47/366 – Cooking Up A Storm
I will at some point post more information on my stocking up the freezer marathon. I don’t know where the energy came from, but I spent five hours in the kitchen cooking up 16 dinners for after the family leave and it’s just us settling back into our routines. I was seriously impressed, too, at home much food I could get out of the remains of two weeks veggie deliveries, and a portion each of mince and chicken!
This was a feat for me though, because I’m usually not very good at ‘one pot’ meals or plan ahead cooking. The top picture has vegetables steaming in the colander over potatoes boiling in the pot, a curry and the start of the mince for cottage pie. Ameli helped too, for the first three hours till bed time. It was her job to put the veggie tops and tails in the food recycling bag.
I don’t know if it was yesterday’s exertions, but I was expectedly exhausted in the morning, and didn’t do too much in the afternoon. In the evening, I started having regular contractions that lasted most of the night.
I’ve been slowly getting everything together for the birth. My table is covered in bits. I need to sort them out, ideally, but at least it’s all there and together should we be in business….
49/366 – Happy Birthday Cake In A Jar
I woke up still having contractions, and really, really early, s0 decided it was time to get my act together and get a few things ready for the birth, should this baby decide to come today. S/he didn’t, but I managed to pull together another item for Ameli’s labour activity pack – something for us to do together. I’ll post more details on this another time, but it’s a Cake in a Jar, with the dry ingredients and eggs ready to go. We just need to add oil and water and we’ll be half way to a cake. Hopefully labour will last long enough for us to make a birthday cake for our new arrival. Oh, and the Love Hearts are for decorating the cake before eating it!
Oh, and the quote on the back says “Before you were conceived, I wanted you, Before you were born, I loved you, Before you were here a minute, I would die for you, Such is the miracle of love.” Soppy? Why not!
50/366 – Baby Shower
I had a lovely, low-key baby shower at just over 39 weeks. I was so tired, but had an absolutely lovely time just having a drink and amazing cake made by my friend Gloria. We played a few games, and just had a general chinwag and catch up. It was great, and I enjoyed it – and then went home and crashed onto the sofa playing a sorting game with Ameli for the rest of the day. I can’t believe how much energy things I normally relish are taking!
Games included: using anagrams of our names to come up with names for the baby, sculpting ‘babies’ from balloons, and using a piece of string to guess how large my belly is. Ameli had a few gifts from her god parents and from our lovely NPN friends, and she was convinced it was a party for her!
As with most dads, Ameli’s doesn’t always get to spend as much time with her as he’d like. Over the last month as both SPD and general tiredness have incapacitated me more and more, Martin has really stepped up to the plate and taken over much of the house and child care. I can’t say how much I’ve appreciated the ability to sit on the sofa with my swollen feet up.
52/366 – Learning Colours – Pasta
We’re in the throws of learning colours around these parts and I have plenty projects coming up (and plenty posts) that deal with teaching a toddler colours. We’ve been having fun with it, actually.
53/366 – Visiting
Our friend Yuri from Urbanvox was in the area today, so Ameli and I met up with him for a coffee. We also got to look through our maternity photos and choose our favourites – I can’t wait to share them with you! Ameli always gets really excited about seeing Uncle Yuri. It’s very sweet.
Thanks for joining us for our week in pictures! Please stop by and visit the other Mamatography contributors!
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Where the energy came from?… You were nesting, Mama!!
I love that jar cake idea, too… especially the sappy part. 🙂
Another wonderful view into your marvelous world Luschka. I can only imagine how exhausted you are and am so happy you have such a wonderful man and that our Little Princess has such an exceptional father. Yes Ma’am, you are two lucky Ladies!
OMG love this… Love the cake in a jar idea – and the very idea of baking a birthday cake for the new baby, with your toddler *while* in labour. This is just fantastic and SO inspiring. Thank you for the lovely thought. You have got to let us know how it goes 🙂
Each time I read one of your posts, I drool over the name Ameli, too. Reminds me of the film, of course – and that is definitely a good thing, too. So sweet and dreamy.
Good luck with labour (if it hasn’t happened already and I missed the announcement).
Gauri
Wonderful photos! What a great idea the cake in a jar is! I hope your little one is ready to arrive very soon! xo
Love the idea of the birthday cake in a jar, I will try to remember that in a couple more years when we are ready for our second little one!
Wow, what a week! Cooking, and the birthday cake in a jar, you have so much energy and such great ideas!!! Looking forward to hear about the birth!
Take care
xx Sabina
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stelleluna/sets/72157628822177655/
Wow, I’m really impressed at the meal preparations. Well done. As always, you seem to have such fun and busy weeks. Lovely pics 🙂
Lol. Thanks Christine. I do feel our weeks are really busy, but it’s a good thing. Keeps me out of mischief!
I love the fact that you are actually able to do some meals before the baby arrives! I still have 3 months until I’m due, and I don’t know where to begin! Love the cake in a jar idea! 🙂
I’ll post a few recipes over the next few weeks/month. I’m really impressed with the recipes we’ve used and can’t wait to eat them as I MAY have had a taste or two along the way 😉
Wow how did you colour the pasta?? And I wouldn’t be surprised to see pictures of the new baby next week given all htat cooking and organising!
Ah! There’s a post on that coming next week! (of course :D)
But it’s just a spoon of white vinegar and some food colouring. Awesome! And non-toxic. Extra bonus! 🙂
Loved daddy time! and the cake in the jar is a brill idea! It’s so exciting that birth day is nearly here! can’t wait to read about the birth!
Thanks Lucy! Starting to really want the birth too now! Kind of gutted we didn’t get a 29 February baby 😉
Wow, I’m so impressed by all your cooking! I made a few meals in advance then ate them all when I was too tired to cook when I went overdue! The cake in a car is cute, made me think of myself on Christmas Eve in full blown labour whipping up two tiramisu’s with my daughter for the following day. So jealous of your lovely baby shower, something I always fancied doing and never got round to. Hope the birth goes well, can’t wait to hear about it x
Lol. I’ve been SO tempted to use our food, but there’s four adults in the house now, so we’d go through it doubly as fast – I reckon my mother and sister can cook for a couple of weeks! 😉
The plan ahead cooking would be a feat for me, too! I always tell myself I’m going to start doing that and it doesn’t happen. How awesome that you’re prepared! Love the cake in a jar, too. I planned to make a birth day cake for Annabelle’s birth, but was too distracted by being in labor. If I had everything ready to go, I think I would have done it – and how fun to be able to do it with Ameli, too. Hooray for an awesome shower with good friends, too! Can’t wait to hear how the birth goes 🙂
Thanks Melissa! I’m not sure how long or how this labour will unfold, so I’m just going to play it by ear. If we don’t get to do it in labour, we’ll make it together to celebrate on the day 😉