Real concrete!!

Oh, the excitement!!
Who would have thought concrete could bring such joy?!
On Sunday morning, Raff peeled back the carpet in Charlotte's old room (soon to be Sprout's room) and found some beautiful, fresh, non-sticky, non-deteriorated, perfect underlay. And under the beautiful, fresh, non-sticky, non-deteriorated, perfect underlay? Concrete! Smooth, clean, even, level concrete - happy dancing all around.
So from peeling back the carpet until laying the final plank, it took us about 5 hours in total - the girls were home with us helping, which possibly extended the time a touch.
Oh, and did I mention that particular room is perfectly square? With flat concrete? Wow! Soooo much easier than the girls room.


Almost finished product - still have to finish up the edges with some beading of some sort.


And this is what it looked like under the carpet in the first room we did - awful, hey?

Mmm, and did I mention that we still haven't actually received the money from the bank? 5 weeks today since we applied. Buggers. Tomorrow, apparently :)

A wedding.

We went to a wedding on Saturday, a school friend of Raff's. It was an absolutely glorious day, around 22 degrees. I had frantically rushed around on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning looking for decent jackets for Ella and I to wear on the night, as the reception was aboard the Dolphin Explorer at Port Adelaide. Of course it was beautiful weather and I wore short sleeves the whole night and didn't even look at my jacket. Ella was too busy dancing with her 'groovy hips' see video to notice the cold. Charlotte hasn't been well since last Sunday, so I had her rugged up as she wanted to live up on the deck of course.

The bride and groom were crazily in love . They have a 22 month old daughter and it was only her and our girls at the wedding. Our girls were fantastic and we had many many comments on our 'obviously great parenting' which was lovely :)

The girls got to take ALL the balloons home from the reception, which was great. NOT! as we had taken Raff's car and there was just no room for all the balloons and no arguing with two very sleepy children.

Ella Charlotte and Rachel (flowergirl)


Some of the balloons



Sleepiest little girl in the world - zonked for nearly 14 hours straight about 10 minutes after this photo was taken.

School !!!

I received a note at kindy this week saying that Ella's school transition visits start next week!! That has snuck up rather quickly...

The plants mum and dad dropped off for us to look after are going wonderfully. It has been a wet gusty wintery day here today so I went out to check the plants hadn't blown over and found the strawberries bitten off the plant...by Charlotte. I can just imagine her out there on her hands and knees. Crazy kid.

Belly shot

Raff snapped this one last week. Pretty good, as the light covers up the stretch marks.

We have floor

After a pretty intensive effort over Saturday night and all day Sunday we managed to get the floating floorboards down in the girls' bedroom.
It looks really good. It was just Raff and I working on it and we both deserve a pat on the back. We just have to work out how to get the skirting boards back on...

All that is left to do in their room now is put up the fairy border, affix skirting boards and find a little joiner thingamy for where the slate meets the floorboards at their doorway.

I will post a heap of before and after photos when we are done (furniture arrives 30/05) but in the meantime here is a corner of the room!



I have decided the only way to keep up blogging is to throw random bits of information out there. I decided today that I overthink most things way to much - it helps to come to a revelation like that when you spend 12+ hours cooped up in an empty room DIY-ing with a husband that doesn't really do forward thinking ;)

For those watching at home, we have taken the house off the market and the bank has been kind enough to throw a large some of money our way, with very little begging needed, which we are planning on spending all around the house. All the rooms will be getting painted, built in wardrobes will be going in the bedrooms and laundry, floating floorboards in the bedrooms and lounge room, new beds, new dining table and even a new couch. My shopping list is as long as my arm and I can't wait to get started on it!
Do you think we can get it all done in the next 5 weeks!?

Big thanks to Rachel for having our kids today, we really couldn't have got anywhere near as much done with them helping us. The kids looked like thay had a ball!



Hope your birthday was great, Adam, hope you could feel the birthday hugs and hear the random outbursts of 'Happy Birthday, Adam' from our girls.

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.