Maybe I'm just not good enough.....

My kids are respectively 3 years and 3 months old. My life have barely started with them but I've already gone through many days thinking myself as a lousy mother.People often say that it gets easier with each additional kids. I just hope they are talking about it in the long term sense.....

Centenary Rocks Festival'09

The girls with their fav baby animals

Just this past Saturday, there was a festival held at a park, River Rocks park, which is just 5 mins drive away from us. In the brochure that we received in our mailbox, there was supposedly to have free hotair balloon rides for everyone, live music, community and food stalls, African fireshow and fireworks at the end of the night.


Since we had nothing better to do with our time, we drove down to check this annual festival out. Tash and I were pleasantly surprised to find a baby animal petting area which admission was free. We spent practically a whole hour there with my SILs petting 3 weeks old lamb, chooks, ducks and piglets. I managed to catch hold of one of the 2 piglets which was so tough to get hold of as they often try to stuggle and jump out of anyone's reach. The piglet that I held was so worked up that it kept squealing the whole time I had it in my arms. It made Tash so upset that she kept insisting that I "put piggy down now!"

Me trying to calm the distressed piggy....

....which didn't really do much

Haha! Managed to snap a cute shot of the two escapees together

Moving from the petting farm, there were not really much that appeal since the rides cost money and none of the market stalls have any interesting things at all. In the end, we found ourselves just relaxing on the lush green field by the river on a nice clear day listening to live music that ranged from soft rock to celtic folk.

P.S judging from my pics, you prob have gathered that we enjoyed the petting farm most.....=p

Picnic Brunch at the Roma St Parklands

We had wholemeal spelt pancakes which we had in a variety of ways i.e lemon sugar, maple syrup with fresh strawberries, Nutella with strawberries etc....

Josh had lots of fun cooking these pancakes on the hotplates. Guess its something different from the usual steak or snags (sausages). We were practically starving by the time all the pancakes were cooked since it took a while to drive into the city, setting everything up and then getting the pancakes cooked. But boy, its well worth the wait. I can't wait to have another picnic brunch. Its so much better than eating greasy meat stuff.

As you can see, we like our pancakes done in different ways. Josh loves strawberries with his but Tash would just eat her berries first then her pancake (which is always smothered in butter) on its own. After our brunch, we took a walk around the parklands which showcased some really gorgeous flowers. What I love about the weather in Brissy is that be it winter or summer, there always is something beautiful in bloom.




These are known as Kangeroo claws. Interesting huh?

And thats Tashy being "coy" with the camera.....

Happenings in Jul

Yup, the 2 birthday gurlies chose to throw a 60's theme bdae party with the youth group. And what more, we all get to shop at St Vinnes (aka Salvation Army) and wear grandma's clothes! It was good fun though. =)

Before I neglect my bloggy again, let me put up some pics about what we had been up to for this month...........

My cute hubby with his all too tight shirt and jeans.

The kids had lots of fun dancing (sixties style *cringe* =P) to lots of 60's music throught the night.

As usual, Beck came as a hippie.....

On another occasion,

We had tea at Becky and Justin's place (the newlyweds) one Sat and we had so much fun making DIY sushi and catching up with each other.

Lydia Coleborne made a real yum strabwerry mousse for Tashy (and the adults, a port flavoured chocolate mousse) which definitely was the highlight of the evening for her (as u can see here).

More pics to come when I get back from work tonight. =) Ciaoz...

Another Grubby Grub

Yes, we are going to have another bub joining our growing brood! I'm sure some of you had gathered it from another blog, facebook .......So how are we feeling? More excited than we were when we were expecting Tashy. Guess we, being more experienced parents, know what to expect and are more relax this time around. And even though we got around to seeing the doc earlier this time, we only done our very first ultrasound on this baby just this week (way past the first scan which was supposed to be done in the 12th week). The main reason of us seeing the doc earlier this time is so that I can apply to be in the balloting system to get amongst hundreds of women who would like to get into the only Birth centre (run by midwives only) in Brissy.

So why is this Birth centre so popular? Firstly, this place fully encourages any mother to have her baby in the most natural way possible without any medical intervention. Secondly, there is a wide range of natural pain relief options avaliable such as the hot tube, the birthing ball, the birthing stool, hot showers etc. Thirdly, instead of seeing a gynaecologist, the mothers get to know a group of midwives during the pregnancy and would have a midwife from the group assisting during the labour. Fourthly, the mother get to have a whole room where she would be able to labour and then stay for the next 24 hours after she had her baby all to herself. She can have her family to sleep the night with her (either on the queen size bed provided or a sofa coach nearby), have visitors any time etc. Fiftly, amongst the hundreds that balloted for the opportunity to get into the Birthing Centre, only 40 women are chosen for each month. And I do thank God for providing me with a spot. Last but not least, being in Australia which is a social welfare country, all the services provided by the Birthing centre is absolutely freee!!!!

Of course, women that did not get their spot at the Birthing Centre will go into the public system which I have heard quite a few good reviews about. So no one is left out at all.

Enough said of this birthing stuff, from the scan, this grub is about 19 weeks along. Everything seems good with he/her. No, we didn't find out the gender. Just so to keep it as a surprise for us at the very end. Interestingly, the sonographer reckons that from all the asian babies she had scanned, this bub look nothing like an asian baby at all. Guess we might be getting another Higgs baby again. Or maybe not......................we'll see.....................

Lake Moogerah bootcamp day

Lake Moogerah

For a family day out, we drove westward to Lake Moogerah for a nice picnic (which Tashy was more excited about than us) and to spend most of the avro at a Christian netball camp organized for girls age 8-12 years by a lady from our church.

Very happy to be having a picnic with mum and dad

We had a roasted chicken, rocket and spinach leaves, boccocini and strawberry wrap for lunch. Yum!

Josh was actually invited to run five 20minutes bootcamp as an elective for these girl on their first day of camp. And in that short 20mins, he managed to that strict army guy making the girls run up and down the field, doing push ups, sit ups, lunges etc.

My dashing militant husband

It was interesting to watch how comfortable he is with these girls and his casual interaction with them before and after the session. Most guys his age would probably be a bit overwhelmed having giggly shrieking girls like everywhere. And what more spend 2 hours of his afternoon with them. Guess growing up with 7 girls did make a big difference.

Believe me, the girls started laughing as they ran along


but towards the end of the session, none had the energy to even talk!

Tashy did enjoy doing bootcamp with daddy too for at least the first session of it.


She was running with the girls and imitating Josh doing all the different exercises.

It worn her out so much so that she was knocked out as soon as she got to her car seat!

hee heee.....

Yes yes, faithful readers. I have once again horribly neglected this blog. Its just seems like big things comes one after another without much of a break in between. My mum came for a one and a half week visit at the start of June followed by my sis and a fren from church. And its only today that we had the house to ourselves again with my sis leaving for Perth for another 8 days to complete her month long Aussie holiday.

Anyways, its always nice to have family with us as it always give me the excuse to be on vacation too. And of cos, the state of my house somehow suffer quite reasonably with household chores taking a backseat. With everyone gone, life IS really back to normal.

Aside from my life from last month, I realised its been a while since I posted something that I made since the wedding.



Celebrated Katie (SIL #3) and Ellie (cousin-in-law)'s 18th birthday at JC Slaghter Falls today for lunch with the extended family. It was a great day with clear skies, woodfire barbarque burning, lush green grass to sit on and of course wonderful Christian fellowship. As part of our prezzie to them, I made a Strawberry Charlotte.
It was made up of a vanilla genoise, fresh sliced strawberries and a thick layer of strawberry mousse and Kahlua soaked sponge fingers. I enjoyed making this cake especially when my kitchen gets to smell like a strawberry farm and also for a change, no much baking was involved. Everyone loved it so much that the whole cake was gone in 5 minutes.


Personally, the strawberry mousse went really well with the genoise and sponge fingers giving a different dimension of taste and texture. The geniose was light and fluffy and complement the strawberry mousse which was bursting of strawberry flavour (of cos) and was just sweet enough that the savory people even gave it a thumbs up. The only thing I felt I can improve on is prob to soak the geniose in Kahlua to make this a more grown-up dessert/cake.

I love strawberry season......

While J was away for another army weekend training.......

To celebrate J's birthday (without him), we spent 5 hours shopping at Indooroopilly,the nearest biggest shopping centre to our suburb! When we first got there, Tashy asked for something to eat. So we sat down and had a light sushi lunch. As Tashy puts it," One for mummy and one for Tashy!" Once our little tummies were filled, we head off the check out the stores. Our first stop was at Mr Toyworld which (of cos) was T's fav. I have to say how impressed I am with her that she left the store with no tantrum or what so ever when I was ready to leave after 10minutes. Thank God that she does have a strict father who had nurtured her really well.

After checking out a few store, we snuggled on a big cushy chair together and sipped on our soy hot choc and baby chino as we chatted and watched the world go on around us. With the last drop of baby chino gone, we were up on the go with the next stop at Riot, an art and craft store. I spent a good 45 minutes looking for the perfect scrap booking paper to put together a small birthday album for Josh while T played on her own at a nearby felt board with little felt cut-outs. She played so beautifully just talking and amusing herself with random stuff that she made up.

And wherever there's a pet store, you can count on us to be there. There were a few Goodles (golden retriever cross poodles), Spoodles (cocker spaniel cross poodles) and Maltese. Hmmm....wonder whats with the fascination of cross breeding poodles? Well, those pups that were there yesterday were really cute with their curly fur. But definitely won't be my first dog choice. Anyways, we still spent a good 10 minutes gawking at those puppies. To conclude our entire trip, we got a kid size "All Berry Bang" boost juice and shared it on the way down to the train station. Oh yes.....and while we were walking home, I showed Tashy my dream house which happened to be along the walk home from the train station.

I must say that I really enjoyed spending time just hanging out with T. Though she is all but 2 years of age, I love the connection that we share, the things that she says that only I can understand, and all the simple acts that she does just to show her love. My most favorite moment on Sat have to be us snuggling onto the couch, sipping our fav hot drink and just thinking of what to get J for his bday. I still can't believe that my little angel is growing up so fast and I have to say its nothing but God's grace who had kept her and made her into such a special little girl.

To the most special girl in my heart......

xoxoxooxoxoxo,

mummy.....