Movies we've watched...

Last week, I borrowed a couple of movies from the library to watch during the week.
First was 'Music and Lyrics': nice romcom (romantic-comedy) that wasn't too brainless.
The other was 'Elizabeth - The Golden Age': neither Peter and I know much about british history, and haven't watched 'Elizabeth', so we had to do a bit of research on the internet to find out the history for the period, plus what had happened in the first movie, as well as the general plot of this movie so we weren't totally lost. Again, nice enough movie - we managed to follow/connect the events to make some sense, but it didn't help watching over 3 nights and having numerous interruptions on the 1st night (from a little boy who didn't want to go to sleep).

Yummy risotto...

I made a really yummy risotto last night. I just made up the ingredients myself, so I thought it might just be average, but it turned out really good.
If you're interested the ingredients were:
2 Chorizo sausages chopped
1 carrot chopped
1 onion chopped
1 clove garlic chopped
1 1/2 cups arborio rice
1/2 cup semi-dried tomatoes
1 1/2 cups brocolli
chicken stock
1/4 cup grated parmesan

Pie taste test...

The pie tasted pretty good. It was steak and cheese flavour (ie. chunks of steak) and the meat wasn't junky and was nice and tender. But as Peter and I both commented, fundraiser pies have to be fairly good, otherwise people won't buy them when they have the next fundraiser.

Pies have arrived...

The fundraising pies were delivered to kindy today and I was able to bring ours home. They look like any generic family pies. We are having one for dinner, so I'll fill you in on how they taste later.

Winter has arrived...

The past week or more the weather has been maximums under 15C with showers throughout the day. Some days we see the sun, some days we don't see it at all. Peter has been informed by the locals at work that this is typical winter weather.

I don't mind the days where the sun comes out a little bit as it helps warm up the house, and so inside it isn't too cold, just outside is a bit cool. The days the sun doesn't come out are really cold, because the house doesn't warm up at all, so inside is pretty cold, not just outside.

Gymnastics update

Had a different teacher for the kids gymnastics today. She is the teacher who normally takes it, but has been sick for the last couple of weeks. I didn't think she did as good a job as the teacher that had been filling in for her. The warm-up activities she got them to do were rather static and boring (basically dumbed down adult stretches), especially for a group of 2-3 year olds who are full of energy and ready to run around. She also didn't seem to take control when she needed to (during organised/teacher directed activities), so therefore the kids seem to think they could do whatever/whenever.
Hopefully these were just 1st week issues of her getting to know the kids etc. and that it will improve in the next couple of weeks.

Making medicine too attractive for kids...

Had to do the whole worm treatment thing today. But instead of having to convince Ben to eat the tablet...he had a tantrum because he wanted to eat the whole box of tablets in one sitting (one tablet was the dose required for his weight). This was caused by the tablets being exactly like a square of chocolate - size, taste and texture (they are actually made with Cadbury chocolate!).

What to do with the placenta?

Had my first visit from the midwife last week and she gave me some information about birth centres/giving birth in NZ. Included is a 'birth plan' worksheet which goes through all the various parts of pregnancy/labour/birth/post birth and all the various things that I can choose from. One of these includes what I want to do with the placenta, after the birth including - seeing it, or keeping it.

Now I know that in some cultures it is normal to keep the placenta (including Maori culture). But what I wasn't aware of is the options for what people actually do with it. Just by coincidence I ended up in a conversation with a couple of women the other day - one who has planted the placenta from each child under individual fruit trees; the other made them into capsules (through a process of steaming it, cutting it into thin slices, drying in the oven, then crushing into a powder and putting into capsules) to take just like a vitamin. Apparently it has a whole lot of hormones in it which are good for you (especially when you are going through menopause). They also told me about some mothers who just cook it up and eat it like a piece of meat.

My experience/involvement with my placentas in the past is: with Ben, they showed it to me to show that it was intact - it was kind of cool to see, looked like a dark red pancake. With Joanna, I don't recall seeing it or anything. I haven't decided what I'll do this time round, it's not really a big issue to me. I am interested to know what other experiences/choices people have had with their placentas. So what have you done with yours?

Mother's Day

I quite enjoyed my day. I got a lovely breakfast in bed - pancakes with blueberries and yoghurt. Received a nice bunch of flowers. Went to church. Had a nice lunch at home. Enjoyed a nice afternoon rest. Went clothes shopping with Joanna. Had yummy dinner - cooked by Peter. Nothing complicated and pretty relaxed with no family to go visit.

Back to the gym...

I went to the gym and actually exercised today, for the first time in 6 weeks. Dealing with morning sickness and extreme tiredness means that for the past 6 weeks I have been dropping off the kids at the gym and then coming home again to rest for the duration of the session. But I'm starting to feel a bit more normal again and don't feel any worse tonight. I only did about 45 minutes of very slow cross trainer/recumbent bike - I didn't want to go too hard, just ease back into it.