Christmas eve

Well it's christmas eve, and I'm still at work...sigh....hopefully will get out of here soon! I have a million and one things to do this afternoon, and most require me to be slaving away in the kitchen finishing presents! Hope I get it all done in time!

So this will most likely be the last post of the year, unless I manage to make it on after our scan next week to reveal what flavour we are having, so MERRY CHRISTMAS!! and have a happy and safe holiday!

See you in 2011

xxxx
Heather & bump

Christmas countdown...

4 days to go until Christmas!! It's so hard to believe this year has gone so fast...this time last year I was frantically rushing around making and baking christmas goodies, and looks like I will be doing the same this week! This time last year I was dreaming about the wedding, this year I'm dreaming about the little body inside me that just last night gave me what I think was its first big kick.

19 weeks today. One more week until our scan when we get to find out whether it's a girl or a boy, pink or blue, fairies or trucks hehe. I'm actually starting to feel like maybe it's a girl....but I guess we will have to wait and see if I'm right or not!

Had our annual work christmas dinner last night, lots of food....was good.

Met up with a good friend over the weekend and that was awesome.

Aside from that, just hanging out for the holidays!

November christmas

So today we enter week 16! 4 more weeks until our anatomy scan! Also 4 weeks until christmas! Except this weekend just gone we had one of our family christmases...hubby's family one. So it was a busy weekend with my niece's 3rd birthday party on the saturday, and then christmas on the sunday. Lots of good food was eaten! And the weather was super hot, hate to think what the rest of the summer is going to turn out like if its that hot in November!

I got super spoilt with presents. The inlaws gave me a Brother sewing machine! So thats awesome, I've been wanting one for awhile to try and make stuff on...might give making some bibs a go! (once I have money to buy material and thread and all that). Steve's nana gave me some sewing stuff too - bobbins, measuring tape, tailors chalk and pins etc, and some socks. I also got some baby stuff - the attachment for the capsule that SIL and I are sharing to go on the pram, and an attachment for the doubles kit to turn it into a bouncer, and Steve got a baby bath full of all sorts of yummy goodies. Steve bought me a nice climber too with pink flowers (cant remember the name of it), and then last night he surprised me with some more goodies - a CD, neck pillow thing, a book and photo frame and other bits and pieces so that was cool. He said he will get me something for our actual christmas with mum and dad too, so yeah, very spoilt! I feel a bit stink though because I didn't have anything for him!

So now my task is learning how to sew! (among all the other things I want to get done haha) Going well on my cross stitch that I'm working on, so hopefully will have that finished soon and I can get onto my Winnie the Pooh one that I want to get done for when the baby gets here (although I don't see that happening as it is a rather large one!) Still, better off to have a goal to work towards!

Nothing much else happening on the baby front, getting slightly bigger, the only new development is the occasional leg cramp (which had me hopping out of bed at stupid o'clock the other day in agony!) Little bit of indigestion again last night but nothing major. Let's hope it stays that way!

Cots, nappies and the wicked witch of the west

No I'm not talking about the Wizard of Oz either. It seems I have turned into an emotional raving lunatic some days.....not so fun! One minute I'm either crying because I didn't get hot chips for dinner, or the next I'm screaming at my poor confused husband because he forgot to close the toilet door behind him, or something equally as stupid.....*rolls eyes* I must say I feel very sorry for him at the moment, he is trying very hard to be nice to me. As long as you don't count punching me in the nose on friday night while sleeping....maybe thats his way of getting back at me for being such a grumpy cow at him! Needless to say that didn't go down very well and I had a rather crappy sleep because of it, and then there was the cat who has decided that my feet make a very good pillow. sigh.

In other news, we have a cot! Won an auction off Trademe on a Touchwood cot that came with a free ezee rocker basinette. Yay! So picked that up the weekend before last.

So we have hubby's sister over from Aussie at the moment with her little girl who will be 3 on friday (where on earth did that time go??) and it has been great having her here. She is having another baby too - a boy. She's 30 weeks today while I am 15. We went down to Auckland a couple of weekends ago and went to Babycity and bought a whole lot of stuff - a capsule that will fit both of our phil & ted's prams, and the attachments that go with it and an attachment to turn my doubles kit into a bouncer, and some other miscellaneous bits and pieces of breast pads etc. Then we both went down again to pick up the cot and some cloth nappies that she won off trademe too. We are both going to do prefolds & covers, and it works out well because of the age difference between our bubs because she will be out of the newborns by the time mine is born (most likely) so she will send me over the ones that she grows out of for me to use! yay!

Oh and I finally got around to putting my bump pictures up on the computer, so here's my 5 week, 11 week and 14 week bump pics.

Not much to see yet but its definately getting bigger! Will have to take another one tonight seeing as I'm 15 weeks. Man the time really seems to be flying now! Not long until my next scan which will be the anatomy one, I've booked that in for 29th December. I wanted to get it done before Christmas but the silly scan place wouldn't let me! oh well. Next midwife appointment is the 16th December. I had one last week and it was really cool because was the first time she listened for the heartbeat. She found mine first going woosh      woosh     woosh then she found bubs one and that was like wooshwooshwooshwoosh haha. She pointed out that it was moving around too, was making funny noises. and then it started kicking the doppler. Was so cute to hear! Can't wait til the next appointment.

So yeah, I think thats all from me for now....although theres more than likely stuff I have forgotten, my brain has taken a leave of absence...

The Secret is OUT!

Well well well, long time no post.....to be perfectly honest I couldn't think of anything to write without giving away my big news, which is that I'm HAVING A BABY!!!! yippee! Had my second scan on friday and I wanted to wait until we knew things were ok and we were out of the whole 12 week period to announce the news. So things are looking great. I'm due the 17th of May, which also happens to be my grandad's birthday, so seems its a special date! (not that the baby is likely to actually arrive on its due date, but I guess you never know!)

Ok, so now I can fill you in on everything that has happened over the past 13 weeks (13 weeks today woop!)

So I found out that I was pregnant on the morning of thursday the 9th September. We had just come back from a long weekend down in Tauranga staying with Steve's aunt and uncle (that was the weekend we missioned it up Mt Maunganui!) I hadn't been feeling the best all weekend, just had a queasy tummy that kept me running to the loo (and not to throw up either if you catch my drift..lol) and I was really hot all the time. So the day I was due to get my period, I decided to do a test....lo and behold about a minute into the testing time a second line came up! By the time the 5 minutes was up the line was really dark. I started alternating between grinning and shaking lol. Steve was still asleep so I had to wake him up and tell him. Don't think he really believed me at first haha. I didn't really believe it either! Spent that whole day at work in a bit of a daze...Tested again the next morning and another bright pink line.



Two lines!


So the next step was to find a midwife, not as easy as you would think! Rang around a couple of places until I found one that could take me. Got an appointment with her for two weeks later. So now all I had to do was wait....

Midwife appointment went well, she seemed pretty nice and gave me a blood test form and dating scan form (as I wasn't completely sure when I was due, because of a long cycle). Couldn't get a scan until another 2 weeks after that at 8 weeks! That was a loooong wait as I just wanted to see something and make sure it was actually a baby in there and that I wasn't just imagining things haha.

Had a bit of a scare at about 6 weeks, had a day of cramping and a bit of spotting, so I freaked out...rang the midwife who said that these things can occur at this time and if it gets any worse then ring back and we will send you to hospital for an emergency scan and to take it easy! So Steve had to sort me out some dinner that night as I lay on the couch and did nothing. The cramping eased off by the next morning and all seemed to be ok again.

So we finally made it to the scan and it was incredible. There was a little blob in there with its heart fluttering wildly. Such an amazing thing to actually see (and proved I wasn't nuts hehehe).

8 week scan, our little blobby

The scan put me at pretty much the same dates as what I already had, so baby was measuring well. And it was such a relief that everything seemed to be perfect!

Next midwife appointment went well too, Steve came with me to meet her. My blood tests were all awesome. She gave me my next scan form for 12 weeks and another blood test form (these were for testing for downs syndrome).

And that was the scan we went to on Friday. Again baby looked perfect, heart beating madly at around 160bpm and measuring what it should. Nuchal results look great at this stage, just got to wait until my next midwife appointment to get the combined results from the blood test. When we got there bub was doing handstands with its feet kicking up in the air, was so cute. Then I had to go and let some out of my bladder because baby wasn't sitting right for measurements. That didn't help much so the sonographer told us to go for a 10 minute walk to hopefully shift baby into a better position. The walk helped and she was able to get all the measurements she needed. So now just have to wait until the 20 week anatomy scan! The sonographer also said that I have a placenta at the front, which means its anterior. Usually with anterior placentas you don't feel movement until a bit later, around 20-22 weeks or so. Which is a bit of a bummer because I'm pretty keen to feel something! But the good news is that apparently the kicks don't hurt as much later on as the placenta provides some cushioning, yay.



12 week scan

 I have been extremely lucky as I have not had any morning sickness or anything!! No throwing up YAY!!! I must say I was very nervous about that thanks to my throwing up phobia lol, but seems I have escaped it (although I guess I shouldn't speak so soon). The only time I have felt sick is when I havent eaten for awhile or eaten enough. and boy can I eat!!! I seem to be constantly grazing, and when I'm not, I'm thinking about the next meal! Has been quite a challenge to find things that I actually feel like eating though, or that I am allowed to eat - no rare meat (boo there goes my nice steak fantasies of summer bbq's this year!), no soft cheeses (although turns out you can eat them if you eat them fresh - maybe i should just buy some and eat the whole thing at once!), no sushi, no salami or deli stuff (missing ham!), no KFC etc etc. Have been eating a lot of soup, tonnes of cheese (by itself, on crackers, cheese toasted sandwiches every couple of days), lots of fruit (strawberries anyone?), lollies, pies, and lots of chips (both packets and hot chips). Totally went off anything chocolate for a few weeks, couldn't even stand the smell of it. Luckily that didn't last long!! And the only other thing I've had is a couple of almost fainting episodes - one in the shower when it got too steamy because I forgot to put the fan on oops, and one at the warehouse! That was rather embarassing...luckily Steve was there to guide me to a bench and get me some water!! Boobs haven't been too sore except at the start, and just starting to get a bit of a bump, although some days it looks bigger than others. Still looks like ive eaten a few too many pies though hehe. Will post up a bump pic in a few days if I can.

So yeah, thats my big news! And I apologise in advance if you get bored easily by baby/pregnancy talk as it is rather hard for me to focus on anything else right now, so a lot of my posts will probably be about this! :)

Comments

So thanks to my friend pointing out that you can't comment unless you are signed up with google, I checked my account settings and I had it on the wrong one! So hopefully now everyone should be able to comment!! Sorry about that....

So since I last posted...I managed to cross something off my 101 list! yippee! That was climbing Mt Maunganui - totally awesome views from up there, we struck it on a really fine day so that was cool. And I have a few other things in progress from my list too, but more on that later :)

Had a great week, but only one thing burst my bubble which was possibly damaging my front tyre on my car after I curbed my mag! whoops...so now I have to take it in to get checked. Sigh. Anyone want to buy a Honda Accord Vtec?!!

Right think I might go and rustle up a snack, I'm starving!

Domestic goddess....thats me

*waves to my new followers and lurkers*

Another weekend down...Wasn't feeling that crash hot all weekend and (also due to the money situation) we decided to have a lazing around weekend at home.

On Friday I had some chilli tuna that didn't really agree with me so wasn't feeling very good all afternoon. Saturday morning woke up and was feeling better so decided to go on a bit of a cleaning frenzy and tidied up the lounge and vacuumed (wow a miracle! LOL) and put some washing on. By the afternoon I had started feeling lousy again so just blobbed out and watched a couple of movies. Steve spent all afternoon and all night on his computer playing a game. And I do mean all night....I went to bed at 1 after watching a movie and woke up at 6.30 to go to the loo and he was still on the computer! CRAZY....

Sunday arrived and the weather gods must have been reading my mind because I had been saying "please let it be a fine day" and it was! So I managed to get washing dry, get the garden weeded and Steve mowed the lawns (which had started to resemble a paddock....) and then 5pm hit and he had dinner and crashed haha which I knew he was going to do. So I popped some girly movies on and hit the kitchen! I decided to watch Julie & Julia which was rather motivating....and made 2 lots of muffins, a quiche for dinner and some peanut brownies. YUM.

Then after that, cleaned up the kitchen and sat down and watched Pride & Prejudice (and scoffed some of the baking...)

And on the note of the quiche, thought I would put the recipe up because it is sooo easy and soo yummy! And really versatile too, once you have the basic ingredients you can put whatever you want in it (or whatever happens to be in the pantry at the time!)

Self Crusting Quiche

5 eggs
3 Tbsp melted butter
1 1/2 cups milk
1/2 cup flour
salt & pepper
1 cup grated cheese
1 pkt ham

Method:
Beat eggs, add melted butter, milk, ham and cheese. Stir in sifted flour, salt and pepper. Mix well. Pour into greased quiche dish and bake 30mins at 190'c. You can basically add anything you want to this quiche, leave out the ham or replace with bacon etc, or add onion, spinach, tomato etc.

I didn't have any ham or bacon so last night's one consisted of some silverbeet/spinach, spring onion, celery, leek, parsley and a can of chopped tomatoes - half of that was out of our garden. And if I do say so myself, tasted pretty good too! :)


Oh and the great thing that happened on the weekend was on Sunday night.....6pm arrived and I noticed it was still light outside! Spring is definately arriving!

101 in 1001

Right, wish me luck! I have just started writing a 101 in 1001 list. Don't know what that is? Google it. Or else you could check out my list!

http://dayzeroproject.com/user/heaf

Hopefully this is going to keep me motivated so I can actually get some stuff done that I have been wanting to do for a long time! Will keep you updated and let you know how I'm getting on. I have already started doing a few things on my list so thats a good start! I just have to find another 50 things that I want to do and then get on with it! I think its a great idea and that everyone should have one of these lists. So what are you waiting for, go make one of your own!

When in Rome....

If only I was...
Sigh. I'm dreaming of Italy...Rome in particular. I so want to go there!! If someone gave me some money right now thats what I would do with it. But no one is going to give me money and I dont have enough of my own to get there. But I cant stop thinking about how cool it would be to visit!

The Trevi Fountain, the Colosseum, St Peters Square....all the old architecture and buildings, would be fascinating to see.

I could go there easily if we saved up our money, but the thing to decide is, holiday or baby? Because we cant have both right now...I dont want to put off going there just in case I never do, but I dont want to put off starting a family either, I always said I would have kids at 25...only got a few months to go until I am!

Oh money tree, where for art thou money tree??

Time

Time..there never seems to be enough of it. The world seems to be moving at a faster pace than ever before, or is it that I'm just getting older and have more things to do? But I just have SO MUCH that I want to do and get done, and I just don't have the time to do it. My whole world seems to revolve around the clock at the moment and I'm totally sick of it. And I'm starting to worry that I'm going to run out of time to do all the things I want to do!

And then of course is the "right" time....when its the "right" time to travel, the "right" time to get married, the "right" time to start a family. When is that? There is no right time, but why does it always feel like there should be?

Will come back and finish this after lunch......

....Right its now after lunch and I have just discovered that theres a new post thingy which I'm going to try out because im sick of how when you post a photo it always goes to the top and you have to drag!
so here goes....(now to find a picture)

Pebbles enjoying the sun :)

Oh yeah baby!! Sooo much better! Now this is going to be a hang of a lot easier for me. AWESOME...thanks blogger! Now I just need to learn how to not get so much space in between paragraphs or photos.

Back to what I was saying before about time...I've totally lost my train of thought now so will have to try again another time LOL

Another weekend done and dusted...

except for the fact that I didnt do any dusting.... I meant to, and meant to do the vacuuming too but just never got around to it. I did bake some scrummy apple muffins though :) mmm

Oh and I also got a few thank you cards finished!! (Yes I still havent sent them, and yes it has almost been 5 months).

Speaking of 5 months, its only 5 months until Christmas!! Holy heck!! I seriously dont know where this year has gone, well I know the first few months were scrambled with wedding planning and what not, but how can almost 5 months have gone past since the wedding? How is that possible? I think I must have blinked or something. OMG so that means its only 7 months until my birthday too....argh 25! Quarter of a century! yikes... and it seems like I have hardly done anything worthwhile in these 25 years either....

So its now july...

July. Mid winter. Hot soup. Roaring fire. Rain on the roof. Cosy slippers. Hot showers. Snuggly cat on your lap. Hot chocolate.

Ah, I do actually like winter surprisingly enough. I complain about the cold and the rain when I want to get my washing dry, but really, it is actually quite nice. Especially a nice hot shower and then sitting by the fire on a cold night. Or a surprising fine day where the outdoors is just beckoning and a nice walk on the beach or a chance to get your washing dry or work in the garden sounds like a great day.

The only problem is, im feeling very unmotivated to do anything. Especially getting out of bed in the morning! Staying in for as long as possible before rushing around for 15 minutes before I have to leave for work and always being late which is not so good.

I was doing so well on my baking awhile ago and now I havent baked for about 3 weeks. I just don't feel like it. Still havent finished my thank you cards which I REALLY need to get on and do. Gah I don't know. If anyone finds my motivation can you please send it back!!

Aside from not doing a lot, we did have a garage sale a couple of weeks ago and made about $200 so that was pretty good. Trying so hard to save money at the moment which is hard when you have car repairs to pay for and registrations etc. And I really want to save up and go overseas, Rome is calling me!!

what actually happened on the weekend :P

So it is tuesday now....another long weekend over boohoo! The next one isnt until OCTOBER! gulp. thats what I really dont like about winter, dreary days (not that I mind the rain or anything) but no day off either to sit at home with a blanket and the fire going and watch a movie or read a book!

But we actually did well this weekend. Got so much stuff done! But not everything that needed to be done.....oh well...more procrastination I guess!

Didn't get the thank you cards done :( Not likely to next weekend either as it is Steves nana's internment at the cemetary so all the family is coming up for that.

Saturday we went out to my parents and I mended most of my clothes YAY! Some of them I left with mum because they were rather complex. And she taught me how to purl on my knitting so I spent a couple of hours doing that which is awesome. Hopefully I can start to make something soon instead of just practising LOL. Sunday we went shopping for different things, nothing exciting, although I did get the latest Diana Gabaldon book for only $12! down from $40! then we went to Steves parents for dinner. Monday wasnt too bad of a day so steves dad came in to trim our hedge, I managed to get out into the garden and do a heap of weeding and pruning, but didn't manage to plant my new flower plants, and steve got the lawns done. and the house got reasonably tidied, new pictures hung on the walls etc. oh and I did some baking too.

So all in all it was a pretty good weekend. I wish every weekend was that productive!

Long Weekend

So it is Queens Birthday weekend starting in a couple of hours Yippee!! Im so looking forward to having some sleep ins. Have got quite a busy weekend planned too. My parents are having their bathroom remodelled at the moment and Steve and his dad are doing that for them, so Steve has to work tomorrow so I'm going to go out with him and get mum to teach me how to sew - like put buttons on and things like that. I am useless with that sort of stuff and would like to get better, eventually buy myself a sewing machine and make clothes! Thats the plan anyways haha. So that will be great because I have heaps of clothes (mainly trousers) that are missing a button so I cant wear them.

It has been a beautiful day today, but apparently is set to rain all weekend which is annoying because I have lots of washing and I wanted to get out into the garden and do some weeding / pruning / planting. That might not happen.

Also I started doing some exercise the other night and want to keep going with that - I have been skipping. So I'm going to combine that with walking and hopefully will be able to get a bit more fit, and hopefully I can stick to this because I always have some excuse for not doing things.

Steve wanted to go fishing this weekend, and I said yes but only if it wasnt raining so we will have to see how that goes as well. Thought we could go to the beach first and go for a walk and then go fishing off the rocks somewhere.

Also I started doing a new cross stitch the a couple of weeks ago so I'm hoping to work on that as well and get a decent amount done. I have a big winnie the pooh one that I would love to do but it looks rather hard so I have been putting it off. This new one is a little frangipani picture.

I have to also do a lot of cleaning work as we had a garage sale at a friends place the other weekend and our place now looks like a bomb site! Have so many things to put away and not enough places to put them! Luckily Steve tidied up the garage the other day so it looks a lot better down there and we can actually move around! So now its my job to get the house up to standard! (UGH!)

Going to try and remember to get a lamb roast out of the freezer (or go and buy a chicken one) and cook that maybe on sunday night.

Also I am working on a parcel for one of my friends who is pregnant, due in September. So I need to do some more work on that and get it sent off to her! I have been rather slack and meant to get it off a few weeks ago but that never happened. MUST NOT PROCRASTINATE!!!

Speaking of procrastinating thats another thing I have to do this weekend, is to do my thank you notes from the wedding. It will be 3 months since we were married in just 2 days so its about time I got it done. Have printed off all the photos so now I just need to get them stuck on the cards, write on them and send them off! But have been procrastinating because I dont really want to do it LOL

AND if that wasn't enough things to do, I'm sure that Steve will want me to do some more baking for work lunches and things so will probably do that as well.....

that is if we dont end up going somewhere like Auckland (which I have a feeling could happen). If we do I might see if we can go for a drive out to Piha or somewhere that I havent been before. I have seen some lovely photos of Piha so would like to go and take some myself! And there are some lovely views up in the Waitakeres too. Or else we could go to the zoo again, they have a giraffe baby that I would love to see - i Love giraffes!! Or else we could go shopping, or go to the botanic gardens, but again most of those things depend on (how much money we have) and if the weather will be fine.

Well thats probably enough drivel from me for one day.... over & out!

Poems

So inspired by a friend I have started to write poetry again. I wrote a few poems back in high school (mainly when I was depressed). But these poems are for a friend, a really lovely friend who just had a miscarriage.

I cant believe you’re gone,
its like you never left
But I’m sitting here alone,
feeling so bereft

People say they are sorry
but they don’t really know,
For the little time we spent together
how I love you so

It comforts me although you’re gone
I know you’re still around
Near to me, surrounding me
though you don’t make a sound.

There will always be a place for you
deep inside my heart
I will always be your mummy
even though we’re far apart

I just can’t understand
how could you leave me so?
I love you, I miss you
I’ll never let you go

You’re up in heaven now
watching over me,
Goodbye my little baby
Go now, be free.

and the second one:

I’m not quite ready yet mummy
Please let me go away
Once I am perfect
I will come back to stay

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I was gone
But you already knew
I had to go, He was calling me
And so my spirit flew

I know it hurts you deeply
And I’m very sorry
But I will be back one day soon
So please try not to worry

God hasn’t finished me yet
He’s busy working away,
Making me all ready
So we can meet some day

I’ll come back to you
When the time is right
For now I’ll be here when you sleep
Hugging you all night

I know I’m not with you
Down there on the ground
I might be up in heaven now
But I will always be around

You say that I taught you something
Well you taught me something too
How you love me so very much
And I cant wait to be with you


I'm so devestated for her, she is such the nicest person. And she so wanted this baby. Why does horrible things always happen to good people???? Its so unfair. And theres nothing anyone can do about it which really bites!!

It's all over, rover

Well well well, it has been a rather long time since I last wrote on here! So much has happened since then!


Obviously the wedding is over. And the honeymoon. And I'm back to normal life again. Which to be frank is both really good and really bad! LOL


The wedding was fantastic, hardly anything to complain about, the only real thing I was disappointed about was the fact that we were pressed for time and we had to rush through the photos and didn't get some done that I really wanted. However the photos turned out awesome! I have had so many great comments on them. My photographer was Dawn Dutton and I would totally recommend her. http://www.dawndutton.co.nz/

Putting on my mascara

Me and my awesome bridesmaids (and sister in law!)

The boys looking all spiffy in their suits

Me and my new hubby :)

My totally awesome cake that my sister and brother in law made, she even made the teddy bears outfits!!

I had so much help on the wedding, mainly from my sister in law Fiona. She was totally awesome. She made the invites, the placecards, the napkin rings, sorted out the table decorations, you name it she did it. And my mum made the napkins, sis & bro made the cake, it was held at my new inlaw's garden so they did a lot of work on it, and the whole day was just great. Dad said a great speech at the reception that made everyone cry, Steve did an awesome job on his speech (he was so nervous!) and his best man Ross had an awesome speech too that showed how much of a great friend he is to Steve. All up there were about 60 people there so it was a pretty good turnout!

Everyone left at just after 10, I was still ready to keep going! Hadn't even talked to everyone but it is so hard trying to get around so many people. Cleaned up by 11 and we went home. We sat out on the deck for awhile with Ross and Andrew (one of the groomsmen) who stayed with us. They went to bed before us and I sat down to take out my hair (which had like 40 hairpins in it!) by the time I got to bed Steve was already asleep, so much for a great wedding night LOL hehe

Couldn't have asked for a better day though!

9 days to go!

9 days to go now! Starting to get excited / nervous. Trying not to stress out over every little thing and just enjoy it, which is hard because I always stress over things.

The hens night went pretty well, got hugely embarrassed because I had to dress up and go to the restaurant wearing this outfit but apart from that it was good. Dinner was yum. I had seafood chowder for my entree and scallops and salad for my main (entree sized though).

I picked up the marriage licence yesterday too so thats all set, and our celebrant is coming over tonight to sort out the ceremony so that will be good to get that all sorted.

and the napkins are all finished, the placecards all finished, I know what i'm having on the tables, the chocolate boxes are started...so things are falling into place. I cant believe that it will all be over next sunday! its crazy, doing all this work and spending money just for one day. Oh well it will be worth it. and I will always have the photos to remember it by.

oh and Steve wants me to say a speech at the wedding too, mainly just thanking people for things if he forgets to. I dont really want to but I guess sometimes you have to do things you dont like to do! But i really HATE speaking in front of other people, I hate having everyones attention on me. (LOL and I'm going to have a full day of people watching me and taking photos - not my idea of fun!) I'm just way too shy and self conscious, thats why I didnt like people looking at me dressed up funny on saturday. It makes me feel so uncomfortable and nervous and then I feel like everyone is watching me and I dont have fun. I must be paranoid or something.

But the house is clean, had a big cleaning session on saturday (one of my bridesmaids stayed the night) and in preparation for the best man who arrives on tuesday to stay with us for a week.

My hair looks pretty good, so nice to not have regrowth! But it was far too expensive....sigh....the price you pay for looking good I guess.

The stag do is next wednesday so the boys are trying to plan that. So far I think they are going paintball shooting and then having a bbq at our place. Steve doesnt really want to go into town and go drinking but one of the groomsmen is really keen on that so we will see. They better not get a stripper though or heads will roll :P especially if they are just staying at our place, theres no way im having a stripper in the house!! and Steve doesnt want one either, but who knows what the guys will do. Im a bit nervous about the whole thing actually, especially because its only a couple of days before the wedding I dont want something to happen. I've heard way too many nasty stories about what goes on at stag do's.

Anyways while I was cleaning up I found some of my cd's with my photos on them so I will do another post soon with some more photos. :)

16 days and counting!

Ok so its now only 16 days until the wedding! So im kind of freaking out and at the same time really looking forward to it. I mean it is a big deal, a huge deal in fact!

Mum is so funny, I was talking to her the other day after seeing them and she asked was I ok because I didnt look very happy...."your not having second thoughts are you" LOL I was like no mum im fine, no second thoughts I was just grumpy and hot (i mean come on the humidity was like 98%) and hungry and tired...not a good combination!

Applied for my marriage licence today so can go pick that up on tuesday. Phew another thing ticked off the list (and a rather major one!) cant have a wedding without it! And paid some more money off the suit hire, so everything is coming together slowly. Just got to finish paying for the flowers and photographer and do little bits and pieces like sort out what table decorations we are having, buy the beer, table seating arrangements (seriously its like putting together a puzzle - the pieces all have to fit together well!!), oh and sort out our vows. But thats not a biggie, Steve wants to have as short a ceremony as possible and will probably just go with the traditional sort of vows. I was going to have a sand ceremony but im not sure if i will now, basically because i dont have the sand and stuff ready for it! we will see.

Its my hens night on saturday too, we are just going out for dinner and then going back to my house where the bridesmaids have got something planned, games and stuff I presume. Not sure if we are planning on going into town and having a couple of drinks or not, but I have said I dont want a list of things to do, I get embarrassed too easily and then I dont have fun. And after all the hens night is about having fun! But it should be great. so because its at my house too it means i have to actually CLEAN the house! Shouldnt be too hard if i get stuck in tonight, cant do it saturday morning because I have a hair appointment - first time I have been to the hairdresser in a year!!! and im in serious need of some colour, have very bad regrowth going on.

So yeah, thats that!

Paintings

Hmm the last post I did has shown up below some of the other posts even though I only did it yesterday? weird.....

I was going to put up some more pictures of photos I have taken but I cant find any right now!

So instead here are a couple of childrens paintings I have done. Was hoping to try and sell them (had them on trademe for awhile) but didnt have much interest :( Might try again sometime soon.

These two I painted for my nephew when he was born

I'm thinking about trying to learn how to paint in watercolours. The paintings I did are all in acrylics, and it was just a starting point really. I might take some classes sometime (when I can get some money!) and learning how to really paint properly.

Ideally I would like to paint like this: (I love Thomas Kincade paintings!!)

Or like this:

i know those arent done in watercolours, but this one is.

But I think you get the idea :)

I WANT

sigh

have just found out that the camera I want is going to cost me $3299. Thats just a TAD out of my price range!!!

oh but I LOVE it....and just think of the photos I could take with it!

The camera is a Canon 50D DSLR

I might just have to start with the 1000D or 450D or something and then once I sell some pictures / take pictures for people (this is in my ideal world that people will pay me for photos!) then I will be able to afford the 50D. Or maybe I should just start outright with the 50D so then I will be able to take decent photos that people will actually buy??? Hmmm what to do what to do....

my kitty

So I thought I would post a couple of pictures of my kitty Pebbles :) we got her from the SPCA nearly 2 years ago now.

This is the picture that I first saw of her in the newspaper advertising her, she was just so cute I fell in love with her instantly.

And this is her with daddy, she loves her cuddles! (well mostly)

Had to take her to the vet on Saturday actually as she had a cut between a couple of her claws on her paw which was a bummer, not something I really needed right now! And I'm sure she didnt really need it either! But she was pretty good about it.

So thats my little fur baby! Will post some more pictures of her later.

Photos

I thought I had better put up some of my photos that I have taken with my little Fujifilm Finepix camera that mum and dad got me for my 21st. Double rainbow shot just on sunset, it hadn't been raining and I was outside looking at the sky when this rainbow and reflection showed up

Sunset taken at my parents farm


Sunset off our deck


Waipu Cove, Northland looking towards the Whangarei Heads - the best beach ever!


Armeria or Sea Thrift

Flowering cherry tree

Toon Tree

I have heaps more photos to put up but im still getting used to this whole thing so bear with me!

Wedding eeeek

I'm getting married in 22 days!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

I'm so excited! I can't wait!

I've pretty much got all the details sorted, except for what I'm having as table decorations, and doing the whole seating chart and last minute details such as folding the table napkins, making placecards etc.

The only big thing is I still havent got my marriage licence yet! So I really need to get on to that, as without it there won't be a wedding! I wonder if they are open tomorrow......

Ohh I can't wait to see my fiancee in his suit, hes going to look GREAT

So this is the bridesmaids dresses:

And this is my dress (although it looks much better on me ;) )

So...this is me.

Thought I had better finally get on the blog-wagon, so here I am!

I'm Heather, a mid 20 something living in New Zealand.

I have a lot of things that are a part of my heart, the main one being family and my lovely soon to be hubby, my kitty and my friends spread all over the world. I also love nature - flowers, animals, sunsets and sunrises, the beach, the weather, the night sky. I love photography, painting (hoping to get better at both things soon), I start up lots of craft projects and never get around to finishing them! - one day I will! I want to travel and see all the wonderful things in this world, I want to have children and give them a life like I have had, I want to start new things and make my own world a better place. I love good food. I love a lot of things!

I Love Life.

So and this blog is about my life and all the things I love :)

And on that cheesy note I had better get it started!