First Scan

This morning Dan & I went in to the hospital for my first ultrasound.
Everything is normal-normal-normal for our little bub. Anything but normal for us... we actually got to see a tiny little person hanging out and growing and waving and kicking around inside of me. It was incredible!

The dr. said everything looks really good. They said Baby was a bit stubborn and made it tricky for them to get the snaps they wanted, Dan said 'that sounds about right.' We got a fairly good photo and it's on the fridge, but unfortunately we forgot to ask about getting anything in computer format, so I don't have anything to show you online yet. Maybe we can scan the photo, but I doubt it would turn out well.

Dr. said the due date is right on - I'm exactly 13 weeks today and Baby is exactly 7cm. from head to bum. The little heartbeat is good, the brain looks to be forming properly...we could actually see the brain! They can zoom in so close that we can see these tiny bits like the bladder and the ears...it was so weird. But beyond cool. I think I'm falling in love :)
The next scan will be at 19 weeks - on 20th of March. By then they might be able to tell if Bub's a boy or a girl, depending on what he or she feels like showing us. Today they had no way of being able to tell that kind of thing yet anyway.

Feburary 4th - 12 weeks.

It's an odd thought I've had lately... I've become a place. A place for a new life to grow and be knit together. All you who've done this before know...it's really pretty cool. (I know I still have a tiny little belly, but believe me, it is slowly growing!)

Have a beautiful week!

Summer Holidays

Happy holidays, Happy New Year (better late than never)

It's just about time to go back to school again... so I thought I'd better leave some notes about my relaxing but still pretty full holidays. It's been really good.

Hasn't been so hot this year. Feels much more like a Minnesota summer than a subtropical Brisbane one - complete with plenty of mozzies :) In fact, I hear you Minnesotans have been trying to have a summer holiday at the same time as us this year! Good on ya! It looks to be lovely and green there - even greener than here!

We've been spending a lot of time with family. It seems somehow they're always around now since we've moved out to the suburbs and we're closer to a lot of family. It's really nice. There was a Christmas party and a Nanna's birthday and a Mum's birthday yesterday, and oh yeah - back on New Year's day we had a housewarming party at our own home. The first party we've actually ever thrown as a couple. (not counting a couple of weddings. :) Dan Bar-b-que'd and I played pregnant hostess and heaps of people hung out in our back yard ... and I think I've got some photos of that somewhere. Nikita was the star photographer of the day.

Nikita & Ali

Dan Lynam (eating), Wayne & Kate (admiring their baby), Paul and Thea Lynam (being cute bro and sis)

Dan (getting food), Bec & Jeremy (They just moved into a house walking distance from us!), Nanna Lynam's next to me

Auntie Pam and Uncle Rob (They live just around the corner from us too)

Sara-Ellen (cousin on the Smith side), Dominika & Dominic & Sebastian

So I guess I should detour for a moment to officially mention the really exciting news that many of you who read this blog already know. Yep, we're gonna have a baby :) Should show up sometime in the middle of August. At the moment I am 11 and 1/2 weeks along, and everything seems to be going really well. Had plenty of morning sickness (aka - morning, afternoon and all night yuckiness) just to prove that everything's growing as it should and we're both normal. Great stuff :) But I've been taking some Ginger & B6 vitamins since about week 8, and I've been feeling much better since then. Other than that, let's see... Baby Smith is now about 4 and 1/2 cm long - you do the conversions. She's tiny! No - we dont' know the boy-or-girlieness of the baby yet. But we do want to find out. We'll let you know whenever they tell us if they know for sure...but that'll probably still be a couple of months yet. The only thing we're keeping a secret is the name. We've got a few picked out, and they'll be a surprise. (to us too probably, as it's taking me a while to make up my mind - suprise, surprise!)

So I've been enjoying these quiet weeks off - mostly spending large chunks of time sleeping, eating and reading a wide variety of pregnancy books, mags, and websites. Trying to get my head around becoming a mother. incredibly exciting and a bit frightening.

But we have taken 2 little trips recently. One weekend we went camping (back to the site of the notorious snake and spider in the toilets episode. Needless to say, I did not visit that particular spot in the middle of the night this time.) It was really refreshing to just be outside and hang out with some friends. good times.

Wildlife everywhere....out in the bush. I took plenty of happy snaps of the roos, but didn't bother trying to take any photos of the Bandicoots that shuffled up after sundown. I'll just have to remeber what they looked like. Cute little things- about the size of pudgy housecats, with long pointy noses and little pointy ears. We tried desperately to spot a platypus too - apparently there were sightings by a couple of couples at the campsite that weekend. But we were not to be that lucky. I just think it's cool to know that one or two of those shy and bizzare little creatures was just a few short steps away from us - down in the muddy & somewhat dehydrated creek.

Then last week Dan and I spent a lazy 4 days up at the Sunshine Coast. We stayed in Caloundra at the Grand Pacific, hung out in the seaside town and beaches (Bulcock beach - which I think is hilarious!), and basically did a whole lot of indulgent nothing. Didn't even take photos. It was blissful :) And the gelato ice cream & sorbets at the little shop there are the best we've ever had.

And today is Australia Day, so we're off soon to celebrate in the classic way - at a bbq with friends. and lamb chops of course :)

Happy summer!

More of what we've been up to lately

I could not resist a few more beautiful nephew pics ...
He's walking now... and saying some words in Polish. He seems to understand quite a bit in both languages.
Here's something I did in November. A group of us ESL teachers got together and we took a group of grade 6 & 7 students from several schools into the city. It was a really good day out actually!They sketched the Town hall and the Story Bridge.
They even did work! They answered questions about every place we saw -- it was a lot of fun! We had some great conversations. Brilliant kids :)

Just about 1 and a half weeks of school left. Then I'll be home for a 5 week summer. December 15th and I'll be free! plenty of time on my hands... more work on the house and garden I hope. I'm keen to start painting all the doors! So give me a call or stop by sometime... happy summer ;)

Some After shots - long overdue

For those of you who haven't had a chance to see it yet, here's an idea. But you must forgive the pre-Christmas mess on the dining table. There's a LOT of work to be done this time of year...and it's so nice to have the space to spread it out on :)

Some may have said that we got into the spirit of Christmas just a tad early... I really wanted to remember some traditions around thanksgiving this year. So we decided to celebrate it in our own little family way. After a long day of work and report-card writing, we set up the tree and decorations on Thanksgiving Thursday night. while we listened to good old Christmas music and waited for just a half of a small turkey to roast. It took 3 hours. unbelievable. We didn't get to eat until nearly 9:00! But it was a fun and festive night nonetheless.

A shot of our lounge-room pre-Christmas decorations. Now there's a nice little bunch of fake poinsettas, but it wasn't really worth photo-ing.

My roses blooms are gone now. They were gorgeous all through October and a few days of November. Now I think they're just sadly lacking water. Don't know if I should spoil them with buckets of it though...don't know if they should get used to such a luxury item.

Another big event in October was nephew Sebastian's first birthday. It was Glorious baby-watching fun.

Turned out he wasn't quite sure what to make of his cake. He'd never had cake before. These cakes are gorgeous. I'd never seen this done before moving here, but it's a really simple kids' cake. It's basically just 2 thin cakes with whipped cream in between and on top. Then they top off the cake with fruit and jello (which here is known as jelly - don't get them confused. The stuff you put on toast is called jam. And it's acceptable on toast and pikelets - little pancakes- but not so common on sandwiches with peanutbutter cause who eats peanutbutter anyway?)

Well, that's about it for that lot. I'm afraid I haven't got many words at the moment, since so many of them are going into my reports. Just 2 more weeks of school...and it's that crazy year-end + Christmas crunch time. But I have got a few more photos to share in the next blog.

:)