Bugs

Ella has been learning all about insects at kindy this term. She has loads and loads of odd information that she can relay to you about bugs.
Did you know spiders bodies are covered in an oily layer, so that they don't stick to their own webs?
Did you know that spiders legs are covered in tiny little hooks that mean they can't get blown off their webs on windy days?
Did you know that spiders can't chew like humans can? They have to squirt poison in to the flies body until all their insides turn to liquid and then they slurp their insides out.
Did you know butterfiles don't have mouths, they have a probiscus?
Ladybirds are great insects, because they eat aphids, which eat roses.
She is a fountain of knowledge, so I guess it should have come as no surprise tonight that while we were laying on her bed reading stories, and she had her hand on my stomach and suddenly felt the baby move, she said 'Wow, that's a big bump,it must be Sprout's thorax!'

Salee turns one

We went to visit Alexis and her little boy, Salee, on Sunday. They are living at Tailem Bend for the moment, so we sat in the car for 2 hours to get there, which wasn't as bad as I thought it might be. The girls are getting to a wonderful age and they sang songs happily most of the way.
Ella in particular was very impressed that we were 'in the distance' as we started driving up the freeway through the hills. She always gazes at the hills and calls them 'the distance'.

We had a lovely BBQ on the river side watching the ferry go over and back and over and back.... Charlotte was enthralled watching a young boy catching big carp on a handline. She is a child that looks at the world with total wonder. She loves animals so much. She loves bugs and has no real fear of anything (I say 'real' fear, as she loves to copy her big sisters' screams when she sees a bug, and insists that she is 'scared', but truthfully would just pick a huntsman up and tuck it in her pocket if I let her) She loves nature and is always filling her pockets with different types of rocks and leaves and sticks.
She really is unique, and makes me laugh out loud many times each day with her wackiness. She loved the trees that were full of screeching corellas and the giant cricket on the toilet floor that was losing it's fight amongst a gazillion ants.

Alexis kept commenting over and over how much Charlotte looks like me. The two girls are so different it is bizarre. Even odd things like their feet - Ella has Raff's lanky feet, complete with a second toe that is longer than her big toe. Charlotte has my stumpy little toes and odd toenails.

Alexis made a cake for her boy. I let her know that that was the first real rite of motherhood. What do you think? Blue jelly and chocolate cake?


I think Lex's mum didn't have 100% faith in her cake making ability, so this was the back up one ;)


It was great to see Lex again. She looks great and I was happy to see that her boy was in cloth nappies! We have known each other for 15 years! Crap, that makes me feel old....



Ella went wild with the camera and took about 50 odd close-up photos of all kinds of things. This is the family shot that she took. Thank goodness for digital cameras :p



All up it was a lovely day. I had forgotten how peaceful it is to be at the river. It was a well earned time-out for us all.

Odd child

So last week I was in the toilet and I heard a little voice saying 'Help me. Stuck' I wandered outside to see this


I have no idea what she was thinking, but inside the pillowcase was a Charlotte, two blankets, 3 baby dolls and a partridege in a pear tree.

I took it off her head to find this gorgeous sight

May as well throw in a photo of the Big Sister while I am here
Oh, and this is the view that I get of my 26 week pregnant tummy

Songs for Adam and Eva

I know I really need to do an update....but in the meantime here is my gorgeous grown up girl


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iFvWJappNXc

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=81wbhsPllw8

Meet Sprout

We had our ultrasound today. You know what that means? We are at the halfway mark of this pregnancy. Quickest pregnancy in history, I say.
Ella came along with us and she did enjoy it, but I am glad I packed enough snack and drinks and books for her to look at during the boring moments.
For some reason the baby has been named Sprout, it has just kind of stuck. We have never been ones for cutesie names for foetuses, but Sprout it is.
And nope, we didn't find out the sex. I am always sooooo tempted to peek as the sonographer scans down the body, but always look away at the last minute.

All seems well, I have an appointment with the midwives on Tuesday, so I suppose we will find out for sure then.

I will leave you with this photo of what us Aussies have to do to keep cool in these times of droughts and water restrictions.

Baby Names

I really should be keeping you all updated on the baby names that Ella keeps coming up with.
If it is a boy she wants to name him Sprout or Yabbie.
If it is a girl then she wants to name her Ari or Billy

Time for an update

I am always so tired in the evenings that my head and my hands can't compute, so it is way too hard to blog, but tonight the girls were sound asleep early and the place is tidy(ish)
Disappointing news is that the owners of the house in Willaston that we are hoping to buy have decided not to renew our contract. It's still possible that we can buy it, but it is back on the open market with a new real estate agent, so it could sell quickly now.
Fingers crossed that this week is the week that we will sell our house. We have had it on the market now for over 3 months. I really couldn't be stuffed house hunting again!

Ella got a globe of the world for Christmas. I didn't realise it when I bought it but it has a light in it, so it is now her nightlight. Each night before she goes to bed she checks that Scotland is turned around so that it faces her while she sleeps.

We have a comet http://www.news.ninemsn.com/article.aspx?id=101950 travelling through our skies at the moment, and have had fun reminiscing with the kids about the night that we snuck out of the house to see Halleys Comet - 21 years ago!!



Ella drew a photo of Eva today

Charlotte being tickled by fairies

Merry Christmas Message

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-X_b330odnA


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSHITvNdGRI


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PipXF7we9II

December

Ella and Raff went flying in a little 4 seater plane. The photos Raff took look great, but I'm not sure about a tiny little plane for myself. Hey, and they have ripped out the trees that spell PARAFIELD. Buggers.

We visited Father Christmas at Myer and had the girls photo taken. They were both very happy to sit on his lap, thank goodness, as after lining up for an hour and a half we were all pretty frayed.

I really just wanted to throw up a whole heap of photos. My brain is fried tonight. We went to the Gawler Pool this morning (37 degrees here today....) and that totally wore me out.

Ella on the noisy plane


Mall's balls


Sand sculpture in Rundle Mall


Ella gesturing rudely at her kindy concert


Father Christmas

Baby # 3

So we had sat on this news for 7 long weeks, with me feeling like crap and Raff feeling like some kind of stud, no doubt.
I did the pregnancy test on a Wednesday afternoon - Charlotte was asleep and Ella was at kindy - I then proceeded to walk around in a daze for a couple of hours. Alternating between extreme happiness and mini panic attacks. My overwhelming thought was of the labour and delivery, yet I had totally forgotten about the first trimester....nausea, tiredness, food aversion, dizziness, vagueness, exhaustion, bloating, hunger, frustration and sleepiness.

My iron levels were already below normal at the beginning of the pregnancy, so straight onto iron supplements for me. Yay.

On the Monday night before mum and dad came home I had a chat to Ella about having another baby. We talked on and off in general terms and then just as I was about to leave the room she asked 'How do you know that a baby is in your tummy? Do you have to wait for it to start kicking you?' So I touched briefly on pregnancy tests etc.

Come 6:30am Tuesday morning, a little voice next to my pillow says 'Mum, you should come and do one of those wee tests' So I did. I gave Ella strict instructions not to look at the test until the timer beeped, and made sure that she understood that 2 pink lines meant 'baby!' and left her to it. She was sooooo rapt to be able to come and tell me that I had a baby in my tummy. ("I reeeaaalllly want a brother, but I know that you don't get to choose and if it is a sister then I will love her so, so much. But I reeeaallly want a brother....")

So that's it. A new baby for us due sometime around the end of June next year.
How exciting!

Official photo

Thought I would add in the official photo that we had done. A bit blurry probably as I just scanned it.

Concert Day

We made it through our first ballet concert.
Ella was a real trooper about it. It has been a pretty full on month, with a photo session one Saturday, a rehearsal the next Saturday, a full dress rehearsal the following Wednesday night and then two concerts today.

We have had fun and made some great friends with a handful of the ballet mums.
Today Raff and I took Ryan, Bethany and Hannah up to Tanunda to watch Ella in the 2pm concert. Rachel stayed home with the babies. We then came back to Gawler, met at Fasta Pasta for dinner and then Ella and I were back in Tanunda by 6:30.

The concert was very well done, quite professional. The pumpkins were hilarious. Considering that Ella admitted quite openly that she was very nervous, I think she did a great job. There was an awful lot of waiting around to do also.

I didn't watch the evening concert as I was backstage being a 'dresser' to a lot of the other pumpkins. I mastered a real ballet bun, fringe and all - finally. And I got all the sequins finished in plenty of time.

Thanks to Rachel lending me her camera, I managed to get quite a few photos of Ella tonight. One of the other mums insisted on re-doing her make-up, as my effort was 'too light'.......

And a close up of my perfect sequins!!

As we didn't leave Tanunda until 8:30 it was dark by the time we got back in to Gawler, so Ella and I drove around looking at all the Christmas lights. It was gorgeous. She was just so blown away by the beauty of it all. It was a lovely end to a hectic month, her all snugged up in her flannelette pyjamas watching the glorious displays that people put all that effort into. Followed by a 'Thankyou sooo much for showing me these lights, Mum. They make me think about Baby Jesus'

Approved!

Yay! The bank approved our loan...finally. Only a week and a bit later than needed to fulfill the contract, so hopefully it will still be accepted by the vendors.

We put our Christmas tree up this week, so thought I would include the photos of the star-topping.

Ella was a bit of a hero today at kindy, apparently. A bookcase fell down on 2 other children and she rushed over and lifted the bookcase off them while calling the teachers. It was the day that childcare pick her up from kindy, so I didn't speak to the kindy teachers directly, but apparently she was quite shaken by the whole thing and needed a lot of comfort. She complained of a sore neck to her carers today, so I will have to see how she pulls up tomorrow.

Oh, and I forgot to mention a wonderful thing (not!) that happened to me last Friday.
I had just put Ella to bed and then chased Charlotte down the hallway, scooped her up, held her upside down, made her giggle and then sat her on my lap to finish getting her pyjamas on. She had one very meaty hiccup (still laughing), followed by.....projectile vomit. In my face. Boiled eggs, baked beans and yoghurt for dinner. Oh my. I actually vomited in the shower trying to clean it all up. *retch* Bloody kids.

Oh and these photos will be the last ones for a while, as my camera broke :(
I am going to do some research online tonight and hopefully get Raff to find me a nice one soon. I just banked my tax cheque today. :)

Cool things!

One of Raff's companies that he does a lot of work with has a corporate box at the Entertainment Centre and we have been given 4 tickets to sit in the box, get fed free food and watch ............ The Wiggles!!!!
Very exciting.

Plus in a couple of weeks Lester is taking Ella and I up in a light aircraft to fly from Parafield to Gawler. He lectures on things to do with Physics and planes flying and what-have-you, so one of his students is taking us up.

And a not so cool thing...
the bank turned down our loan application for the house, though it looks to be only a slight glitch as Raff's car is leased under the business name it shouldn't count as an expense that we have to pay out of pocket, but rather it just affects our bottom line ie profit/loss. It seems like the bank got their wires crossed and the home loan guy is now talking directly with our accountant to get it sorted.

We had a lady come through to look at the house today (with 2 hours notice!! The house was a bomb-site! Thanks Rach, I manged to get everything done in time)
She loved, loved, loved the house. Exactly what she wanted apparently. So now we wait.

Ella went up a level in swimming classes. I actually got to sit and watch her, as she is now in the class (well, I use the term 'class' very lightly, as she is the only child at the mement) before Charlotte's (at 8:30am!)
She is doing so, so well. I really wasn't sure how she would take to swimming, but she is almost graceful in the water which is just brilliant.

The weather has been just freezing here, in fact Victoria got 20 cms of snow yesterday. Very strang with only two weeks until summer starts.

Still haven't sold the Corolla which is a bugger, as on top of the moving costs etc it looks like we are going to have a luuurvely 10 grand tax bill due in April. Oops, really should have utilised that PAYG.

Kangaroo Island

Oh, it was perfect :)
The ferry trip there was hilarious, it was very, very rough so we got to watch Charlotte stumbling from one end of the boat to the other in absolute hysterics. She is just such a crack up.
The place we stayed in was just gorgeous, right on the beachfront at Penneshaw within walking distance of the ferries.
We did Remarkable Rocks, Admirals Arch, Seal Bay, Honey farm, Sheep milking farm, fed pelicans and even patted a kangaroo in the wild.

The girls had a ball.

she with the photos

Check Rachel's blog for the story. I only have the photos!


Oh, and we have had Rufus for the last 8 ish weeks and we didn't lose him. Not even for a moment.

Rain!

It rained this afternoon! Very exciting. I don't think it has rained since you left...
Oh, here you go September was pretty dismal, as was October
The girls sat out in the rain for ages. It was lovely steady summer smelling rain.

open inspection

What a busy weekend!
Thanks to Rachel having our girls for the day we managed to get so much done around the house on Saturday.
Finally got the office all tidied up, painted the peeling window sill in the bathroom, scrubbed the inside of the bath (gratuitous plug for Chux Magic Eraser!), sugar soaped all the walls, doors and cupboards, cleaned windows inside and out, ripped in to the front yard, mowed evrything in sight, cleared everything out from under the pergola, dusted all the timber venetians, scrubbed oven and then swept, dusted, vacuumed, wiped anything else that was left!
The house looks great :)
We managed to sneak in for a Devonshire Tea on one of many jaunts to the hardware store, which was lovely. We also can now use a key to unlock the front door - only cost us $21 and about 12 minutes....what took us so long!?

Today was the moment of truth and we hung out at the park and spied on all the people coming to the open. There were 4 families all up, 2 of them were in and out within moments, one older couple stayed for the whole half hour.

The real estate agent mentioned that the two families said there was 'too much work' to be done, but the older couple were very, very keen. The real estate agent was very impressed with the effort we had put in to tidying the place up which was nice. The first time he saw our place it was a real mess, the office was chock a block full of crap and the outside was feral.....

Lester came to visit today. Ella has always adored him, but today was Charlotte's day for following her 'Gampa' around. Everything that happened she had to run and show or tell Lester. It was very cute, and Lester was chuffed.

Charlotte is going through an hilarious stage now where if either her or Ella hurts herself then she comes and gets us and shows us a slow motion re-enactment of how it happened accompanied by a running commentary 'Ella down cry ow' Very funny stuff. The total winner was last week there was a HUGE huntsman spider on the outside of the kitchen window. Thank goodness Raff was still home!
He sprayed it and of course it ran and dropped and then died.
Charlotte came dashing inside telling me 'Daddy spider down' and then she lay spread-eagled on her back with her legs in the air and her eyes closed. I was wetting myself laughing, she is such a crazy card.

Though, Rachel said they struggled to get a smile out of her on Saturday, she can be so serious. She told us all about her day, and seemed to be quite impressed with Paul. I think it had never occurred to her that her cousins had a Dad, too.

Mum - went in to the bakery today and everyone says "HI!"

thoughtful

Rachel and I caught up for a coffee on Monday morning almost child-free (2 at school, one at kindy, 2 at childcare and one asleep in the pram)
When I left there I had to go straight to pick up Ella from kindy. As we are driving home Ella asks me what I did while she was at kindy, so I told her I went to the gym, hung up some washing and then met Rachel for a coffee. She asked why I met Rachel for a coffee, I explained that we just wanted to catch up for a chat blah blah.
She then comes out with 'Mum, you guys are doing so well keeping an eye on each other while your mum is away on holidays. I'm proud of you'

All together now, awwwwwww, ain't she sweet?

hello helloo...anyone out there?

Very quiet out there in Blog-world.....
I'm sure everyone is just so busy having loads of fun.

Well, our exciting news this week is that we have put our house on the market.
Professionals
It was all kind of spur of the moment. Obviously it is something that we have talked about on and off over the last couple of years, but the opportunity arose so we just did it.
Our first open inspection is next Sunday - I feel like we have a million things to do before then!!

We have been checking out opens and this week I have seen inside about 15 houses. It is quite amazing the variance in what the same amount of money can buy .....
We have a fairly long list of 'things' that are important to us in a home, and today I found the house that had all those things!

Here it is!
The photos make it look far uglier than reality - think it must be their furniture ;)

Here is our 'must have' list!

- Fully fenced
- Low maintenance gardens
- Undercover parking
- Shed to store everyone elses worldy belongings!
- Built in robes to most bedrooms
- 3 bedrooms plus office
- As little carpet as possible
- Gas hot water/cooking
- No ugly cutains - prefer timber blinds
- Nice clean house - I have seen some absolute shockers!
- Decent heating and cooling
- Pleasant looking kitchen with cupboard space and walk in pantry
- Room for the piano
- Walking distance to street or school

So this house had it all plus a rainwater tank and some vegie garden beds and security roller shutters on all windows (that might stop the stupid 5:45am wake-ups!!)
Raff hasn't seen it yet, and it has only just gone on the market this week, so I am thinking we may have to be quick.
We did have a larger budget in mind, but Raff spoke to the bank and due to being self-employed our borrowing capacity is only 80% of purchase price, as opposed to 95% that the majority of people get.

Today I looked at 5 different properties. I cannot believe the state of one house in particular, it is empty and the previous owners didn't even vacuum it. Let alone repair the broken slate, torn flyscreens and filthy toilets. Really disgusting. It had a pool in the back yard that was just trashed. Unbelievable.

Exciting times.....