Out and About

A lot of August was spent out and about so here are some of our adventures over the last month.

Sunshine Beach

Matt was working about an hour north on the Sunshine Coast and staying the night on sight. One of those days Sakura and I met Matt for lunch and spend the afternoon on Sunshine Beach. On my walk back to the car she fell deep asleep.

Ekka Show

Ekka is Queensland's major agricultural show (like a state fair). We got there in the afternoon so we didn't see many displays but we did see the racing and diving pigs, some of the impressive produce displays, and I think the best fireworks display I've ever seen. Sakura slept through the first set, but was awake and watching for the big display at the end of the night.

 

Trivia Night

I was informed of a local trivia night to support Australian Midwives through my meeting up with the Parent Peer Mentor Group (PIPPS). It was pretty fun and Sakura was amazing! We were part of the "Hatinators" group where everyone wore a hat or fascinator. We didn't win the games or the raffles but we met some interesting people and Sakura had a lot of fun snacking on things.

Redcliffe Lagoon

Although it is still winter I wanted to take Sakura swimming so we went to the nearby Settlement Cove Lagoon. The water wasn't as warm as I had hoped but Sakura loved it anyway. Her favourite part was watching other kids play in the water.

Bee Gees Way in Redcliffe

Kite Fest

A big event we attended was the Kite Fest that happens on the coast every year in Redcliffe. It was nice and windy so there wasn't too much of an issue flying the massive kites. They had synchronised kite flying to music, a public kite flying area, lots of food trucks and fun areas for the whole family. They even had some circus acrobat equipment. We didn't feel like staying for the glow in the dark kites and fireworks, but we had a good time.

We bought a sun hat that fits finally!

Sewing Fails

I haven't sewn much lately but I did try a couple of small projects while Sakura was at childcare. I made a small scotty dog to be a door opener for the baby gate (currently when we want it open we use Matt's shoes). It did not work because it was too small. The next one I made was an owl which seemed easier. It is big enough and heavy enough, but ugly! I made it with button eyes like the example but that looked worse so I pulled them off and drew eyes on. Oh well. I got to help out with a youth activity sewing covers for their camp seats so I redeemed my previous fails with this small act of sewing service.


Udemy Courses

I have been spending a lot of my spare time doing a life coaching certification course and a Microsoft Excel course through Udemy. Both have been awesome! The Excel course has so many useful tips that I felt silly hearing about features that could have saved me hours with previous projects like doing my Master's research or when I created spreadsheets for my last job. My knowledge of Excel is actually quite outdated. I've decided for things you want to learn that you don't need a degree for and you want more structure than Youtube videos, Udemy is the best and cheapest way to go. Many of their courses go on sale for $15.

Church Changes

Our ward boundaries changed and so there are quite a few new faces at church. We had sandwiches after church on Sunday after the change and I was happy that everyone liked my gluten and dairy free chicken salad sandwiches. Many didn't even notice they were gluten and dairy free. My big surprise was our YSA class. As most of our previous YSA was in one family that moved to a new ward I wasn't sure we would have anyone. Instead we have 10-12 young single adults attend every week! We hosted a games night at our house and had lots of fun getting to know them a little better. I can at least remember the names of about five of them.

Paleo Recipes

A lot of my time also goes towards trying out new paleo recipes. I have had quite a few successes over the last month and have finally found some I really like! (Keep in mind we are not 100% Paleo as Matt refuses to give up potatoes and we still eat rice and things with rice flour)

Chicken Salad with Sweet Potato, Kale and Spinach
and a homemade lemon poppyseed dressing

 - Turkey & Sage Meatballs

- Vegan Alfredo

- Zuppa Toscana (used gluten/dairy free replacements)

Breakfast Casserole

- Chicken Enchiladas w/ Zucchini (I cheated and used the Old El Paso enchilada sauce)

- Zucchini Fritters (This was just so I could use up some Zucchini before it went bad)

Zucchini Fritters

- Pumpkin Donut Holes  (Favourite recipe for the month! These are SO addicting and great to share as it makes a lot)

- Double Chocolate Brownies - I have tried 3 different brownie recipes and this is by far the best!

- Apple Bread

Apple Pie Bars 

Budget Date Night

Matt and I did our monthly date night for August and it went much better than last time. Since the following Sunday was father's day we ate out at Kamikaze which is a teppanyaki place, but matt wanted to try the ramen. We found a nice place to sit and go over the budget and then had gelato afterwards. It's been a while since I had gluten or dairy so I was glad I didn't feel sick afterwards. The trick to a good budget date night seems to be to get out of the house to do it and to eat yummy food.

Father's Day

For Matt's first official father's day we mostly ate lots of unhealthy food. I don't think he was complaining about it though. What really made it special was I saved Sakura's homemade gift she made at daycare for Sunday. He liked it so much he taped it to the wall (which is saying something). He also fixed our broken Nutribullet and we watched the Cokeville Miracle (I highly recommend it) so it was a pretty good day.

Feeling Good with Jennis

My friend Jennis agreed to do a long-term mental health plan with me. We read David Burns The Feeling Good Handbook each week and then meet up to discuss the exercises. I have struggled to follow through with this in the past and needed an accountability partner. I'm so glad Jennis was willing to help! It has been great because I can tell I am already getting better at paying attention to my negative thoughts and I can discuss things with Jennis to get a different perspective or ideas. Sakura likes that she can hang out with Jackson while Jennis and I talk.

Sakura Updates

Ten months old stands and walks with assistance! One day she just was more happy to stand then sit so I gave her the stroller to walk around and she enjoyed going across the room multiple times. I think she will be walking by my next post. Her enthusiasm with food has increased and she can spend an hour happily munching on fruit, rice husks, vegetables, or anything I give her. I usually just give her a little of what I am eating at meal time so I can eat in peace. Her favourites are strawberry coconut yoghurt, rice husks, and green apples. She also likes to drink water out of a cup and if I try to drink while holding her she tries to take the cup from me. 

 We had some fun playgroups, visits, and new parks this last

Mum's group

month!

Playgroup at Lollipops

Talking to Granma while eating

Aurora Blvd Park

We had lots our first visit to the library! The library lets you borrow toys as well as books and they have awesome baby friendly activities like baby rhyme time, playgroup, and story time. We borrowed some books and toys and will definitely be attending some activities in the future!

North Lakes Library

Shade Updates

How's Shade you wonder? Don't worry he has had fun this last month too. He has caught and eaten a couple of small Huntsman spiders, some bug I don't know what it was, and had some fun with a gecko. I rescued the gecko although it didn't get to keep its tail. I saw it outside a couple of days ago so I know it is doing well.

Shade is AMAZING with Sakura and lets her push him around. Sometimes he seems to even like it and will often play hide and seek with her when she chases him. When she cries sometimes he comes and sniffs her face. I couldn't have asked for a more amazing cat.

Steptember

For September some friends joined Matt and I to do Steptember where you aim to get 10,000 steps a day to help raise money (donate here) for those suffering with Cerebral Palsy. This has been great so far! I am back to doing my workouts with Sakura and I walk her to and from childcare. I also have been trying to visit new places and parks with Sakura and I have lots of opportunities for doing extra walks. We'll see if I can still stay strong when Pathways starts again in a week or so. I do not look forward to doing homework again.

 

A New Paleo and Financially Smart Lifestyle

July was a great month with amazing weather and lots going on. I finally got over being sick and could focus on other things. I started a mostly paleo diet where we avoided all gluten, dairy, and refined sugar. Additionally, I spent the month preparing taxes, working out our personal budget, and other related financial things. This is the start of a whole new lifestyle for us.

Paleo Diet

Paleo Blueberry Muffins and a Smoothie

Homemade Ramen - Paleo style and yes Matt made his own broth

For the most part we try to have a paleo diet which includes meat fish, vegetables, and fruits. We just have to avoid all 

gluten, dairy, and processed foods like refined sugars. We will eventually work our way to avoid the grains like rice and legumes. I had to advise childcare Sakura is not allowed to have any gluten and dairy (she gets really bad reactions on her bum if she has any). As we attended activities I had to either make something I could eat to take or refrain from any items that didn’t fit within my diet. I HATE being that person with special dietary needs. I went to lunch with a friend and I picked a place that had gluten and dairy free options, but they didn’t have much I wanted. In the end I ordered a plate and had them remove or replace the gluten and dairy. They had to come back and tell me the lamb had gluten in it, but at this point I figured it was a very small amount and got it anyway. This will be difficult to get used to. On the bright side I have had a lot of success with meal planning and finding some good paleo meals, snacks, and desserts that we like. Here are some favourites (ask me if you want more):

Beef Stew (I don’t follow the recipe exactly)

Cashew Chicken

Cauliflower Wings

Lemon Chicken

Granola Bars

Paleo 7 Layer Bars

Almond Butter Cookies

Paleo apple crisp for the 4th of July

Budgeting

I finished reading The Barefoot Investor by Scott Pape for the second time as part of my Pathways math class. The class really helped me realise that I need to get much better at budgeting. I scheduled a budget date night with Matt for the end of July. I organised someone to babysit too so we could really focus. Next, I started organising our finances, tried different software that would categorise transactions, tried different excel templates for budgeting, and worked out how much we were spending. It took a long time, but I finally found the tools I was looking for to build the budget the way I wanted it. I am planning on doing a short excel course as well to learn macros and pivot tables to make my budget spreadsheet even less manual.

There wasn’t anything revelatory in our budget, but for the first time in ages I finally had the correct amount of how much we spend including our annual, quarterly, and other variable expenses. It made it clear why we struggle to pay off debts. We have so little excess, and when we do have excess we spend it on things because it isn’t allocated anywhere. I realised that had we been working harder at budgeting we would likely have some of our debts paid off already. I’m not going to go into a lot of detail, but suffice it to say that I realised where our main financial issues are and have a plan to improve them.

Sakura’s Immunisation

I started to consider immunising Sakura again because we are going to the US in October and I worried about international travel, and I got a notice that we will get reduced family tax benefits if she is not immunised by September 2^nd, and of course cheaper childcare costs mean I would be able to put her in childcare more than once a week. This is such a HARD decision to make! We decided that the best way to feel confident and calm about our decision was to pray and fast about it. I didn’t fast since I am breastfeeding, but Matt did. The night before I felt like my conversation with my Heavenly Father went like this:

Why do you want to vaccinate her?

Me: So she won’t get any deadly diseases, cheaper childcare, greater family tax benefit, and it would be so much easier.

Are you REALLY worried about her getting sick?

Well….. not really. In fact, I feel she is probably better off in the long run without the vaccinations.

Is vaccinating her for YOUR financial desires and convenience a good enough reason?

               No, I guess not.

I felt so strongly that Sakura was going to be fine WITHOUT the vaccinations and that it would be better to trust the Lord to help me with the other financial concerns. I didn’t tell Matt this and waited the next day till he finished fasting to discuss it. He felt the exact same! His words were something like “vaccinating her because of money is a piss-poor reason.” What was amazing about this was we were UNITED! This time I don’t feel like I need to question it again. Perhaps if we are going to a third world country or something, but I trust that if there is any reason to question it again the Lord will help me know. Finally, I am at peace with this. Please know that I am not trying to say no one should vaccinate, but for our family and the autoimmune conditions our kids will have – we feel it is best not to vaccinate. I don’t have any concrete reasons, nor do I need any, because I am not trying to counsel anyone else and I already have my own answer.

July Events

We had some fun events occur this last month. We had a stake ball that was Gatsby themed. Last time Matt wasn't feeling well so I went by myself. This time we could go together and Sakura loved the music and dancing. She eventually got really tired and one of the YSA watched her for me so I could enjoy the party for a bit. 

Later we had our Christmas in July party with the YSA. I made my first ever honey baked ham (paleo style of course)! It wasn’t spiralised, nor as good as the store-bought ones in the U.S., but I was proud of the results. I had to go to an actual meat factory to buy a big enough ham. The food and activities were great, and I think everyone had a great time.

The following day was the farewell for Xen-Xen Alambra. I will miss her in Pathways, at YSA activities and class, working on sewing projects together, and having her over to watch Sakura. I’m glad I was able to spend a lot of time helping her prepare for her mission and get all the necessary items. I’ve already heard she is doing well in the Philippines MTC and it sounds like her district has lots of laughs.

There was an awesome relief society activity that I attended where we had a presentation with a psychologist and then a short yoga session. I spoke to the psychologist afterwards about my future goals of being a psychologist. She helped confirm for me that getting the Doctorate degree would still suit what I want best and that there are scholarships available for those degrees. So, I just need to get enough money to do the 4^th year research degree (around $9000 I think) and then I can look for scholarships. This is still what I want to do, but I am hoping I can find the money and time to do it. This woman does walk and talk therapy where they go walking around nature while doing therapy. I thought that was such a great idea! The yoga was also helpful as we spent the majority of the time on breathing. I’ve done lots of yoga before, but never had so much focus on just breathing. I found that the breathing exercises were really helping me to feel relaxed, calm, and centered within. I have been trying to end each night with breathing exercises to help me sleep.

Sakura’s childcare also had a festival of lights that Matt and I went to. It was neat how they decorated the different rooms with lights and activities for the kids. They also had different art projects that all the kids had done for the activity displayed. We couldn’t find Sakura’s lantern, but we did find her painting. I can’t imagine so much work would be worth the effort. I’m glad they did it though and I look forward to other events they have in the future.

One Sunday Matt and I found out about an interfaith meeting that was being hosted at our chapel. We decided to attend. The Sikh, Bahai, Judaism, and Mormon religions all gave a presentation on their sacred scriptures. It was so fascinating! I have never heard of the Bahai faith and didn’t know anything about the Sikh religion. To my surprise the Judaism presentation was just as foreign and I thought I knew more about them. The Sikh faith pointed out that for them their scripture is considered and treated as a living human being. I won’t go into details and give incorrect information about them, but you could read more here.

I have made a goal to spend more time going places with Sakura and so I have taken her to quite a few parks lately. To my surprise, Sakura LOVES sand. The childcare people have told me she loves the outdoors and they always make sure they have lots of outside time when she is there. She has definitely enjoyed the times at the park with me so I will try to continue to make that part of my routine. There is a disc golf course at Pine Rivers Park so I could try doing that once a week as well.

This last week Matt and I were able to go rock climbing with the youth and it made me miss going every week. I still don’t know how people balance kids with these other activities. We will have to keep trying new things.

Yesterday we went and picked strawberries at the Strawberry Fields. It took some time to find really good ones. It’s not actually cheaper than store bought, but it is fun to choose and pick your own. We made homemade jam but due to the lack of real sugar and pectin, Matt isn’t satisfied with it. It’s good enough for me and we have this awesome crusty bread mix that makes the perfect scone like bread to go with it! That same company, Well & Good, also makes an all-purpose cake mix and I made apple cinnamon muffins with it this weekend as well. Together with acai bowls for lunch with our fresh picked strawberries we have been eating well despite our gluten and dairy free needs.

Apple Cinnamon Muffins

Sakura Update

Sakura is now 9 months old, weighs 8.7kg, has two teeth on the bottom, one on top, and another coming in on top. She only gets good naps in the car while I’m out driving places, and night time sleeps she rarely lasts more than three hours before waking up crying. Lately my patience has been spent and I literally just turned the monitor off when I tried for over an hour to get her to calm down. Although I don’t like the method, after a couple of nights she seems to have improved and settle herself more. This could be because her tooth finally came out though, so I have low expectations. 

 For now she is still primarily breastfed, but she now enjoys solids and will eat any food you give her. She loves everyone and is getting quite mobile. Matt predicts she will be walking by the end of the month. She climbs onto everything and can’t be left unsupervised while I go to the toilet anymore. While teething she has been extremely clingy so my back is suffering from constantly picking her up. At the end of the day I still think she is adorable and am amazed at how much love I feel for her. I don’t love being a mom yet, but maybe there will come a time where I feel more fulfillment from the mom part than from other things.