Julia's Journical

Kikkertje

August 15, 2010 – 1:10 pm

My last baby belly update was at 24 weeks, and I looked like this:

I was not very photogenic that day.

Here I am at 27 weeks!

I had the flu, and the pregnancy glow had gone AWOL for the day.

Here I am at 28 weeks.

And then last weekend, 29 Weeks and 5 days

… yes I am wearing purple socks but you are allowed to do that sort of thing when you are pregnant.

And then when Lindsay took too long … this happened.

Fresh off the camera, photos from this morning. 30 weeks and 5 days.

Each day when we take a new set of belly pics Lindsay will stand there with the camera taking my photo. After a while I decide that thats enough photos but he doesn’t stop. And thats when things get weird.

….okay, I get weird.

And as a special treat, here is something I caught on camera this morning.

Watch the iPhone get kicked, then towards the end you can see it kick my belly.

Baby has been kicking so much lately and has gotten very strong. It reminds me of a frog. Frog in Dutch is Kikker, and its a little kikker, thus the new name of Kikkertje.

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Nannying & Kids | Tagged baby, babyholmwood, belly, kicks, pregnant | Comments (0)

Jacob’s 21st

August 13, 2010 – 10:43 am

We recently celebrated Jacob’s 21st. The theme of the party was “Holland won the world cup”. Holland didn’t win the world cup, but we didn’t let that hold us back. Jacob decorated the party room with orange streamers, flags, hats, blow up crowns and a couple of Dutch flags.

Everyone got dressed up in a soccer team’s colours.

Jacob dressed in Orange, and Gerie in Green and Gold.

Dad and Jacob dressed up ready to party.

Yes, dad is wearing a pink bow tie with his orange shirt.

Lindsay being an honorary Dutchman joined team oranje!

Mum was the only one with decorum, wearing her pearls. I meanwhile put a dutch kerchief around my neck, over my blue dress and declared that I was wearing the traditional Dutch national dress.

We managed to get a whole family photo before everyone arrived.

The party started and Mum and Dad started churning out the Dutch food. First up was bitterballen, or mini crochet…we were not too sure what they were supposed to be. But they were good!

Halfway through the evening we stopped for speeches.
Mum and I worked together on a speech, her talking, me doing the tech. The Gerie put together a nice speech, this was followed by a funny speech by Pat and Daniel. Where they informed us that Jacob is not very good at a game called “4 kings”.

This was followed by cupcakes, prepared by my friend Mel.
The words are supposed to say, Nederlands Champions! But mum and I somehow made it into Nederland is Champions. Oops!

After the cake Mum, Dad and Lindsay put their Dutch Aprons on,

And started preparing more deep fried Dutch food, with a side of sausage rolls for those not brave enough to try the frikandel speciaal.

But we should not have bothered with the sausage rolls. The frikandel speciaal were very popular. With the clever people coming upstairs and watching Lindsay prepare the frikandel speciaal. The moment he dropped the last piece of onion, they grabbed themselves a piece.

One party goer sitting next to Lindsay, watching him prepare the sausage in awe said to him “You are a very important person in my life right now”. We had brave volunteers take plates of frikandel speciaal downstairs, only to have them return seconds later with a rather terrified look on their face. It seems the food was so popular the guests downstairs would have the plate licked clean before they even reached the bottom step!

Mum and I had spent the weeks before finding lots of old photos of Jacob to use in our speech for him. They are all up on flickr, but here are some of my favourites:

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Family & Married Life | Comments (0)

Blue Mountains

August 13, 2010 – 10:13 am

Just over a month ago Lindsay and I went away to the Blue Mountains.

It was freezing, but the sky was so clear and blue.

We went on the scenic railway, something I have never done before. FYI if you go on the scenic railway, make sure you wedge your knees into the padded bar, its rather steep!

We did not go on the cable car, why would anyone do that to themselves. It looks terrifying.

At the bottom of the scenic railway there are board walks throughout the forest floor, with information about the mining that was done there. Lindsay was put to work pushing coal carts.

While walking around the board walks we spotted a Lyrebird! I have never seen one before, so was very excited.

We caught this thingy back up the mountain, it wasn’t too scary.

One day we spent driving around Blackheath and went to check out Govett’s Leap

We convinced a terrified looking Italian man to take our photo.

Then let the baby out to have a look at the view

On our last day we went home via Mount Tomah Botanical gardens. We found a lookout from where we could see Sydney!

Look closely:

It was a lovely trip, a nice few days of exploring, eating chocolate, shopping and spending a large portion of everyday in a cafe.

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Backpacking, Family & Married Life | Comments (0)

Baby Kicks

July 14, 2010 – 6:21 pm

Just a quick post.

The sound of Lindsay’s voice soothes baby, and it won’t kick if Lindsay is talking. Once Lindsay stops talking the baby often kicks in protest.

I play the Amelie soundtrack everyday, and whenever I put it on the baby kicks and wiggles!

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Nannying & Kids | Tagged amelie, baby, baby holmwood, kicks, music, pregnancy | Comments (0)

Pop!

July 10, 2010 – 9:27 am

Today I am 25 weeks and 4 days and my belly has become somewhat larger!

While cooking at our new gas stove I often feel a warm sensation at the front of my belly and look down to see me sticking the baby in the fire…oops!

I say new gas stove by the way, because just over a month ago we got a new stove. The old one leaked gas, would just turn off randomly or the flame would go out filling the house with gas. After 2 months of trying to get the real estate/landlords to fix it, I couldn’t bear it anymore. So I gave the real estate a call and by luck the phone was answered by the owner of the real estate. He told me that our stove was fine and didn’t leak gas. Well, I told him it wasn’t fine, burst into tears and (rather hysterically) told him everything that was wrong with it and how it was so dangerous and what if it affected the baby! He quickly got off the phone. That afternoon they rang Lindsay, (too chicken to talk to the hysterical pregnant woman) and told us we would have a new stove within a week. And we did! Turns out, the only way to get things done with a real estate agent is to be pregnant and hysterical. We have since been given a flood light for the front path and new door knobs, things we were previously told could not be done. I think they are just a teeny tiny bit afraid of being sued.

Here is my belly at 21 weeks:

And here I am also at 21 weeks with an iPhone stuffed under my top playing Queen to the baby. I had woken up that morning singing Bohemian Rhapsody and decided that meant the baby wanted to hear some good music before being introduced to “Hot Potato” and “Dorothy the Dinosaur”.

That was also the week the baby started to tickle me (I am terribly ticklish). It felt like caterpillars crawling around on my skin which is a rather unusual feeling.

3 weeks later and here is my belly at 24 weeks:
I was having a little nap…something I have become very good at.

Lindsay then received a phone call, so I waited patiently for his return.

I didn’t do anything annoying like try to offer him advice while he was on the phone.

This photo doesn’t belong to this blog post…but has a rather large baby belly in it, so I had include it.

The baby does lots of kicking with a bit of wriggling and the occasional putting of all it weight on my bladder. The other day it kicked my side and I pushed back at it with my hand, it kicked at me and I pushed back again and repeat. Then the moment Lindsay comes home…. nothing. I think baby must like the sound of his voice and it lulls it to sleep or something. Each day it gets slightly harder to get off the floor. 2 nights ago I dropped a knife on the ground and couldn’t reach it. I made all sorts of weird noises trying to bend over which had Lindsay running into the room wondering what was wrong. Hahahaha and its only going to get bigger and hard to move. Haha…ha…ha….ha.

So far we have bought a cot, beautiful condition and for $80 on ebay. Also a stroller, worth $350 new, we bought it on ebay for $76, second hand and in perfect condition. We have worked out how to fold it, and I have attached little toys to the front that when squeezed play music. So now when you fold the stroller you get a little song, and it you are really lucky both toys get triggered at the same time playing two little, different, songs at the same time…not so nice.

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Family & Married Life | Tagged 21weeks, 24weeks, baby, pregnancy, pregnant | Comments (1)

Mum’s 50th

July 7, 2010 – 9:04 pm

Last weekend was my Mum’s 50th birthday.
It was a wild party.

Here is the story.

My Mum knew that something was planned but had no idea what was going to happen. My aunt Jude arrived from NZ a few days in advance. On the day of Mum’s birthday Jude took mum to a day spa. We had told her she was going somewhere with Jude at midday. Dad nearly told mum about the surprise party numerous times in the hours leading up to midday. Jude finally convinced Mum it was time to go, we dropped (un)subtle hints about needing a helmet, body armour etc, just to make mum feel really nervous about what was ahead of her.

We casually waved my nervous Mother goodbye, and as soon as the car was out of the driveway we ran back inside to set up the party. Jacob, Gerie, Dad, Lindsay and I all had our jobs organised. The Karaoke machine arrived, and Dad supervised its installation, set up the disco balls and lights downstairs. Meanwhile Jacob and Gerie tidied up all of upstairs and set up the cocktail bar. Lindsay drove around buying and picking up last minute stuff. I like to think I acted as the manager, making sure everything was running smoothly and to plan because I can’t actually remember what I did….baby brain.

By 3pm everything for the party was set up! We had planned to have everything ready by 4.30pm but were so efficient that we were ready early and had time to work on speeches, signs and just take a breather.

4.30pm Mum and Jude arrived back home. Mum walked into the lounge room and saw the upstairs of the house all set up for a party

Mum got very excited, and could hear music coming from downstairs.

We said to her, “okay, now you have to come downstairs”. We made a big fuss of making sure we had a camera downstairs before she went down. As I had hoped, mum began to suspect that there was a room full of people hiding down stairs waiting to jump out and yell “surprise” Here we are shepherding her down the stairs and she is protesting “but I don’t have any lipstick on”

She walked down the stairs, peeked around the corner and found

an empty room, with flashing lights and a spinning disco ball with an ABBA song being played on the Karaoke Jukebox machine.

We told her none of the guests had shown up.

The use the Karaoke machine was explained

We also told her that at 7pm she would need to be dressed up and ready. She then ran around the room hugging everyone. She managed to knock dad’s glasses off his face, you can see him trying to put his glasses on while she runs at Lindsay, the cameraman, to give him his hug.

It was nap time for everyone…because thats just the sort of family I belong to I went into Mum’s room to see what she planned to wear for the party. She said “just wondering, have you thought of food?”. I replied with “Oh no!! I will quickly run up to the shops and grab a bag of chips” and then ran out of the room. Meanwhile, my friends Mel and Jen were sneaking into the house with bags and boxes full of food. Mel had spent the past 2 days cooking all the food for the party.

My friend Lea arrived in the meantime to assist and be my moral support. Mum came up stairs and saw Lea and ran at her screaming “I thought so” then laughed hysterically while giving Lea a hug. After that bizarre and amusing reaction Mum turned towards the kitchen and saw Mel and Jen. She screamed in excitement and hugged them also. I think she was a bit worried that I had forgotten to organise food and was quite excited to see Mel (an awesome cook) in charge of the food with her sidekick Jen helping out.

Jacob had meanwhile set up the cocktail bar, ready to serve Tequila sunrises and Fruit tingles, mocktails etc etc.
At 7pm on the dot the first guests arrived and handed Mum 2 giant bags of old winter clothes. She wasn’t too sure what they were for. We pointed her to the basket we had set up in the doorway. We had asked guests to bring old winter clothes for homeless men instead of presents. It was something mum had asked for when we first talked about planning a party. She was very excited that I had remembered.

No one had told mum who was invited to the party, so each time the doorbell rang and she was sent to answer the door it was another surprise. Jacob with the assistance of his friend Pete were busy making everyone very cheerful with their cocktails. Mel was sending plate after plate of delicious food out of the kitchen and everything was going wonderful.

Mum looked to be having a wonderful time. A little while into the party 2 of her closest friends, Stephen and Trudy, walked in. They had just arrived in Sydney, flying up from Melbourne that evening just for the party. Mum was so excited, she did however tell them “you shouldn’t be here” before hugging them madly. Within 10 minutes there was another extra special surprise guest at the door. Dad got mum standing at the front door, with a group of us watching. Mum reached to open the door, looked at the surprise guest, screamed and then closed the door again in shock. She finally opened the door again. It was her friend Robyn who she had shared a flat with 25 years ago. They had lost contact over 15 years ago and Dad had managed to find her again.

It was then time for speeches, everyone gathered around in the upstairs living room.

Dad gave a lovely speech, about how he had first met Mum and how special she was.
Then it was Jacob’s turn, and he is terribly funny. Jacob had everyone laughing.

Mum then got up and thanked everyone. She then spoke about her love of violence

and drinking from oversized cups

(she didn’t really, but the photos suggest otherwise)

Then it was time for some Karaoke and Dancing. Teaching everyone how to use the machine proved a little difficult. So Mum told me to line up some dance songs. I lined up some popular dancing songs. No one knew the Nutbush, so Mel and I stepped in to educate
The Macarena then came on, and again there was a bit of confusion, so Mel, Gerie, Gerie’s sister Bec and I taught Mum and her friends the Macarena.

They all did fabulously considering the number of cocktails Jacob was serving upstairs.

The shoes I had bought to wear with my outfit were so painful I couldn’t wear them. My feet were too sore to go without shoes, and when you are pregnant you have the excuse to do things differently… so I found another option.

…crocs.

I don’t think anyone noticed…

At cake time, we sent everyone upstairs.
Mel lit the candles

While dad tried to sort out the bottle neck happening at the top of the stairs

Mel had made 3 flavours of cupcakes with pink icing for the birthday cake

We sang happy birthday and then mum ~~blew the candles out~~ put the candles out. (OH&S)

It was a lovely party, and Mum had lots of fun!
Thanks to everyone who helped out!

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Family & Married Life | Tagged 50th, birthday, margi, mum, party, surprise | Comments (0)

My favourite old photos.

July 5, 2010 – 12:51 pm

My mum turned 50 last weekend. We held a surprise party for her which went brilliantly, I will blog about the party as soon as I find the USB SD card reader so I can get the photos off the camera.

As a surprise I spent weeks going through my parent’s old photo albums scanning old photos. And I found some pretty awesome photos! I have chosen some of my favourite which tell a lovely story.

Mum as a baby.

Here is a lovely photo, my mum and 3 of her siblings and my Nanna in the beautiful sunglasses. (my Nanna was a model)

My mum always had beautiful bright red hair, and possibly the temper to match, but it would be dangerous of me to confirm this. Lindsay is quite worried our baby will have the temper of a red head, he seems to think that its not caused by red hair, but is in fact a genetic thing?

Here you can see Mum saying farewell to her Mum and sister before leaving on her backpacking trip to Europe. Do not be alarmed, that red stuff is not blood, but rather an unfortunately distributed patch of mold.

Mum travelled around Europe, and in each stop men would fall in love with her.

But the only person mum fell for was my Dad. My parent’s met each other in Greece. I love this photo. Its one of the first photos of both of them and you can see Mum can’t take her eyes off Dad!

Here is another one of those first photos,

Mum is again staring at Dad. Written on the back of this photo is “doesn’t Jeroen have pretty eyes”. For this photo I might have used the word creepy… but thats just me.

Mum wrote to my Nanna back home in Australia that she had met this wonderful Dutch man. Nanna packed up my aunt and uncle and flew over to Holland to inspect my Dad.
I think they all got on well.

Dad was in a band! He was very cool.

After falling madly in love, Mum brought Dad back home to Australia with her! He is a pretty good souvenir.

They took lots of photos,

And quite a few involved their good friends, Dick and Marja, also from Holland.

Dad and Dick were and still are passionate photographers and videographers. They had all the latest high tech equipment.

They got married. (Mum and Dad, not Dad and Dick)

And had a few trips back to Holland to visit family and friends and do some more travelling.

My Oma and Opa picking mum and dad up from the airport.

This is my favourite photo of all time, the man on the right is Beer!

Dad and Beer were and (still are!) uber cool!

In France?

Back home in Australia they went on camping trips in their yellow car.

Then I was born,

followed by my brother Jacob

We took up painting

And lived in a little house before moving to Berowra

And last but not least, our own attempt at an awkward family photo

These are just a few of my favourite photos, there are literally hundreds more here so have a look.

I will update again soon with some Belly Pics, my baby belly has suddenly become quite huge. As soon as I find the USB SD card reader you can check it out… does anyone know where our USB SD card reader is???

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Family & Married Life | Comments (0)

19 weeks pregnant - Mango

May 25, 2010 – 3:27 pm

It is official, and in case you have been living in a cave of some sort, Lindsay and I are expecting a baby. Baby Holmwood, affectionally known (this week) as Mango is due on or around the 19th of October.

At 11 weeks there wasn’t much to see

At 17 weeks I looked like this:

Just 2 weeks later, at 18/19 weeks:

Crazy!

I am officially 19 weeks pregnant today, and am starting to have a serious looking baby belly. I wonder if an un-serious baby belly looks like this:

The past few weeks I have started eating again after vomiting my way through the first 14 weeks. Angel hair pasta and pesto as well as fruit is all I want to eat. That and TimtTams (Australia Chocolate biscuits for the Dutchies), but thats the baby’s doing. Eggs, no matter how delicious they look, make me feel sick.

Being 19 weeks pregnant meant it was time for an ultrasound. I was supposed to go to the radiology department at the hospital… but I decided to do things my own way. Instead we went to the lovely North Women’s Imaging clinic. No idea if I was allowed to or not… and its not like I will mind if I am told to have another ultrasound. The staff there are soooo nice and they do mostly pregnancy ultrasounds so they are really good at what they do.

We went there this morning, and I wish we could go everyday!

This is baby Holmwood at 8 weeks gestation:

And then today at 19 weeks:

The sonographer was lovely, pointing bits out as she went.
Here is Mango flexing its spine

2 little hands, the one of the left you can see it has spread its fingers out.

The sonographer then had a hard time trying to get some good images on the baby’s head.

Every time she tried the baby would dig its head deeper into my bladder, and further into my pelvis, out of the reach of the ultrasound. We eventually got a good image, but I was sure my bladder would burst in the process!

We then got to see the baby’s face with the 3D ultrasound.

It looks like a blob, but if you look towards the top right you can work out the cute little face.

Here is another with chubby little cheeks:

And for the grand finale, Baby Holmwood/Mango started to suck their thumb!

So clever!

And yes, Mango remains an ‘it’ because it kept wriggling and facing the wrong way or putting its legs in the way. Must have Decates blood, a stubborn trouble maker before it’s even born!

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Family & Married Life | Tagged baby, babyholmwood, juliaholmwood, lindsayholmwood, pregnant, ultrasound | Comments (0)

Finally, another blog post.

April 9, 2010 – 11:19 am

Its been a long time since I blogged. I finished up the backpacking and being-back-home stories and just lost the desire to write. Writers block! And its not like we were not doing heaps of fun and exciting things!

A month after arriving back home in Australia, Lindsay and I flew to New Zealand for linux.conf.au. An Australian conference in New Zealand you ask? So did I… but then again we had the opportunity to go to beautiful New Zealand so I stopped asking.

First off we stopped in Auckland to visit my Aunt Jude and cousins, Tessa and Holly. And to meet the gorgeous Ruby, Holly’s little girl.

After a few lovely days there it was time to fly down to Wellington for LCA. Lindsay was attending the conference as a speaker, meanwhile I went on the Partner’s Program for the first time. It was so much fun. Here are a few of my favourite photos from that week.

My new friends and Wellington in the background.

This photo was a complete fluke, and it was not until I zoomed in did I notice I had captured the bird flying out of the tree.

Driftwood

Stormy Beach

Exploring the rock pools

The mist rolling in

The colours, scenery and weather in Wellington was so beautiful and ever changing.

We arrived back home in Australia and Lindsay left 3 days later for Europe, (again) for another conference. Then he flew to Atlanta for 2 weeks to learn the ropes for his new job. All up he was gone 4 1/2 weeks! I meanwhile lived at my parent’s house and was searching for a place for Lindsay and I to live for when he returned home. Fast forward a bit and our new house is lovely and large, full of light (at times too much light! argh). In the afternoon the side of the house we spend most of our time in is filled with warm sunshine from the setting sun. On cold days this is just delicious!

In this one you can see our sunroom just off the lounge room. Dutchies, please note the dutch apron hanging in pride of place on the right hand side of the photo. When I am not wearing it, it hangs there so everyone can admire it.

From our lounge room and sunroom we get a lovely views of the Blue Mountains and stunning sunsets.

Here is our kitchen, on the fridge you can see magnets from every country we have visited, except sadly New Zealand. We forgot to buy one there. Also on the stove you can see our sexy red kettle which is just so pretty and exciting it worries me.

This is the wall paper from our bedroom, if you stare at it long enough it looks like hundreds of gnomes staring at you. No photos of the bedroom (I didn’t manage to make the bed that morning).

Now if you will follow me into the hallway, you will see… its just a regular hallway, you can see our fish tank in the lounge room.

This is Lindsay’s office, next on our shopping list is a nice chair for him to sit on.

In Lindsay’s office we also have the library, we hope to one day have one as nice as Beer’s.

And last, but not least the bathroom. Designed when pink baths and blue (turquoise?) tiles were considered a good idea. I decided to make it ‘better’ and filled it with 20 plastic gerberas, you can just see one poking out above the bath.

We had a house warming party, it was so hot that day we ended up having to try and cool down the warming by turning the air-conditioning on.

Over the Easter weekend Lindsay and I went to the Sydney Royal Easter show as my birthday present. It was a lovely day. We got to see some goat judging and I know now how to look for a prize goat, its all in the slope of the back.

After walking around all day, eating yummy food in the fresh food pavilion and looking at animals we spent the evening sitting on the lawns at the main arena watching the camp draft and rodeo. 2 sports I found surprisingly exciting!

Then that weekend Jacob and Gerrie, Mum, Dad, Lindsay and I had a games night. We stopped for a family photo:

Out of maybe 15 photos, we all managed to pull ourselves together for a nice one. Sorting through the discarded photos I found this special one of Jacob.
Yes he is wearing 3D glasses he ‘borrowed’ from the movie theatre.
After the family photo we skyped with Oma and Opa

Oh this post is such a long and boring one, but good things come to those who wait.

can you guess?

By Julia Holmwood | Posted in Family & Married Life | Tagged babyholmwood, easter show, family, home, house, juliaholmwood, lca, lindsayholmwood, linux.conf.au, mount colah, Sydney Royal Easter Show, wellington | Comments (3)

Christmas

February 13, 2010 – 7:28 am

Are we all still pretending its Christmas time? Oh good, so this post about Christmas won’t be strange then.

Christmas Eve was spent at Lindsay’s cousin Anna’s beautiful house with the Holmwoods.

It was a lovely and relaxed evening with lots of nice conversation and yummy food.

The next day was Christmas day, this was to be held at the Decates household which is always guaranteed to provide some craziness.
We all put our matching Christmas Aprons on.

Mum likes to try on her presents and wear the ribbons they come wrapped it. Here she is trying on the lambswool scarf we bought her in Scotland.

Once we had exchanged gifts the rest of the family (my in-laws and adopted family) arrived. The table was packed full of food and cocktails, bonbons pulled, hats applied, jokes read and food eaten.