Monday, November 30, 2009

Santa photo


Here it is, although everyone has probably already seen it since I'm sharing it everywhere! I love it.

Gwen Bell challenge


Here's the link, in case I forget where I found it later.



So December 1 Trip. What was your best trip in 2009?

I did quite a few trips in 2009, but I think my favourite was to a friend's wedding in September (09/09/09). Peter couldn't come since it was midweek, so it was just me and 4 cherubs squished into the 4wd along with toys, play clothes, wedding clothes, scooters and baby paraphenalia. It also was nowhere near as chaotic as it might sound, since once we arrived there were the rest of the 'serial killers' to help.

(Serial killers = group of amazing, inspirational, thoughtful women, spanning the globe (just) in an online mother's group, connected by the internet/texts/meets since mid-2006).

We had booked 8 or so cabins at a caravan park, 4 each side of the road, and the kids all pretty much could wander to their heart's content. The wedding was one of those fairytale weddings, vintage themed, with 30 or so kids under 5 and not so many more adults. There were crafty things for the kids to do, made-up songs to sing, plasticine to be moulded into hearts by all of the guests, finger painting on a guest tree, a lolly buffet, and Luella's favourite,'the princess lady'.

On the day after the wedding, the friend who I was sharing the cabin with and I took all of the kids (she has 2 busy little boys, Kimbal was in heaven) to the beach for the day. It was just so perfect and so relaxed.

Everything was easy. It was a great trip.


Sunday, November 29, 2009

Why am I blogging?!

I've spent the past couple of days looking over other people's blogs and wondering why I have even decided to start this one back up again. Thankfully, my kids are healthy. I don't have any special creative talents to share, and I'm not especially skilled in any other way. I don't even have any real interest in anything, so can't use this as a platform for book or film reviews. All I have at this time is my family, but for some reason (probably because everybody else's blogs are so interesting!) this doesn't seem to be enough and I'm almost embarrassed that anybody might ever stumble across this boring blog.

Then I reread my posts from a couple of years ago, and I'm reminded that however boring my posts might be (to myself included!) at this time, I know in a couple of years I will be thankful for everything/anything I'd recorded to help me remember life as I knew it.

Yesterday we took the kids to Olivia's preschool for Santa photos. Olivia really didn't want to go. She loved getting ready, so much so that she raided my makeup box and put bronze mineral eyeshadow all over her face. I ended up telling her that if she was scared, her dad would go in the photo with her and it would be her job to make him smile. She liked that idea - her dad didn't ;) Kimbal was very excited, I nearly had tears from trying to stop myself from laughing at his excitement when he saw the photo of Santa on the gate announcing that photos were inside. He skipped up the path ahead of us, giggling like a little girl. Luella was only slightly apprehensive, but once she saw Santa and he asked her what she wanted for Christmas she became very talkative. But she wasn't answering his question at all, whenever we meet up with people we don't know she becomes the hostess and does all of the introductions. Yesterday, she babbled 'This is Humble. He's a boy and he has spikey hair. And this is Curti Curt....and...there's Olivia'. For the record, Kimbal wants reindeer chocolate and Olivia wants lipgloss.

Curtis obviously didn't say much, but he also didn't cry until after the photos were taken. This was the first year that we haven't had an adult in the picture, consoling a child! Since there's not much to say about his second Santa experience (last year he was fresh out of hospital and still glowed almost as red as Santa's suit!), I'll add that last night he surprised us all by randomly walking across the loungeroom floor. Probably 12 steps in total!!! He wasn't being enticed by anything, I was just sitting in the lounge and looked up to see him walk like a pro across the floor.

I'm also hoping my blog will follow my journey as I become more balanced in life (hmmm, thanks to previous posts I see this was a goal for 2008?!). I have dedicated the past 5.5 years to being a mum, and now I finally see that there is enough of me to build myself in other areas as well. Health is a big area I am looking to improve, I do love the idea of exercise but have been somewhat time poor (and excuses full)! Now that I have finished my grad dip ed, I also plan on starting to do some casual teaching. It's going to be a huge learning curve, relearning everything in the high school SOSE course and putting teaching skills into practice. I'm also looking forward to planning some travel in the campervan. And all the while stay thankful for what I already have!

Friday, November 27, 2009

Almost 2 years on...

I just rediscovered this old blog by googling what I remembered my blog title to be. When the results came up in google, I didn't even recognise the little snippets from past entries as my own and wondered why some other mummy was feeling loopy. It wasn't until I pulled up the blog, and saw the photo of 3 of my babies, that I realised that this was it. My blog from yesteryear :)

You won't believe it, but reading my last entries, I was almost teary. How much they have grown in 2 short years! Plus, of course, we've added another one to the clan and they no longer fit across the back seat. It's almost too painful to look at that photo, and read the blog, and not for the reasons I would have thought. It has been worth it.

So I aim to start writing in here again, thinking that one day, maybe in a couple of years down the track, I will look back on these days with the same fondness. Because these days...phew...it doesn't seem likely!