No Ticky Tac Tac's Today

Lauren has this little dance she does. She repeats this over and over again ....

Ticky, tac, tac. Ticky, tac, tac.

Whilst doing star jumps.

But, there are no ticky, tac, tac's today as she has a stomach bug.

She was up vomiting all night last night. Every hour she was throwing up! Today she has a screaming temperature and is still vomiting. The poor kid had it coming out both ends last night. I felt so sorry for her.

Why is it whenever Aaron goes away she seems to get this?? Someone's got it in for me!!

Anyway, here is the family photo we had taken recently. I think it came out quite well.

And look, there's even a hint of a smile on Aaron's face (see, he does love us!)



It's another SPECTACULAR day today. It's supposed to be 28 degrees today!! Aaron said it's about 15 degrees in Perth - and he was so looking forward to the warmer weather he thought he'd be getting in Perth!!

Anyway, I'd better go get a few more things done before Lauren wakes up from her little sleep - goodness knows she needs it - she got no sleep last night - that goes for both of us!!

Random

Boy the computer's slow today!!

Not much is going on here. Ashleigh is home sick still with a throat and ear infection. Apparently she's highly contagious.

Lauren has the beginning signs of it.

And to top it off, Aaron left for Perth, Brisbane and Darwin today. He'll be gone for 12 days! Happy Joy! I just hope I don't get sick!!

I'm halfway through my book - and enjoying it. Man it's a thick book! I don't know exactly how many pages but let's just say LOTS!! I almost get a sore arm holding it up to read!!

The weather is spectacular today. We've had some pretty lousy weather the last week or so but it's another gorgeous day today. Just right I'd say - not too hot, not too cold.

Well that's about it. Not very exciting but I thought I'd blog anyway!

What's on the agenda for today!??!

So yesterday was Father's Day. Unfortunately I felt a bit under the weather so I wasn't able to spoil Aaron as much as I would've liked.

Lucky for me I have a hubby who doesn't care too much about being fussed over.

He got some lovely gifts from the girls and was showered with hugs and kisses. Again, not keen on being fussed over.

So what's on the agenda for today?

Walk Lauren to her Learn 4 Fun class and then walk back home - that's a good 50 minute walk!
Then off to Aldi's to get some essential grocery items.
Then clean the house a bit.
End the day with having Belinda and her family over for dinner (Aaron's sister)

And that's it.

Hope you all have a great week!!

By the way, we didn't forget your birthday Richard - it's on it's way!!

That Thing You Do!

Lauren has this thing where she puts her hand up to her "ear" to listen to something that is off in the distance.

Only, she doesn't quite get her hand to her ear - she kind of cups her cheek .....



It's hilarious to watch. She's such a nut case!!

Ashleigh likes to play along!!



We had Lauren assessed yesterday - just to find out exactly what was wrong with her. She has been diagnosed with a mild intellectual disability.

When the guy told me my heart sank and I'll admit it, I felt a little disappointed. He said that she won't grow out of it (like I have been hoping all these years) but that she will always be a bit slow and that it will only get harder as the years pass as she will become more aware of her inability to do certain things.

You can imagine how heartbreaking that news was but, at the end of the day, I'm happy.

I'm happy because she is such a beautiful little girl who is carefree and a joy to be around (most of the time).

I'm happy because I know she has been sent to a family who will love her unconditionally.

I'm happy because she makes us ALL laugh every day!

I'm happy because we can all learn to have patience.

I'm happy because I love a challenge.

I'm happy because ....

SHE'S happy.

And that's all that matters right!??!

So, there's more Speech Therapy, Occupational Therapy and Early Intervention on the agenda for next year!!

With that said, I'm off to get some housework done and sit down and read my book! Aaron's got Lauren for a couple of hours so I'm going to take advantage of it!

Great weather for reading a book - it's cold and wet!! What's with this weather - beautiful one day, miserable the next!?!

Spring is in the air!!

Well yesterday was the first day of Spring and it didn't disappoint!!

The weather was fantastic. It was warm and there was a soft breeze blowing the wonderful fragrance of nearby jasmine into our backyard.

I was able to do a couple of loads of washing - perfect weather for drying clothes on the line!

I went for a walk and did some shopping.

I'm still a little disappointed I've only managed to lose 2 kilos but I'm sticking to it!! Summer's just around the corner!

Lauren and I made some fantastic tasting cupcakes! Thanks for the recipe B! So simple and yet so tasty! Maybe that's why I've only lost 2kg! Mind you, I only ate ONE because I HAD to see what they were like!!!


Notice Lauren has stripped down to just a singlet. That's how warm the weather was - lovely!

I borrowed a friend's copy of the book "Breaking Dawn".


It's the last book in the series I'm reading. I started reading it last night. So far so good.

The day finished with Lauren lying on the kitchen floor watching Aaron and I make dinner.



It all got a bit too much for her in the end!

Murphy's Law

On Friday night Aaron was working until about 2am Saturday morning so I sat down and watched a really good show on tv - The Count of Monte Cristo. I've never seen it before and I really enjoyed it.

About 15 minutes after the movie finished (about 11.30pm) I closed my eyes and started to doze off when all of a sudden I heard Lauren walking towards our bedroom coughing and crying.

When she reached me she was wheezing and she was having a really hard time breathing. She has suffered from mild asthma before but only when she's had a chest infection - she's never had an asthma attack just out of the blue. I was so scared I didn't know what to do. I'd just been through this with my niece a couple of months ago and here I was faced with the same situation with my baby girl and since Aaron was at work I was having a hard time working out what I should do.

First of all I thought I'd take her into the bathroom and turn on a hot shower and let her breathe the steam but then I wasn't sure if that would work. Then I thought I'd have to wake up poor Ashleigh and put them both in the car (in the freezing cold mind you) and take her to the hospital. But then I remembered that I had some left over liquid ventalin capsule things - only problem was, I didn't have a nebuliser.

A good friend of mine has a nebuliser but I didn't really want to call her at midnight - especially to ask her if SHE could bring it to ME because Ashleigh was fast asleep in bed and I thought it would be difficult getting a child into the car who was having an asthma attack and waking up Ash to drag her out in the freezing cold at midnight.

But then I remembered the last time I borrowed it from her she gladly lent it to me and said "Call me anytime if you need to borrow it. Even if you need it in the middle of the night". So out of desperation I did just that. Luckily her hubby was still awake (thanks M) and he answered her mobile (I didn't want to call her home phone and wake up her kids).

Without hesitation he brought it around and I managed to get Lauren to inhale the ventolin and within minutes her breathing stabilised.

I am so grateful to have friends who I can call on whenever, wherever. I don't know what I would have done without her, thanks S.

So guess what I'm looking at buying this week!?? Yep, you guessed it - a nebuliser!! Just in case this happens again.

But tell me, why is it these things ALWAYS seem to happen in the middle of the bl#%dy night AND when your husband's not home!!??

O Christmas Tree .....

So here is my first project for Christmas this year .....



Christmas tree place cards.

As it is Jodie's turn (my sister) to have Christmas Eve at her place this year I'm not 100% sure where I'll use them but Ash and I had fun making them!!

I've still got to make the table runner (I'm looking forward to this project) - I just haven't had a chance to get to Spotlight to buy the fabric!! As I tend to go for the gold, pink and green colours at Christmas I'll have to find something along those lines!

I walked into the Reject Shop the a couple of days ago and they already have Christmas wrapping paper and cards!!

I guess I'm not the only one starting Christmas preparations early this year!!

We have a house guest at the moment. A friend of ours from Perth is staying with us until Monday so the girls get to share a bedroom for the next few nights.


Last night was their first night sharing the room and they both fell asleep REALLY quickly. This surprised me because I thought they'd be too busy talking and giggling all night but Lauren was asleep within half an hour of putting her to bed and Ashleigh wasn't too far behind her! Maybe I should leave them together for a while!!!

We're off to Wollongong tomorrow for a kid's birthday party! I hope it's good weather!!

I hope you all have a great weekend!!

You Can't Have Fun Without Mess!!

This is what we've been up to today ....





Ash and Taylor having fun with glitter and glue!! You shoulda seen the mess!!

Lauren - having fun on her own.


Now we're off to Mum's for her birthday dinner!!

That's it!! Bye for now!

Clever Kid!

I walked into Lauren's bedroom the other day and I found this sitting on her toy box ....


Can anyone guess what it is??

Here's an explanation:

Ashleigh has her own computer in her bedroom now - so she can do her educational games without clogging up our computer!

She thought that it was a bit unfair that Lauren didn't have her own computer too so she made her one - a laptop made out of paper!!

Genius I tell ya!! This kid comes out with the most amazing things sometimes!!

I thought it was so cute!!

Well that's it for today!

By the way, my absolute FAVE song at the moment - I'm yours by Jason Mraz!!! LOVE IT!!

Saturday is a special day

We've had a very busy day today.

The day started with a trip to Parklea Markets.

Ashleigh got her wish .....


She went to the bank yesterday and took out the rest of the money she needed to buy this sari and Daddy even managed to negotiate the price down so she could afford to buy some matching bangles.

They even threw in one of those decorative dot things they put on their forehead for FREE (of course that's the technical name they give them!)


Lauren got one too - not that she's even remotely interested in having a sticker on her forehead!!

Then at lunch time we went and had some family photos taken - FINALLY. The last time we had family photos taken was in 2002 - before Lauren was born!! I hope they turn out OK. It's impossible getting Aaron to sit for photos but he did it regardless which is great!

Then I went to a baby shower this afternoon for a friend from church.

So that's it for today.

Thief in the Making ...

As you know, Ashleigh has been desperately saving her pennies to buy herself a sari (indian dress type thing). Nanny and Poppy were very generous and gave Ashleigh some gold coins in her bid to get more money to buy the dress and she very carefully placed it on her dressing table.

Tonight when she got in to bed she screamed out "WHO STOLE MY MONEY!?!?" I went in to her room to see what the problem was and noticed that all of her nicely stacked gold coins were missing. We searched everywhere thinking they may have fallen off but they were nowhere to be found. I asked Aaron if he had taken them, thinking they were change from her lunch order but he hadn't taken it.

Then I snuck in to Lauren's room and I thought I'd have a look in her piggy bank. I knew roughly how much money she had in there previously as she only had about two gold coins. And there, in all their glory, I found Ashleigh's 6 gold coins (plus the two that actually were Lauren's).

I then took them in to Ashleigh and told her I had found them. I didn't tell her WHERE I'd found them, just that I'd found them. I couldn't deal with the screaming and yelling and gnashing of teeth!

I can just imagine Lauren strolling in to Ashleigh's room seeing the gold coins on her dressing table, picking them up (with a huge smile on her face), taking them in to her room and depositing them one by one into her piggy bank.

So there you have it - we have a thief in the making!! Little, quiet, innocent Lauren!!!


ANOTHER FUNNY ....

I was driving Ashleigh home from gymnastics this afternoon and she asked me:

"Mum, is there food in the ocean?"

I answered: "Of course there is".

Ash: "What?"

Me: "Fish and prawns and octopus ...."

Ash: "What about chips?"

She wanted to make sure there was food in the ocean in case she turns in to a mermaid! She was a little disappointed when she found out there were no chips!!

Random ......

So we ended up not having Cooper for the weekend. The poor dog had a bowel problem. I'm kinda glad he got the problem on the Friday night before they left otherwise I would have a poopin' dog all weekend which would not have gone down well!! I'm the one who has to clean it up!

We were at Parklea Markets on the weekend getting fruit and vege and to Ashleigh's absolute joy and astonishment we walked past an Indian clothing stall! She was so excited when she found the perfect sari for herself - she tried it on and it looked fantastic!! She fell in love with it as soon as she saw it but being the horrible mother that I am I made her wait to get it this Saturday. I wanted her to understand that you can't always get things when you want them. I told her we had to go to her bank and get out her money to pay for it next week. So we're off to Parklea markets again on the weekend!! She's so happy! I'll post photos!

It's been a pretty sad week for us this past week. We've been to two funerals in one week.

I don't know if things are getting tougher or if I'm just more aware of things now that I'm older but it seems that so many people I know have some sort of cancer or illness. It's a little scary to be honest but I try not to think about it too much. It makes you realise your own mortality and how short our life really is. I never feel like I'm doing enough!!

On a happier note, tomorrow is Wednesday - Lauren dreads it but I rejoice it!

I really look forward to my Wednesday's. It's the one day in the week that I have no kids and I usually try to cram everything in:

Housework
Shopping - Lauren hates shopping so it's much easier to do it without her
Family History
Beauty appointments
Write out my dinner schedule for the week, and
RELAX!!!

I sometimes even get a chance to SIT DOWN and eat lunch instead of eating it at the kitchen bench whilst doing the dishes and feeding Lauren and folding clothes and opening mail and organising dinner and answering phones ......... the list goes on!

On the agenda for tomorrow:

8.40am - drop Ash at school
8.55am - drop Lauren at kindy
9.10am - go to Medicare at Castle Hill
11am - Beautician
12pm - Rouse Hill Shops to buy something for Nana and my best friend in Melbourne and post them.
1pm - Come home and do some housework
2.30pm - go and pick up Lauren at kindy then Ash from school

So as unexciting as it sounds at least I'm KID FREE!!

What have you got planned???

Bollywood Obsession

Ashleigh has a new obsession ....



It's no longer mermaids (at least not this month).

She wants to walk around in a sari and dance her way through life!

But do you think I can find a child size sari anywhere!? It's impossible. The only one I could find was one from America for $99!! But I'm not about to spend that kind of money on something that she will grow out of anyway!
I think I'm going to have to get creative and sew one for her!!

There's not much happening with us at the moment.

The most exciting thing happening this weekend is we're dogsitting for a friend of ours.
The dog's name is Cooper and he's a little shit zhu cross king cavalier spaniel.
Aaron's not happy about it but he's going to be working the whole weekend anyway!
I'll take photos! He's a cute little thing!
Hopefully Aaron will fall in love with it and want to get a dog.
Mind you, I'm not ready for a dog just yet - maybe when Lauren's at school in 2010!

I've decided to be SUPER ORGANISED and start getting ready for Christmas now! I'll take photos of the little projects I do over the coming weeks and hopefully inspire some of you out there to do the same! Be organised that is!!

Anyway, I hope everyone has a great weekend!! I plan to!

Plans for today .....

Take advantage of having no kids and read a little bit!

Make Pumpkin Soup (so easy and so delicious - just cut up one butternut pumpkin, one onion throw it all into a pot with a little water and add two tablespoons of chicken stock powder - cook until soft then tip out some of the water otherwise it's really runny and then blend together). Done, so tasty and the kids love it!!

Go and pick up some candle stock from my Manager's house for party I'm doing tomorrow night.

Iron - yuck!

Post Birthday Card to Nana (Aaron's grandmother).

That's it!

I did something this week I've never done before - I got acupuncture done!

I have to tell you I was really nervous about having somebody stick hundreds of small needles into my body but I thought, what the heck - I don't experience enough pain in this life right!!?!?! Hmmmm.

It all sounded very good in theory but when it came time to actually getting it done - phew, I was sweating bullets!

When she put the first needle in my hand (yeah, that REALLY soft sensitive part of your hand in between your thumb and index finger) it stung like nothing else. You can imagine how excited I was about getting 18 more needles put in!! But surprisingly enough none of the others hurt - I didn't even feel them go in. It was actually quite relaxing.

And guess what - no headaches since I had it done on Monday - this is good for me as I usually get a headache every day with varying degrees of intensity so I'm STOKED about the results so far!

I have to get one session a week for the next 3 - 4 weeks! I'll keep you posted on the progress.

I Felt Like a Change ....

You have probably noticed the change of colour ... I felt like a change and since I can't paint the walls in my house I decided to paint the wall of my blog instead!!

I finished 'New Moon' today so I'm off to get the next book on the weekend (hopefully) - Eclipse!

I'll have to read it slowly because it's the last one in the series and I'm not sure when the next one is being released.

I have a habit of completely forgetting the finer details of books I've read only months after I finished reading them so I don't want to forget any "bits" before I start the next one.

Aaron's home tomorrow - ONE MORE SLEEP!!! YAY!!

A friend from Wollongong rang yesterday and she wants to catch up next week. I'm sorely tempted to go and visit her for a couple of days instead of just a couple of hours. I think I deserve a little time to myself to "re-group" and relax! We'll see. I won't make any plans because every time I've made plans to go away something has happened. Either I've gotten sick or one of the kids have gotten sick or Aaron's had to go in to work. So this time, I'm not making any plans. I'll just wake up one day and decide to go!!! Very unlike me!!

Anyway, I'm off to go and pick up Ash from school. She went on an excursion today to the Maritime Museum so I'm sure she's going to be very excited!!

Addicted!

On Monday night I raced over to a friend's house and borrowed 'New Moon' - the next book in the series I'm reading.
The shops have sold out and I couldn't wait any longer to get started!!

I have to say, I'm addicted! I'm halfway through and I'd probably be finished by now if kids or housework didn't get in the way.

Why is it, whenever you sit down to read or watch tv something happens to spoil it!??

Take today for example, Lauren was happy sitting down watching her favourite DVD.
She was glued to the tv for about 15 minutes so I assumed it'd be safe for me to sit down and read. I figured I had about 45 minutes to read until her DVD finished but NOOOOO!

No sooner had I sat down that Lauren decided she needed to do a poo. She got up and after 5 minutes screamed out "Mum, I need you!"

Of course she did!! I was sitting down enjoying myself!!

Speaking of poo ...... here is a photo my cousin sent me of her little baby boy, Ben.

I LOVE the top!



Anyway, there's not much else to report on. Aaron gets home on Saturday or early Sunday morning so I'm counting down the days!
How many more sleeps?
Like I don't know the answer to that question - I've been counting down since the day he left!!

Out of the Mouths of Babes .....

Here are a couple of comments Ash and Lauren have made this past week or so.

To set the scene ..... we were all getting ready to go out, racing around grabbing jackets and shoes.

Lauren was dawdling along (as usual) and got in Ashleigh's way so Ashleigh says to her:

"Move, you slow coach!"

Lauren turned to Ash with fury in her eyes and says .....

"I'm not a coach!"


Then this morning I couldn't get Lauren to get in the car to go to the shops (she didn't want to go) so I enticed her by grabbing her favourite CD and told her we would listen to her music in the car if she gets in the car quickly.

With that she raced out the door (at least as quickly as Lauren could move, which, let's face it, isn't very fast) and jumped into the car.

I put the CD on and Ashleigh said "Do we have to listen to this music?".

I told her that it was her favourite CD when she was little. She replied:

"I listen to human music now!".

As opposed to what exactly .....?

I had to laugh!

One week down .....

Let me just start by saying I'm so glad last week is over with.

We had a full on week last week:

Ash had friends over to play 4 out of the 5 days! Dramas as usual - tears, tantrums etc!!
Gardening workshop for the kids (lots of fun)
Doctors appointments
2 weeks of house work to catch up on
Ironing up to my eye balls
Errands to run
Candle party to do
Cleaning and organising the study

And all that with Aaron away on business!

This week is a lot quieter - thankfully!

We had a quiet day yesterday. Went up to the shops and had a look around.

Today we had more doctor's appointments this morning (yes, we've all been a bit under the weather lately). This afternoon Ashleigh had a play at her friend's house.

Tomorrow - Lauren's at kindy. No other plans then for the rest of the week! Just taking it easy.

I'm starting a diet - yes, again!! This time I'm going for the low carb option. Today is day one and I'm absolutely STARVING!!! I always starve the first week of a diet. I've got to do something though. I just seem to be putting on so much weight lately - ho, hum!

Anyway, there's not much else to report on.

Life is good.

Ashleigh and I had a girly day today.

We spent the day shopping and seeing Kung Fu Panda. It wasn't a bad movie considering I didn't want to go and see it. I tried to convince Ashleigh to go and see Narnia instead but she really wanted to see Kung Fu Panda so I went along with it. I actually enjoyed it in the end - it was quite funny! Ashleigh thought it was scary in parts but overall it was a good movie.

Remind me, however, to take duct tape with me the next time I take Ashleigh to the movies!!

She was THE most vocal child in the cinema!! She'd scream out things like "OUCH" - I'm talking OUT LOUD!! And then she laughed really loud (in all the appropriate parts at least). But I've never heard her talk so much through a movie. I kept shooshing her but there was no controlling the beast! It was a little embarrassing.

So far we've all had a nice holiday break. Let's hope it continues that way!!

Finally Finished

I finally finished my book on Friday night.


I started reading it because so many people were talking about this series so I wanted to find out what they were all going on about. I knew it was about vampires - that's why it took me so long to make up my mind about reading it but when I found out it was written by a Latter Day Saint I thought "how bad can it be?"

It took me a while to get into it at first but by a third of the way through it started to get interesting so it didn't take me as long to read the 2nd half as it did the 1st half!

I'm off to get the next one in the series - because I have to know what happens next......



Does that make me a TWILIGHTER now???

I can't wait until the movie comes out in September - it's always interesting to see if a movie is anything like the book!

Not much else going on.

It's the first day of holidays today and I need to sit down and plan the next two weeks - who's coming over for a play and where we're going to go that's cheap or FREE to keep the girls amused!

Ashleigh and I will probably go to the movies to see Kung Fu Panda on Wednesday while Lauren's at pre-school.

I went to go and visit an old friend yesterday. It was a very surreal experience.

This friend is only 39 with a young family and he's dying of cancer. He's only been given 2 weeks to live. I was so composed before going in to see him - I thought I was strong but when I saw him and when he started talking to me about the old days I just lost it.

He and his wife were the leaders of the Young Single Adult group at church when I was 19 years old. It was a time when I had some of the best experiences of my life. We shared some incredibly good times - going to conventions in Queensland and the many activities we did as a group - good times. He asked me to give him a hug and when I hugged him he was so frail.

Oh great, the song "In the arms of an angel" just came on in the background - doesn't help!!!

I never know what to say to people in this situation, in the end I just said "I'm going to miss you Marty" - he replied "I'm going to miss you too but I'll see you on the other side".

As you can imagine - I was a mess when it was time to leave.

It makes you want to enjoy every single moment here on earth! Don't take anything for granted!