Our Happy Little Vegemites

 Not only is Little Miss Penelope 6 and a half months old, it's already almost February!!! School goes back on Monday and while I am glad cause summer holidays are long, these ones have not left me anywhere near as frazzled as they normally do. I think it's because I've been just so busy! Along with all the other stuff that happens around here, we've been painting the kitchen. Our amazing landlords have yet to say no to anything we've asked of them. They installed a new aerial for us, let us put a ginormous wall mount up for the tv, had pest control people around even though I don't think we've had any pests! They installed a new garage door, send the lawnmower man around every three weeks to do the lawns, sent handymen around to replace the clothes line, fix electrical outlets, change and fix taps, they re-tiled part of the bathroom and repainted after it leaked at the very start of our tenancy and probably more stuff that I'm forgetting. In shor...

It's been a little while since I posted on here so to make up for it you get to see Penelope in action! I'll have a few videos of the Little Miss later in the post so you can see her giggle and play. So on to what's been happening around here the last week or so: well.....last night was a momentous occasion! Or should I say this morning? Little Miss Penelope slept all night for the very first time!!! Yep, that's right. I got a full 7 hours sleep in a row for the first time in over 6 months! I did wake around 5:30am and peered over into her cot from my bed. I could see her starting to stir a little so I closed my eyes and went back to blissful slumber and the next thing I knew it was 6:30am and she was happily talking to herself, wide awake and smiling. She was happy to have big cuddles with her brother when he got up. It was very exciting, so excuse me while I relish in the moment of what a full nights' sleep actually feels like! The Eldest One has ta...

Ok, so maybe it's my inner Hippie talking, or maybe it's the fact that I have 5 kids and it's annoying as all hell to have to spend so much money on something that essentially gets washed down the drain. Or maybe it's because at least two of the five are allergic to a number of regular detergents so it makes me wonder what on earth goes into them? Or maybe it's a bit of all those reasons. Regardless of the reasons, when Little Miss Penelope was a couple of weeks old we made our first batch of homemade laundry detergent and we haven't looked back! The ingredients are easy to find and don't cost much. You'll get them at your local supermarket, although we got the Borax at Bunnings (which is a big hardware store). They also have the advantage that one set of ingredients will do for around a year's worth of detergent. You'll need: Borax Washing Soda - (apparently this is not something that is readily available everywhere like it is here. You...

She's just turned 6 months old and Little Miss Penelope is already on the move! Well...kind of anyway! A couple of weeks before Christmas she started rolling over both ways, and at the same time she started spinning herself around in circles on the floor. It was quite comical to watch. She actually scooted herself around on her back so she could touch the presents under the Christmas tree!   Then 5 days before Christmas she sat up by herself for the first time! She was wobbly and only lasted a few seconds but the joy on her little face was priceless! She keeps practicing her exciting new skills (along with eating her own feet) and she can sit up much better now and is so close to crawling! She has also decided she loves 'real' food and she loves making a mess with it too.  These photos were from the first day she sat up by herself for longer than a couple of seconds; the looks on her face were awesome! She was getting so excited at not ...