Not long now....

I've been off the grid for a while...work, sickness, exhaustion...many reasons. But the countdown has begun...for many more reasons!!

• Only 7 days of work left until school holidays begin...enough said...I'm buggered!

• It's 11 days until my baby turns 2. He started the terrible two's about 6 months ago, but when he is at his best, he makes my heart sing and the smile can't leave my face :)

• If it's 11 days until Alex's birthday, then it must be 12 days until Christmas Day. The kids are excited about it all this year. They are at the age where the magic is beginning. We have an elf living with us at the moment (thanks Belinda for the idea!!). He flies home to the North Pole each night and tells Santa if the kids have been naughty or nice...a great incentive for them at the moment. Plus it's loads of fun looking for his new hiding place each morning!!

• New Years Eve is in 19 days- nothing special really except I'll get to catch up with a friend I haven't seen in ages, which will be nice!

• My principal meanly reminded us that school starts again in about 8 weeks!! How cruel to do this so close to holidays starting! But I am looking forward to tackling Prep again, with a new group of people to work with.

• 8 weeks and a few days until my little girl starts 3yr old kinder! We went to orientation today and she loved it. A few friends we already knew and so many more ready to make next year. I bought her a new kinder tshirt (which is miles too big for her!!) and can't wait to see her in it. She's growing up so fast and I love seeing her mature, but I also want to hold onto every moment and milestone for as long as possible.

So with all this forward thinking and also reflection on a crazy, busy,  momentous year...it's no wonder I'm exhasuted. I'm looking forward (haha) to being able to just "be"!

Dear 16yr old me...

Dear 16yr old me...

Please watch this clip.... It's really important.

I really wish this was possible. To send a message to yourself in the past with wise advice. But at 16, I'm not really sure if I would have listened, even to myself.

My dad tried so hard to keep me out of the sun, always asking me to cover up or put sunscreen on. I never did. With red hair and blue eyes my chances of getting sunburnt were higher than normal, and me deliberately sun baking did not go down well with Dad!

Now, with kids of my own (both red hair/blue eyes) I am trying as hard as Dad did to keep the covered and protected. The sunsmart message was out there when I was young, as was horrible ads to scare you into slip,slop,slapping. But I ignored them.

I'm hoping that though the 16yr old me cant watch clips like this, maybe my kids will...

A place for everything

My kids are tidy. And I love that about them. It's taken a lot of work for them to be like that, but I'm glad we took the time to teach them.

Of course, they don't want to be tidy, they prefer to have every toy and every book on the floor where they can be stepped on and tripped over. But when asked to pack up, they usually do it, and do it well, without much fuss.

So I found it really funny when I went to vacuum the other day and found the following scene!!

And then funnier when Alex wanted to put his mowers away!!

Gotta love em!!!!

Just Me and my little Fella...

Alex has somehow convinced the doctor that he is sick and so we are home today. This is a first for us. It has never been just Alex and I for the whole day. At least not since he was a tiny baby. And so we are making the most of it. The laptop has stayed closed (until just now!) and the phone has only been used to take delightful photos of our fun so far this morning.

So far we have.....

 

....played with the blocks, although knocking them over was much more fun and you can tell in this photo that's exactly what Alex is about to do!...

 ...did some drawing for Nana, Grandpa and Dad....

 

...played hide and seek...

...went for a walk around the block....

...and crashed on the couch watching Makka Pakka...

Gee it's tiring keeping a little person entertained by yourself...and it's only 11am!!!!!

In time to come...

I started writin this blog as an outlet to share all the awesome things my kids do. A 'brag blog' if you will. I know there are only a couple of people out there in internet-land who read it and that's great. But I think now it's become more like a diary.

I just read back through every blog on here and remembered exactly how I felt at those times and it was lovely. I'm not computer savvy enough to know what'll happen to all of this in 10yrs time, so I might print it all one day, keep it in a book somewhere and get it out when I feel nostalgic for the good old 'toddler' days!

Maybe the kids will be interested in reading it. That would be nice. Finding our what my view of their behaviour and development was. A little bit of personal history recorded for them in time to come...

Bye, bye baby...

IT'S OFFICIAL!!! I no longer have babies. If I don't have a cot then I mustn't have babies anymore either! :(

Alex has been in a bed full time for about 2 months now (see earlier blogs for details on how fabulously that's been going!!!) For a while we kept the cot in his room "just in case", but never with the real intention of using it. We didn't want to go backwards on the forwards move we had made.

So last weekend I bit the bullet and listed the cot and change table on eBay and today they left. Bit sad really ...they've been nice pieces of furniture in our home for almost 4 years. But time moves on, kids grow up. suppose I'd better get used to that!

Hopefully the new little baby-to-be who now owns our old cot will love it as much as we did...and perhaps even knaw on it like Megan did when she was teething...

Stolen kisses

I read a friends' blog the other day and she talked about how cute and clever her little boy was. I laughed because I know exactly where she was coming from (along with thinking "If only she could see MY kids right now!).

I know I have rose coloured glasses on when it comes to my kids. I'm not blinded to the fact that they both have tantrums and fight, but I suppose I prefer to look at them in a positive light.

Megan is three and a half now and is "Miss Independant". She amazes me with the things she can do and the complex thoughts she talks about and conversations we have. Alex is almost two and I gush when he talks about things I can actually understand!

So any opportunity I have to give them a kiss, I take it! At the moment, they dont mind. I get the odd "Muuuuuummmm!!" while squimring away from me, but most of the time I get big sloppy, dribbly (in Alex's case!) kisses right back. I know when they are 12 or 13, it will be SOOOOO uncool to kiss mum, so I am building up the kiss bank now!