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Friday 30 January 2009

looksee.......


I got a RAK...............
Isn't she soooooo CUTE?

Nicole saw this and automatically thought of me, you're so sweet Nic. I LURVE IT

Thursday 29 January 2009

schools back ........

Today we rose bright and early to start the new school year.
Year 5 for Shanice and Year 3 for Connor. both doing basic skills (naplan) later this year too - HUGE!!!!
Here they are all packed up ready to go and see all their friends again and doing the traditional fist day back at school photos on the front verandah








They were both stoked that they both got the teachers they wanted - and so was I.
It's going to be a great year

Wednesday 28 January 2009

normality awaits.....

tomorrow my little cherubs go back to school.
Hardly seems worth it for 2 days of the week then the weekend.
the anticipation has set in and shanice is now feeling "unwell" and cant sleep. i can't believe my big girl is going into Year 5 and will be 10 in a few weeks................
Connor is super excited as he hopes that he will have Mrs Donelly cause he has the biggest crush on her and has since kindergarten.
as for me................. the sleep ins are over.................. but i'm looking forward to the year ahead of us. we need more structure in our routines and that is one of my goals for 2009.

today we spent a few hours at the swimming pool with a group of mums from school which was great. then it was home because our special visitors were arriving.............. Nan, Nay and Hunter!
Shanice's wort's all came off during the holidays after 8 months of her wearing socks constantly - even to bed. so as a big treat she got to pick out a whole new wardrobe of new open toed shoes. She was so brave and patient thru the whole ordeal - poor bugger.
Then it was back to normal after school activities. I took shanice to her lesson with Lauren while mum, Mandy, hunter and Connor went home to start dinner.
After our lovely dinner which included Pat and Michael coming over too we headed over to swimming, again, for shanice's lesson. Mandy took Hunter in for a big swim while mum, me and Pat watched.
we've had a great last day of the summer school holidays
i'll be back tomorrow with good OR bad news in regards to the kids teachers :)

Tuesday 27 January 2009

quote of the week........

If the guy next to you is swearing like a wharfie he's probably a billionaire. Or, just conceivably, a wharfie
- Australian observation

Thursday 22 January 2009

9 years

today is mine and Anthony's 9th wedding anniversary.
both of us are still in a little shock that we have made it this far, the odds have certainly been stacked against us. but as each year passes our relationship grows stronger.
this is getting soppy, but i do love him to bits.

we didn't do presents this year as we decided to go away - the trip to dubbo. and, yes we took the kids because shanice was there at our wedding and we think Connor was too :)

he gave me the sweetest card, it even made me cry!

Sometimes it's not enough just to say "I love you."
Even though i do love you, i feel i need to
express more, because there is so much more
to our relationship.....

Sometimes i need to tell you
you're the love i live for,
you're my dream made into reality.
Your are the arms that
hold me close,
and it is your smile that brings
a ray of sunshine
to even the darkest of days.
You are the one who tells me
to keel believing in myself,
in you, and in us.

You have become a part of me
i could never live without,
and as long as you care,
i'll be here for you.
I'll do anything for you.
This is a special time in our lives,
because we are sharing it together,
I love you.

Wednesday 21 January 2009

lists

i pinched this list from Tracy's blog, who pinched it from Wirg, who pinched it from Smauge .............and we could be here forever.
So here goes

1. Started your own blog
2. Slept under the stars
3. Played in a band
4. Visited Hawaii
5. Watched a meteor shower
6. Given more than you can afford to charity
7. Been to Disneyland
8. Climbed a mountain
9. Held a praying mantis
10. Sang a solo
11. Bungee jumped
12. Visited Paris
13. Watched a lightning storm at sea
14. Taught yourself an art from scratch
15. Adopted a child
16. Had food poisoning
17. Walked to the top of the Statue of Liberty
18.Grown your own vegetables
19. Seen the Mona Lisa in France
20. Slept on an overnight train
21. Had a pillow fight
22. Hitch hiked
23. Taken a sick day when you’re not ill
24. Built a snow fort
25. Held a lamb
26. Gone skinny dipping
27. Run a Marathon
28. Ridden in a gondola in Venice
29. Seen a total eclipse
30. Watched a sunrise or sunset
31. Hit a home run
32. Been on a cruise
33. Seen Niagara Falls in person
34. Visited the birthplace of your ancestors
35. Seen an Amish community
36. Taught yourself a new language
37. Had enough money to be truly satisfied
38. Seen the Leaning Tower of Pisa in person
39. Gone rock climbing
40. Seen Michelangelos David
41. Sung karaoke
42. Seen Old Faithful geyser erupt
43. Bought a stranger a meal at a restaurant
44. Visited Africa
45. Walked on a beach by moonlight
46. Been transported in an ambulance
47. Had your portrait painted
48. Gone deep sea fishing
49. Seen the Sistine Chapel in person
50. Been to the top of the Eiffel Tower in Paris
51. Gone scuba diving or snorkeling
52. Kissed in the rain
53. Played in the mud
54. Gone to a drive-in theater
55. Been in a movie
56. Visited the Great Wall of China
57. Started a business
58. Taken a martial arts class
59. Visited Russia
60. Served at a soup kitchen
61. Sold Girl Scout Cookies
62. Gone whale watching
63. Got flowers for no reason
64. Donated blood, platelets or plasma
65. Gone sky diving
66. Visited a Nazi Concentration Camp
67. Bounced a cheque
68. Flown in a helicopter
69. Saved a favorite childhood toy
70. Visited the Lincoln Memorial
71. Eaten Caviar
72. Pieced a quilt
73. Stood in Times Square
74. Toured the Everglades
75. Been fired from a job
76. Seen the Changing of the Guards in London
77. Broken a bone
78. Been on a speeding motorcycle
79. Seen the Grand Canyon in person
80. Published a book
81. Visited the Vatican
82. Bought a brand new car
83. Walked in Jerusalem
84. Had your picture in the newspaper
85. Read the entire Bible
86. Visited the White House
87. Killed and prepared an animal for eating
88. Had chickenpox
89. Saved someone’s life
90. Sat on a jury
91. Met someone famous
92. Joined a book club
93. Lost a loved one
94. Had a baby
95. Seen the Alamo in person
96. Swam in the Great Salt Lake
97. Been involved in a law suit
98. Owned a cell phone
99. Been stung by a bee
100. Read an entire book in one day

These things I have actually done!!!

i thought i'd done a lot with my life so far until i see that list. looks like this year might be the year of firsts, starting with donating blood!

i also did another list yesterday. we have a lot of little jobs to complete around the house that we keep forgetting about, so i made a list and have stuck it on the fridge so we can cross them off as they get done. I'm sure when we finish all of them there will be another list to go in it's place.

Tuesday 20 January 2009

dubbo

thursday we headed off to Mudgee.
I'd never been to Mudgee before and it is such a lovely country town. i'll definitely be going back there for a longer visit.
of course, thursday was that stiflingly hot 40 odd degree day and i thought i was going to die of heat exhaustion, i even considered buying swimmers to go in the hotel pool. but, being a country town no shops were open late, so i had to just sit on the edge of the pool :)
we headed to one of the local pubs for dinner and OMG i was in food heaven. it was so scrummy. i had Atlantic salmon with creamy garlic prawns. it was divine!
of course after dinner it was time for another swim and then off to bed. this is where i found the kids
in there bedroom, not fighting, watching shanice's portable dvd player - too cute. i just hoped the non-fighting business kept up.
Anthony had a meeting to go to for work on friday, so the kids and i hung out at the pool, watched foxtel and i did some scrapbooking. when anothony got back just it was off to dubbo.
had to take this picture :)
it was still really hot when we arrived so of course, the kids went swimming. We had booked into the nicest hotel in dubbo and opted for the serviced apartments that way we had bedrooms and a kitchen, just in case i felt like cooking!
nope, i didnt want to cook so we got a bbq chook instead.
because of the heat, i was getting so frustrated with my hair that i carried on to find a decent look hairdresser so i could get it all chopped off. well, for me 5 inches is getting all chopped off! it's now a more manageable length.
Saturday was ZOO Day. turns out we had been blessed with perfect weather - warm but with a cool breeze. we headed off 5 kilometers down the road to the zoo.
we had decided that we were going to walk around the zoo. we didn't want to drive round or hire bikes cause you had to keep getting on and off, and it was such a great day to be walking. we got 2 kms round then decided to cut back thru the middle and see all those animals and then get the truck, lol. well, there wasn't all that many cool animals on the second half!
i got some great piccies, well i think so anyway, all 300 of 'em
here are just a few
this is a cage of how they transport the rhino's
Connor did this NOT ME! and it was far too funny not to take a picture of. even the other people around us were laughing
timing!
the flying fox. i had to test it out first though before the kids, lol. anthony decided to video tape that one, lol. it needs to be censored for little ears
at every exhibit they have a sign about the animal with all types of information. WELL, at each and every animal i made my kids stand in front of the sign and have their picture taken. it got rather painful towards the end. i can see a mini album coming one :)
we were all exhausted after our big day out. but it was so worth ever minute and we all had a great time. i came home and had to have a little nanna nap before dinner. the kids were even too tired to go swimming!
we made reservations to have dinner at the hotels restaurant which is super fancy. i was a bit concerned that my noisy troops might not be well behaved, but i was so proud of them, they ate all their dinner, didn't fight and were very polite! i was starting to think they weren't my kids, lol. i had another scrummy dinner. i started with oysters kilpatrick and then onto tuscan Camembert chicken - YUM!
sunday was home day. it was sad to be going home, we'd all had such a great time.
i was feeling a little nauseous and dizzy which made for an interesting 5 hour drive home. we did stop a few time though so the break was good.
i made anthony stop at this gorgeous lookout where you can see the widest canyon in the world - well that's what the sign said.
you can't see the canyon from this shot but it's just off to the left!
well, that was our trip to dubbo.

quote of the week..............

Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass on a summer day listening to the murmur of water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is hardly a waste of time.
~John Lubbock

Monday 19 January 2009

last week - wednesday

I'm doing a bit of a catch up here :)
we've been away since last Thursday and i need to update since before that, lol

OK, last Wednesday, the 14th January, we headed down to Trac's for a scrappy day. the kids and i didn't get down to her house till around 12.30 as Connor had his swimming lesson in the morning, which btw he has done very well in and I'm so proud!
Trac had a full house of scrappers and kids. There was me and my two kids, Trac and her 3 kids, sherri and her daughter, Nic and her two kids and Belle an her two boys.
It was GREAT!!!!
we all scrapped up a storm even in the stiflingly hot heat.
the kids and the mums all swam (not me though, lol)
we scrapped some more
laughed and chatted a whole bunch
ate and drank so much water it wasn't funny

i scrapped 2 pages for my Scrap Girls album and then right before i was about to leave i got this fabulous idea for a journal. i raided Trac's stash and whipped up the inner pages in about 30 minutes. I took them with us to Mudgee and Dubbo to complete and use as a travel journal bout our trip.

here are a few pics from our day


connor

william and connor

the girls - caitlin, fliss, madi and shanice

cheeky girls - nic & belle

US - trac, Sherri, belle, nic and me
I'll be back tomorrow to update bout trip to Mudgee and Dubbo and bout going to the Aquarium this afternoon!

Wednesday 7 January 2009

daytripping to IKEA

monday morning saw us raising early to get to IKEA dead on 9am only to find out that they don't open till 10am, lol
Anthony had a flexiday and i had a rather long shopping list. so the ute was going to be doing what it was meant for!
Can i just say now - i lurve IKEA. i wish i could have spent all day browsing and dreaming, but with hubby and 2 wild children in tow is was much to sticking to my list.
i needed :
* a bookcase for my office
* shelves for Connor's room
* lamp for the backroom
* chest of drawers for Shanice's room
* and 2 bedside tables for each of the kids rooms

well, we came home with more.
* Connor got a wall until instead of shelves
* shanice got her chest of drawers and bedside table
* i got my bookcase, with pink boxes
* i got my lamp for the back room - a gorgeous wall mounted one in a yummy green to match my walls
* then as a bonus we got another square box unit with pink boxes for the TV in my office AND another gorgeous green lamp for my office too!
plus a stack of other bits and pieces. It was a sight seeing me push one trolley, the kids push the other trolley and Anthony ride down the isles on the furniture trolley with 180kg of furniture on it, lol

here is what my office is starting to look like:



please ignore ugly blue boxes - Anthony popped them there until i can back to IKEA next week to buy some more :)

We were on a time limit as the beautiful Miss Trac was coming up for a visit and for her kidlets to meet hunter. We all have lovely big cuddles.


The past few days have been stiflingly hot! I've had massive heat headaches, well that's what i call them anyways. the kids have pretty much lived in the pool.
Shanice has a friend sleeping over tonight. It's so funny to watch them because if you didn't know you'd believe they were sisters. They look identical, same age & height, talk the same and think the same - it's rather scary. they've been busy doing all things girly like doing their hair and make up, which is very cute.

Tuesday 6 January 2009

quote of the week......

One resolution I have made, and try always to keep, is this: To rise above the little things.
~John Burroughs

Thursday 1 January 2009

welcome with open arms ....... 2009



it's the start of a whole new year and this year is definitely going to be full of less dramas than the last :)
i've made a few, not resolutions, but little goals for myself that are definitely reachable. let's see if they come true
the kids i and spent the night down at Tracy's with her family. We all stayed up and watched the fireworks and then within about an hour were all fast asleep.
needless to say that by midday today the kids were a little grumpy.
i hope your new years was as fabo as ours and that 2009 is wonderful for all.