Due to this post and the awesome comments I recieved from my readers, I decided to share the Little One with you, my soon to be step daughter.

The below is me and the Little One, which was taken in 2008, we were just meeting each other, and getting to know each other. I loved to make her laugh, oh she had such a giggle. I used to chase her around and tickle her, she would squeal and scream and giggle so much. I still remember that day when she tripped over and started crying and instead of running past me to her dad, she happily lifted her hands to me.

I also loved how she’d settle down, and let me point things out to her, which I think we’re doing in this picture. She’d look at what I was pointing and talking about with such an intense look.

Below is a photo that was taken not quite a month after her second birthday, if I remember rightly we let daddy sleep in and we got dressed, had breakfast and had a girlie morning. By now she was happy to spend time with just me, she could happily say/yell/scream my name, though it came out like Eel. By now, with those eyes, and with that giggle she had my heart.

Since then, we’ve had one more birthday, soon to be another birthday, and we’ve had two more christmases. We have up and downs, times where she tests me since I’m not a parent, and I’m sure we will have many more. Those upsetting times are and always will be trumped by those times where she runs to me even though there are blood relatives closer, when she smiles when she sees I’m in the car waiting for her, when I hear giggle, or when she asks me to play with her, when she asks to dance with me or when she knows if she asks I will help her get food, or a drink, or do her hair. She has my heart and always will have.

I can’t believe how big she is, and how much she’s grown.
I cannot believe how much I love her, and how much I cannot wait until I can call her my step-daughter.

I love trolling recipe websites, I drool over great looking recipes and the photos with them, I save them and store them away for the day I decide to make them. I never do though. I plan to, I think about it, and just never make them.

This recipe is really easy though, Cheesy Bread. I want to try it so bad, it looks so good. It only a few ingredients, surely I can finally get to making this recipe.

• 8 oz shredded Mozzarella cheese
• 1 lb shredded sharp cheddar cheese
• 1/2 to 1 cup chopped green onion (to taste)
• 1/2 cup mayonnaise
• 2 Tbsp sour cream (optional)
• 3-4 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 stick unsalted butter (1/2 cup, 4 ounces), softened to the point of being slightly melted
• 1 to 2 loaves of French or Italian bread, depending on the size of the loaves

It only has three steps.

1. In a large bowl, mix together the cheeses and the green onion. Stir in the mayonnaise and sour cream. In a separate small bowl blend the butter and garlic until smooth. Add the butter mixture to the cheese mixture.
2. Preheat broiler. Slice loaf of bread in half horizontally, lay crust side down. Spread cheese mixture over the bread. Place under the broiler until nicely browned, about 3 to 5 minutes.
3. Remove from broiler and let sit for 5 minutes until cool enough to handle. Slice the bread with a bread knife. Serve.

Though I don’t have some crusty bread, nor sour cream, nor mayonnaise, so I’ll have to leave it until later this week. However, I’m off to make some Pasta Bake for tea. I’m not very good at cooking, so wish me luck!

By the way, what do you think of the new theme? I like this one much better than the last!

I still go by the nicknames of ‘the boy’, ‘the little one’ and the only one without a nick name ‘paul anka’. I don’t post photos, and I try my hardest to hide all information off my blog.

I’m not really sure why I don’t devolve personal information, I would love to show you photos of the little one, and post some family portraits, some of those moments that I’m most proud of.
One issue for me is, I am only the (soon to be) step mum, it really is up to the boy and his ex-wife whether I post photos of the little one online. The second issue, do I want to put photos of her up even if they okayed it? Do I want other people looking through them or even taking it further to something I don’t want to think about? But then again, I want to share those photos with my readers, plus I would love to share the photos I take with my Nikon D40, and mostly that’s of the little one.
So mummy bloggers/personal bloggers how do you decide or how did you decide whether you would or wouldn’t share photos, names and details with the scary wide world?

I love finding writing or numbers books suitable for the little one’s age, she is three and a half. She can write As and Ms without assistance, and can trace majority of others without assistance. However, I thought this book would be great for her. It starts with lines, vertical and horizontal, circles and half circles, short dashes and basically any pencil movement you need to be able to master before you can write properly.

It gets into the letters later, but I really thought the finer details were quite important and often missed by other educational book.

Can I believe she’s almost writing? Absolutely not. I’m looking forward to when she starts to read. I really don’t know how to start off helping her to learn to read. When I helped older children with the mental age of a 3/4 year old. We did flash cards, started with a couple of words and slowly build up.

Is that suitable for the little one? Or is there some magic, secret way no one has told me about?

She’s talking about going to school, and how much fun it will be. I’m looking forward to seeing her mature and grow up, and yet I’m already missing the fun that her being two brings.

As I write this, she’s currently napping so maybe I’ll hold off on being sad about her growing up until she doesn’t want her afternoon nap.

I’m back into the full swing of multitasking, part time/full time work and full time university. The first round of essays are due soon, and I need to get all my text books. (I’d done all my work up until now minus a few readings.) However, even though the website said the text book store was open to 6pm, I finally finished once this week at 5pm, and rushed straight into the city. I run up to the text book store, only to discover it actually closed at 5.15pm. I rushed around for a week trying to get into the textbook store when it was actually open, I finally have my text book (thanks for the boy taking time off work to go and get it) and finally able to properly start my essay.

Also, to add to my night time work I’ve decided to make sure every night we have a home cooked meal. Normally the boy cooks tea for us, but lately with his late hours, and me sucking at cooking, we’ve had a lot of Sushi and a lot of Subway.
Now I have a list on the fridge on what recipes I can make with the ingredients we currently have, been doing well for the last week or so. Lets see if I can keep this up!