And.... we're on holidays. Yay! Andrew, Evie and I are up in Byron Bay with the full complement of Wilsons to celebrate brother Ben's 40th birthday. Because I'd rather be at the beach then posting on fushmush I think I'll do "my day in photos" type posts while we're away.

We survived the plane ride. I was a tiny bit worried as last time we flew I was still breastfeeding and could use my boobs to keep Evie happy. Today, Evie was well and truly sick of it while we were taxiing but with a bit of lullaby singing she was a asleep by the time we took off. Phew!

We're staying in the most beautiful house which is very close to the beach. It has the best bath in the en suite (don't think I'll get a chance to try it out though) and has excellent babysitting services.

That's it for Day 1. Hopefully I'll be able to post some beach shots tomorrow.

Just a quick one this evening as I'm super tired after a busy weekend.

I made these "cute as a button" cupcakes for Christina's baby shower today. They are GF vanilla cupcakes (just a box mix... nothing special) decorated with piped buttercream and fondant buttons. I'm pretty happy with how they turned as I actually made the fondant buttons myself (the interwebs knows everything!)

But more about the cupcake making and the baby shower later...

More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

And so a new chapter of my life has begun. After three and a half years of uni, 16 weeks of professional experience and countless assignments and essays, on Wednesday I had my first day as a real teacher. There were many firsts on that day. First time I'd been paid to be a teacher, first time I was in a classroom unsupervised and the first time I had to do playground duty.

Not only did I experience lots of firsts but I had fun learning some teacher life lessons (of which I'm sure my fellow teachers are already well aware). Like how as a casual you get swapped in for playground duty almost automatically (last week I did my first, second and third round of playground duty). And when on Infants playground duty you spend most of your time being patient with Kindy kids because their friends said something mean or don't want to play with them. And how 10 year old boys still think they are smarter than you. (A group of boys were taking turns to cough as I walked around the classroom. It was HILARIOUS...hrm).

I'm happy to know that I still have more technical knowledge than a group of 8 year olds though. In the computer lab some of the boys were giggling as they were playing around on the computer. As I headed over to find out what was going on, one of the boys highlighted and deleted some short cuts on the desktop. I pressed ctrl-Z on the keyboard and hey presto the offending material reappeared. Cue gasps of shock from the boys and a "How did you do that!?!?!" I know I should have, but I didn't tell them how. I think it's good to have a few tricks up your sleeve.

More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

I couldn't resist snapping this photo when I walked past this afternoon. It reminded me so much of the "birds on a wire" motif which is so popular at the moment. It isn't a painting though. It's a shadow of pigeons sitting on overhead power lines. It's reality imitating art.

More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.

I love watching Evie play. She comes up with some unusual games which she finds fascinating (and I find fascinating to watch). Like the game in the photo below. It involved sitting on a large padded envelope with Bear while reading one of her mini books. She sat there, playing happily, for at least five minutes.

Evie also loves bags and boxes of any shape or size. They don't have to be anything special either. Her favourites at the moment are a paper bag with handles and the box her shoes came in. She loves to load these containers up with her toys, hook them over her arm and wander around the house. Yesterday she had both bags over one arm and Bear tucked under the other. It looked like she was about to board a plane to head off on holidays. The paper bag would go in the hold, the shoe box was carry on and I'm sure Bear would sit in the seat right beside her.

More photos (slideshow) on Flickr.