One of the things we love about living in Brisbane (there are many) is that it is practically summer all year round. We are starting to see some cooler mornings and evenings but the days are still beautifully warm and sunny.
This week we ventured outdoors a few times to soak up a bit of of Vitamin D and enjoy play time outside.
It’s a special day in the NSSLOU household today.
“So what’s so special about today?” I hear you ask.
Well, today just so happens to be Renee’s birthday. That’s right… The old wifey for lifey is one more year older today. Which also makes her one more year wiser. And when we think back on what’s happened over the last year… wow.
Renee, or ‘Mummy’ as she has now become affectionately known as throughout our household, is one amazing woman. And without her, everything would well and truly be falling apart!
Renee is very much the pillar of our household. Largely due the fact that she has taken on the very big and important responsibility of being a full-time stay-at-home mum to our beautiful boy, Jesse. BUT… Not being content with just being a full-time mum, Renee has also started and is currently building her Kangatraining business on the side. And while being a Kanga Trainer has it’s perks (like being able to take bubby to work), it adds to the already overflowing plate that is Renee’s daily schedule.
But while there certainly are exhausting days here and there, for the most part, you very rarely hear even a single complaint about it. Why? Because like I said, she is amazing!
Renee continues to surprise me with everything she does and everything she takes on. I am forever thankful and lucky to have her in my life. As is Jesse.
Now, as the sun sets on today’s festivities, I cannot wait to celebrate many more birthdays in the years to come with one of my favourite people in the whole wide world. I can’t wait to share more laughs and more fun with you. I can’t wait to grow our family even more with you. I can’t wait to travel with you and experience more and more new things with you. I can’t wait to grow old with you.
But for now, let me just say this…
Happy Birthday babe!
You are amazing and you deserve all the happiness in the world!
All our love,
Kaine and Jesse.
To all the wonderful Mothers out there, Happy Mother’s Day from us at NSSLOU.
We hope that you all have a wonderful day, because there is one thing that we know for certain, you deserve it!
We are edging closer and closer to Jesse’s first birthday. Eek!
His tenth month saw the end of breastfeeding, more teeth and a weird love of peas.
A little over a year ago we decided to document our first year as parents – a 365 project and one of the catalysts for this blog.
Here’s a little reminder of what we set out to do.
We will:
We are 343 days in now so well and truly on the home stretch. And though it’s been challenging at times I’m proud to say that we have managed to stick to our intentions for the project.
The hardest part for me has been taking a photo every day. It sounds easy enough and like most mum’s my camera roll is full of photos of my baby. But some days have been so full on the only time I’ve been able to take a quick snap is when Jesse has fallen asleep for the night. And other days there’s just enough time to click a few selfies in between meal times, play time and nappy changes. So this means plenty of dark, grainy shots of Jesse sleeping and selfies with bad hair and dark circles under the eyes.
I’m not sure how interesting it will be for others to read. A New York Times best seller is probably out of the picture! Some days my entries are only a few words long while on other days I have waxed lyrical about the joys and challenges of new motherhood. But I am really intrigued to read Kaine’s finished product as I’m sure he has written thoughts and feelings that weren’t vocalised (as I have) over the last 12 months. I’m also looking forward to looking back over my own and reminiscing, particularly those early days and weeks.
Honestly, it really hasn’t felt like a chore at all and it will actually be kind of weird not to do it any more. Though preparing our finished products as books will certainly keep us busy for a while yet.
I’m really proud that we have stuck with it and no doubt we will have a new project in the works soon enough.
We were all getting a bit of cabin fever this past long weekend (especially Jesse!) so we packed a picnic and invited some family to join us for some outdoor time at a local park.
Jesse had a blast swinging with Nanny, lunch time with Aunty Lia and Uncle Matt doting over him and his first time chasing a soccer ball around.
Recently my two best girlfriends and I were invited to participate in another wonderful photography project by Renee Trubai called “Hear Her ROAR”. Renee says, The project is about showing women the beauty of themselves that has perhaps been forgotten, ignored or tucked away. It’s about rejuvenating- and celebrating- your love and respect for yourself.
This is simple for me … I want to show women the strength of their own beauty.
Renee Trubai
We haven’t yet scheduled the shoot but the preparation for this session, and all of Renee’s work, starts long before the first frame of film is snapped. She always does a thorough consultation first and provides some nuggets to mull over beforehand so that we go into the shoot with a mindset and vision for the end result.
For the preparation of this session Renee asked a seemingly simple yet quite challenging question, for me anyway.
What does beauty mean to you, for you? What environment / outfit / music / style / activity lights you up inside … the kind that has your eyes sparkling?
Whoa! Instantly I was blindsided by these questions. When was the last time I felt really beautiful? What does it look like when I feel beautiful?
My immediate answers to these questions seemed obvious. Well, I feel beautiful when my husband tells me I look pretty or when my little boy cuddles and kisses me. I feel beautiful when I’ve had my hair done at the salon and my nails are freshly polished.
And then I realised that these things were all about other people showing me I’m beautiful. But I wondered how I make myself feel beautiful. Just me. Not a compliment from someone else or when I’ve actually had the time to get primped and preened by a professional.
I wondered if I really didn’t know myself all that well and what I do, wear or listen to feel beautiful or whether I had just not ever really stopped to think about it. Maybe both.
I don’t wear much make up these days and most of the time my hair is dirty and tied up out of the way. I can’t remember the last time I wore high heels and most of my nice dresses still don’t fit almost a year after giving birth.
But when I think about what beauty means to me and what makes me feel beautiful in my daily life now, I think about laughing with my girlfriends so hard my tummy hurts. Teaching a Kanga class, working my body and helping other mums. I think about the empowerment of giving birth to my child and the strength I am learning now that I am a mother. I think about being on holidays, adventuring and exploring.
Don’t get me wrong, I still feel like a million dollars when I get the chance to dress up, when my body is trim and when I’ve spent hours being pampered at the salon. But to me, a truly beautiful woman is one that is happy, powerful and confident. A woman of strength. One who tries new things, loves fiercely, smiles a lot and can laugh at herself.
So I challenge you to think about it… What makes you feel beautiful?
Working in the city when you live as far out into the suburbs as we do, means that every day you have to deal with a long commute. And when I tell people that it takes me an hour and a half to get to work of a morning (and an hour and a half to get home in the afternoon), they often look at me with a face that says “are you crazy?!”
I almost always say to them, as they continue to stare at me with that “are you crazy?!” look, that I’ve been working in the city ever since I graduated High School in 2001. So basically, a long commute to and from work is all I’ve ever known. And because of that fact, it has never really bothered me.
Well fast forward to 2016 and the long commute to and from work is getting just that little bit harder to take day by day.
Let’s put it this way… At the moment, I generally leave the house at 6:30am every morning and generally don’t get home from work until nearly 6:00pm most nights. And as for getting home by 6:00pm, that is assuming I get out of the office at 4:15pm every afternoon. If I don’t, well, depending on the public transport schedule, my home time could blow out to anywhere between 6:30pm to 7:00pm.
Unfortunately, this means that during the week, because of my long commute, I get very limited awake time with Jesse.
When I leave for work of a morning, Jesse is either still asleep, or has just woken up. And when I do manage to get home by 6:00pm, because at that time it’s smack bang in the middle of his bedtime routine, he is usually asleep (most of the time) not too long after I get home.
For that reason, I really cherish the time I get to spend with him during the week. Simply because of the fact that my awake time with him can be quite limited.
Just over the past week, there was one day where I didn’t get to see him awake at all. I left work when he was asleep. And when I got home, I got home to this… Our cheeky little monkey completely worn out from a big day asleep on mummy’s lap. Down and out for the night.
And this is the exact reason that I am starting to find it just that little bid harder, day by day, to accept such a long commute to work.
I know there are plenty of options out there available for people who have long commutes to and from work. Hot-desking at local work hubs… Working from home… Flexible work arrangements…
And these are all options I am really starting to think about with more seriousness as the days and weeks and months fly by with Jesse.
Because at the end of the day, time does fly by. I mean Jesse is turning one next month. ONE!!! I can’t believe that. And because it is flying by so quickly, I can’t help but feel bad that I am unable to spend that quality time with him during the week.
The saddest thing of all, is that I know I’m not the only one in this situation. There are a lot of mums and dads out there that have long commutes to work who don’t get to spend a lot of quality time with their kids during the week. And when there is so much flexibility available for work arrangements, I think this is very sad.
With all that said, I am thankful that Renee is able to spend all the time in the world with Jesse during the week given that she is a stay-at-home mum come Kangatrainer legend!!!
So while I continue to deal with my long commute to and from work, I will make the most of my cuddles in bed with him now that we have started co-sleeping again.
I know, that I will get to spend quality time with Jesse during the week soon enough!
This is a bit of a throwback Thursday on a Friday.
Yes. That totally makes sense!
We love getting outdoors with Jesse. And he absolutely LOVES it! Crawling in the grass… the fresh air… the wonderful new smells and sights… It must be like a sensory overload for him.
And now that it’s getting a little bit cooler, I imagine us getting outdoors a lot more often!
Autumn in Queensland = Love!
not so secret life of us 