6 months

Today marks 24 weeks on Little Roo's pregnancy calendar, and that means a new belly photo with my big boy.

I'm not a huge fan of this month's photo… But it's not really about me, is it?  :)

I feel like I'm as big as a house, and I recently got a hair cut that I'm not really liking either.  And if it looks like I'm tired, it's because I am.  Patrick was away all week, and being a single parent is beyond exhausting.  Especially being a single parent of a toddler, and simultaneously growing another human.  Anyone who has a 3 year old feel like they're stuck on a roller coaster?  The highest of sweet and loving highs, and the lowest, most stubborn and whiny lows.   

All that aside, I spent the week moving furniture in and out of Gunnar's room (twice), and organizing all his toys (twice), and giving everything in his room a very deep clean.  We're talking scrubbing walls, and furniture, and even washing the mattress!

Now I think it's time to join my little man in a nap.  Until next month… 

cinderella

This past weekend we trekked down to Canberra for another birthday ball hosted by the US Embassy.  It was held at the National Arboretum, which was beautiful.  And this year we were lucky enough to have friends join us so we actually knew other people there!  However, it wouldn't be a major event without something going horribly wrong.  Last year I got the dates wrong, and booked flights and hotel for the weekend before.  Luckily, someone informed me of my mistake the morning we were supposed to fly out, and for a few fees we were able to rearrange things very last minute.  This year, our babysitter was a no show…

I had booked a babysitter through a service over a week in advance.  I got a call the next day confirming it, with the name of our sitter.  Three days later, I got another confirmation in the form of an email.  Then the day of the ball I called a few hours before our sitter was supposed to arrive to check on everything, and it was all good.  And, we had even already been charged for the first 3 hours.  Well, our booking time rolled around, we were all dressed and ready to go, our friends were in our hotel room waiting on the taxi we booked, and NO BABYSITTER.

I gave her the benefit of the doubt, I know simple things like traffic can happen to the best of us.  After all, we were staying in the middle of the city, and it was Friday at rush hour.  I was apparently too kind, because 15 minutes into our booking I called their after hours line to find out what was up.  It took over 30 minutes for the company to get in touch with the sitter and figure out that she apparently never received the info on the job.  They were then blaming me for not actually having a confirmation.  In the meantime, every one left so as to not be late, and I was left alone trying not to cry (thanks hormones).

I did end up crying after I told Pat I wasn't going to make it.  Then I decided to make a last ditch effort and ask the hotel staff at reception if they had any ideas.  They were AMAZING and got online and made calls to track down a babysitter for me.  And when she couldn't make it for another hour, they offered to watch Gunnar so I could enjoy my night.  He thought he was so cool going behind the front desk and hanging out at the computers.  It was totally because of those 2 kind people that I was even able to make it to the ball.  (And when the babysitter had to leave early, the receptionist stayed after he finished work to watch Gunnar).  They were totally the fairy godmothers to my Cinderella.

However, the complications didn't end there!  I finally got a taxi, and hopped in.  I told the driver where I needed to go, and his response was "where?"  Awesome.  I didn't have an address.  He's the one who's supposed to know the city!  And we're talking a national landmark here!  It took probably another 10 minutes of us sitting in the cab, trying desperately to find an address (which didn't register in his GPS).  We eventually just started driving in the direction I knew the arboretum was, and we found it.  I was SO late, but security was kind enough to let me take my seat during the ceremony anyways.  And since I was in heels, I was very grateful for that!

All in all, we had a good time.  But, it was certainly a headache trying to make it all happen!  And I even made it home before my carriage turned into a pumpkin at midnight ;)

28

I recently celebrated a birthday, and turned 28.  Nothing special really, just another day.  But, with lots of love from friends and family.

Patrick surprised me with pink roses, just like the first ones he ever sent me back in 2004 (and yes I still have the card that accompanied them).

Then it was time for a dinner date out at the best little Turkish place in town.

And then I got the loveliest cards, and presents from my boys… Gunnar picked out the necklace all by himself, and the bracelet has lots of Dalmatian Jasper (my favorite stone from our gem mining days)

And lastly we celebrated with some fancy cupcakes, and I was serenaded by my sweet little man.

It was the most perfectly laid back way to celebrate, and just about all this mama could handle right about now!  Thanks to everyone for making my day NOT so "nothing special".

a new little roo

We are delighted to announce that we are expecting a new little family member to join us sometime at the end of March.

I knew that considering our current location, we had to do something very Aussie to announce this little bub, so this is what we came up with:

And shortly thereafter we found out…

It's not hard to see a common theme in our announcements:  Gunnar.  I'm so worried my little mama's boy is going to feel left out, I'm trying to include him in as much as we can.  Plus, he's pretty photogenic, so it works out.  It's the dog situation of 2011 all over again!  If you recall, I was quite hesitant to leave Jack and Win when my water broke … it took me an hour to say goodbye!  And I'm sure if they were here down under with us, they would have a prominent spot in all announcements as well.  

I'm trying so hard to get Gunnar to think this is a good thing, that I've even been taking monthly belly photos that I'm willing to share with the world.  That's pretty big (the sentiment, and the belly).  It's working I think, because Gunnar already says he loves the baby, and gives him kisses, and has had input with names (so far he's come up with Baby Cow).

So, every month, Gunnar and Mommy decorate a sign and take our special picture.  They were originally going to be weekly, but then morning sickness really kicked in (which turned out to be hyperemesis gravidarum) and I couldn't manage to take any photos for a few months.  So I decided to scrap the weekly thing, and go for monthly.  

3 1/2 months | 14 weeks

4 months | 16 weeks
(also the day the Orioles played game 1 of the ALCS)

5 months | 20 weeks

Stay tuned for more on our little roo!

three.

We celebrated Gunnar's birthday this year with an Octonauts themed party.  It is safe to say that he had the best day ever.  I couldn't believe the kindness all of our friends showed him, and it made me so happy to see him so happy.  Highlights included a giant balloon, Kwazii's treasure chest piñata, Gunnar eating his cake without utensils, and everyone's favorite:  opening presents.

Happy third birthday, my sweet little man.  Three years of messes, kisses, laughter, tears, chaos, travels, hugs, and a whole lot more.  I love you more than life.

Whitsundays

Hey there, it's been a while.  How are you?  I'm officially the world's laziest blogger.  But, to be fair, you didn't miss much between April and August.  I'll be attempting to catch up here, and I will try harder to stay on top of things in the future.  It's hard when you have a cute, (but sometimes evil) minion ruling your house!

Anyways… Pat spent the better part of May, June, and July away on exercises, and it was winter here, so Gunnar and I didn't do too much besides cuddle on the couch in front of our one little heater.  I got sick of the cold, so I decided to plan an anniversary trip somewhere up in the sunny north.  So in August we trekked up to Hamilton Island in the beautiful Whitsundays.  It was the trip of a lifetime, and we loved every minute of it.  Even when our flight home got cancelled and we were "stuck" on the island for two more days.

We opted to go without a view for our own little bungalow.  I wouldn't change a thing either, it was so nice to have a stand-alone room, we were much closer to the beach this way, and within walking distance to everything.

We had breakfast every morning at the wildlife sanctuary with the koalas!  Gunnar absolutely loved every minute of it.  They had three out amongst the diners, along with a black headed python named Medusa, who was Gunnar's favorite.

On our first full day, we took a helicopter ride to the world famous Whitehaven beach.  We knew with Gunnar's love of choppers, there was no other way to travel.  He had SO much fun, and still talks about  his ride in a helicopter.  Our day trip included the best picnic lunch ever, complete with Hamilton Island Air's very own champagne.

Days 2 and 3 we stayed on the island to explore a little.  We spent a little time in the resort pool, because Gunnar was dying to get in it.  Then he realized it was freezing and wanted no part of it.  So we then made our way down to the beach and hopped in a kayak to go see some sea turtles.  We actually saw about 10-15 but we couldn't get great shots of them.  I got a photo of Gunnar's face when he spied the first one, and it is priceless.  Also, one popped up only a few feet from our boat and it let out a loud breath that scared me so much I screamed and scared it back under before we could get a photo of it.  But we had a lot of fun out there!  The next day we took a nice hike up to the top of Passage Peak, and saw some pretty amazing views!  Gunnar decided on multiple occasions that his body was "too heavy" and he needed to be held.  He ended up falling asleep on the way back down.

On what was supposed to be our last morning, we bought tickets to go inside the wildlife sanctuary after our koala brekkie.  It just so happened to be when the daily tour was being held, and because it was a rainy morning, the zookeeper had us stand under cover while he brought the animals to us!  It was amazing, and we even got to pet a wombat!  All I've wanted to do on every trip to the zoo is hold a wombat, so that was pretty awesome!  We also got to pet koalas, and dingos, birds, the world's tiniest wallaby, and hold some lizards!  One animal we got up close and personal with, but only from the other side of the glass, was their old salty croc!  His teeth were insane!

Later that day our flight was cancelled because of the rain.  In fact, the flight we were supposed to leave on never even landed on the island, it was diverted to the mainland.  We found out quickly that they couldn't get us off the island the next day, so we would have to find lodging for 2 extra nights on an already overbooked island.  It was the beginning of race week, the busiest week on Hamilton Island, and we literally got the last room on the island.  Since Virgin wouldn't cover cost of accommodation because our flight was cancelled due to weather, the resort was kind enough to give us an "emergency rate" which was probably a quarter of the actual price of our room (on the top floor of the hotel, overlooking the reef).  

We took advantage of an extra full day by immediately booking a trip out to the Great Barrier Reef where we did some snorkeling (Gunnar even got into it with his wetsuit and boogie board complete with window).  Highlights were a family of "Nemos", colorful parrotfish, huge angelfish, and even bigger maxima clams!  We also took some trips on their glass bottom submarine to get some warmer, drier views of the fish and coral.  On our 4 hour round trip to and from Hardy Reef, we saw even some migrating whales!