I have had a few really busy days and to be perfectly honest I am pooped.

Holly has been home sick since Tuesday, but we were committed to going to playgroup at Kidcity, so she came along. We had cake for Amy’s birthday and then Amy (not the sick child Holly) vomited all over the place and we had to go home. Quite the party pooper our little Amy!

On Wednesday, with Holly in tow, we had to go to the clinic to have Any’s 12mth Immunization. 3 needles – I ask you, what adult could withstand that? Amy was not impressed, but handled it well. Then it was home to get Jess and Meg.

Thursday today and Holly still sick, had to drop Meggie at preschool, Jess over at Lisa’s and then onto have Amy’s hips x-rayed for her check-up with the orthopaedic specialist next week. Got home about 2.15pm, after picking up the above mentioned children, only to find the phone had been off the hook all day (but not as bad as last week when I got home about the same time and the front door had been left wide open!).

I’d love to crawl into bed and have a few hours sleep, but no chance. Maybe I’ll search the pantry for a chocolate instead!

Number 4 turns One.
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What a milestone. It was a perfect day – she woke up and the girls and I went in to sing Happy Birthday, to which she bounced along too. When did she get so cute?? She then opened some presents, played with the girls and had a grand old time. She is certainly much happier now to follow them around and do what they are doing, but they are a bit faster than her, so often she is left behind!
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Holly and I went to pick up her birthday cake, present from Adas and Lin, which was a mudcake extravaganza and totally delish. Party time arrived and so did the guests. My grandparents, Matt and Penny, Lisa and Graham, Jane and of course all the kids. Mum rang from China, and with a week to go, she is so ready to come home and I can’t wait for that either. I told Meg that I couldn’t even remember what Nanna looked like and she said “Oh I do. She has earrings, a stripy shirt and a face”. Of course!!

All day Sunday I kept looking at Amy in such wonder. What a huge year in development from this
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to this
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It really is all very amazing don’t you think? I really just want to take things slow with her now and enjoy her babyness cause it won’t last much longer. She is cruising around the furniture and trying to take some steps with a walker infront. She is trying to mimic new words and sounds and nearly has her 8th tooth. She sleeps well all night and has 2 really good day sleeps. It seems as though it has all just fallen into place, and after a really long battle with her sleeping I’m so relieved about this! And given that she’ll be the last baby we have, I want to cherish this time even more.

Love this photo of Justin hanging out with the girls after Amy’s party – Adas reckons Jus needs a larger glass of wine!!
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So that wraps up Amy’s first year. They say the first year is the hardest, so we are on a cruisy ride from here on in!!! OMG who am I kidding 🙂

Have a great day.

A massive year came to it’s final peak over the weekend with 2 major events. Firstly the Bazaar on Saturday and then Amy’s Birthday on Sunday (see separate post on that one!).

The Bazaar –

Measa and I have worked so hard over the past year to get this off the ground and I can say I am so relieved that it is over. When I take on something like this it all becomes very personal to me. After all, I’ve invested a lot of time, energy, emotion and words into making sure that it would be a worthy event for the school and community. The stall holders, overall, said that it was OK, but it was very quiet in the afternoon. Grand final weekend, Floriade to name just a few major events were what we had to compete with. I’ve always found that it is a certain few that help out willingly every time, but what about all the other families that are at the school? I guess that is what disappointed me the most. Families in the school want to benefit from money raised, and yet barely anyone volunteers to help out with the organisation or on the day help, or worse still they don’t even turn up to have a look and buy something! Anyway, rant over. It was a fun event and I am so thankful to our friends for helping us out and making it that way.

This song title is quite pertinent to my week ahead for a few reasons:

1) I had a shite weekend. Was totally frustrated with the kids. But is it them or is it me? Dunno, probably a bit of both! “Take off that gloomy mask of tragedy….” gonna smile this week.

2) Holly is singing this exact song in her concert on Thursday night (stay tuned for clip on You Tube) and was amazed when she heard me singing it to Meg the other day.

3) Don’t want grey skies for the Bazaar on Saturday. It can rain all week, but Saturday must be clear!! My Stallholders and Car boot junkheads will blame me personally if it rains!

As a little pick me up over the weekend, Measa made me get my nails done – well she didn’t make me, but hers looked so good that I had to get mine done too. They are tap tapping away as I type on the keyboard and are taking a wee bit of getting used too but I love the look of them. They remind me of Deb in WA!

Saw magnificent Floriade on Sunday. Meg remembered that we went there last year with Adas and Lin and the exact spots where we had photos taken. Sometimes their memory amazes me – they can remember what happened a year ago but they can’t remember to get dressed, brush teeth do hair etc on a daily basis.

Have made some great signs for the bazaar which I need to bang into the ground at surrounding intersections near the school. Also got 2 massive cloth signs that we’ll hang from the fence in front and behind the school. Came up with a nifty way to hang them – my scrapbooking eyelets came in handy as did the girls scoubies (they are long pieces of stringy plastic that they knot in all sorts of shapes). Fullmarks for ingenuity.

Started back running around the mountain today. Tell you what – it took a lot out of me and I had to take a short cut. Not having run for 6 weeks means it will take a bit of building up to get back to peak!! Seeing the surgeon tomorrow for review and I’m wondering if there are stitches under the tape – certainly feels like they are beginning to pull as the wound heals. Catches me sometimes and HURTS!

Got so much to do so better get going. Groceries and signs are on the agenda today.

Have a good one 🙂

“You’ll look so good that you’ll be glad you decided to smile“

I can drive.

Freedom to go out – yippee. And this morning I went for my first walk around my mountain circuit and even ran about 100m. I looked like Cliff Young, but I did it! I’ve been feeling a bit hemmed in since I couldn’t go anywhere or walk 100%, so walking this morning gave me a much needed half hour of blissful solitude and quiet.

In other news, my tipping in the World Cup saw me pick 7 out of 8 winners this round (bugger those French for losing to Argentina!!!). Holly won a prize for her outfit in the Bookweek Parade. She went as a Fairy Character from The Rainbow Fairies Series, Polly the Party Fun Fairy. Now you would think that this would be easy if you have ever seen our dressup box overflowing with pink fairy costumes. BUT NO. Polly is blue – wears jeans and funky top, a blue belt and blue necklace and Blue Wings. The wings were the major dilemma, so I had to make them out of coathangers and a pair of Amy’s tights. The blue belt I plaited together a length of blue shiney wool In the parade Holly (aka Polly) threw balloons out into the crowd and I think this buttered up the judges somewhat! Anyhoo, she was pretty proud of her self, as was I for creating a great costume on the fly, the night before!

Mum has rung a few times now from various places in China. They say it is extremely hot, like 35 – 40 degrees, but they are having a fun time.

My Bazaar efforts are coming to fruition, only 10 days until the big event and I have 35 market stalls. I’m pretty pleased with the outcome and can’t wait to see the school hall pumping with action on the day. Our committee has done an awesome job – I’m thrilled!

Lisa and I are heading into town tomorrow to take the kids on the Merry-go-round. I’m making it sound like “town” is very far away when in reality it is 20 minutes. But in Canberra, if you have to drive more than 10 minutes to get anywhere it IS a long way and you probably will think twice about going! Lisa is begging for a stop at Koko Black and I am going to indulge her little chocolate fetish because secretly I really want to go there as well.

That is probably enough for a mid-week update. Hope all is well where you are.

It is Monday again and here I am blogging while the going is good. I’ve got a plumber coming here between 9-11am to fix a totally putrid toilet that has been blocked up in the kids bathroom. Justin thought he could do the job, but this is even beyond his scope of imaginative homemade unblocking instruments, so the professionals have been called in.

Do you even wonder at the marvels of the human body in repairing itself? Over the past week I certainly have. Every morning I get up and can bend my knee just that little bit more, and now a week out of surgery I can get up and down the stairs almost normally, rather than this hop-skip-hip-throwing-jig that I was doing before. Still not driving, but I reckon tomorrow is the day.

Over the weekend we convinced Holly to try riding without her training wheels. You would have thought we were asking her to donate her eyes to science the way she carried on. I did a kick-butt inspirational speech and even had her chanting “I am wonderful, I am amazing” to give her the confidence she needed. It took her a few goes, but in the end she was riding for a several pedal rotations before losing balance, but she is keen to practice now so I am betting that by the weekend she’ll have it down pat.
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H and M went to a birthday party for Addy across the road yesterday. Location of party – Questacon. It was great. They did science experiments, made biscuits and then went up to Mini-Q for an hour where we met up with them with Jess and Amy. What a great place for a party. Even Amy had a blast, sitting up in a high chair at the water exhibit splashing away and having the time of her life. Jess loved the Pet Vet, dressing up in the white coat and taking xrays of the animals while often nicking off next door to the play Bakery and getting a croissant or two.
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I’m on a mission to tidy up a bit now that spring is in the air. I’m sick of every surface being sticky, the floor being lumpy and there being mess everywhere. My new policy – “if it was that important to you it wouldn’t be on the floor, now it is in the bin”. Am I brave enough – hmm, we’ll see!!

Have a great day.

Went to hospital at 12.15pm yesterday. I was a wee bit nervous, but that was mainly because of the unexpected. However it all went extremely well! I was done at 1.15pm, came back out from under anesthetic at 2.15, into recovery at 3pm and allowed to go home at 5pm. All very civilised and easy. The surgeon said it went well, and that the screw wasn’t loose but certainly protruding into the patella and surrounding muscle. I have a massive bandage covering my knee which is actually causing more annoyance than the pain of the surgery. I can take that off tomorrow thank goodness. The yellowness of the leg is all that pre-op antiseptic they smear over the area. Smelly!!
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So Justin has taken this all in his stride and is finding that juggling the phonecalls and the kids and nappy changes and housework etc is a lot of work and can take up a lot of time. He has taken the girls to Playgroup this morning and took reading sessions with Holly’s class yesterday. Isn’t he wonderful!

Fathers Day was nice – we had a BBQ for lunch then drove to Parliament House to have a wander around and show the girls where the Prime Minister works. Afterwards we nipped into McD’s for a cone. The first Ice cream cone that Amy has ever had and she LOVED it!!
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Jess has formed a new friendship with the little boy that has moved in up the road and has a play date with him on Friday. Cute! She chased him up and down the street Sunday evening, while the big girls rode bikes and scooters and the big Mums and Dads had a few drinks. I love my new street! Well except the lady next door who is cross with me for some reason and won’t talk to me!! She used to be really nice – I wonder what I’ve done 🙂 Oh well, not losing sleep over that one.

I’m going to book our tickets to Tassie now. Tania gave us the all clear to come then so I’ve instructed her to make a booking at the Cadbury Factory Tour and a date for the Salamanca Markets. Yippeee…

And just a quick shot of some scrapping that I did for Beth’s challenge.
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Have a great day in the sunshine 🙂

With all the girls being sick, it was only time before either Justin or I got it. And it was me! Spent most of Thursday and Friday in bed with the same gastro thing that Jess had a few days ago. Felt so bad, but now I’m back on deck feeling well and ready for my operation on Monday.

During the week I got a flyer in the mailbox about a Spring Fair and Market Day that is on today at our school, run by church group that hires the hall every Sunday for their masses. Given that the Market Day I am organising for the school is on in 3 weeks, at the same venue, I was very miffed. Anyway, to make the best of it, I am going there today to check out how they are running it to make sure that Mine is better in 3 weeks time. And it will be better. Positive thought mantra!!

In about 6 weeks Justin and I will be celebrating our 10th Wedding Anniversary. So finally, this morning I checked out the flights for a little holiday away. I’ve been dying to get to the Barossa but it is looking to tricky for this time, but an idea hit me and it went like this…

Our anniversary is 4th October. We have 4 children and the October is the 10th Month. 4 x 10 is 40. Justin’s sister Tania, who lives in Tassie, is turning 40 in October, and we went to Tassie for our honeymoon all those 10 years ago.

Justin is often confused with my train of thought, but that is all perfectly clear to me and made it obvious where we should go for our holiday. Now I just have to tell Tania!!!

Happy Father’s Day to all the gorgeous Dads in your lives. Mine’s in China but sending you heaps of Happy Fathers Day thoughts for tomorrow Dad.

Have a great weekend 🙂