Home Adventures

Last week my Mum bought Romy a little blow up pool that we have had inside for a week using it as a little ball pit, which she hasn't been to interested in. And neither am I because its taking up a lot of my living room! So today we put some water in it & took it outside for its proper use as a baby pool. It was quite a sunny day and our small court yard doesn't have any shade so I put a table cloth over our clothes line to make a little DIY pool hut! When Romy saw our little set up she started squealing with excitement, and was even more impressed when we put her in the pool with some colourful balls to play with. Romy loves her morning & evening bath times, so to be in water during her play time was a bonus for her!

Romy's First Christmas (in a nutshell)

Monday afternoon we drove to Gunnedah

Romy woke up to different bed buddies

We visited Kristal & Elsie for morning tea

Romy helped out making rum balls on Christmas Eve

A family dinner & cocktails out at my cousins super cute farm house. Lots of cocktails.

Christmas morning opening presents with Uncle Al & Aunty Ash

I received this amazing mermaid brooch

Almost everyone in my family has a pair of Salt Water Sandals 

Christmas selfies

Christmas part 2 with Luke (he had to stay back & work on Christmas day #boo)

Romy Bear with her new Care Bears

Romy's first Christmas was wonderful! We went back to Gunnedah, a small country town where I was born and grew up. Most of my family still live there, and the cousins that have moved away were home for Christmas. So I got to spend the day with most of my family, which was just the best! We arrived in Gunnedah Monday night & I spent the evening talking to my Granny. Tuesday morning Romy & I visited an old high school friend and her super cute daughter and we had cups of tea and drooled over all of her lovely things. After our visit we went back to my Granny's house to make rum balls, and then we had a family dinner with my family that live a little bit out of town in this really amazing farm house. They have the most impressive bar cart you have ever seen, and we had lots of cocktails. We also spilled lots of cocktails! I woke up on Christmas morning feeling slightly unwell, but watching Romy enjoy her first Christmas morning opening presents distracted me until my teeny tiny hangover passed. We did the Christmas visiting rounds before we went to my Aunty's for our family Christmas dinner. After a few days away I'm generally keen to get back to my routine and own space, but I was a little sad to leave Gunnedah and my family this time around because we had such a wonderful time together!

Romy's First Picnic

Today Romy went on her first picnic, and she loved it! Every week we meet up with our friends Renee & Oscar for coffee and this week we changed things up with a picnic. For the past couple of months Luke & I have been trying to take Romy on a picnic to no avail. Either the frustrating Central Coast weather is an issue, or we have grown up commitments or appointments to go to and we can never quite make it happen. So when Renee suggested a picnic to get the babies out of their prams for our next coffee date, I was a little worried my picnic curse would get in the way. But today was perfect picnic weather! Renee baked some delicious banana bread and packed some berries,  and I brought the picnic rug and brought the coffees. Romy & Oscar loved being able to interact with each other, rolling around and sharing each others toys, it was so lovely to see them enjoy themselves. Towards the end of the picnic the wind was starting to get to Romy & Oscar so we cut the morning short, but overall it was a successful morning picnic! 

Romy's First Time On A Plane

I mentioned in my four simple goals post last week that I wanted to cross a few things off of 'Romy's Firsts' list, and last Friday Romy crossed off her first plane ride! In the week coming up to the much anticipated first plane ride I was starting to get extremely anxious. And when I get really anxious I get snappy & I snapped at Luke all week. Romy picked up on this tension and Friday morning while I was doing last minute packing and completely unnecessary jobs in order to feel organised, she was starting to feel a little unsettled. Once I packed the last of our things and crossed the last thing off my to-do-list I was able to lighten up a little and get excited about the wonderful weekend ahead of us. 

Romy is an excellent car traveller, the only time she gets upset during long drives is when the car slows down and stops at traffic lights. But other than that she copes really well being seated in a small space for more than a couple of hours. If she wasn't a calm car traveller I would have been way more nervous about the trip, but I still didn't know how she was going to react or what to expect. As we were boarding the plane she started to get really excited and was looking around at all the different people while rocking back and forth. She wasn't even put off by the loud engine, or the other babies that were unsettled during the flight. The only part of the experience she wasn't too keen on was being strapped into the seatbelt attached to mine. But she got over it quite quickly and fell asleep. She was even more relaxed on the flight back and didn't wake up until after we had landed. The whole weekend went smoothly with only a couple of tantrums and they were just a result of being over tired. Lets hope she is this easy going next weekend away!

Our Weekend Away

Christmas dinner (thanks for this gem Rikki!)

My family is pretty keen on Salt Water Sandals, clearly

Nanna cuddles

Aunty Ash trying to have a pre-party nap

Kissing cousins

Baby swapping

Friday afternoon my sister, brother-in-law, mother, Romy & I all went to the Gold Coast for the weekend. We had a family Christmas dinner altogether on the Friday night as this Christmas we all won't be together as some of my family will be off travelling or spending it with their in-laws. We all exchanged gifts, drank wine and ate lots of nice food. It was a very lovely evening, and Romy enjoyed meeting her extended family for the first time she didn't want to go to sleep. But after a couple of songs and a few walks around the garden, my cousin managed to get her to sleep.

On the saturday morning we woke up early to spend a few calm moments with the birthday boy before everybody arrived & to get organised for the big birthday party. While everybody was setting up mum, one of the aunties and myself quickly ducked out to get my mum a pair of salt water sandals, as everybody else had a pair and she didn't want to miss out! While we were out we had coffee and juice at this cute little cafe called The Barefoot Barista, and I had one of the tastiest coffees I've had in a long time. We got home in time to finish setting up for the party and not long afterwards everybody started arriving. There were so many cute babies it was almost too much! It was Romy's first birthday party and she had a blast being surrounded by so many people and so much noise. She especially loved playing with her cousins xylophone! On Sunday we all went out for breakfast before we said our goodbyes and headed for the air port.

Hopefully next time we're all together I am able to take proper photographs rather than the above grainy iPhone snaps with an actual camera. My cousin's partner Rikki took some really beautiful photographs over the weekend, and I cannot wait to see the rest of the moments she snapped up. It was one of the loveliest weekends we have had in a while, and I especially enjoyed seeing Romy so happy in my families company. I can't wait for her to spend more time with (almost) everyone at Christmas time.