[Tamara]

Jay what happens if you have that much fun in the next three years that you won’t want to leave? So very glad things are falling into sync for you. Enjoy your machines when you get them. It seems the weather is perfect for sewing (and playing) so you’d be torn between what to do.

[Nicole]

It is lovely to hear you are settled.

[Tamara]

Woohoo! I ordered the new Lisette patterns from the Butterick website last week (when Meleliza said they had them on sale) and they turned up today! Very fast shipping! So excited!

[jay_1965vw]

@justsewit Our posting is for three years, if we have so much fun we don’t want to leave, I will be in the same situation I was in 3 months ago, saying some very sad goodbyes. Only this time I won’t be saying “We might be back in three years!”
I think I’ll be pretty desperate to go home and spend some time with my family though.

Thanks Nicole! I’m glad too.

In other news – I developed mastitis yesterday 🙁 Back on hefty antibiotics for me. We did find a very nice Family Practice though, so at least we have doctors now!
and…
Chris is going to get my sewing machines this afternoon! Yayyyyyyy!!!

[Tamara]

I understand! Still it is no excuse to not enjoy the experience. You would make overseas friends and set up networks that would probably allow them to visit you in Australia. And we all know there really is no place like home.

You are actually giving your girls a wonderful experience – I lived overseas as a child for a year and still draw from the experience some thirty years later!

You poor thing – mastitis! And as I say it am feeding a baby who continually falls asleep in the night feeds – have never experienced mastitis and don’t envy at all. Hope you are feeling on top of things again soon.

[jay_1965vw]

I’m sure I will make friends here and we will all enjoy ourselves. One of the ladies we met on the snow day is coming this afternoon with her nearly three year old daughter. It is Audrey’s birthday today! My big girl is three 🙂

I’m a bit of an expert on mastitis (definitely not something to be envied!!!). I had ten bouts of it within 16 months while I was feeding Audrey, including three hospital stays. Fortunately I have got VERY good at picking it early, and I always have antibiotics ready in my house now. Fingers crossed you never do experience it, Tamara!)

But hey, I’m feeling much better now, and I have my SEWING MACHINES!!!!! Three lovely Jukis sitting up in my sewing area. Now I just need my ironing board (not something I foresaw as being the thing to stop me sewing). I’ve ordered it on Amazon, but it’s taking forever. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00FFXRSE8/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Huge area, no iron stand on the end (my husband’s request), and it’s RED! 😀
I’m thinking about buying a cheap and tacky board to use until this one arrives (possibly not until April 8th *gulp*).

[with love Heidi]

How exciting to have your machines! Maybe you’d better sew some fleece as it doesn’t need ironing as you sew 🙂

[Tamara]

No doubt you will settle in very well – especially if you have sewing friends nearby. Or even non sewing ones – amazing how such a skill can network to one’s advantage.

Yes Heidi jolly good idea to sew with a no need to iron it type fabric. Jay they have fleece on on the catalogue for Spotlight so will be thinking of you in the wintry weather you are experiencing as I prep for our usual five weeks of winter here – I want to make the kids bathrobe/ dressing gowns this winter just so they have something to knock around in thats warm after the usual bedtime bathime routine.

I had my baby girl weighed and measured on Monday. She had to have her eight week check and immunisations. I think I really have to find some time slots to make some bigger clothes for her as she is now a whopping 6.19 kg. the health nurse marked the chart wrong in her book and put her on the 3rd percentile, saying she was a skinny mini. Not likely I say as when I took a proper look at the chart she’d put the dot at 8 months instead of 8 weeks! She’s sitting very firmly on the 97th percentile for weight which is not unusual as my two older children were off the chart. I am determined not to be pushed into comp feeding this little lamb as I think this was the beginning of the end for my nursing ventures with the other two. I want to have a good crack at going for more than 11.5 months this time (if she is willing to also that is).

She has also grown ten centermetres in 8 weeks also! So the theory of a “shortie” in the family has been proven very wrong again! And I’m quite thrilled!

I find that having a baby after a huge gap, I have become out of sync with the goings on in child health. More shots it seems and more things for more diseases. I forgot to give the baby panadol to her before her needles and the poor darling really felt it. It won’t be forgotten again! And I think she os just coming back to normal after sleeping for hours yesterday (when I had to do other things and not be able to sew) and not feeling hungry – side effects of the immunisation.

The things we rediscover after almost a decade is amazing. She’s currently talking to her daddy with the cooing and aahing going on. It’s just lovely having a baby in the house again.

[jay_1965vw]

Good thinking Heidi 🙂
I don’t have any fleece (very very limited stash of just the fabric I am planning to use very soon). If we go out I may get some. I’m still not driving though – I haven’t been brave enough to try driving on the wrong side of the car/road yet.

How lovely that Chloe is bringing back all the lovely baby-ness to your house Tamara! It doesn’t sound like you have any need to comp feed if she’s growing like that! Is there a local ABA group anywhere near you? You can always call their hotline if you do need to talk to someone. I loved my group for the support it gave me.

[Sarvi]

Don’t worry, you’ll get the hang of driving soon. I’m told that it’s the right turns that are trickiest, my friends who made the switch kept hitting the curb at first.

I’ve been having a lot of fun trying to sew as much as I can from my stash while I save up a bit for a trip to a friend’s wedding. Lodging in NY is just so expensive! And a chef friend is there now on her honeymoon and instagramming the heck out of all these amazing restaurants, it’s killing me.

[Tamara]

Jay I have no words of wisdom to add on the whole driving on the other side of the road thing as I have never done it! But I should think it will be a really great experience to be equipped with the knowledge of knowing how!

What do you do regarding obtaining an international driver’s license anyway? My nephew has just told us he applied for and has been accepted into an exchange program to study in Canada for six months (I think). Chances are he will want to see a bit of the country before returning so may need some wheels to get around. We are all very excited for him – and a little envious of the fact he gets to go overseas to a country we’ve always wanted to visit.

Yes Jay there is no chance of needing to comp feed at the moment but funnily enough the health nurse told me I had to with my other two children which goes to show how much things have changed. I don’t think I do have an ABA branch near me but I will check it out because I plan to nurse Chloe for a good while – some women I have spoken with didn’t get the help and support from the get go and switched to formula. I just feel so sad for them to not have had anyone not even a lactation consultant come and show them the ropes in hospital. I said to one lady (whose baby is four months old) that she can try again next time and secretly I hipe she is in town when she has amother baby so that at least I could reach out and support her in her efforts.

Noah showed Chloe for news at school the other week and I had to nurse her infront of the kids. Some of them squirmed and made eww sounds but I think telling them that this is a oerfectly natural thing and that if they asked their mum’s they’d most likely find out they were breastfed babies also (barr one that I know of). It just opens up the eyes of another generation to how natural and normal a thing nursing a baby is.

Probably sounds wierd but I just feel that by doing that they won’t draw a prejudice to it in the future.

So, today is Friday and the kids are not going to school – the plan is to start our long weekend early but with one kid in bed (because she said she couldn’t sleep) and the baby heading there again very soon, my plan to take the whole day to get to Perth looks like it will really happen – without the shopping part at the end. Oh well, I am off to finish the pink linen Lullaby layette pants I made last night. I just have the waistband to attach and elasticate and then they can be worn.

[Sarvi]

Sigh, it’s that time again … time to figure out what to do with outgrown clothes. Every time there’s a growth spurt I have to figure this out again as though it’s a brand new problem.

[Nicole]

Snap, I am sorting too, but just adding to/taking from tubs. I swopped my clear Ikea tubs over to smoked ones in the hope it will prevent fading.

[Nicole]

I am having to follow on my phone now, my husband tipped a glass of wine in my laptop and it is obviously tee-total.

The tech guru is hopeful he can save my photos.

[Tamara]

Do you generally do a usb back up Nicole? Or how do you back the photos up generally?

I have all my photos on the ipad but don’t trust cloud. So when I go to “empty out” the camera, I download onto the computer and back up the photo file to the usb.

We had one computer die on us a couple of years ago (thanks to too many storms) and I didn’t do that system and consequently lost all the photos.

Speaking of storms, while I was away with the kids, we had a huge nasty sounding system come through and dump 33mm at the house and 60mm out the paddock. Neighbours and friends of ours had 87mm in one night!! And the town up the road had 89mm. Of course it took the power with but thankfully it was on again by the time we got home.