easter

...i broke a few of the easter eggs i made about 2 years ago...and i couldn't see my pregnant self blowing more eggs to decorate more...

...so i cheated and bought some to replace the ones i broke...

...reacquainted...

I grew up on these biscuits...with butter and vegemite...my sisters and I used to have competitions to see who could squeeze the biggest 'worms through the little holes...

I never buy these for some reason...and I saw them the other day while I was out doing the grocery shopping and thought.....hmm my kids are gonna lovvve these...so the last few days I've been getting reacquainted with them by teaching my kids how to squeeze 'worms' out of the holes....

...just because she can...

It's a baby.....of course!

Ok so some of you who are friends with my little sister too have been asking if my she has had her baby yet...since she is WAYYY past her due date...just to let you know - ....she had a little girl last night at 6:30pm - Cameryn Paige weighing in at 8pds 14 ounces (yes that's nearly 9 pound!!!) and 55cm long....photos to follow soon :)

...family wedding...

so my brother-in-law and his fiancee got married on friday...it was wet, wet, wet...but i did my best with the photos, all things considered. if you want to see more just click on the link to my photography blog.

Opportunities...

photography: unkown source

So by now I'm gathering most of you have heard about Victoria's bushfires...181 people so far have lost their lives and approximately 5000 have been left homeless. My family and I have been watching the news religiously to see the developments...for more reasons than one. My sister is in the midst of it...she lives right smack in the middle of the two worst effected areas and for the last week has been staying at her MIL's since Healesville (where she lives) is continually being put on high alert. Two fires are threatening to become one HUGE fire like the ones you see above...since my sister and her daughter are bad asthmatics the smoke and embers are wreaking havoc with them...plus not to mention she is 38 weeks pregnant...so we've been watching and checking in with her every day to make sure everything is ok.

Amidst this tv watching my kids have been taking a keen interest in what's happening. We talked with them about it and discussed with them how much people had lost and how it was an opportunity for us to help in any way we could. The kids started going through their toys and deciding which ones they wanted to give away to the kids who had nothing left...we went shopping for lots of colouring pencils and books, undies and pj's. There are distibution centres set up throughout sydney that we could drop the items off at...but just as we were doing this...Jake brought home a note from school - there were some parents driving down to Victoria this weekend to donate stuff - Jake was incredibly excited that his school was helping and so we took all the things we had collected down to the school....

I guess why I mention this - because it's not the usual stuff I like to blog about...(I don't like blogging about my personal epiphany's - they're mine to ponder over:) - but I was amazed at the toys that Jake and Layne were choosing to give away...they weren't the old toys they don't play with anymore...they were new toys...some were ones they had just received this past christmas! My first thought was...'you just got that...you can't give that away'...but I stopped myself from saying it because I realised that if I did say that to them I would be in effect telling my kids that it was alright to feel compassion and want to help - as long as they didn't have to go without as a result...!! They reminded me that 'giving' pretty much always requires some form of 'self-sacrifice'. They even went so far as to pay for some of the pj's and undies out of their own pocket money...

what can i say??? I LOVE my kids...

note: please note that from here on there are bound to be grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, etc in my posts...I'm pregnant...and there is no promise that it will get better once the baby arrives! :)

Where did I go?

I'll tell you where...absolutely no where...I was here at home with my head over a toilet bowl for the last 2 mths...I'm hoping the next 3 weeks will see me start doing the following though! :)

yes, in case you didn't guess from the above - I'm expecting our 3rd

the eiffel tower

ahhh the eiffel tower...you finally get to see it...it took mike and i about 3 days to get here...not because we weren't interested...we just had other things to see...but when we finally did get here...

it was pretty great. there was alot happening in paris during the week we were there...aero exhibitions near the arc de triumph, employment expo near the eiffel tower so there were alot of tents etc set up all over the place - which doesn't always make for the best photos...but we went here on a sunday afternoon and spent the whole afternoon lounging around in the gardens and eating lunch...waiting for it to get dark so we could take some cool shots. they had it lit up in blue for some euro thing happening in paris that week - it was definitely very cool seeing it lit up like this... and just a note as to how SMALL this world really is - we were up on the first deck of the eiffel tower a few days later, when we ran into some family friends (from the hunter valley) while up there...! VERY freaky! we were both in a bit of disbelief!

the louvre

we stayed near the louvre...this had to be one of my favourite parts of paris...not necessarily going inside but just the buildings outside and the gardens across from it.

we pretty much walked past it every day and sometimes just sat on the steps eating our lunch.

montmartre

montmartre was amazing - we only went there once during our 5 days and i wish we had gone there more. it's very touristy but i still loved it.

we went up inside the dome of the sacred basilica...i'm not usually scared of heights but for some reason that day i couldn't deal with it...of course my husband thought it was hilarious.

the streets were soo pretty

and the windows!

...milo...

...ok so i may have overreacted...

...just so EVERYONE understands...this was a very rare commodity on my mission...so of course if you were ever in an apartment with me when I had this product...AND you didn't appreciate it, I may have overreacted!

ps. once again this applies to the minority not the majority of readers...if you wish to be a little more familiar with this post you can read back a few posts in comments posted...:)

paris - palace of versailles and surrounding grounds

i can't begin to explain how amazing this place was! my first impression upon arriving was - 'what's everyone going one about' - because the front looks somewhat gaudy had scaffolding everywhere...but then you get in side....and then when you experience the grounds...!!!!! we spent nearly 5 hours here and still didn't get to see all the grounds it was so massive!
you can hire bikes to ride around the lake and through the gardens or you can hire a boat to go out for a boat ride on the lake...this was by far our most tiring day in paris but probably the most amazing as well...the RER had been cancelled that day (sat) so we had to fight the crowds to change train lines a couple of times and then we stood in a one hour line for our tickets to get inside...i was about to give up! I was soooo glad I didn't!

I threw in a touristy shot for you...yes that's a rare shot of the husband and i!
I'm so glad we went on the saturday instead of during the week because Marie Antoinette's house, hamlet and grounds were open as well (apparently they are only open on the weekends).

apparently she didn't like the' grandeur' of the palace so decided to build her own place - a single level house/palace.

and she also had this hamlet built...it was perfect!

paris - notre dame

it's so hard to choose which paris photos i want to show - i have 5 days worth!

we went to notre dame 3 times during that 5 days...because somebody's father is an architect and he has inherited some of the fascination that comes with being in a building such as this!...and even for those who knew nothing about architecture...it was still fascinating.

i didn't manage to get here at night - i think i could do another 5 days in paris an still not see everything i want to see!

...a bit of rome...

ok so the rome pictures are finished...
rome was interesting...when you ask people if they enjoyed rome - there are always mixed opinions...i'm guessing it's because if you've been to any other city in italy - rome will probably be your least favourite.

we chose rome because we actually wanted to take a trip down to the amalfi coast and go to pompeii - but as it turned out we didn't get there. despite the disappointment in not being able to get down there, we still enjoyed ourselves.

i absolutely loved the piazza's - every alley way seemed to have quaint little places to eat. the husband had a large pizza for lunch every day...still can't believe he ate the whole thing!

we had gelato's nearly every day - our favourite little gelato place even had profitterol mousse!!!

one other thing i loved about rome was the paintings just set up on easels in the piazza's

all up rome was pretty fascinating, we enjoyed our time there. i can't wait to go back to go back and see more of italy!