The week of the 4th August

Its been another busy couple of weeks, I didn't get to do a recap last week so this is effectively for two weeks. Between gymbaroo, swimming, mothers group, and trying to catch up with friends, the weeks have just flown by, and the weekends come as a well needed refuge.

We finally signed a contract to have our bathroom and laundry renovated. It starts next week so I'm excited but also nervous about having to work around not having a bathroom with a young baby for three weeks.

I started making lactation cookies again to see if they would help (I blogged about my issues with breastfeeding here if you want to read about it), so have been snacking on heaps of those as well as this yummy five:am yoghurt.

 I also finished my box of chia squeezes, so I decided to make my own and they turned out great! I actually think I like them better than the Mamma Chia ones, which is good because its also cheaper to make my own. I got these reusable pouches from Pouched.

 In major fashion news, I got my Jimmy Choos signed by the man himself! Jimmy Choo was making an appearance at Claremont Quarter for a shoe exhibition they have set up in his honour. I was lucky enough that my mum works for the centre and got to meet him! So lucky ;)

In other fashion news, I bought my first pair of pants in about 5 years. I have refused to wear pants for such a long time as I didn't think they suited my body shape, but I found these at target and really liked the look o them. My mum thought they looked like pajamas, but I don't think so. What do you think about this style of pant? I ended up getting the blue ones, but thinking about getting the black/white as well.

Also fell in love with this skirt from Seed. I haven't bought anything for myself from there before, only baby clothes. 

New shoes! I really wanted a pair of bright pink shoes and these fit the bill perfectly. This was also a nice bonus from work!

Finally got a new one of my favourite candle: Aquiesse Boardwalk. I haven't even had to burn it yet, the smell of the candle alone fills up the room.

Another big thing that's happened is I've officially cancelled my gym membership. I was finding it so hard to go now that I've got a newborn, because I'm already out of the house two nights a week for pilates, and the rest of the week I really wanted to be home with the husband and baby for quality family time. I am now on the Turbo Fire bandwagon, and having done it for about a week so far I can say I'm enjoying it. Its much more practical for me as I can fit in a workout at home when S is asleep rather than having to wait for P to get home to look after her. 

We went to the Perth Baby Expo on Saturday, and made out like bandits with samples. Will probably give quite a few away to my mother friends as I really don't need most of them.

Lastly, on Sunday we went on a huge (1.5 hour) walk down by South Perth. The weather was amazing and it felt great just to get out with the family and enjoy a walk.

 S also turned 4 months on Sunday, so we wanted to get some proper photos of us. We ended up with some great shots, here's my favourite:

Riette

x

High Tea at Rochelle Adonis

This weekend, I finally had the oppourtunity to go to high tea at the renowned Rochelle Adonis in Highgate. I had always wanted to go there, but never seemed to have the right occasion, but one of my dear friends was going there to celebrate a belated birthday so I jumped on the chance. 

The tearooms in Highgate are really cute, kind of eclectic with things likes mismatched teacups and saucers, and vintage cutlery. Overall the ambiance is very nice, although quite noisy when the seating is full. You can book seats on a high or low table, and they also have 'private' areas if you have enough people to book a whole table that are sectioned off with organza.

The high tea is different to standard high teas I've experienced before, where they normally present a 2-3 tier stand which has all the savoury/sweet foods on it. At Rochelle Adonis, the high tea is presented in two courses plus a palate cleanser in the middle. I like this idea, as it stretches the experience out and it takes longer for you to eat and enjoy the unique offerings. The cost is $55 per person, which may seem a bit steep, but the price includes two individual pots of tea or french press coffee, and considering the quality and amount of food provided I did not feel it was unreasonable at all.

To start the afternoon off, tea orders were placed from an extensive tea menu. There are your standard teas like earl grey and English breakfast, or more unusual offerings like Vanilla Berry and Moroccan Mint. I chose a pot of Lemongrass & Ginger to go with my savoury course. You could also choose french pressed coffee instead, or purchase other coffees or hot chocolate for extra.

First up was the savoury course. We had a few vegetarians and food allergies in our group, and I noted they were very accommodating, providing specially made alternatives. There is no standard menu, it changes daily based on what the chefs cook on the day.

 

Turkey and Cranberry Terrine: This one was not my favourite, mostly due to the texture, but it was okay.

 

Cucumber Sandwich: A traditional high tea sandwich, but I do not like cucumber so this was passed onto a friend. They said it was really good, it had a herb aioli as well.

Celeriac Soup with Sage: This hot soup was creamy, rich and really delicious. The consensus around the table was that this was one of the favourites.

Smoked Cod with Champagne Batter: I loved this one, it was a great combination of the salty, smoky fish with the batter.

Sweet Potato Roulade with Pesto: This was a nice combination, but I would have preferred if this was hot rather than cold.

After the savoury course we were given a palate cleanser. I believe this was a strawberry sorbet. This was lovely, and not too sweet.

Before the dessert course, drink orders were taken again. This time I opted for the coffee (no picture though). Then the dessert course was laid on the table ready to eat.

My serving:

I forgot to take individual photos of these so here's what they are starting left and going clockwise:

Quince and ricotta cake: This was a layered cake with quince paste and ricotta cream, I really liked this one, it also had a slight orange flavour as well.

Vanilla bean parfait with lamington rocky road: They make the ice-cream in house, and the combination of the coconut and rocky road was really yummy. 

Meringue with passionfruit cream and macerated strawberries: This was lovely and light.

Nougat tart: This was without a doubt the best treat from the high tea, the pastry was buttery and the nougat sweet and sticky.

Overall I had a lovely afternoon and left feeling really satisfied but not sickly full which was nice for a change. If the right occasion came up I would love to go again and sample a different menu, and try some of the other teas. They also have a cake stand at the checkout and a small store selling some lovely things like teacups, and hand made nougat if you're looking for a gift.

Riette

x

The week of the 14th of July

In between the weird patches of rain, we had some beautiful weather:

So we were able to enjoy some walks to the park. We got to try out the rain cover for the pram, not sure how S felt about it by the look on her face:

 

Enjoyed having some roses in the house for once:

Jessie loved these homemade peanut butter and bacon treats (I blogged about these on Tuesday):

We had another couple over for a lovely dinner. We've been doing this instead of going out for dinner as its easier with S and also cheaper. Its been good to use some of our neglected wedding gifts again (water jug anyone...).

We haven't been having much salad in the cold weather, so these chicken wraps were well received.

And I'm currently obsessed with this apple, blueberry and acai berry Nudie juice. I haven't had Nudie juices in years, but decided to try some again as they were on at Woolies.

I listed a whole bunch of things on ebay this week with the auctions finishing tomorrow I'm excited for those to finish and see how much I make...so I can then spend it again on more stuff probably.

Tomorrow (Sunday) I am looking forward to relaxing and not having to do anything! Its been a really busy week, and next week is going to be even busier with S starting Gymbaroo and swimming!

Enjoy the rest of your weekend...

Riette

x

Things to do with a Newborn Baby

Being a first time mum, I really want to make sure I'm doing the best thing for S in helping her to develop and grow into a wonderful person. I haven't had much experience with children at all and was finding it somewhat difficult figuring out how to keep her entertained during the day and found that we were doing the same things over and over again which was becoming monotonous (for me mostly). So I've decided to enroll her into some activities so that we get out of the house a couple of days a week. Here's some of the things we're doing...

Mums and Bubs yoga

 

I did a 6 week pre-natal yoga course which I found really beneficial for all the back and pelvic pain I had during pregnancy. It was surprising I liked it so much as I had never been a fan of yoga before. The lady who ran the course also runs Mums and Bubs yoga, so I decided to also give this a go, and we had our first session last week.

The course runs for 6 weeks initially with the option to attend on a class by class basis afterwards. Each session runs for an hour, and includes relaxation. To be honest, I was a bit worried about bringing S in case she played up, but the instructor explained that it is completely normal behaviour for babies and it is expected that there will be crying/screaming/cooing in the classes and we are free to settle/feed/change babies as needed. This made me feel much more relaxed about it, and I felt like there was no pressure on me once S started to become unsettled about half way through the class. I probably only did half an hour of actual yoga between settling and feeding S, but I still had a great time and also met some lovely ladies that I'm looking forward to catching up with again next week.

Waterbabies Swimming
 
P grew up swimming, and with all the safety benefits to be had, it was not negotiable for us that S started swimming at a young age. Luckily S absolutely loves the water. Most places I looked at started classes at 6 months, however I found one that starts from as early at 10 weeks. Of course babies this young don't actually swim, but it is more to get them used to the water, and for some social interaction. By the time we start the semester she will be around 14 weeks old. Although it is currently winter, the pools are heated so I'm not dreading having to get in the pool myself!

Gymbaroo

 

I was not too sure about Gymbaroo as I thought it would be silly, but I took S for a free trial class and she loved it! I had never seen her smile to much, so I enrolled her straight away... Each class runs for 45 minutes, and is a combination of tummy time, song and rhyme, dancing, massage and much more. S managed to last 3/4 of the trial class before grizzling because she was tired which was a pretty good effort. The semester goes for 10 weeks, so we will trial for this semester and if she still likes it after a while may consider doing it for longer.

It may seem like a lot, but it gives us 2 full days at home during the week, and if I find it is too much we won't re-enroll in one of the activities for the next semester. We won't know until we try it!

What other activities have your little ones loved?

Mudella Every Women's Expo 2014

This Sunday, mum and I headed out to the Mundella Every Women's Expo held at the Perth Convention Centre. The expo is a combination of food, fashion, health & fitness and general lifestyle exhibitors and is a good way to spend a couple of hours on a lazy Sunday. We go to the expo every year, just to have a bit of a walk around and check out what's new. We find they generally have the same things every year, but I had a few cool finds this time which I was pretty excited about. 

A couple of Expo pics:

 We normally try and get as many samples as we can; this year there was turban chopsticks biriyani, protein drinks, honey cake, gourmet cheeses, bodhi's pancakes and gluten free cookies, wine, raw chocolate and many more. 

Here is some spy pics of the raw chocolate samples:

Best sample of the day as always goes to the tub of Mundella yoghurt. As Mundella sponsors the Expo they have a large stand where you can pick a full size single serve yoghurt tub, I chose blueberry as I've had it before and it is my favourite Mundella flavour. 

I bought a couple of treats from Maison Saint Honore (popular macaron store here in Perth). This one was for P, it was salted caramel mousse and caramel fudge. I tasted a tiny bit and it was lovely but quite rich, I wouldn't be able to eat a whole one of these. P ate the whole thing and liked it, but he loves anything with caramel!

I haven't tried this one yet, but it is a blackberry cheesecake mousse tart.

This was the best new find this year, by a place called The Honeycake. It is a cake layered with honey cream, and oh my it is amazing. I bought a piece of this and might have eaten it for lunch (whoops!). This is probably the nicest cake I've had in a long time. Apparently they have a store up at Joondalup now so hopefully they open up south of the river soon. 

One store I know I wanted to visit was the Pana Chocolate raw chocolate exhibit. It is my sisters birthday next week and I know she's into healthy eating and raw foods so I thought this would be an ideal present. This chocolate is great, creamy and very rich so you only need a couple of pieces. My favourite flavour was the coconut & goji flavour so I bought a couple for myself as well. 

The last thing I bought was some jewellery from When Adam met Eve. I generally don't buy things like these on a whim but I couldn't resist once I saw the earring stand. All the earrings are laser cut which looks really cool and is very unique. I ended up choosing the cutest bambi earrings made from cherry wood, and a silver birdsnest necklace with pearls and feather. The girl who makes the jewellery was at the stall and she was lovely, I recommend you check out the Etsy site listed on the card shown below.

Overall we were there for just under 2 hours which was enough time, especially with baby S in tow. I look forward to next year's Expo.