a 30 day update

gosh i have been a slack blogger. i guess i will play the newborn baby card, because it is the easiest card to play. i could probably even slam that card on the table as my excuse for thinking about shutting down this little blog, but i want to document the story god gave us, and so through my sleep deprivation i will soldier on.


ella vera hutchins was born at 12.20pm on 7 march 2012. after 14 hours of torture labor she was put on my chest. she was a screaming hot mess but she was all mine at the same time. she was mine in a way that something had never been mine before, and every day she grows and changes i feel like it is a day closer to her no longer being mine any more. one day she will belong to her friends, school, her job, life in general, but in these first precious weeks she belongs solely to me. at our three am feeds on the couch while the world sleeps i fight to remember to savour the moment, because while it is so hard, it is so rewarding at the same time. 


she has started to recognise my voice and to smile, that means a lot.


also, sometimes she screams in such pain (we think it's a tummy pain) and I feel so helpless, and that is hard.


poor ella started her life with jaundice, then she was having a devil of a time eating meaning she wasn't putting on enough weight, it was at that point that formula was looking mighty tempting but i am glad i persevered with breastfeeding because now she is growing and putting on weight like a champ!


we are approaching week five and all in all it is starting to get easier. 


during labor i literally couldn't understand how people have more than one child. while writhing in pain i was planning our lives as a single child household, and i was totally fine with it.


but now i get it, you are holding perfection in your arms and why wouldn't you want more of that?

little by little, week by week

i've been working on a little project for the past forty weeks.
well I guess I've been working on two little projects. one is sleeping blissfully upstairs and the other is here! 

i've always found fascinating the body's ability to drastically change itself in short periods of time. i really wanted to document that change over this pregnancy, so with nick's help we took photos almost every week to watch the changes. unfortunately we couldn't get a week thirty nine photo because baby ella decided to arrive three days early.

it's true, from little things, big things grow...

post script

while i do wear an inordinate amount of stripes

in this case, they're intentional

still no baby up in here

well actually to be more precise, there's still a baby, but it's...

the strange thing about waiting for a baby is that you honestly think it will never come. the rational part of your brain is squashed by the impatient, 'body aching all over' part of your brain that just truly believes every morning you wake up still pregnant, is just further confirmation that this baby, in fact, will never arrive.


now of course, it will arrive (my friend just had one, so it must happen), but do i really believe it? not yet.


funnily enough we talk about this baby arriving a lot, like we are going to pick it up from the airport, like we're just waiting on the phone call as to when to leave. but the baby is already here. she's the closest she will ever be to me, she can hear us talking about her arrival and yet i still feel like she is in some other place and we are just waiting for the knock on the door when someone drops her off to us (wouldn't that be pain free lovely).


it's not that crazy that i would be hoping she would be here by now. i'm just over thirty nine weeks and according to extensive googling, about 45% of babies have arrived by now (that doesn't take into the mother's situation but whatevs). but alas no.


so i shall continue to wait....

post script

i have been working on a very special
project over the past thirty sixish weeks

(with help from my wonderful
photography assistant nicholas)
so i'll post that in just a
couple of days when

it's done.

twenty eleven was rather wonderful

or "h n year" as my mother put it in her most recent text message 

she's totes down with technology, can't you tell?

twenty eleven was rather wonderful, here's why

january | discovered gelatissimo in newtown, for a couple who live an hour away we frequent this place an embarrassing amount

february | said hi to nick's mum as she came to australia for the first time

march | said bye to all four wisdom teeth. it's like a kick in the teeth, literally

april | turned twenty three. had one of the best days in bondi. i just love the ocean

may | tried to delay the inevitable winter by heading north to the gold coast + theme parks.

 still die a little on the inside when i think about that one particular slide

june | finally met charlie in parkes after seeing a million photos on relishingthisseason, loved catching up with old friends

july | celebrated one year of marriage. on our one year anniversary also found out we were expecting an addition

august | got to see baby for the first time. instantly felt in love with this little grainy, black and white baby

september | flew stateside to visit nick's family and tell them the news

october | went to new york. love love loved it. 'nuff said.

november | finally went from looking fat to looking pregnant oh and found out it's a girl!

december | best christmas day in a long long time. first time my brother, sister and i were actually in the same state for christmas day in over five years

one whole year

dear mr hutchins,
we were married one whole year ago today

ain't it grand that we didn't meet on a reality dating tv show?

i think so too.

sometimes, usually when you're at work and i'm at home on my lonesome, killing time and playing hard to get with the chocolate in the fridge, i think about the time before i met you. before i called you mine. i used to chat to God about you, well not you specifically, but you know what i mean. i didn't usually hear much back, other than be patient which is clearly my strong suit

now. on the flip side of the whole marriage thing.

i can hear what God was saying that whole time. 

"oh naya my girl, i know him already, and made him just with you in mind! i'm so excited for you two to get to know each other, just you wait my girl, you will love him"


now a year on, God's probably pretty chuffed with himself because we worked out so darn well, huh? you know the ranting satisfaction i get when i set up two friends and it actually works out? imagine how God must feel!

do you remember our wedding day bear? in case you've forgotten here 
is my favourite photo from the day

just kidding, but we're pretty darn popular in the under two demographic, huh?

okay okay, i'm still kidding, but look how confused we are!

this is my actual favourite

i still look up to you bear. thank you for our love story


 x

post script

if you are not my husband and 

you read all this way, well done. 

you get a reward for making it this far.

this is us, ripping up the dance floor. 

gosh, our kids are going to think we're cool.

don't you love that i took my shoes off? 

you know, cos i'm classy like that

have you seen this?

i was telling someone recently that i sometimes cry during commercials, 

they thought i was crazy!

i'm all about you bear

oo em gee i love marriage. or maybe i just love my husband. either which way there is something so nice about doing life with your best friend. it's not always roses, but it is pretty darn good.

i was reading a poignant post by one natalie holbrook over at nat the fat rat (a blog i must say i stalk frequent a lot). she wrote a post about marriage and said a bunch of great things but the one that stuck with me the most was 

'be fiercely loyal to your husband' 

i liked that so much. i already knew it, but i previously couldn't find the words to articulate it.

fast forward to the hutchins household last night. there wasn't anything particularly special about last night, no romantic dates or grand gestures, but for the most important things there never really is, is there? 

i was watching oprah (as you do) and nick was in the kitchen cooking (oh my, you will drool hear about this a couple of paragraphs down). so anyway, oprah was talking.....oh wait, side story to make this story make sense.

nick's from michigan, i'm from sydney, we both live in sydney now and whenever he sees/hears a reference to michigan he goes 'woo'.

so anyway, back to the previous story, oprah was talking about love, peace, happiness, the usual and mentioned ann arbor, michigan.

i said woo (i'm cool like that)

nick from the kitchen says did she mention australia?

i said no, ann arbor, michigan 

he said i love that you do that 

i said i'm all about you bear 

he said i'm all about you nay

and for anyone looking in on our marriage (as you are now) that might seem like an insignificant exchange but for me, it summed up my marriage and so perfectly exemplified what i want our marriage to continue to become.

then, to put a cherry on top of the proverbial 'perfect marriage moment' sundae, he watched oprah with me. ain't he sweet? and he cooks too! 

because you stuck with that story now you are rewarded with some snap shots of a wintery weekend in ol' sydney town.

what's going on?


a bit of church
some belt shopping
my spinach, feta & pine nut filo tart (jamie oliver)
people who sleep in have to eat breakfast in the car
nick's chocolate and raspberry bread pudding (donna hay) 
i got to lick the spoon (i came running)

post script

i bought some new jeans this weekend

while wearing my new jeans i hear nick wolf whistle behind me

feeling pretty chuffed i turn to take the compliment 

he's whistling at the case of corona he's opening

he then started singing my corona to the tune of my sharona

there are no words.

am i old? it's yet to be determined

the top photo looks strange. like there's junk all over my face, but in fact there's junk all over the mirror. i guess that's less gross, but still not great, i know.

anyway if you can't tell, not one but two whole people must have read my blog, this post in particular (those two people happen to be related to me, so maybe they don't count). not only did they read it but they took it as a call to action and both of them knitted me my very own neck warmer. i shall dream no more.

thank you mumma and heidi!

i would love to learn to knit. that is actually one of the many pieces of evidence that is proving somewhere along the way i became old. poor nick, i was cool and young when we met, ahh the old bait and switch. 

we got in the car late last night and triple j was playing the usual "it's so late no one's listening so we'll fill out death metal/thrash/house quota" and the following ensued

naya "oh triple j, what are you doing?" *goes to turn radio off

naya "oh the quiz!" *quickly switches the station to ABC 702

nick "you are your mother"

that is all for this tuesday night. 

stay classy san diego 

p.s on an unrelated matter, 

found out today our nephew brody 

thinks we live in the computer. 

he points to the laptop and asks for us.

don't know whether to laugh or cry.

oh and i made a new header that i am finally happy with. 

this one is steezy the last one sucked,  i can admit it.

what to do when your husband is working and you're home alone at night

google pictures of guys who look like him

this guy's from parenthood, but we're on a personal basis with that show, so we call it the 'hood (because yes, we're that cool).

this is the guy from it's complicated.

eh? i know, right?

cook some salmon. it was my first time, i was rather dubious nervous about the whole thing. but like any well educated house wife, i looked it up on youtube first. the sentence prior to this was written before i had cooked it. i just cooked it and ate it (talk about real time blogging). woah! salmon is my new favourite thing out of the sea. it was incredible. season the salmon with salt and pepper and cook the salmon each side in a medium to hot pan for two minutes per side, then make a sauce of equal part lime juice and honey, pour it over the salmon in the pan and let it cook with the sauce 90 seconds, serve and eat. you can thank me later.

watch the 'hood. i'm julia, nick's joel. is that weird?

oh and recovering after my trip to the supermarket. i went on the way home from work to buy ice cream and pva glue (separate uses, don't worry) and oh my! you would think the apocalypse is coming by the way people are storing up food (in what i can only imagine would be their underground bunkers). for those in the states, it's a public holiday tomorrow, so no shops are open. hence the completely irrational need of nine tenths of society to buy uncontrollably in the last remaining hours of our consumer driven thursday

oh an making a new blog header. funny story that. starting a blog was a very spur of the moment thing. i started one mainly because i wanted to document our lives, from the mundane to the flippin sweet stuff that happens. i trawled around blogger world to see how other people had set out their blogs therefore the design of the old header was kind of copied borrowed from another blog i like to read. i know, not cool right? so i finally got around to doing my own. and hence i am now an officially legit blog.