My first sugar hangover

WARNING: The following post is entirely contradictory to anything and everything in line with full on 100% healthy eating...and if you are a total health nut, I salute you! But if you eat healthy most of the time, leaving wiggle room for experiences that may not be technically the healthiest but allow much needed chill out time to grow healthy relationships then join the club :)

Last night was a real treat, I spent some good quality girl time with some ladies that I adore, making gingerbread houses for our families. I'll have to admit, I was a bit apprehensive. Yes, I sew and take photos and whatnot but I definitely do not think of myself as being 'crafty' whatsoever and I wasn't too sure how it would all turn out, but then again I was coming home with a big box of sugary treats for my husband so either way I knew he'd be happy.

So after baby boy had his bath, I got dressed up, kissed them both goodbye and promised to return a few hours later with sugar galore for Chris. Maybe next year you can have some Tavi, till then you're a milk man with some avocado, banana, cucumber and broccoli on the side. Oh and the duck you do love to chomp so much.

We were actually early which was amazing and the place was packed! But soon enough we got stuck into constructing our houses. Thankfully there was no baking involved, just decorating with copious amounts of icing sugar and lollies.

 

I think the key to this is packing as many lollies on as possible, which I think we all succeeded in doing in various ways.

 

Here are the lovely ladies...

and their equally lovely gingerbread houses :) 

 

I think we got a bit carried away because soon enough everyone else had packed up and gone so we quickly went over to get our little babies wrapped up and add a dash of icing sugar and red ribbon. Speaking of babies... hello baby Yarrow! 

 

As you can see Chantal looks ridiculously amazing for being pregnant, although she is also ridiculously lovely so you can't really hold it against her...well not too much ;)

 

Short blondies to the front!

Thanks Chan for inviting us, it will be a cherished memory and even though I did wake up with a sugar hangover I'll definitely be back again next year, I might even rope in a few other ladies to come, anyone keen...?

(Gingerbread house kits were purchased from here, and oh my goodness they taste so yum!)

 

Things are looking JUICY!

To start chronicling the substantial changes we have gradually made in our lifestyle I thought I'd go back to where we started, with juice.


It was just a regular old weekend, and my lovely teacher man had come home to a sick wife...again, who was feeling rather tired and achey and miserable...again. Really at this point it was getting ridiculous. I can't remember the number of times I have been sick since giving birth to our baby boy as it just seemed to be so constant. I had one massive bout of the flu that lasted for 3 weeks (and made feeding a screaming baby in the wee hours of the freezing winter mornings all the more less desirable) but even after that it was a regular occurrence for me to catch a cold or whatever was going around at the time. Since two of my go to people work in schools I secretly cursed the parents who sent their sick kids to school, and that me and my baby were suffering as a result. I wasn't happy and it wasn't good.

So there I was sniffling away, settling a baby who was feeling not so great either, and mindlessly trawling facebook when I saw one of my friends had posted the trailer for 'Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead' and something clicked. I watched the documentary, and then I watched it again, and then once again just for good measure. I'm not sure if it was the simplicity that appealed to me, or maybe it was the charisma for his cause and compassion for other people that Joe Cross exudes but that was it, I wanted to start juicing! I wanted to feel good and healthy not settle for feeling average at best and sick most of the time. However, we had no juicer and I was still feeling too horrible to get off the couch never mind about launching in to a new health program so I thought I would just leave it till I'm feeling a bit better.

The next day my amazing husband was kind enough to take our baby boy out of the house in the morning to give me an extra few hours sleep, which in itself was glorious! I'm pretty sure you will never fully appreciate a good sleep in till after you've had kids and it is no longer an option. But as if that wasn't lovely enough, he came home with fresh fruit and veg from the local markets, a juicer and a resolve to help me get healthy. I fell in love with him all over again :) So we got juicing. We juiced everything, firstly starting with recipes but then trying our own combinations, and it tasted so good! Although word to the wise, avocado really isn't a good idea, just don't.


I was surprised that even things like kale, cabbage, cucumber and lettuce when mixed with other fruit and vegetables tasted really nice in juice. It might sound a bit mad to enjoy drinking cabbage juice but from the start I decided that I wouldn't eat or drink anything I didn't like the taste of, I figured there are plenty of juices that I do like so why would I force myself to have something that I thought was yuck and it works for me. I'm also pretty sure my tastes have changed as I have cleaned up my diet so that is a bonus.

At this stage Chris was on holidays and we were juicing 2 or 3 times a day. We were feeling great, had lots more energy and our compost heap was loving the sudden influx of vegetable scraps. There were lots of other knock on effects from this initial step of juicing which I'll go into another time but seriously if you want a quick way to start feeling better, craving less sugar and getting more vitamins and nutrients into you then juicing is the way to go. There is criticism out there that juicing is 'bad' because the fibre is left in the pulp etc and of course if you have time to sit down and eat copious amounts of fruit and veg all day long then by all means try that, but for the average time poor person who needs a bit of a natural pick me up then give juicing a go. All I know is that it has helped me to feel better both physically and mentally and I'll be forever thankful to my darling husband for supporting me in this new venture.

Hello hiatus...

So in the months that have passed since I last wrote on here we have been blessed with our darling little son and life has changed dramatically as it tends to do when a newborn hits the scene :)



We've had our share of ups and downs, joys and sorrows, and life is settling into a lovely new rhythm that I am enjoying immensely.



Becoming a parent has made me think more about why I do the things I do. I've always been passionate about intentional living, and regardless of what drives and motivates you, I think that taking the time to think about it and being intentional about your decisions and therefore your life is so rewarding. So here's to you my baby boy, you have brought with you so much joy and a heck of a lot more things to think about!


My blogging in the past has been sporadic at best but I am planning on doing a few catch up posts about what has happened and some of the changes we have made, and yes, blogging can be a bit of an egocentric past time but my primary reason for doing it is to chronicle our little family for my own sake...so hello there future self :) If anyone else happens to enjoy a little peek into our life (and the photos, recipes, reviews etc that I plan on posting) then that is a bonus :)

Birthday Sewing

So its been ages since I have posted on here! Now we only have 5 weeks to go until we meet our little guy :)

I might do a catch up post with some of the pictures from over the summer holidays if I get a chance but we had a glorious 6 weeks with no work for Chris which means lots of beach, swimming, holidays, pancakes, getting things sorted for the baby and fun times in general.

But in an attempt to keep up with recent events: our littlest niece just had her 2nd birthday so I thought I would try to make her a doll. It sounded easy at first, but then my total lack of sewing ability and experience got the better of me. At midnight the night before we were due to head down to their place for her birthday party I was ready to throw it in the bin, but thankfully my lovely husband talked the crazy out of me and helped me fix it. I'm really glad he did because I think she turned out pretty good in the end :) And in honor of another cute little blondie, I'm calling her the Naketa doll. Happy 2nd Birthday Naketa!

Grow baby grow

25 weeks along (!) and our little one is getting very active and growing heaps :) 15 more weeks to go! So excited :)

Cupcake Dates With My Love

Are the best :) xx

Baby Smiles :)

They just kill me! Too much cuteness! I don't know how Cynthia gets anything done while having such gorgeous kiddos.

As for me, I have the attention span of a flea today and I don't even have any kids to blame...yet. I have a bunch of projects that I am really enjoying but I want to do them all at once, some are for Christmas presents and some are just for fun. However, photo editing and sewing tend to conflict with each other so for now I'm trying to focus on editing photos and not finding anymore cool things to sew.

I'm loving living closer to Chris's school these days and today he was able to come home for lunch which was lovely :) Can't wait for him to be on holidays!

Anyway, better get back to the photos and diddly Irish music (for some reason this is a good combination for me today- probably because it looks like its going to rain).