Budding photographer?

Today Ethan received a certificate at his school assembly. The award was for “Phenomenal Photography“.

For the last couple of days, Ethan’s teacher has been letting the kids have turns with their classroom’s very own digital camera. She has been giving them 5-10 minutes each to wander around outside, snapping as many photos as they can of “interesting” things.

At this stage, the kids are learning about the camera settings. It’s just a little point-and-shoot, but they know to use the “macro” setting, and they know how to use the zoom.

They haven’t even started learning about photo composition yet. But Ethan’s teacher was extremely impressed with the pictures he took yesterday. I gave her a blank CD this morning and she very kindly copied them all for me. Here’s a sample:

The first one, showing Ethan & a classmate looking down the drain through the grate, was his teacher’s absolute favourite. She wants to get it printed to display at the upcoming school art exhibition.
Personally? I want to enlarge it, print it, frame it, and hang it on my living room wall. I think it ROCKS. I love how you can see the rippling water, and the kids’ reflection. I also love how that part of the photo is in focus, and the top of the grate is blurry.

Ethan appears to have a good eye when it comes to photo composition. Notice how he gets in really close (so important!), and takes a photo of the object slightly off-centre (a very good photography trick). His photos are clear & sharp. He hasn’t been taught any of this stuff, it obviously just comes naturally to him. He’s also chosen some really interesting stuff to photograph – everyday things you normally wouldn’t notice.

I’m ashamed to say that I have never given Ethan my camera to play with. It never even crossed my mind; I had NO IDEA he was talented (or even interested!) in this area, but he obviously is.

Do you agree? Or am I biased? I don’t care if I am biased; I’m very proud of him!

Nevertheless, if his interest in photography continues, Santa may very well be bringing him a little digital camera of his own.

Snow Trip, Take 2

It’s been 2 weeks, which means our snow trip is ON this weekend! The boys have been sooo good about waiting it out, and now they are starting to get really excited again.

To make things even better, the weather forecast for the coming weekend is AWESOME. Like, couldn’t be better. Fine & sunny, with very light winds. Throw in a 4-metre snow base (thanks to all the snow that fell 2 weeks ago when we had to postpone), and you have the makings for a FUN weekend.

The only downer is that Tyler is sick.
He seems to have picked up “that bug”. The one that’s been spreading like wildfire through almost every school & Kindergarten in the country. The one characterised by a runny nose, bad cough and a fever that won’t stay down. Only in Tyler’s case, there is a nasty ear infection added to the mix.
He had a bad night last night, and I started to get suspicious about his ears (given his history). I took him to the Dr this morning to get it checked out. Good thing I did, because he’s now started the anti-bugs and should be feeling a lot better by the time we head down to the mountain.

Now, I must remember to charge my camera battery. Oh, and delete some of the MANY wedding photos so I have room for lots of snow ones.

Wellington weekend

What a fabulous weekend!

A huge thanks to Beverley for picking Leah & I up from the airport on Friday, and giving us beds for the night (and thanks to Alexander for giving up his room).

Lauryn & Joel’s wedding was just lovely, and the weather was gorgeous.
It was wonderful being able to catch up with family & friends again. And to be able to do that without worrying about the boys was just what I needed. I was able to really relax. I enjoyed just sitting & chatting, something that doesn’t happen much when the boys are around! It was especially nice to spend lots of time with my parents & sister, just the 4 of us.

On board a London bus that Lauryn had organised as a surprise for Joel (who is English):

The happy couple:

The bridesmaids, Monica (Lauryn’s friend) and Ashleigh (Lauryn’s younger sister):

Our family. It was my parents’ 33rd wedding anniversary that day, which was pretty special:

The beautiful old homestead where the reception was held:

The cake (the theme was black & white):

After the wedding, we headed up to Greytown with Mum & Dad to stay with my Auntie & Uncle, my cousin Kaye and her little girl, Ella.

On Sunday morning, we visited a couple of the shops in Greytown (a scrapbooking shop - Crafter’s Heaven - and a chocolate shop - Schoc) before driving back into Wellington.

Once in town, I had lunch with my friend Tanya & her husband John, and finally got to meet their gorgeous little 4-month-old, Daniel. I stayed at their place for a couple of hours while Mum, Dad & Leah looked around the shops on Lambton Quay.

We spent some time with family in the afternoon, and then Mum & Dad dropped us off at the airport for our 6pm flight home.

Ethan & Tyler were VERY excited to see me at Auckland airport. They came running up to hug me, with huge smiles on their faces. There’s nothing like a warm welcome home.

Weight Watchers recipes

Several people have emailed me to ask how I manage to do Weight Watchers while cooking for my 3 boys.

Okay. I may be doing WW, but I still eat normal food. And I cook ONE meal for my family at dinner time.
Eating healthily doesn’t mean you have to eat grilled fish & salad every night – you CAN eat the same food as the rest of your family. Even just making small adjustments to the whole dish can reduce the fat content and make it “Weight Watchers friendly”.

I have a couple of great WW cookbooks. I also have a few other low-fat cookbooks written by an Australian lady called Annette Sym. The books are called “Symply Too Good”. There are 5 books; I have the first 3. All the nutritional information is provided for each recipe, so it’s very easy to calculate the POINTS.
I don’t always use recipes from these books, but when I do, nobody even notices! Honestly.

I’ve also had people ask me to share some WW recipes that are suitable for the whole family. Here are a few of my favourites:

Spinach, Sun-Dried Tomato & Feta Muffins

I love the combination of sun-dried tomato and feta. These muffins are really yummy warm, and make a great low-POINT lunch when served with salad or soup.

Makes 12 muffins – each muffin provides 3 POINTS

150g frozen chopped spinach, thawed
2 cups self-raising flour
1/2 cup plain flour
pinch cayenne pepper
2 eggs
1 1/4 cups buttermilk
100g reduced-fat margarine, melted
50g sun-dried tomatoes (not packed in oil), sliced
150g feta cheese, cubed

Squeeze excess moisture from the spinach.
Sift the flours into a large bowl and season with cayenne pepper. Beat together the spinach, eggs, buttermilk and margarine, and add to the flour.
Add the tomatoes and feta. Fold together gently until just combined. Spoon mixture into a 12-hole non-stick muffin tray (I use the silicon ones).
Bake at 200C for 25-30 minutes, until golden brown and risen. Leave in the tin for 5 minutes, then place on a wire rack to cool.

Shepherd’s Pie

There are plenty of vegetables in this dish, so you really only need to cook some broccoli or green beans to go with it.

Serves 4 – each serve provides 6.5 POINTS

1 onion, chopped
1 carrot, chopped (I usually use 2)
500g lean beef mince (I use lamb mince)
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 tablespoon plain flour
4 tomatoes, chopped
1/3 cup beef stock
2 tablespoons parsley, chopped
salt & pepper to taste
300g kumara (sweet potato), cut into chunks
2 medium size potatoes, cut into chunks
1/4 cup low-fat milk
20g reduced-fat margarine
1/4 cup reduced-fat cheese, grated

In a non-stick pan, cook the onion and carrot until soft. Add the mince and brown. Stir through the garlic and flour and cook for 1 minute.
Stir in the chopped tomatoes, stock and parsley. Simmer for 20 minutes and season with salt & pepper. Meanwhile, boil kumara and potatoes until tender.
Mash the kumara and potatoes, adding the milk and margaine. Spoon the meat mixture into a casserole dish. Spread the mashed kumara and potato on top. Sprinkle with cheese.
Bake at 180C for 30 minutes or until golden on top.

Chicken & Pesto Drumsticks

These are really yummy, and the kids particularly love them! Best of all, they are SO easy to make.

Serves 4 – each serve provides 5 POINTS

8 chicken drumsticks, skin removed
1/4 cup basil pesto
60g cornflake crumbs

Brush the chicken drumsticks with the pesto, then coat in the cornflake crumbs.
Place in a baking paper-lined oven dish. Bake at 190C for 35 minutes or until juices run clear.

Chicken Casserole with Cheesy Dumplings

This recipe is very filling, and tastes delicious. My boys love the cheese dumplings, they are like little muffins.

Serves 6 – each serve provides 6.5 POINTS

750g chicken breast, skin removed, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
800g can chopped tomatoes
130g tomato paste
1/4 cup dry red wine
1/3 cup fresh oregano, chopped
1/2 cup water
1 chicken stock cube, crumbled

Dumplings:
1 1/4 cups self-raising flour
30g reduced-fat margarine, chopped
3/4 cup low-fat milk
100g reduced-fat cheese, grated
1 tablespoon fresh oregano, chopped

Brown chicken in a non-stick pan. Remove from the pan.
To the same pan, add the onion and garlic. Cook for 2 minutes, then stir in the tomatoes, tomato paste, wine, oregano, water and stock cube. Bring to the boil then place in a large baking dish with the chicken.
Bake at 180C for 1 hour.
To make the dumplings, sift the flour into a bowl. Using fingers, rub in the margarine. Stir in milk, cheese and oregano.
Drop heaped spoonfuls of the dumpling mixture on top of the casserole.
Bake uncovered for a further 25 minutes or until dumplings are puffed and browned.

Next time I will share some recipes from the Symply Too Good cookbooks!

Just BE …

Sometimes I feel like my life is so busy that I don’t have time to just BE.

My work schedule is very flexible, and I am grateful to be able to work from home. But there is a down side. It means that work is ALWAYS THERE. I (literally) cannot “leave work at work”. Even if I’ve done my day’s quota, it’s tempting to sneak back into the office once the kids are in bed and do “just another hour”. Which easily turns into 2 hours. You know, just to get a head-start on the next day, in the hope that I’ll end up with a spare hour or 2 at the end of the week (which almost never happens).

Now I know my emotional well-being is very important, so I make sure that I have plenty of “me” time. Just last night, I enjoyed a fantastic evening out with my good friend Christi. We had dinner at the Indian resturant, then went to the movies. A great night! I’m lucky that I get plenty of time to chill out and relax, doing things like that.

But at the back of my mind, there is this constant nagging feeling that I have Something-Else-To-Do. Because I always do! Even just checking my emails before bed is a constant reminder of how much work is waiting for me the next day. I can’t escape. That’s just life. Normally it doesn’t really bother me, but sometimes it can feel a little draining.

Cue the Duvet Day.

This weekend my sister and I are flying down to Wellington for our cousin Lauryn’s wedding.
Rob & the boys are not coming. Mum & Dad are, but they are driving down because they are having a week’s holiday afterwards.
The lovely Beverley, who knows my cousin and will also be going to the wedding, has offered to pick Leah & I up from the airport and give us a bed on Friday night (we’ll stay with family in Greytown on Saturday night).

Anyway, I have a LOT of things to organise before I leave on Friday.
I have decided to take a Duvet Day tomorrow.

We are entitled to 3 per year. It’s not a sick day (because you’re not sick) and it’s not annual leave (because it’s not planned in advance).
It’s just an “I Don’t Feel Like Working” day.

I am SO looking forward to it. I have a list of errands I need to run, and I will try and pack for the weekend. But I am also going to watch Ethan run in his school Cross Country, have coffee with a friend who is over from England, then relax with a good book before picking the kids up from school and Kindy.

Ah, bliss!

WW: week 10

Well, I lost 1.4kg (3lb) this week. I’m very happy with that, especially after last week’s (small) gain.
So in 10 weeks, I have lost a total of 8.1kg (17.8lb).

BUT … even more exciting is that I have now officially lost 10% of my bodyweight!
So tonight I received my gold star charm, which will eventually hang on the key ring I receive when I reach my goal weight.

I also had to stand up front at the meeting and talk about how losing 8kg has changed me. I talked about the joy of dropping an entire dress size (but already, those “inbetween” clothes I talked about a few weeks ago are a bit loose!) and having fun trying on lots of clothes that were too small (or just really tight and uncomfortable) last summer.
I am really looking forward to my summer wardrobe.

The other thing I talked about was feeling less self-conscious at the pool on Saturday. We took the boys to the Wave Pool (to make up for not going to the snow). I hadn’t worn my swimsuit since I started WW, so when I got changed at the pool, I was shocked to find it was quite baggy! And instead of being uncomfortably tight around my waist, my boardshorts were hanging loosely on my hips. That really encouraged me to keep up the hard work!

I have just over 2kg to lose before I reach my “official” goal weight. But my own personal goal is about 5kg less than that. I’d really love to get there again … and hopefully stay there this time!

Snow = no go :-(

Due to reports like this and weather forecasts like this, we have decided to postpone our trip to the snow.

We had to make a decision last night, so we could cancel our accommodation booking without losing our money.
I first heard news of the inclement weather on Wednesday, and I have to say, it completely ruined my day.
I was FREAKING OUT about telling the boys we might not be able to go. But we want them to really enjoy themselves. Somehow, I don’t think “heavy showers, blizzard conditions, cold southwesterlies and severe gales” would serve that purpose very well.

My own memory of seeing snow for the first time is NOT a great one. The weather was awful; strong winds, heavy rain and sleet (not snow, sleet). Mum & Dad still took us up the mountain, since we’d come all that way. I remember sliding down the hill a couple of times, and then high-tailing it for the changing rooms to get out of my freezing cold & wet clothes. Not a lot of fun.

My kids have been sooooooo looking forward to this trip. Remember, Tyler has never seen real snow (Snow Planet doesn’t count!) and Ethan can’t remember going when he was a toddler. They have been literally counting down the days for the last month. Tyler often heads up to his bedroom and comes down wearing his thermals, snow jacket and gloves, asking “how long until the snow?” …

You can understand my anxiety about breaking the news to them, no?

Well, they WERE upset. But they took it a LOT better than I expected. A lot better than me, truth be told. I may (or may not) have cried and pounded my fists and shouted “BUT IT’S NOT FAIR!” on Wednesday.
Ahem.

But I am super proud of my boys and how well they handled such a HUGE disappointment.
Seriously, it is HUGE. We don’t live near the snow. It’s a 5-hour drive away. We don’t spend 3 months a year shovelling piles of white stuff from our driveways. Our school never closes for a “Snow Day”. Rob is a keen snowboarder, but doesn’t get down to the fields as much as he’d like. He LOVES winter, and he loves snow. Naturally, he is good at passing that enthusiasm on to the boys, who just can’t wait to experience it for themselves. They want to make snow angels and snowmen, and have snowball fights. Stuff that lots of kids get to do in their own backyards, whenever they want.
I guess we need to remember that we’ve got the beach in our backyard – and I know many people would love to be that close to the ocean.

Anyway, we have rescheduled our trip for the last weekend in August. Luckily, we managed to get accommodation at the same place.
Ethan stated (rather maturely) that 2 weeks is “not that long” to wait. I reminded him that 2 weeks is, in fact, FOURTEEN DAYS, and his response: “that’s okay, I don’t mind.”

Can I just say … sigh of relief?!

Olympic fever

I’m a big fan of the Olympic Games (and the Commonwealth Games, since NZ is part of the Commonwealth). I was excited last week about the 2008 games starting, because I was sure I could pass on some of my enthusiasm to the boys.

We recorded the Opening Ceremony on Friday night and watched it on Saturday. The kids were keen to watch the fireworks, but for some reason I just couldn’t get them excited about watching 200+ countries march into the stadium (my favourite part).

However, I think I’ve been successful when it comes to getting them interested in the actual events.
Okay, so Tyler is not interested at all, but that’s to be expected. After all, he’s only 3.
Ethan swings like a pendulum between (a) mild passing interest (ie. a sideways glance at the TV screen as he runs past, kicking a soccer ball or chasing his brother) and (b) complete & utter obsession.

We witnessed a display of that obsession on Sunday afternoon while at my parents’ place for lunch. The NZ women’s hockey team were playing their first match. The TV was on while we prepared the food, and Ethan started watching it. He was pretty put out that he had to stop for lunch, but as soon as he was done eating, it was straight back to his game.

Loud, passionate shouts of, “GO, GO, GO, New Zealand!!” and “OH NO!!” could be heard emanating from his armchair.

The child has never watched a game of hockey in his life before. But to observe him, you would have been forgiven for thinking he had come out of the womb clutching a hockey stick.

As the game progressed, the adults in the room began to get decidedly nervous. We were losing. And there simply wasn’t enough time to turn it around. Ethan, in his naivety, firmly believed that the Kiwi girls could score 3 goals in 10 minutes, thus winning the match. We braced ourselves for the aftermath.

And oh my word, it was a sight to behold.

Screaming. Crying. Wailing. Thrashing. And eventually, running down the hall and collapsing on the bed in a fit of sobbing.

It took a great deal of cajoling and convincing to calm him down, and reassure him that it wasn’t the end of the world. In fact, just reassuring him that it wasn’t the end of the Olympics was enough. For some reason, he had the idea that it was ALL OVER because of one game. Poor little guy!

Since then, he’s been interested in some of the events. He particularly loved the diving. I know he’ll really like watching the track & field events when they start, because he does athletics in the summer himself (and is a very fast runner, just quietly).

Who knows? Perhaps he will become a big fan like his mum after all!

WW: week 9

I had my weigh-in tonight, and I had my first gain. Yep, I gained 100g.

Those 4 slices of cake really DID catch up with me!

Although I’m bummed about it, I am not depressed enough to reach for the chocolate. This shows that I am actually learning something! Okay, so I may not be all the way there yet, but I know I am already much better at controlling my emotional eating.
Yes I had a gain, but goshdarnit, I’m determined to find the positive in that!

Besides, I know that if I tighten the reins a little this week, keep an eye on my portion size, and do a bit more exercise, I will have a better result on the scales next week.

The past week has been a bit of a blur, actually. I can barely remember getting through each day, let alone what I ate! I was crazy-busy, and a few crappy things happened. Some stuff I couldn’t control. I also had PMS. Joy!! I didn’t blog much, but I really didn’t have anything decent (or positive) to say. To be honest, I’ve felt pretty “blah”. But considering we have our much-anticipated trip to the snow this coming weekend, I think the smile just might be coming back to my face.
And it feels good.

More than words

Ethan, your words have lifted me up today:

“I love you, Mummy … I just wouldn’t have anything else that’s better than you.”

Buddy, you don’t know how much I needed to hear them.

I love that you can sense when I’m feeling a bit low. You are sensitive and caring, perceptive beyond your years.

I hope I don’t rely on you too much (I don’t think I do). But I just love the way you can make me smile when I’m feeling sad.

They are words. And yet they are SO much more.