Pink meal

I made pink pasta a couple of days ago... just because I can and I thought it's be fun. All I did was boil some beetroot, mash it then add it to my pasta dough (and take out one egg). Tahi loved it and helped with the rolling of the pasta, and the eating of it of course. I added some homemade ricotta and some mashed choko (some sort of local courgette), a glurg of olive oil and voila, some totally decent and edible homemade pasta. Yum!

Boy month... oh boy!

It's boy month over at one of my favorite blogs, Dana Made It, jointly with Made By Rae. Check them out for some creative inspiration and cool tutorials.

Since 've just had a second boy, I felt inspired and compelled to try and put a few garments together. I'd already made a few tops for Miro, a diaper bag and a sleeping bag (I've since made another one). I also recently made him some pants/ leggings out of an old tee shirt of mine that had become too small...

mini art journal challenge: weeks 43, 44 and 45

I've managed to catch up on my weekly cards, here they are!
Week 43: "sCaRy!". If there's one thing that's always given me the chills and made me shiver, it's cockroaches.
They render me completely helpless, I can't even move my arm to kill the damn thing!
I remember being really scared to go to the toilet at night as a kid because I thought cockroaches would crawl up from inside the toilet bowl... yuk!

Week 44:"Home". As I've mentioned in an older post, we would  like to build an earthship one day. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, a simple google should enlighten you.

Week 45: "Self realization". I wasn't too sure about his one, so I don't know if there's a real message in this card!

Newcomer

Our little boy was born a week ago already!
He was born at home, early tuesday morning while his brother was asleep next door. It was an amazing experience, completely the opposite from Tahi's birth (emergency cesarean) which was quite traumatizing for me. I had a great midwife and I am so grateful to her and to the New Zealand system that allows us to choose this form of "alternative" care (as opposed to dealing with doctors and obstetricians). The last four months of my pregnancy got quite stressful at stages because of a condition called obstetric cholestasis (which I had with Tahi as well) but I stayed positive and actually managed to get rid of this "no cure" disease. It made me more confident in my birth choices and I felt this baby wanted to be born at home. And he was!
Half an hour after he was born we were all sitting on the couch in the lounge, Josh cooked french toast with homemade plum jam for breakfast (yum!) and some fresh peppermint tea. The sun had just come up and the atmosphere was quiet and peaceful.

I haven't left the house much and Miro has been feeding and sleeping like a newborn, so I even had some time to whip up a light cotton cocoon for him. It's been so hot here he hardly needs any clothes (great for skin to skin time!), and the cocoon is just what I needed to keep him lightly covered. I was inspired by some beautiful ones I'd seen on Etsy, but they looked much too warm and would have taken too long to get here. Unfortunately I didn't save the seller to my favorites and now I can't find it anymore!

The lining is made with an upcycled organic fair trade cotton tee shirt from KowTow.

A party

Josh and I are born on the same day, four years apart... uncanny.

So every year we have a great party to celebrate both our birthdays. This one might be the last one in a while!

It was great fun, we'd postponed it a week because of bad weather but it was worth it. We had a beautiful sunny day, Josh had put up lots of sails for shade, and dragged the couch outside. Everyone should have an outdoor couch!

There was plenty of food and drink, people had a good time. I always feel a bit frustrated because I never feel like I manage to catch up with everyone, but it was so nice to have all our friends around!

The kitchen and bathroom are slowly shaping up, interesting to try out the new kitchen's layout for a party, definitely ten times better than our old kitchen!

mini art journal challenge: week 42

I just realized I still haven't posted a card,  even though I made it a couple of weeks ago (and I still haven't finished last sunday's one either). I've been lying low all week, my mum arrived from France (yay!) and caught the flu en route (boo!). She was very sick for 2 days then gradually got better. Unfortunately I managed to get it too, and have been feeling pretty tired and low in energy.
Week 42: "Grateful week". That one was easy, or almost. On some days I found myself wondering what I could be grateful for! Obviously I need some practice!

Homemade

My mum arrived from Europe a few days ago with a suitcase packed with goodies (including french cheese.... eeeekkk!). Among them was a pasta maker. I'd been wanting to get one for ages so I was as excited as a child. Mmmm... if you've never tried fresh pasta you definitely have to give it a go. No comparison to the packaged stuff.
Another bonus I've been looking forward to as well is that it reduces the amount of packaging that goes through our household quite significantly.
it took me half an hour to make the dough and make the pasta in the machine for 4 people, which I don't think is too bad. There was so much pasta we couldn't even finish it all (and we are big eaters). Josh worked out it was 3 times cheaper than buying the dried packages stuff (if you buy decent quality pasta).
Now... we just need the chooks to start paying again so we can have enough eggs to make some dough!