How were your holidays? Ours went something like this.

As my Dad pointed out it had been six years since all four girls were together in Melbourne for Christmas. And with six years came the addition of five new people to the table. There was more food than any of us could possibly contemplate eating, naps for everyone in the middle of the day, good wine, bonbons, bad jokes and even a Christmas carol or two thrown in at the end of a long but wonderful evening. And at the end of it all we attempted a photo of Nanou and Dapa with the grandkids. I'm hoping that someone else might have got a good one of them all, although the silly one will perhaps always be my favourite.

Noma

Way back in October, just before we left Berlin, we took a trip to Copenhagen to visit some friends and attend a rather extravagant, but very, very wonderful meal. The plan to eat at Noma had been hatched way back in January when we all attended the Arztkammer Ball in Vienna. At the time it seemed like a dream with little certainty of becoming a reality.  The steps involved in even getting a reservation seem daunting enough (a phone call placed between 10am-12pm on a prescribed day, three months ahead of your desired booking). Then there were the practicalities of getting to Denmark, the question of what to do with one (and then two) new babies and for some of us at least there was the question of whether it was really that good anyway.  But we did manage to get a booking and since we all (yes, all four!) were on parental leave we could easily accommodate the midweek lunch booking we were offered.

And so we went and ate at the best restaurant in the world.  Was it the best meal of my life? Probably not. But it was wonderful. A true performance.  It was like watching a first-class ballet or opera the way the waiters and chefs danced around the room from table to table explaining their creations and encouraging the guests (us!) to enjoy good food prepared with love and an attention to detail found in few other kitchens.

If I had one criticism it would be that some of the dishes were just a little bit gimicky. The live (chilled) baby shrimp I could have done without and while it was great fun to cook one of the dishes ourselves (egg fried in hay infused oil cooked on hot plates at the table), it did, in the end taste a lot like a home-cooked fried egg. Fun, but not exactly haut cuisine.  But everything else was fantastic - they didn't blink when we arrived with a newborn (who slept the whole time - bless her), the service was spot-on without being stuffy, we giggled with the waiters, enjoyed wonderful company and we left full and all glad that we'd all made the effort. And really that's what good meals are all about, aren't they?

5 months

Another month seems to have whooshed by without me feeling like I've had a chance to draw breath.  Five months, can it really be?  Somewhere in the haze of this month we seem to have got ourselves back into a rhythm of sorts. Slowly, but surely, eight calls for 'room service' overnight became six and then four and then two. I had grand plans of Emilia sleeping through the night when she cracked that magic 6kg mark, but after having got to the other side of what felt like a marathon of hourly (!) wake-up calls I'm happy with my two calls a night. Two I can handle. Two is sanity.

And with more sleep comes more time to play.  More giggles, more tummy time and some very determined (but not yet successful) attempts to roll.  Any day now she's going to muster up the courage to move her legs just that little bit further and let herself roll.  Any day now she'll be starting to move. 

Emilia at: four months, three months, two months, one month

Christmas Treats

I have been itching to make things for Christmas for weeks now. If my sewing machine and box of crafty treasures was with me and not in some container somewhere on the Pacific Ocean I'd have perhaps made something like this for our fireplace or a few of these for our Christmas tree. I might even have made a stocking for E and some little boxes for storing her toys. But such lofty goals will have to wait for next year. This year it's all about simple.

**A note to my family: If you think you might be getting a stocking present from me this year and still want it to be a surprise on Christmas Day, don't read any more!**

Some Christmas paper, bought on the mandatory "new home" trip to Ikea.

Cut and pasted onto old jam jars filled with a Christmas inspired granola, based on this recipe here

And because you're never too young to start enjoying the making and creating that comes with Christmas, some labels, made by E (with a lot of help from her Mama) inspired by this post here.

All culminating in some very delicious, but oh so simple, homemade Christmas-y goodness ready to be sprinkled onto yogurts, fruit and other breakfast-y kind of things on Christmas Day.

Rolly-polly

There was a time when we worried that she wasn't gaining enough weight. It seemed that everything she drank (and sometimes more) ended up being thrown right back up.  Everyone had an opinion. Too much milk. Too little milk. Wrong feeding position. I should drink more of x and less of y. Eat this but definitely not that. Mostly we just ignored all the advice and got on with being us. Eating, sleeping, playing and in amongst it all plenty of posseting with frequent clothes changes for us all.  And you know what? She's doing alright. Right now she's our rolly-polly dick-sie Maedchen.  There's a small part of me that would like to send these photos to all the well-meaning do-gooders who suggested I/she/we were doing something wrong.

Perhaps I just have.

weekend-ing

After a week of cold weather the sun finally came out to play this weekend. We ventured out to Gunaroo, a small town a short drive from Canberra. Apparently it's where all the cool-kids from Canberra go to play on the weekend.  E slept there, charmed the socks of everyone while we ate our pizza and then slept on the way home.  We declared the afternoon a success.

Round Here

The move, from Berlin to my parents in Melbourne and then up to Canberra has been gruelling. Turns out that babies don't "do" change very well and my sweet, sweet girl has been giving us the round around.  I've had a few people ask me where I am. I'm here but at the moment all my physical and emotional energy is going into E. In amongst the nursing, rocking, feeding, shh-ing and playing (yes, there's a bit of that too) I've been etching out some time to work on a jumper that I'm knitting for my Dad. A line here, a line there it's slow going but with worsted weight wool it knits up relatively quickly making me feel like at least I'm achieving something.

We're still without furniture but I have plans for a few simple Christmas decorations that I might share here if I get the time. Oh, and I also recently won a knitting book, Bambeanies from Wooly Wormhead, which even contains a hat named Emilia. Yep, I plan to share that one with you here too. When I get the time.