Poppies

 

 

 

Last week I bought a whole bunch of poppies, actually two bunches of poppies. I think poppies are gorgeous, and for the first couple of days they did look gorgeous and would make me feel so happy when I walked in through the door...but then they all died. I don't know what I did wrong. I treated them like all the other flowers I get, the bunch I bought at the same time is still very alive and happy, but my poppies are now all droopy and hanging about. It makes me sad. I don't think I'm going to buy poppies again. I'll leave them for admiring in beautiful gardens.

Also, I need to work on my flower photographing with the new camera...the focus is all over the place in these photos. Not good.

Mahna Mahna

I love that James and I grew up in different countries because it means we have some different memories. For example, Mahna Mahna reminds us both of two completely different adverts from our childhoods.

I remember BN using Mahna Mahna in their ad:

James remembers a Banana Boat ad:

The Banana Boat ad is pretty awesome. But BN BN sticks in my head more....it's going to be a while until I get the song out of my head!

What does Mahna Mahna remind you of?

Day Trip to Manly

 

 

 

 

Yesterday afternoon we headed out to Manly with James' mum and youngest brother. It was a seriously lovely day for it. We caught the ferry, had some Ben and Jerry's, and walked along the coast dreaming about how lovely it would be to live on the coast. It was a gorgeous, calm day. Perfect use of a day off. We should really get out more on gorgeous days, Sydney has a lot to offer.

Rostered Day Off

Today I have taken a day off. I wanted to take two days off in a couple of weeks, but another staff member was off then...so I couldn't. Poo. Today's day off is pretty awesome though. Due to my Visa coming through I can now apply to study the course I'll need for my job next year, and I can use today to go out and prove to them I have the Visa...because they seem to insist on it being done in person. James' family are also visiting Sydney at the moment, so we can hang out with them today too. It all works out in the end!

My plans for today:
-Fill in Temporary Visa Form
-Take said form and proof to Stathfield
-If I have the sufficient funds already in my bank account pay for course
-Be enrolled!
-Take photos of pretty poppies in our apartment
-Have a yum lunch out
-Meet up with James' mum and brother to do something like going to the zoo or the aquarium
-Try my hardest to not buy or do anything for work
-Fail at previous plan

Sounds like a good day off to me!

Dawn

This is what the sky looks like just before I leave for work (the weeks I'm on an early shift). It's these mornings that I really need my coffee. Getting up to the dark is not fun. I'm already planning my nap for this afternoon!

In other, much more exciting, news: We got my Temporary Partner Visa!!!! Yay!!!! We're so happy! :) It sounds like it'll be another year and a half until I get the Permanent Partner Visa, which makes me a permanent resident, but WE GOT THE TEMPORARY ONE!!!!

Freshly Brewed Coffee

 

Yesterday I bought a coffee machine. Until now I'd been drinking instant coffee at home, and whilst I'm not a coffee snob and will happily drink the instant stuff, you just can't beat the proper brewed stuff. I love the noise the machine makes. I love the smell it fills the apartment with. I know it's only day one, but I really do love this little purchase. I look forward to spending my early mornings with my coffee machine. 

Our Saturday Out

Today has been a wonderful day. After waking up at ten to eleven (I needed the sleep) and having a coffee, James and I headed out to Broadway for a Movie Date. First we went to Ziggy's Cafe, our favourite place to eat at in Broadway. The pizzas are amazing, the chips are to die for and they do super yummy milkshakes too. Yum. (Speaking of good food, we went to a tapas place called Encasa last night as a staff night out. SO GOOD! If you are in Sydney and want tapas, I recommend this place.) After stuffing ourselves with a half and half pizza and some chips we headed to the movies to watch Monsters University. We felt a little awkward as we were probably the only 'adults' there without children...oh well! Before the movie they showed the Pixar short film 'The Blue Umbrella'. Seriously, Pixar and Disney will be the death of me...a short about an umbrella, with no words, had me on the verge of tears. These people work magic! Plus the animation was AMAZING! Monsters University was good too. :) I laughed. I cried. Now I want to watch Monsters Inc. again.
After the movie we went and got ourselves some new pillows, and a new blanket...we can't get enough of good blankets. I also got a proper coffee machine that I can not wait to try out. It has a auto-timer on it, so you can program it to make you coffee for a certain time, meaning on my early shift mornings I can have some coffee freshly brewed for when I wake up. So excited! We also got a vacuum, because our current one is useless.

It's been a good day.

Mundane Midweek

Today has probably been pretty interesting as far as Wednesdays go.

Our boss wasn't in for the morning because she's feeling really ill; our Admin dude was at Head Office during the morning, and the only permanent staff member in the Toddler room today needed to go home for a bit because of a leak or something. So we had to shift around all sorts of things and sort out lunch covers and all sorts of boring ratio/staffing stuff.
In the afternoon we had a grandparents afternoon tea. This was probably the biggest family event we have had. We had 48 grandparents turn up! It was really nice to see most of the children interacting with their grandparents, and the grandparents were so excited and happy to see how happy their grandkids are. It also made the afternoon go by so quickly, and a lot of children went home early which makes the afternoons a lot less stressful.

We had Domino's for dinner, and quite a bit of beer too. I also booked two days off at the end of July around James' youngest brothers birthday. One of those days James and his youngest brother will be at a Liverpool game, so I'm planning on booking myself in to get a nice spa treat. I am looking forward to it. :)

I kept it brief today, that was my mundane midweek day. Thrilling, right?

My New Camera

 

 

After about 7 months of wanting a new camera, and then 2-3 weeks of excel spread sheets, checking out different cameras, and a LOT of umming and ahhing I finally bought myself a new camera on Thursday: a Samsung NX1000. Due to the weather it's been hard to properly test out the camera, but I have had a little play and am LOVING it! It's so gorgeous and easy to use, and the photos it produces feel like they are of much higher quality than what my old camera produced. My favourite settings on the camera so far are the miniature setting, the macro setting and the panoramic. I can't wait to play with my new camera some more! :)

Ass-aur

Yes, when I previously told the story about the unique way to say 'dinosaur' it was 'ash-aur', but it has since changed to 'ass-aur', which is worse. Not only that, but this child seems to like asking for dinosaurs ALL the time, with no dinosaurs in his hands, and no dinosaurs in sight. He has also taken to calling quite a few other animals 'ass-aur's'. Yesterday a mum was dropping off her child when her 'ass-aur' child approached her with a tiny tiger toy, he raised it up to her face (she was crouching) and send in his very loud voice 'ASS-AUR' (did I mention he does a pretty mean looking face when he says things loudly?)...her face went red. She didn't know what to say.

I can only imagine wondering around in town with this child yelling 'Ass-aur! Ass-aur!!' is quite embarrassing. We're doing our best to teach him 'dino'.

So: dinosaur, firetruck and clock. All interesting words to ask children to say.

Ma picture

One of our high school friends has asked James if he had a copy of a map they drew together of a made up land. James didn't have a copy, but I still did because I'd enjoyed passing time colouring it in on Photoshop. After finding it for James I had a browse through my art folders and found the outlines for the above picture. I decided it needed some colouring in. I enjoyed doing something arty again (that wasn't with children). :)

Maybe Saturdays will have to become my drawing day.

Mundane Midweek

Charlotte, over at Charlotte's Web, has begun a lovely little series called Mundane Midweek in which she talks about her run of the mill, midweek day. The idea has taken off and lots of people are doing it, and I have been enjoying reading about people's everyday life, so I thought I'd share as well. I've been wanting to for two weeks now...I just haven't, I don't know if that's a sign of how lazy I am, or busy, or exhausted. You can be the judge. Here is my Thursday.

Today I woke up at 7:30, the joys of being on the late shift. I woke to find James had already gone off to the gym, so I started my late shift morning routine. I turned on my laptop, then the kettle to make my coffee and made myself a bowl of Coco Pops. I then snuggled into the sofa and did my morning computer browse: check e-mails, check facebook, check blogs, pinterest, see if Anthropologie has new stuff, check Daily Mail. Whilst browsing Daily Mail I came across Miley Cyrus' new music video. I did not like. It reminds me a lot of Rhianna. I don't like Rhianna. I then put a playdough recipe onto my work usb, looked through photos on our nursery room usb for cute ones of M and H, who are both moving to the Toddler room next week (I am making a sad face as I type this, I love my babies too much). James got back from the gym at about 8:20. He had a shower as I was finishing up work stuff. We both got ready for the day and headed out together, me to work, him to the grocers.

I walked to work. It was an uneventful walk. On Tuesday I almost stepped on a hand sized spider. No such excitement today.

I got to the street our center is on and the whole pavement in front of our entrance had been taped off with signs saying 'Use other footpath'. I didn't. There was no other way to get into work. The taping off was because today they installed a new bell tower (at least that's what I understand) and were setting up the crane to do so. Our center is in a council building. They've been doing work on it since January. It has not been ideal. I kind of started work 10 minutes early because we all had to go to the preschool yard whilst they did crane stuff over the other side of the building. The bell tower is apparently so heavy it would crash through all three floors is it fell, so we moved to the other side of the center. I had some cuddles with M. I then noticed that J was in today (he'd been gone the rest of the week) and went and gave him a massive hug, because I adore my J. He was pretty excited to see me too. One of our kids, who has a dairy allergy, tripped and grazed her chin so I had to fill in an accident form. This led me to realise I know her mums mobile number by heart because I've dialled it enough due to allergy stuff.
We then had to move back to our room whilst they did crane work over the preschool area. I did my nappy round. I don't like nappy changes at the moment. We have this trial with an air-freshener thing, and it smells like someone who has too much perfume on. I really don't like it.
After nappies we did a Hooray for Fish group painting. It turned out pretty awesome. The kids painting with different shades of blue and green and then stuck fish from the book onto the painting.
I went on my lunch break whilst the kids had their lunch, and got back to find most of them asleep. Awesome lunch breaks. I worked on making goodbye cards for M and H. I was interrupted briefly to help get S to sleep because she was having tantrums with my colleague. I gave her a cuddle, lay her down and she went to sleep. Magic powers! I finished the goodbye cards and printed them off. J woke up and then fell asleep again in my arms.

I now feel like I'm going into way too much detail...

The afternoon felt pretty dull. We did some more painting with cars (they 'drive' the cars through paint and then on the paper). K, one of my favourite children, doesn't like getting paint on her hands, but REALLY likes painting. She had issues with one of the cars because the paint was a bit thicker, so whenever she tried to grab the car she would get paint on the tips of her fingers. She would then wipe off the paint on her smock, and go to grab the car again only to get paint on her fingers again. She again wiped it off, and continued the cycle a few more times until she decided she didn't like it and pushed the plate away saying "no" and shaking her head.
We had afternoon tea.
I did my afternoon nappies. Poo. Poo. Wet. Wet. Wet. Wet. Thrilling.
We combined with the Toddler room. M got super clingy and insisted on sitting on my lap, or being in my arms ALL the time. Kids got picked up. I got to go home.
I called James for our daily "Katie is on her way home" phone call. My phone needed to be topped up with credit before tomorrow, so we decided to meet at Broadway. So I walked to Broadway (which is on my way home) and met James. We topped up my phone credit and went to Gloria Jeans for a nice drink. We chatted and decide neither of us felt like cooking tonight.
We got Oporto. Mmmmm, chicken burgers. We got it to take away. After debating for a while whether to take the bus home or walk, we chose to walk. So we walked home.
At home we ate our dinner and watched the Block.
I then showered whilst James made hot chocolate.
Now I am typing this ridiculously long post whilst we watch the Footy Show.

So there is my Mundane Midweek Day.

We Have a Case Officer!

We're very excited!!!

Incase you don't know what we're all excited about. We applied for the Partner Visa last August, we now have someone actually looking at our case! Exciting!

Transformation of the Very Hungry Caterpillar

Last week we did a group painting with the children, inspired by the Very Hungry Caterpillar. We've been reading the book a LOT...like a LOT. I don't know it as well as I know 'Hooray for Fish', but I'm getting to know the book very well. We read the book, talked about the colours and then let the children paint. Above is the beautiful product of six of our children, ranging between 13 and 22months old. I LOVE it. It's about 1mx1m in size. Love it. So proud of my little children.

In work related news, one of our kids has learnt a new word: Ash-aur. The first couple of times I heard 'ash-aur' I was a little shocked, it sounded rather rude. The child using the word wasn't pointing at anything in particular, and just kept repeating 'ash-aur, ash-aur, ash-aur'. Eventually he was holding a dinosaur and saying 'ash-aur', that was when it all made a bit more sense. I still smile when he say 'Ash-aur'.

Pretty Boxes

Yesterday I mentioned that we bought some pretty wrapping paper to wrap some ugly boxes in. I also mentioned I would share. At the time I thought this was a great idea. Those ugly boxes look so cute now...but boxes on top of cupboards are maybe not the most interesting thing...plus, how do you photograph them in a nice way? I don't know. So what I have will have to do.
The store had a whole bunch of pretty papers in pretty colours, I wanted to buy them all and decorate our walls with them. They were that kind of pretty. I settled for wrapping our boxes in them. Still pretty.
I failed to take a before shot, but thankfully during my home tour photos I wasn't careful enough to crop the ugly boxes out...so we have a photo!

 They look much nicer now right? I have my favourites too (I find it hard not to have favourites).

It's always nice when something so easy and inexpensive makes such a difference. I'm thinking DIY washi tape stripes in those kitchen 'arches' may be my next home experiment!

Today

Today was relaxed.

We intended to do some light tidying (we did our massive tidy after last weekend, and want to try and keep on top of it), but that didn't happen. I did manage to put fresh water in my vases so my flowers last longer, but that's as far as my tidying went.
After a lazy morning of sitting at our computers or playing Skyrim (Can you guess who was doing what?) we went out to finally donate my clothes to our local Vinnies. These clothes had ben sitting in a bin bag in our apartment for around 6 months, so it really was about time to dropped them off. We then went to what is fast becoming one of my favourite little shops to get some pretty wrapping paper for some ugly boxes (I'll share tomorrow). We also picked up some cute magnets for our fridge and another cute shopping bag...because it's no fun doing our part for the environment if we don't look cute doing it, right? We then decided to make the day that bit nicer and had lunch out, which was lovely. We went to a nice Thai place called Thai Riffic (awesome name right?), which is a slightly more upmarket thai place on our thai infested street.
I then took a nice long nap when we got home.
James started making some yum hot chocolates for us to wake me up with, but in true Katie fashion I got up before he could surprise me with them. We had our yum hot chocolates whilst watching the Michael Mcintyre dvd James got for his birthday. Love that man.
I then wrapped our ugly boxes with the pretty wrapping paper whilst James cooked up some Kansas City BBQ sauce.
We then watched the Tony Opening Number, because NPH is legendary. Seriously.

Later we're having homemade burgers, probably whilst watching Season 4 of Arrested Development (anyone else trying to figure out what Portia has done to herself to look so different? She's almost unrecognisable). :)

Awesome relaxed day. How has your Saturday been?

Sky

I don't think I'll ever understand how the colour of the sky works (partly due to my belief that the theory behind it is super complicated, and partly because I like not knowing), but I do understand that it is beautiful. I love how the sky can go through so many different colours and moods throughout a day. I also love getting lost staring at a beautiful sky. The above was from a couple of nights ago. It was gorgeous. I still spend far too long staring at the photo. It's funny that something that is part of our lives every day can be so different and so beautiful. 

My (new) Favourite Shelf

I was planning this post out in my head (you know, as you do) and came to the realisation that it is probably a bit weird to have a favourite shelf. Shelves are not normally things you associate with favourites, but I have a favourite shelf. We like to keep most of our visible shelves pretty, functional but also super awesome to look at. Last weekend was a long weekend, so we did all sorts including buying a whole heap of classic books to read and tidy. Both these things resulted in my favourite shelf. It's cute. It's calm. It's got personality. It's so very us. It's my new favourite shelf.

Vivid 2013

 

 

 

Last night we went to Vivid with some friends. We met at Darling Harbour which had a firework show on for Vivid. Last year the event was only held at Circular Quay, but we're suspecting that due to how huge it has been the event expanding to Darling Harbour. The fireworks were pretty cool, but I think the highlight of Darling Harbour was buying a light up mohawk and bow. :P
We then fought through the crowds to try and find somewhere to have dinner. We SERIOUSLY underestimated the number of people that would be out on a Sunday night...everywhere was full. We finally found a Noodle Bar that James and his friends had eaten at before and had a yummy shared dinner. Then it was off to the Quay to see how they had lit up the Opera House this year, the answer: WAY better.
Last year we were a bit disappointed with the lighting of the Opera House...it was bland, so this year was heaps better in comparison. We walked around by the water looking at all the different installations, gave a kid James' mohawk and called it a night. It felt a lot more eventful that what I have described. It was a good night out. We shall definitely be going to Vivid again next year. :)

What Colour are You?

One of the children in the Toddler room at work was carrying around three pegs. When I asked why, he replied "This is Mama, this is Papa and this is me." pointing to the two blue pegs and then the orange peg. This prompted me to ask if his mum and dad were blue, to which he said "yes!". I then asked if he was orange, and again he said "yes!". He then wandered off.
Another child, who was sitting at the table whilst this happened, then told me he was black (he's caucasian). We then had the following conversation:
Me: "What colour is your mummy?"
Him: "Blue."
"And what colour is your daddy?"
"mmmmm...White!"
"What colour is Katie?" (that's me)
"No."
"No?"
"No."
"What colour is Katie?"
"mmmm...No."
"What colour is A?" (I feel weird using the children's full names, so you'll get letters)
"Orange."
"What colour is N?"
"Pink."
"What colour is J?"
"Black."
"What colour is L?"
"Black."
"What colour is Katie?"
"No."

I was both fascinated with the assigning of colours...and the fact that either he didn't want to give me a colour, or I had no colour. Children fascinate me so much.