Turning 40 tomorrow...

Now that I've typed that title, I've realised I don't have much to say about that except that I wish I was looking forward to it more.

I've been feeling a bit tired, lonely and blue for the past few days. Not sure why. Maybe it's the cumulative effect of seven weeks of interrupted sleep and my advancing age (!). Rowan has been fussy with his feeds. The big boys have been fighting with each other more than usual. I think they are bored. Rosie screams a lot when she's asked to do something. The C string tuning peg on my new ukulele is loose and that string goes out of tune really quickly. We've been trying to plan for Liam's birthday party with family tomorrow and get the house and backyard tidied up. I'm feeling a bit sad that we don't get invited out much as a family anymore and worrying that it's because there's far too many of us (or alternatively, that we're not good company?). We invite people over but I find that exhausting and usually need a couple of days recovery time afterwards.

What I really would like to do is plan some fun things to do together as a family. Everything feels like it revolves around baby feeding times at the moment. I know this will pass, but the next few weeks of holidays are feeling like they will be an effort to get through...

Okay. Time to stop moaning. I think I should get out and do some exercise. I'm going out this afternoon to a fundraising afternoon tea for our friend who is off to Nepal to teach in a missionary school. And I need to practise playing Happy Birthday on the ukulele for Liam's party.

I'm hoping all that will lift my spirits a little bit.

My new ukulele

A Lanikai pineapple. An early birthday present.

I think I am in love...

Holiday reading....

...school stories from the early 1900s written by an author called Angela Brazil. I remember reading some of her short stories in Girls' Annuals at my grandmother's house when I visited her at Christmas time when I was a little girl.

So I (well Chris, actually) downloaded 24 of her books free to my new e-reader from Project Gutenberg.

This morning I had to have another two hour glucose tolerance test to make sure that my gestational diabetes has gone away. I booked it for today so I wouldn't have to take any of the kids with me, because Chris has the week off work. I spent the entire waiting time reading school stories on the e-reader. The screen froze a couple of times. I'm hoping that's just a teething issue and that it will improve in performance. Or, alternatively, that I will become more skilled at restarting it when this happens.

ABC radio cricket commentary gold

Jim Maxwell when Peter Siddle bowled Sachin Tendulkar in the second-last over of the day (thus depriving Sachin of his 100th test century):

"That's 20 000 off the crowd for tomorrow..."

Brilliant.

Thinking about....

...supporting mission work this year.

A friend from our church is going to Nepal for the first six months of 2012 to work with CMS in a school that provides education for children of missionaries. She has just graduated as a secondary school teacher and has decided to do this as her first teaching position.

I'm really excited that she's decided to do this. Chris and I are hoping we can support her both in prayer and financially over the coming months. We also support a friend we met way back in Toowoomba days through SIM. He translates the Bible into the local language in Burkina Faso.

While I was looking at the CMS website, I noticed there are lots of opportunities for allied health professionals to be involved in mission work, in Nepal and lots of other places in the world as well. I even found a story about a young woman here who is about to begin work as an occupational therapist in Pokhara. After reading My Seventh Monsoon last year, and getting to know Wendy through blogging, I've learned lots more about what allied health professionals can do in a mission context.

I just wish I'd known all this back when I was younger and less encumbered...

But it's great that we can still help out financially so that others can go.

Adjusted my kite photo

To make the sky look more blue and the colours brighter. That's with the adjustments available on iPhoto. I wonder if I could do more if I had Photoshop Elements?

We have some Christmas money to spend...I might add Photoshop to the list for consideration. A Wii Fit is also on it. And maybe Mad Men DVDs.

Knowing us and the time it takes us to make these kinds of decisions, we'll still be deciding what to do with the money this time next year...

Christmas elf (not me) has been busy tonight...

....assembling this. He didn't get time to put together the top section, due to a dramatic underestimation of the amount of time taken to assemble Ikea furniture from flat pack to completion.

But it's after midnight now, so time for bed. The top will have to wait until tomorrow night. Or maybe until Boxing Day.

Wishing you all a very happy Christmas

Have a wonderful day celebrating the birth of our Saviour Jesus Christ with family and friends.

Christmas Eve family fun

Some shots from today's festivities. A lovely lunch followed by an afternoon of mass kite flying in the park overlooking Pumicestone Passage. The kites were gifts to all the nieces and nephews from their aunty.

Hard to capture all five kites in a single photo though...

Frozen chocolate cherry mousse

I made this (and took the photo of it as well). Recipe is here. It's very easy. And very yummy.

Family Christmas dinner menu

Each year for Christmas, we have a special dinner for our family. Normally this happens on Christmas Eve, but because Christmas falls on a weekend this year and we are eating with Chris' extended family tomorrow, tonight's the night for our family meal.

Here's what we are having this year:

Prawn, avocado and mango with seafood sauce. This was actually going to be little pikelets with crab salad on top, but lack of availability of buttermilk, Lebanese cucumber and fresh crab meat in the supermarket meant we had to scrap that plan at the last minute. This is an old favourite recipe that Chris invented so he gets the unenvied job of peeling the prawns.

Apple cider glazed ham with warm roast potato salad and green been and cranberry salad. Glaze is already made and ready to go. Potatoes are partially cooked ready for roasting. Beans will take five minutes later on.

And for dessert, frozen chocolate cherry mousse. I made this yesterday and when I checked the freezer earlier I think it was frozen. Hard to tell when it's covered with baking paper, glad wrap and inside a loaf tin. When it comes time to turn it out, I guess we'll know if it's okay. All I have to do then is decorate the top with cherries and chocolate curls. Currently googling to find out how to make chocolate curls because I haven't done that before.

After that it will be time to go for a drive to check out some Christmas lights around the neighbourhood.

Hope all of you enjoy your Christmas dinners too!