pear-shaped

life has been rather pear-shaped lately.
no time to take photos.
no time to blog.
no time!
sometimes i wish we were close to family.
sometimes i wish i knew just what our little baby Lottie wants.
sometimes i just wish i could sleep for a million years.

what did i used to do before she?
(i must have wasted so much time.....)

thank goodness there will be 9 days in a row of mama, papa & baby time ahead.

happy birthday sissy

happy birthday to my darling sissy....love all of our memories like rollerskating to phil collins, singing in the rain, dressing up, colouring in and just generally hanging out like a right royal pair of Bib and Bobs.

so proud of everything you have achieved and the person you have become. you are amazing, caring, compassionate, flippin' hilarious and so, so, so beautiful.

love k, f & lp xoxox

weekend lunching

weekend spent lunching and enjoying fine company and food! above is a sour cherry cake we made for a friends birthday. my omama's easy recipe again - just so versatile and easy!

omama cake
weigh 4 x eggs without breaking them....
then add same weight of: sugar, self raising flour, butter
some vanilla or lemon zest if you wish and depending on the fruit you use
combine and add a splash or two of milk to make a thick batter
pour into greased and lined springform cake tin and add fruit of choice
(think cherries, apple, pear, peach, blueberries.....anything really!)
sprinkle with raw sugar and bake in medium pre-heated oven until done!
finish with icing sugar if you like and find a bunch of friends to share with, along with a cup of tea!

marjee// don't worry, plenty of thought about baby and milk and sleep.....just need the cooking and crafting to balance it all out or else i'd go madder than i've already grown!

a common thread// doesn't take much - once you start you can't stop!

angie// we laugh so much about addie saying "thats awful/disgusting" to your food that its now a catchphrase in our house.....so of course you dread it when your little people will say that! but your creative solutions are giving us ideas for how we may have to deal with lottie in the future!

catherine// if only i had your food photo skills to take pictures of our creations!

food

one of the things i miss about being a non-mama is the amount of time we used to spend in the kitchen! we would set aside whole days to make big batches of curry pastes, experiment endlessly with sourdough breads and do what seems now outrageous, things like making pasta from scratch.

bit by bit we are working our way back. i made my first couple of sourdough loaves and am so happy i can easily fit it into our lives again. soooooooo sick of shop bought bread.

also enjoying loads of bits and bobs, such as these oven roasted mushrooms with home-made pesto, pan fried flat beans with garlic, chives and butter with a witlof, nashi and dill salad.

YUM!

outside in

i dont' know what it is but i most love gardening in the autumn/winter. maybe because you have to do little apart from snail hunting and you have great reward! well, thats how it goes here in melbourne anyway.

autumn is my favourite melbourne season. it makes me want to bring the outside in. love this big picture of leaves from a Dos Visit

looking and listening

looking at leanne shaptons' month of tuesday blooms and discovered that she does a lot of lovely work.

listening to bill callahan's new album apocalypse

autumnal cleansing of house, garden and mind continues....

stuff

another lovely family weekend as K had friday off. too busy enjoying it to remember about my camera! had all the good things that constitute a lovely weekend. I even did a morning of WORK for the first time since LP was born and it was great. hope to do a few more little bits and pieces if it works.

also continued to do more de-cluttering, re-organising and taking stuff to the op shop. thinking of imposing some sort of a 'no-buy' pact on myself. not that i spend much money, its just i'm a sucker for op shopping which generally means you bring home stuff you don't really need but just takes up space being beautiful. which has its place, believe me, but i need to get realistic in this new life of ours and its surprising how much space a little baby takes up physically and emotionally!

saved a pip to make a little avocado plant, just like Lotte's pictured above

colours & chats

COLOURS // seen on yesterdays walk with Lottie Pearl...amazing how far and wide we roam in the pram

CHATS // little existential and observational chats with K, late at night, about what it feels like to be a parent (me: concept of not being my own entity anymore and being inextricably linked to another human k: the giant responsibility of taking care of us girls)

making & doing

been really getting stuck into some sewing lately. I guess I know I have to appreciate this time where Lottie Pearl is napping loads and isn't all that mobile. So i'm crafting ahead....

yet another great pattern from simple sewing for baby and I delighted in sewing it over a couple of days and made sure I followed it step by step and gave it my best.

quite happy with the results but Lottie's head definitely needs to grow a bit more! Lucky we have a long winter ahead....

party

i love living in melbourne - but i do hate being away from my sister. i wish i could be there to help with parties - amongst many other things.....imagine all the crafting, op shopping, partying and general frippery we could get up to together if we lived in the same state?

she's having a 70's birthday party and here are a few sources of inspiration i'd use if i had to get together a costume.....

(apologies - small baby inhibited crediting these images....hopefully i can do so later on!)