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.....

Hot.

Very hot today.
We were at nanna's early, Rachel had to accompany Paul to his hearing at 9:30, so we met at Nanna's at 9am and she headed off, while Nanna, me and the 6 kids headed over to the playground.

The kids were perfect. Nanna and I just sat in the shade watching the kids play. Bethany and Ryan carried Sophie up, down and around. Sophie loved it of course. My heart was in my throat the whole time, as they look super confident doing it, but I am unsure what Rachel 'allows', so rained on their parade with constant 'Maybe you shouldn't be doing that, guys'

Charlotte was just zooming up the rope ladder and running across the chainbridge and flying down the slippery dip. She is wild.

Nanna is good. I didn't see Grandpa.

We then headed off to Ingle Farm for lunch and ended up just hanging around for a couple of hours. Wore the kids out totally, and me too. It was 35 odd degrees today and I just couldn't be stuffed cooking dinner.........again.

Pool today

It was wonderfully hot today. Mid 30s and just a gorgeous day. We went to the Pool with Mother's Group and it was just perfect. The kids are all of the age now where we can sit on the edge of the pool and watch them without them clinging on to us the whole time.

Charlotte the thrillseeker had an absolute ball. I bought her some arm floaties yesterday, so she found it easy to get around both the small and the medium pool by herself. She is a real fish and was just so happy. Ella is just so wonderful to her sister. I am very lucky.

Jarra was there also, and he and Ella (and Charlotte) just hit it off so well. They just 'fit' together those two, they bring out the best in each other. We will miss him (and Jacki and Arusha!) dearly when they go. They have been a really big part of our life for the last 4+ years. Jarra will be going to swimming lessons with Ella for this term, which Ella is really looking forward to and Jacki is hoping that it will help Jarra settle in, having Ella to guide him.

Our first school holidays are nearly over and it has been great. I have loved being around the girls. Even though we have had something on every day, it has been nice to get away from the monotony of kindy drop offs/pick ups, and the exact same routine from Mondays through to Thursdays.

Ella has turned an amazing corner of late. She has always been really, really opposed to helping tidy up anything. A simple request for some assistance in putting her toys away would result in a meltdown of epic proportions. Late last week, she just started saying 'Sure' when asked. Maybe it was partly to do with the cousins being here so much, maybe she is feeling more relaxed without the kindy runaround, maybe the planets were aligned perfectly this week. Whichever way...I love it!

I really need to go to bed. We are going to visit my nanna tomorrow. Really should try to blog at the end of each day.....

Just quickly threw in a photo of my crazy girls. I managed to scrape Charlotte's wispy old ladies hair into 2 piggy tails that stayed up all day!

A Houseful!

Yesterday evening was just amazing.
6 children and me for dinner and so wonderful.
Other peoples children are just so handy. They are always well-behaved, never talk back and they do what you say all the time.
Everyone helped with setting tables, pouring drinks, blowing on food for littler ones, clearing the tables.
It really makes you appreciate just how important siblings are. Everytime we discuss having another baby, the pure horror of my pregnancy with Charlotte and the subsequent horrific birth just flashes in to my head. But after seeing how much being a sibling in a larger family improves a childs character so much, it makes me want to reconsider for the greater good.
Hannah and Charlotte just had each other in stitches all the way through dinner - they sat at the little drawing table on the Ikea chairs together - Charlotte was putting cups on her head and spearing her pasta with the wrong end of her fork. Hannah was chattering away at a 100 words a minute. They both had a shower together and I kept peeking in on them and catching Hannah wiping Charlotte's hair out of her eyes so gently. Charlotte was soaping up Hannah's back. They were sharing toothpaste and laughing, laughing, laughing.

Ella and Bethany were in their PJs in about 2 seconds flat and then hid underneath the quilt in Ella's room with torches chattering and giggling. Sophie just wandered about happily.......

Oooh, and I just had to include the photo of Ella during her girly rite of passage! Going to sleep with a head full of wet plaits and waking up with poodle hair :)
She was so precious walking around with her head so still so the 'curls won't fall out'.
Gold.

And - tah dah - I finished a sequin leaf last night, eleven more to go....

Mum and Dad you will get to see Ella's concert video live as her concert is the Saturday before you come home (2/12) and I don't think they will have the DVDs available immediately. But we will certainly work on it for Adam and Eva to see.

So Much Time

It seems like weekends are these big empty vacant holes of time waiting to be filled with a phonecall from mum, a coffee down the street with mum and dad, a pre-planned 'outing' of some sort or a spur of the moment visit to such and such. We get to Friday night and we have nothing on for the next two days. I hadn't realised just how much we do with mum and dad. No wonder we are missing them so much!

I picked up Ella's ballet concert costume last week and have included some lovely photos. She is going to be a pumpkin, we are just waiting on the Stem Cap to finsih off the outfit. Oh, and did I mention the TWELVE LEAVES of sequins I need to do? See in the close up shot the outlines of the leaves? Well, there are twelve of them and they all need to be filled with sequins. Not just the outlines. Mumble, mumble, bah.

We were talking about what we are going to do with Charlotte on concert day (Ella has two concerts on the same day, only 5 minutes in each) I am not taking Charlotte to sit in the audience with us, it will just be too hard. She couldn't even sit and enjoy a 40 minute Playschool concert that we went to without rummaging through other mums' bags looking for food. Ella piped up with 'I know, Nana and Papa can have Charlotte' We explained that Nana and Papa won't be back from overseas by then, and she said 'They might be, we won't really know until the time gets here'

Raff managed to lose his license for excessive amounts of speeding tickets (again!) Thank Goodness for the good behaviour bond. Now he just has to go 12 months with no traffic infringements at all, and he can live to drive another day.

We have all been yuckily sick over here. Raff actually had to cut a few days of work short to come home and look after us, as I was too ill to get out of bed really for a few days there. It seems like a real wasted week, we just did nothing. Though on the bright side! I have managed to lose 3 of those last 5 pesky kilos that have been hanging around my butt for the last 2 years. I found it very hard to eat much as I can't taste nor smell a single thing. Plus even my teeth hurt with this stupid sinus infection, that it just hasn't been worth the hassle of chewing.

I had a chat to Alexis and she has passed on her good wishes to all of my family spread across the globe. Her little boy has just turned 6 months - it goes by so very quick. Only 13 weeks until Charlotte is 2!

The quality of the last video link was really, really crappy. So I am going to try again!
Try this one....

Summer weather

It has been very warm this week. 30 degrees today apparently.
I hope you are avoiding the Dreaded Hayfever over there Dad, because it is nearly killing me over here. Stupid sinus infection.....
Just thought I would chuck in a picture of what our crazy Charlotte chose to wear during this weather.

trying video link

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

and click went the braincells

Well this week has seen a huge leap in Charlotte's vocab. You know how it goes..."Gosh, she's nearly 21 months old and still not joining two words together"....and then voila!

So far we have had 'Nana, plane, up, vroom' and 'Rufus, woof, sit, down'(complete with stern face and little hand patting the ground) also 'Ella, cry, loud, ears' and after this evenings efforts 'Charlotte, fingers, sore, door' Yep, in the kerfuffle of an Ella Tantrum, Charlotte's fingers got totally slammed in the hinge edge of Ella's bedroom door. She had a dark blue indent running across all four fingers on her right hand. It really must have hurt, but I swear that girl has no sense of pain. Besides the initial crocodile tears she was over and done with it in seconds.

The weather has been really nice the last few days so I have been sending the girls outside to play quite a bit. So today all I heard was 'El-la ou-side' as she tugged on Ella's arm to drag her outside constantly. She is such a sweet little bundle. Coming up to me all the time for a 'squeeze, cuddle, kiss'

I wish I had the camera close by to get a shot of Ella sitting on a stool with two metal skewers 'knitting' her skirt. Still no luck on the next row of knitting for me.....

Rufus stole an apple out of Charlotte's hands today. I don't know if he thought it was a ball or what, but it frightened all involved. Hmmm.

I don't have any new photos to add. We are going out to Clonlea Park tomorrow with Mothers Group. (Well, Mothers Pair anyway.....only two of us free this week) So have already packed the camera as I hope to get some nice photos.

Oh and have you all checked out Pauls blog? Link -----> thataway

What a week!

I'm guessing that everyone has heard about Steve Irwin dying, but did you hear that Peter Brock died this week also? And Colin Thiele.... Very sad news all around, really.

Rufus has settled in really well, can't say the same for our poor cat Harry. We barely see her during the day and she will only enter the house through the front door. She is on constant alert when she is in the back room as she can hear Rufus snoring at the backdoor. Charlotte is of course just loving having Rufus here. And Ella is getting confident with him and today I watched her trying to unchain him and she was doing really well - actually touching him :)

I spoke to Tanya and she is doing pretty well. She is out of hospital, but still unable to do much at all. It doesn't look like breastfeeding is going to work out for them, though. She has 3 more scans they have to do that include th die injection that she can't breastfeed with. She sounded quite upbeat and glad to be home. She has a long list of volunteers to help out with baby care and home duties.

We had a very quiet Sunday today. It seems like ages since we spent a whole day at home. Charlotte slept for 3 1/2 hours!
We went to two of Ella's childcare friends birthday parties yesterday. I bumped in to a mum I used to work with years ago, two mums that I went to school with, 2 ballet mums, and one of the mums from Mother's Group. Small world.....


Just testing out a video link to see how it works. Ella and Raff on a camel ride at the Gawler Show.

She's famous!

Just a quick one to put up Ella's Bunyip photo. I have put in the colour version that I purchased from the Bunyip. She is on the far left in the bottom row.
And this is the entry that won it for her. What a genius!

And speaking of genius-ness... I finished my first 'row' of knitting. It is going to be a headband for Ella. Pity that for the life of me I cannot figure out how to add a second row (garter stitch)


Pretty skinny headband, hey?

Farewell again

Mum and Dads turn today.
The kids were great, Mum was teary.
I just got a text from mum saying that they have arrived in Auckland :)

We got a second chance at farewells once mum and dad were behind Customs, albeit through sound proof glass. Lots of charades to get ourselves understood, except of course for the universal language of Goodbyes.

Have included a photo of the girls keeping themselves busy being 'dolls in a toyshop'

Happy birthday!! Oh, and Father's Day

I turned thirty today, so of course Mum gave me knitting needles, some wool and a how-to-knit book. I can't wait to get in to it, maybe I will have a scarf ready for next Winter. I also was lucky enough to get lots of chocolates and a new mixer. Ella made me a picnic basket which I have included a photo of.

It was probably one of the better birthdays that I have had in recent years, but part of that is the luck of it falling on a weekend and also Father's Day + the kick up the pants that Raff received after the debacle that was Mother's Day this May. He took the girls shopping on Saturday, which was just fantastic of him, especially as they were all pretty cranky from spending Friday night sleeping (or not!) at mum's place. Backed up on Saturday morning with the everlasting tantrum that Ella was in the midst of when mum and dad dropped the girls of here on Saturday morning. It was a real doozy! I don't think mum and dad quite knew what hit them - though it probably flashed them back 20-odd years to that damn middle child of theirs.

Ella has been a real handful lately with tantrums and the constant talking back. It has really been testing the old parenting skills. In the last 4 years I don't think Raff and I have ever had to discuss parenting/discipline methods in any way, it all just kind of evolved naturally as each issue peaked and waned. But lately it seems like we are conversing on it non-stop.

Today in the car on the way to Nanna's for some strange reason she decided she had pepper up her nose and proceeded to sneeze repeatedly in her sister's face at about 200 decibels. Raff and I were having a mini debate in the front seat about how to get her to stop, as each reasonable request to 'sneeze a bit quieter, please' was met with the response of 'But, I have so much pepper inside my nose I have to sneeze as loud as I can to get it out' Perfectly reasonable answer.......if it were TRUE!! My ears were ringing, and my knee jerk reaction really was that I wanted to turn around and yell at her, but I could just see that escalating in to a huge issue.

Some calm, patient and imaginative discussion on the merits of muffled sneezing and instruction on how to pick the pepper out of her nose ensued, along with some super human effort on our part that included at lot of teeth clenching, deep breathing and tongue biting, and we were riding in silence. Until the ride home....but that's another Blog entry altogether :)

I have also included our effort for a Father's Day/birthday family photo. Charlotte really, really, really didn't want to leave the playground, and that is her mid-tantrum.