the funniest thing I heard today

I love quirky colloquialisms, and going to different countries I've heard some really cool ones. But this evening found me laughing out loud, over and over, as I remembered this little gem.

(this one should probably be rated PG, or maybe even PG-13 if you are a sensitive parent)

Can you guess what a

'tarted up chicken bum nut' is?

and in Just 10 Minutes a Day

Now this is my kind weight loss program:
Fast Track Your Fat Loss!
10 minute workouts that slim you down and tone all your trouble spots.
By Chris Freytag Prevention

and for you guys, it takes a little longer:
15-Minute Workouts
No excuses. You have the time.
By the Editors of Men's Health

See what happens when I have a few spare moments to read the junk on MSN? Any day now I'm going to look like a supermodel because even I can do 10 minutes!

8 month update

We had a little growth spurt right at the end of 7 months, and today I sat FFM on the electronic scale in the grocery store checkout so our 8 month weight guess is more accurate than our 7 month one. He came in at 12.1kg which is appx 26.5lbs. Length is 29.5 and I think we overestimated last month because he's defintely gotten longer, his shirts all are showing his belly button now.

Favorite foods include homemade beef stew (I know it's summer here but he really likes it!), chicken and peas, and blueberries. Just this past week he got good enough at chewing, still with no teeth, that he can eat whole blueberries. Earlier this month I would puree them with pears but now I get them frozen and thaw them so they're pretty squishy and it's fun for both of us. He's also getting good at toast fingers, although they're better if they've sat out for a few hours and gotten good and hard.

Rollin' rollin' rollin'

8 months is literally around the corner and FFM is mobile! No, not crawling yet but that kid can roll like a west Texas tumbleweed. To and fro and all over the place. Lickety split, too. Here's a diagram of where he rolled yesterday, it took him about 90 seconds to roll around the room, with some stops to inspect interesting things along the way. He ended up between the legs of the desk chair, and from that point he couldn't roll himself out (I'm not sure how he rolled himself in, but it must have involved pulling up his legs at some point), so after taking a few moments to laugh to myself at the silly pickle he'd gotten himself into and then crawling up onto the couch to take a photo, I bailed him out. This new mobility reminded me of a link to some videos that I stumbled across when I was in Dublin. It's a New Zealand outfit that does some nice informational videos for new moms about how to encourage active movement and healthy motor development. Click here if you're interested - Active Movement. I'll also put it on the sidebar under Active Baby.

PS: if you're interested in what my MIL Penny is up to check out her new blog! Penny's Larks and Yarns.

Mooloolaba

Say that three times fast. Mooloolaba Mooloolaba Mooloolaba.

Off to the Sunshine Coast this weekend! North of Brisbane = Sunshine Coast, South of Brisbane = Gold Coast. Mooloolaba was our destination for another weekend beach getaway. Saturday was toasty, somewhere in the 97F range, so we went to Queensland's largest aquarium, cleverly named Underwater World. It was actually pretty good, better than I expected. We melted through most of a seal show (outdoors under a shaded area) but soon retreated back to hotel pool.

Sunday was beach day, we'd thought about it for Saturday but it was really just too hot for FFM to be outside for any period of time. Here we are at the beach. Note the lingering Irish suntan. With the high UV here I'll likely just burn so don't expect anything less than fluorescent white skin when you get to see it. FFM's in his full body rashy aka 'stinger suit.

Mooloolaba's just over an hour from Brisbane so a lot of people came up just for the day. Traffic home on weekends like this one can be similar to traffic about on I-70 after a light ski weekend. Swap the skis for surf boards and snowmobiles for boats and you get the picture. We feel right at home.

We also did a little side trip to the Glass House mountains on our way home. The plan was to have a picnic but when we arrived at the picnic area the only tables available were in the sun. Even though it was cooler today (in the 80s) we can't take our baby-that-turns-into-a-lobster on a picnic when it's that warm unless there's shade. Poor FFM turns into a little tomato head (his little round head turns all red) and it's so sad to watch the sweat drip down his nose so we do our best as parents to do what's good for him and keep him as cool as we can. So we had our picnic in the car.

WHEEEE, step on the gas!

BRAKE, Daddy, BRAKE!

beepbeep, move it Mr.

Hey, that's fun!

No babies were harmed in the taking of these photos. The car was in park, we were NOT driving Britney style with FFM loose. With the back car seat full of piles of maps, heaps of baby bags bottles toys blankets etc, we really didn't want to join FFM back there for our picnic. So Travis sat him in his lap so we could eat.

But we probably are terrible parents for thinking these are funny pictures :)