I am committing to writing 250 posts in 2017. It was going to be 365 but I think that’s a little ambitious…
We really should call our kids by their actual names more. Chance is generally “noodle”, Darby is “such a clown” or Darby-doo, and Quinny, I man Quinn, is, well Quinny. Or Princess if you ask Hubs. Or Quinny-binny-boo. It must be so confusing for Darby sometimes I swear. But totally cute.
Princess indeed.
Oh that reminds me – I still haven’t blogged about Quinny’s 4th birthday party yet!
Chance has been kicking a lot of behaviour goals lately and is making us very proud, and my day-to-day life a bit easier. Most of the time. Anyway when he asked if I could build him a paper aeroplane while he was asleep tonight I was happy to say yes.
To be honest, I feel like I’ve been saying a big fat no to most of his requests lately, so it was nice to answer yes for a change. He chose which one he wanted and once the kitchen was done and the kids were asleep (usually happens between 7:15 asks 7:45pm most nights) I got to work.
This was his plane of choosing
That would hopefully end up looking something like this
Using only these
And following these instructions
I couldn’t even tell you how many of these little friggers I’ve made over the last 18 months or so. Maybe 30? Not to mention the paper trains. But they are heaps easier (and far less impressive!)
They recommend craft glue but who’s got time for that!? Super glue is where it’s at – instant bond! Granted sometimes it’s my finger instantly bonding with the paper but I’m getting better at it.
The finished product? I smashed this one out in 18 minutes.
Pretty happy with this one. The best bit will of course be when Chance wakes up and I can tell him where to find it.
Remember, it’s the little things.
Our deck I mean
Hubs and I were lazing around drinking our coffee together when I said to him “seriously what did we used to do before we built the deck!?”
We would carry our coffees downstairs like chumps and sit in the yard and look up at our house and say “we really need to get that deck built.” That’s what we used to do.
Now we sit up on our deck, looking down at our yard and say “We really need to get rid of all the crap in the yard.”
It’s never-ending.
…when you have hung out three loads of washing and the kids are upstairs playing with Hubs and you realise you could get away with sneaking a chocolate Paddlepop ice cream from the fridge downstairs and take 5 minutes to sit down and enjoy it, only to hear your daughter calling you when you’re halfway through it and she comes downstairs to find you so you have to gulp down the second half of said ice cream and give yourself a brain freeze in the process.
It’s also giggly cuddles with this guy
It’s learning how to braid hair and finally starting to get the hang of it
It’s feeling your heart burst when you watch your oldest looking out for his sister and brother
There’s absolutely nothing that can prepare you for parenting. No books, no warnings, no friendly advice. It’s not until you’ve experienced the utmost highs and the deathly lows that you really get what is it all about. Some days I just want to hide away and not deal with the kids at all. But honestly every single day I can look back at at least one joyful thing that happened. Even if it only lasted a moment.
Today’s thing was reading to the kids at the end of a huge day/weekend. Quinn took herself off to bed after the first book. Then Darby fell asleep in my arms while Chance and I read a book together. That moment with just the two of us (and a snoring Darby) was quite lovely and definitely something I soaked up.
That and the chocolate Paddlepop.
It’s the little things.
I’ve been wearing this bracelet for 18 months now. My parents caught up with my dear friend Kimberley in the states on their trip in 2015 and she gave it to them to give to me. The engraving says Counting My Blessings. I hadn’t taken it off since then. Until today. It already feels weird. Like taking off your wedding ring after years of wearing it continuously. (I’ve also had to do that thanks to pregnancy + heat).
I might have to look for a replacement. Don’t worry Kimberley. You’re never far from my thoughts xxx
Aw my gawsh. I know I was a little late coming to the Parks and Recreation party but better late than never. I just watched The wedding episode and teared up more times than I care to admit! I’m so in love with Leslie and Ben! Seriously too gorgeous!
I think about weddings a lot, sporadically being in the business and I came across this article today that honestly made me seethe. The upshot is that brides are being “forced” to spend up to $150,000 on their weddings to keep up with the “demands” of social media.
Give. Me. Strength.
The bride to be in this article is spending $24,500 on her flowers for goodness sake! My flowers cost a total of $500 and that included me and Hubs, four maids and groomsmen, and our grandmas and maybe even our parents!?
What the actual do you get for the extra $24,000???? Who the hell are these people!? And don’t even get me started on the $15,000 dress.
I honestly just don’t get it. I mean each to their own but going into that much debt for one day seems absurd to me. Maybe Daddy is paying for the whole affair – who knows. Not once was the groom mentioned by the way.
I get that different people want to do things their own way. I’m sure there were some people who thought our wedding was huge (170 at the reception) and compared to many it was big but I can assure you it didn’t cost anything close to $150k. We did a lot of stuff ourselves and really didn’t splurge on anything too crazy. And it was such a great day and night.
Hard to believe it will be 10 years ago this December. I’d better get Hubs thinking about some ideas early. Ha!
And of course here’s some wedding photos just because this is my blog and I can do whatever I want.
Tiny pre-baby waist! Ha Ha
Ah what a good looking bunch. Still in touch and in love with them all xxx
A dread-less Hubs! Not seen in 9 years this Easter. Good times. Good times.
In case you have been living under a rock and you didn’t know, our 2 year old son Darby is a clown.
Seriously.
Such a clown. He does things for the sole purpose of getting a laugh, and when he does, he repeats that behaviour.
Behold “Darby Eyes”
This look has had a lot of air time. Pretty much any time I would pull my phone out to take a photo, I was met with this face. It was hilarious because he couldn’t hold it if he started laughing so you could see him really trying to keep the straight face.
Then there was this face that he tried out for a couple of weeks but it didn’t quite get the desired reaction so it got dropped from the repertoire.
Both of those have been replaced with this beauty. It may not look like much but I’ll explain below.
It’s kind of a mix between when you tell a kid to “freeze” and they open their eyes really wide and grit their teeth in a smile. He does it when he knows he’s doing the wrong thing and we tell him to stop. Like yesterday morning when he was putting a comb in the pedestal fan blade protector while it was running. Every time we’d tell him to stop he would pull that face.
He was also doing it while we had the neighbours over for dinner and he kept throwing his cup off the deck and then saying “cup fell off”.
He is just such a clown.
Naked downward facing dog on the deck? Why the hell not!?
What a cutie.
Hubs and I LOVE watching movies together. It’s one of our things. We watch good movies, crap movies, sequels, prequels, classics, you name it. There’s not a lot on our no-go list. Oh except horror. I don’t do horror of any kind. And Hubs isn’t a huge rom-com fan. So we don’t do rom-com-zom movies either. (Did you even know there was such a thing!?)
And now there’s a new genre in town that I made up* last night after we watched Mechanic – Resurrection.
The Rom Com Bomb.
It’s a fun action movie that, for whatever reason, the writers decided they needed to include a ridiculous love story which adds little or nothing to the movie.
Come to think of it there are so many movies that fit this genre! Definitely good for a night when you don’t want to have to think too hard about what you’re watching.
*Apparently the term has already been thought of but for something slightly different. I laughed very hard.
Okay. So the heat has finally gotten to me. I’m hot and I’m bothered and I’m trying not to dread school pick up this afternoon.
I had a very strange thought this morning which has seemed to help with my attitude a little today. This morning I thought to myself
“At least I’m not still in Mount Isa.”
Such a weird thing to think! The relentless heat up there almost undid me, as did living in a small townhouse with no yard and no pool, with two small children and a bun in the oven.
The only saving grace up there, for me at least, was the people. The beautiful people we met and adored and are still in touch with.
I never expected to love Rocky as much as I do. I love our house so much, even though it’s probably not that much bigger than the townhouse in Isa, we have a deck (now) and a beautiful yard and it’s just “us”.
I love our neighbours (I know I’ve mentioned that a few times) and our neighbourhood, and the beautiful view and breezes we get to enjoy.
So as much as the heat is making me feel twice a HUGE and hot, I have a lot to be happy about. Sorry Mount Isa. You just didn’t do it for me!
Funnily enough I just googled “weather Mount Isa” and it’s hotter here this week than up there!
Hubs and I have had a DAY! He worked late shift over the weekend which means he started at 3:30pm at the hospital, would clear the board, get home around midnight, then hope no one would call between then and 7am, when his shift finished. This happened on Friday night but no such luck the next two nights when he had to go in at 2am both nights for a couple of hours.
He had today off and even though he must have been exhausted, he was in a decluttering mood, and I wasn’t about to stop him.
His room of choice? The combined toy/Lego room. He was ruthless. I was ruthless. And we could be since we weren’t under the watchful eye of our toy-collector Chance. We can’t get away with throwing anything out/giving anything away when he is around.
But it needed to be done. Between the boys’ birthdays, Christmas, and Quinn’s birthday all in the space of 2.5 months, we had accumulated a lot of extra toys. Hubs went through every single box on the shelf as he does.
We put away a huge box for rotation in a few months, but we also got rid of a lot of broken bits and pieces, and stuff from garage sales and op shops that have been forgotten about. There are still a lot of toys that, even though they don’t get played with often, have sentimental value that I can’t quite part with. Plus there are some baby things we put away for later on too.
It was a very productive day I must say! And even though it was pretty stinking hot, we managed okay. Believe it or not this is the after shot!
Those Snugglers nappy boxes sure do come in handy!