Pictures from the week

park, the bump is getting in the way, talking with the birds, eyelash, beach, yummy muffins - recipe here

Almond Butter

I made my own almond butter. And it's really good.

I've seen it several places on the web and wanted to try it out.

Here is what I did.

I roasted the almonds for about 15 min.
And then blended and blended and blended the nuts. For like 6 minutes. I used a blender, my food processor shorted out on me (damn transformer), so this is all I have right now. A processor would probably work better, but my blender is pretty powerful so it worked. I also added a teaspoon of vanilla to sweeten it up.
There you have it.
Jamie asked - why would you make almond butter and how did you do it, with some crazy look on his face? Then I told him to just try it and he responded by saying - oh, this is good.

Father's Day Weekend

We celebrated Dad by...

Going to the park on Saturday.
Then Jamie got to choose where he wanted to have dinner. We went to a Brazilian barbeque place - Braza. If you like meat, this is your place. We both agreed that this place was better than than one in SF. It was good.

Annmarie ate a crazy amount of rice and beans. Jamie ate a crazy amount of meat. I was somewhere in the middle.
Enjoying some iphone time.
On Sunday we went the little aquarium that they have in Manly - Ocean World.
Annmarie dived right into the touch pool and thought it was funny to dry her hands on Dad.
It was so great to have the sun shining, as it made for a nice Father's Day weekend.

I asked AM what her favorite thing to do with her Dad is and she said:

(pic taken in North Ryde at our temp apartment)

Note: Jamie has been designated night-time story teller since the beginning. It's always been a good time for Jamie and Annmarie to spend some alone time together and Jamie appears to have more patience with this ritual than I do. There have been phases where she will insist I read to her at night, but we try to get her back on track with Dad. Plus I have typically always been the one to put AM down for her naps and there is always a story involved there. And we've probably been through more during the day. So by the time night-time rolls around it's Dad's turn. I'm glad it's one of her favorite things to do with Dad.


Happy Father's Day!

The Bump and The Weekend

This buba moves; like all the time. Last week at my doctor visit I've put on a total of 6 kilos for this pregnancy and we'll just leave it at that. Seeing your weight in kilos makes you feel pretty good, but then you do the math and it's all the same. I feel big and Annmarie graciously tells me every morning "your belly is getting bigger and bigger every day". Night time is getting a bit uncomfortable. I'm waking up to use the bathroom more often, but still feel good during the day. If I need to I will take a afternoon nap. I'm loving this banana bread at the cafe near AM's preschool and usually pick up a slice after I drop AM off. Not really sure if it's a pregnancy craving, or if it's because bananas still cost a billion dollars and that makes bananas more appealing. It's good stuff though. And only ten weeks left, where does the time go. We really need to get our act together.

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We enjoyed a three day weekend thanks to the Birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, even though it's not really her birthday. Whatever, we'll take it and this is the first time Jamie hasn't had to work on a holiday. So what did we do? Pretty much nothing and I didn't take a single picture. It rained and rained all weekend and is still raining. We had some friends over on Saturday and Annmarie had a nice play with Will. Annmarie tried Vegemite and then proclaimed that she liked it. She had talked to Will about it and a lot of children at preschool bring Vegemite sandwiches, so she kept asking about it. I'm not a fan of the stuff, but we had some sample packages, so we let her have a go at it. What can I say she's becoming a little Aussie and is starting to pick up the slightest of accents.

Annmarie turned three and half over the weekend and we celebrated by letting her watch her first Disney princess movie - Snow White. She liked it, but I think liked the animals and dwarfs (doc being her favorite), more so than Ms White, as she started calling her.

Monday, we needed to get outside, so thankfully there was a little break in the rain and we went to the Collaroy Beach Club for lunch and let AM run around for a bit. Jamie and I found one of our new favorite foods in Australia the Moreton Bay Bug, or better just known as Bugs. They are like little lobsters.

Hopefully, this weekend we will see some sun.

Jamie's Birthday

We kept things simple as we all just recovered from some stomach bug.

The morning started out with pancakes and Jamie kindly allowed Annmarie to blow out his candle.
We went for a bush walk in our neighborhood.
We had a nice dinner at Starfish and came home to enjoy a birthday treat - chocolate brownies with salted peanut butter frosting. Again, Annmarie got to blow out the candle.
On Sunday we went down to Church Point.
Annmarie practiced riding her new bike thanks to Grandma and Papa.
She still prefers us to push her, but she is getting it slowly. And I finally got her a helmet this week - we only allowed her to ride it a few times without one.
And we had a picnic lunch.
Happy 36th, Jamie!

Random Stuff

Morning tea at play group.
We have been having a lot of rain, but also a lot of rainbows :).
Tulips.
28 week bump.
A sick Annmarie. She is all well now, but it wasn't pretty for any of us.
Doing crafts while stuck in the house.
And my favorite, a cuddle with sick Dad.

Grandma and Papa

They left about two weeks ago now, but just uploaded this picture today. They left on their anniversary. It would have been their longest anniversary (due to time differences), but the flight got cancelled, so they spent the night at the Holiday Inn at the Sydney Airport. They did meet a friendly Aussie/American and ended up having dinner with him. They caught the flight out the next day and made it safely home. It was great having them here and where a huge help. Thanks Mom and Dad!(pic taken at the Bilgola Beach rock pool)