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Originally uploaded by anryan3215

Evie turned 2 today! She got lots of great presents in the morning, then we headed of to Daisy Hill Koala Sanctuary for a look around, and then a picnic lunch. My parents (Evie's grandparents) spent the last 6 days with us, and flew home tonight, so it was good that they got to share her birthday with us. Thank-you to all who sent her cards and presents, she has much to play with/read and wear now! You can view other photos from her birthday through our Flickr link.

How I found Evie's bedroom this morning

I found this picture quite interesting: Evie had found one cloth nappy for each of her 5 dolls in her room. Might be time to make some tiny doll nappies! If only I could find the motivation.

Brown toilet paper :)

This is one of my favourite environmental tips for around the home: use recycled paper toilet paper. You see, if you're going to go to the effort of recycling your papers, bottles, jars, cans and so forth, you also need to close the loop and buy products made from recycled goods. Brown toilet paper is an easy way to get started, it even comes packaged in recyclable brown paper. Recycled paper toilet paper has come along way, it is no longer scratchy, and you can even get it in white and I think peach, if brown doesn't suit your toilet decor :) It's quite cheap too, and Aldi (in Australia) sells it for nearly $1 cheaper for 6 rolls than other major supermarkets. All those trolleys filled with velvety soft, aloe vera infused, gardenia scented, white and printed toilet paper make my stomach churn, people wiping their bums on virgin forests is just not an option these days!

Finally, I'm back

Well it's been nearly a whole month since my last post, sorry about that, I just lost a bit of momentum. You see, I'm expecting our second child just before Christmas this year, so things have been a little slow due to tiredness, and lack of motivation. There have been a few times that I've wanted to post, but our camera is not working at all well, and blog posts without pictures can be a tad boring. So now we're organising a move back to Geelong, we had an offer accepted on a house, but are finding the loan application process a bit stressful. We've had a mortgage before, but we had a mortgage broker when we applied for that loan, which seemed to be much easier and straight forward. So cross your fingers for us please! I can't wait to get back into my own garden and grow fruit and veggies (to help with the rising cost of everything!)

Chicken and vegetable soup

I've been waiting for soup weather for a long time now, it seems I will have to wait a bit longer, as the weather just hasn't cooled down much, it just doesn't feel right. I'm used to the change in seasons, which I really like, I don't at all mind the cold in winter, I much prefer it to the heat of summer. Weird, I know, but I just don't like heat. Anyhow, this is the second batch of chicken and vegetable soup I've made this week. I'll just pretend that it's soup weather. Soup is very handy to have in the fridge, you can get many meals out of it. Good timing too, as Evie has just come down with a cold, and I've been sneezing a bit too. Evie will only eat bits of chicken out of it though (if you're lucky). She's a bit interested in chickens and ducks at the moment, so when I tell her it's chicken soup, she says "Bck bck", I wonder if she thinks about how the chicken got into the soup?

Our little trip

This is the Eastern most point of Australia, at Byron Bay. We had a long weekend holiday there last weekend, we stayed at Lennox Head, about 15 minutes south of Byron Bay. It was a lovely relaxing weekend, we'd never been to that part of Australia, so there was a bit of exploring to be done. We went to a great market in Byron Bay on the Sunday...we might need to go back sometime.
The Cape Byron Lighthouse
Lennox Head
And Evie, who fell asleep just as we pulled into Byron Bay. We gave her Phenergan as she often gets car sick, and were hoping that she would become drowsy and fall asleep for the 2 hour journey, one of the happy side effects of the medicine. Unfortunately she stayed quite alert until the last 5 minutes.

Evie's favourite boxer shorts

Just had to add this pic, Evie has always been drawn to these boxer shorts that I made for Andrew years ago. Not sure if it's the colour, the silkiness, or the mouse and cheese print, but today she wanted to put them on :) Bit big though...