Saturday, November 14, 2009

Well, we've got past the first week here in whiney fairy land and Alice is fitting in well. She's a seemingly contented baby, has taught me that she does NOT like mustard in her breastmilk (hey, I never knew!), and aside from that we've just had to start re-assuring her that the difference between day and night is that mum really likes to sleep at night! I think it's true what they say about mum's with more than one baby, because I am soooo much more relaxed this time than I was with Ethan.

We've been doing super-well with the stay at home challenge (as I now am calling it!). I am determined to get as close to pay day as possible without entering a supermarket or store (but the store part fell apart yesterday, as we had a birthday party and I forgot to pre-buy a present unfortunately). We've run out of fresh milk, but I just made up a load of powdered for myself and the uht is still going strong for the gentlemen of the house. We're having a couple friends around today, and I've even managed to not have to go out for them to be catered for too. I was having a mild panic attack this morning, because I 'always do potato salad' for our bbq's and thought I'd best run off to the market for the ingredients. Then I floated the option to my partner that we have coleslaw and pasta salad instead. "Yeah, sounds good" came the reply - well, good compared to going to the market I think!!!

So we've been becoming the masters of 'making do' this week. We have not done much other than have a couple of visitors, leaving the house only when necessary (trying to make our fuel last for two weeks instead of one is a huuuuge challenge for us, but luckily there's a lot of home-based entertainment: more on that in a moment) and have pretty much left the bank balance alone. Last pay I got a bit excited and paid too much off our debt, leaving us with very little in our actual spending account. Silly move! I usually wait to put the excess on until the end of the pay cycle, but for some reason (can I blame enthusiasm and pregnancy brain?) I sent our excess off to the bank at the beginning of the pay cycle, and that's why we're really watching our money. I don't think we'd be behaving any differently than we would have anyway, but it's really bought home how much difference there is between what we think we need when we have got spare money and what we actually really need when we don't.

Ethan is still doing really well, and despite our 'house-boundedness' we've kept our little adventurer happy and healthy. Yesterday we made delish Zucchini and Orange Cake from Womens Weekly's "Creative Cooking on a Budget" (also known as my Favourite Cookbook of All Time), and that will see us entertain our morning visitors, with maybe even a bit for afternoon tea after our bbq lunch. I like to think that in his future Ethan will make a great cook, because he's always encouraged to help me in the kitchen - so far he's learned many things that I won't go in to, but suffice to say he'll sit on the floor with me and find recipes in our cookbooks and natter away about 'what we gunna make' quite a lot. I love it. We've also put together some fantastic playdough from my friend Kristi's recipe. She makes a cooked playdough, and it can't be beat!

Kristi's Playdough....
Add 1 cup plain flour, 1/2 cup salt, 2 tablespoons of cream of tartar, 1 cup water, 2 tablespoons oil and some food colouring (but only a few drops!). Throw it all in the saucepan, over a low heat and stir, stir, stir, until the mix resembles playdough. Turn it out on to a hard surface once it's cooled a little and then give it a knead. Leave until completely cool and then let the kiddies have loads of fun!

So that's the relatively relaxing pace to our week this week. We'll have things to do this week, more visitors and some adventures to plan (zoo visit this week, as Ethan has decided he "needs to show baby sissa the efalents" so we've arranged a free pass and I'll pack the lunch). Aside from that, we're hoping to make it another 5 days at least until the next big grocery shop....Fingers crossed for me!!!

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