brisbane.

He was down for the week and it was lovely, and the icing on that cupcake was that two of his housemates, fabulous Irish girls, came along as well! We all went out on Friday night, I had a few cheeky beers (not sure how that fits in with No-Buy July, but I reasoned that they were food) and we caught up for brunch in the park the next morning.


(Chatting to pram-riding, park-ready Baboushka)

Baboushka's uncles took her on the slippery dip and the Irish girls sang her songs while I enjoyed my coffee, buttery fruit toast and vanilla-malt milkshake. Hence my dress-over-jeans combo - I tend to over-indulge when I go to our local bakery and this was one of my favourite pregnancy dresses ;-)

long-sleeved tee: Country Road, thrifted
vintage cotton dress: eBay
jeans: sass&bide, secondhand from eBay
belt: thrifted

Coco Nut

Speaking of outfits, here's mine from yesterday (or was it the day before? They all start to blend):


In the spirit of making more of an effort, which itself is in the spirit of having finally gotten a Flickr account and joining the groups Wardrobe Remix and The Uncommonly Fetching Mamas, I went to the skirt I fondly think of as The Chanel Skirt. It was my mother's - she looked like a minx in it but claims it no longer fits - and I was more than happy to give it a new home.

This outfit was in the spirit of all sorts of things, it turns out. The spirit of thrift is another one. The skirt was gratis, the tee was cheap (American Apparel, purchased off eBay for further thriftiness), the belt was another maternal hand-me-down (thanks, Ma!) and I nabbed this beret from my Dad.


And how could I forget the spirit of Chanel herself? Yes, the beret was chosen mainly for it's ability to cover lank locks-in-dire-need-of-a-wash, but I like to think that it, the skirt and the ubiquitous ballet flats are a subtle nod to Coco herself. Just in time for the movie!

5 months

Good gracious me, it's gone fast. And yet, at the same time it feels like I've been a mum for much longer.

You have a fabulously cheeky sense of humour - you really crack me up, my little gulab jamun!

You love pointing at different things (and sometimes making a 'peace' sign, teehee)..


..and you're getting very good at letting us know what you want. Oop, cuddle time!

Bye-bye, lovely weather

This is from about two weeks ago - we decided to enjoy the unseasonably delightful weather by going for a stroll through the local botanical gardens. I forgot the camera, but Pat dutifully took some pictures of us back at home, basking in the last of the daylight. For some reason, I'd decided to make an effort and replaced my usual shorts and thongs with my new high-waisted jeans and espadrille wedges (thank you to Pat for recording this rare event). Actually, neither of those were actually new - due to my being allergic to paying RRP for anything (except, possibly, milk and bread) I got them off eBay.

Now, the weather is looking more like this:


Ooh, some more autumnal shots. If you look closely, I think there is a rosella right in the centre..

And now, off to Bowral again. Brrrr...