Flashback Friday

When we went to Karumba in October 2014. We were living in Mount Isa, Chance was nearly 4, Quinn was 18 months and looking very much like Julius, don’t you think!! And I was very preggo with Darby. 

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A happy Easter

Gosh what a weekend. I’ll get straight to the photos.

I had a lazy start to good Friday, getting the opportunity to go back to bed for a sleep in (thanks Mum and Dad!) and not emerging until nearly 10am (woooooo!!) After a bit of coffee and colouring,

we then got set to watch the start of the Brisbane to Gladstone yacht race. From the comfort of our balcony. With snacks.

The kids got such a kick out of it!

Darby with his “noculars”

After some yummy lunch and some quiet time, we bundled the kids into the bike pram and scooters and…. headed across the road to “our beach”.

That’s mum and dad’s house up there on the far left. Next to the huge block of units.

So yeah, like I said. Our beach. Jules getting his squat on to build up those quads.

Gosh this kid loves any kind of water!!

And Quinn is never afraid to get a bit of dirt in the skirt! (or boardies in this case)

If Darby has a truck in his hand, the world is good.

And Chance always says he doesn’t want to go to the beach because he doesn’t like the salty water and sand, but once we get there, he’s right into it.

It sometimes feels like a lot of work getting the kids across the road to the beach, but it’s always worth it and they always have an amazing time.

We went for a sleepover at aunty Liesel’s house last night, which included a huge stacks-on, meat cooked on the BBQ, and a Lego hunt this morning, all of which Frith would have been proud of. Not many photos taken, as I just wanted to soak it all up.

Now there is faaaaaaar too much chocolate in the house for my lack of discipline at the moment, so I might take it upstairs for Mum and Dad to watch over. I can’t believe how much chocolate the kids put away today (okay, I can)!!

Even though I’m still finding it hard to find joy in my days, I always see it in my kids. They have fun. Every single day. I know it will come again for me, and in the mean time, I will feel snippets of it through them. They truly are gorgeous, spirited kids and I’m so blessed to call them mine.

A proud Mama

This isn’t the only reason I’m proud tonight but I’m just too tired to write a whole blog post from my phone (again!) so I’ll fill you in on my Chance story tomorrow. But today I was matchy-matchies with my little man.

Cutes patoots!

Nearly got away with it

We went to Yeppoon today with my friend and her three kids as both of our husbands were working, and you know, safety in numbers. The weather forecast wasn’t great but we were determined. The first couple of hours looked a lot like this

Threatening but nothing much happening

The kids had an awesome time at the water park. It was a little more stressful for me than usual as I lost Darby 3 times – little bugger is doing runners and exploring as he pleases which had me on red alert the whole time!

And just as we were settling in to lunch the rains finally came down

Darby was safely tucked away in the stroller (where I had put him to stop him running away from me!)

In one of the slight lulls in rain we decided to make a dash for the car. The lull didn’t last long and we ended up getting completely drenched. It was pretty funny.

Look I’m not going to lie. I had contemplated just staying home all day with the kids and watching movies but I’m glad we got out and about. We all do better after we’ve been out of the house for the morning and we had a great afternoon and evening to start the week off well.

Hope your Sunday was a good one too.

The new face

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.

Happy Birthday Darby

Life! Sometimes it’s just too amazing for words and other times, like this morning, there are no words. More about that later. So Darby turned 2 today. Hard to believe yes?

2 years ago:

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And today:

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What a kid. Seriously. This guy makes us laugh every day. And even though I’m convinced that he has hit the “terrific twos” overnight, we wouldn’t have it any other way.

Back to this morning. You know how you have those lovely serene mornings where everything runs smoothly and all is calm and you just win at parenting? I’m sure you can guess that this was not one of those mornings.

It started out well enough with exciting present opening

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and then they all moved to the toyroom  to check out the goodies together. Hubs and I had 10 minutes of peace which was just lovely and then it was time to get up. I let the kids help me decorate the cupcakes for kindy today and I think I made a mistake by letting them lick the beaters.

A bit of sugar in the morning is clearly all they need to send them batshit crazy.

There was wailing  and gnashing of teeth and tears and fights and accusations. Give me strength! I mostly kept my cool until towards the end when I’d  had enough. And of course I yelled at the kids to stop yelling at each other. Because that always works.

And just when things couldn’t get more exciting, as we were leaving I grabbed Quinn’s hat that was sitting innocently on the deck railing, only to discover a half finished glass of rum and coke underneath that I promptly pulled onto my dress. So now I smell particularly “Queenslandy” today cos there was no way I was going back inside to change!

I asked Hubs about it and he said he didn’t put the hat over it yesterday but he didn’t wonder where it had gotten to!

I’d say it was the work of the noodle.

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Just look at the grin.

Anyway all’s well that ends well . Darby is at kindy for a few hours so I can get a few things done, the first of which was to blog and have a coffee in peace.

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Done and done.

Happy birthday Darby-doo. You are such a treasure and I wonder what we ever did without you in our lives.

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When there’s too much to say

I feel this constant nagging, tapping on my shoulder. “You haven’t blogged in a while” it says. I have so much to say and share but nowhere to begin or end. There’s no huge announcement; no big realisations; no milestones to report; it’s just life. Life in all its monotony and mundane, and all its joy and abundance.

I’m sitting here on some very lush grass in Brisbane city waiting for my friend to arrive for a catch up. All the day-to-day happenings of the last 10 days are swirling around in my head but there’s nothing mind blowing to report. I want to document these things on my blog for nostalgia but I’m so tired of blogging from my phone. The photos take an age top upload and typing is tedious.

I found myself (actually carefully planned to be) child and husband free today. I started off by hitting up a few op shops and then had, I dare say, the BEST pedicure I’ve ever had (at Ella Bache Paddington for those playing at home.) The foot and leg massage went for a solid 20 minutes and I very nearly fell asleep I was so relaxed. I also bought a new pair of Birks.

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How cute am I right?!

I then had lunch with this lovely lady

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Before wandering into town for my 3rd coffee of the day and a stroll around. Which leads me to this grassy patch. And since the photos are taking no time at all to load, I’m going to share with you my last 10 or so days before I met up with my friend. Enjoy.

Road trip!

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Nanna time!

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The double scoop with free topping seemed like a good idea at the time. It was not.

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This man. This achievement.

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A visit with these ladies and this little guy. So much history here!

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Am amazing day on the water watching whales with my crazy family. Such a great day.

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Getting these two kids back together for a two hour run around in the playground.

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Cuddles with cousins

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And sisters (practically)

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And a night alone with Hubs.

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It’s now Wednesday morning (I got distracted halfway through writing that post) and I’m enjoying my last few hours on my own. I’m about to hit up some brunch before heading back to pack up. We hit the road tomorrow to head back to Rocky and even though it’s been an amazing holiday it’s always great to get home. It’s been lovely catching up and until next time xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

A happy mothers day

Simple. Easy. A bit relaxing. That’s all we ever really want isn’t it? Hubs has been working pretty much every day lately so I assured him that I didn’t mind going out and buying my own mothers day gifts this year. I picked out a couple of new shirts and a few other things I’d been eyeing off. All I asked was for a yummy brekky and some time to myself.

I didn’t snap any photos of the yummy brekky but Hubs delivered as always. And we had our friend and 2 of her boys over to join in as her hubby was away at the time.

We just spent the rest of the day pottering about and I got to do some baking which was awesome. We headed to the neighbours for arvo tea and then I had to drop Hubs off at the airport to go to Brisbane for a course for 2 nights. We stayed at the neighbours house for baked beans dinner so by the time we got home it was time for bed!

Yummy cupcakes

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Squashy cuddles (see that spoon? I bribed Quinn with more icing if she sat in the photo with us. Oh yeah.)

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Hubs was a bit apologetic that it was a bit of a nothing day, but I assured him I had a lovely day and that the ending was the best.

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Kids in bed, leftover garlic mushrooms on toast for dinner, house to myself, a glass of bubbly, and some Nashville to catch up on. What more could a Mama want?