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WINNER!

2011-12-23T22:41:00.001+10:00

We have a winner! Thanks to everyone who entered our Lion King give away. It seems like a lot of us have similar wonderful taste in movies :-)

But there could only be one winner and Kym at Mumma's Mini Mes is the winner with her comment...

"Finding Nemo, I have lost count of how many times she has watched it, she is obsessed with animals and loves watching fish swim."

It sounds like we might have seen that movie a similar number of times.

Thank you again to everyone who entered and a very big thank you to Mandy at Porter Novelli for being so fantastic and looking after my Lion King obsessed son with this fantastic opportunity.

Thank you also to our family and friends who keep checking up on us and chastising us for not posting more regularly... I promise I will try harder. I can't promise that posts will eventuate from my trying but I will try.

Lion King Giveaway

2011-12-16T08:17:00.000+10:00

A loooong time ago in a lounge room far away, a package arrived. That package was long anticipated... Mummy got VERY excited, very very excited. Her boys could completely understand why... TNT! Mummy had a box full of dynamite!... hang on, what? No I didn't.

Rewind.

Way way back my Lion King obsessed Lion started asking questions... "Mum, when will I get my own Lion King DVD?"... "Mum, you said that I could have a Lion King DVD sometime when it got near my birthday, is that soon?" So... since I have contacts, I emailed my insider at Porter Novelli who do the PR for Disney DVD. "Soon," she said, "very soon."

I emailed her back to let her know that my kids back-flipped and somersaulted and did hand stands and danced a jig ON MY COUCH... FOR 10 MINUTES!!! She thought that perhaps they might be interested in checking it out and having a little party to go with it. Well, in the interest of making my furniture last a little longer I said they'd love that and decided not to tell the kids about it. So, sitting and waiting and waiting and waiting and then the package arrived! Y'know the one that I was writing about at the start? Yeah, that one. After I calmed them down and told them that TNT was the courier company and there is no way on earth that I would get a delivery of TNT and even if I did, they cannot use it to blow up the gully, try to start a landslide... or anything else for that matter. I know, I might just be the meanest mum on earth! Anyway, then I told them that it was FULL of Lion King stuff... including the DVD!

Well... we needed to organise a little party! We had the Disney Singstar PS2 game to rock out to and no one to rock with. After a few failed attempts, vomiting bugs, party guests leaving town, we FINALLY managed to pull together a little group of buddies to play the game and watch the movie... and have a heap of fun.

Dragon sings his little heart out!

The movie is just as you remember it... only better! Really, I get sceptical about these movies being re-released that are supposed to be clearer and smoother and whatever... but it really is. Having watched The Lion King over and over and over wherever we could track down a copy I had it well stored in my mind to be able to do a comparison. The voices are sharper, the field of grass flicking in the breeze is clean and crisp, it's fantastic!

Cousin Wilbie is serious when it comes to Karaoke.

We had little competitions to win cute little baby Simba plush toys, we ate worms in dirt (lamingtons with gummy worms shoved in them), ostrich nuggets (that looked suspiciously like chicken nuggets), cheese, crackers, all sorts of yummy stuff.

It did occasionally get a little tricky to see what you were supposed to be singing while you were wearing a Simba mask!

Again, this Karaoke is serious business!

Musical statues and a dance-off... sounds like a good party to me!

We were very happy to have some special visitors with us, you haven't met them on this blog before. They are this crew. Dene, Rachel, used to be my youth group leaders a looong time ago and Dene was in our wedding party (and Rachel was indispensable to us that day as well, she took care of so many things we had forgotten to organise). Together with their kids Eliott and Simeon, they are preparing to head off to Japan as missionaries. They had a short stay in Townsville where we managed to fit in plenty of time to catch up and hang out and have Lion King themed parties.

Sooooo, here's the really exciting part...

The crew at Porter Novelli have let me have a fantastic Lion King prize pack to give away! Soooo, if you would like to win this fantastic prize pack below then please leave a comment on this post telling me in 25 words or less, what your favourite kids move of all time is and why. Mine is Mary Poppins... no, actually it's Anastasia... or um... well... I hope you can be more decisive than me! So, go on, let me know!

I was not paid for this but I did receive a Disney DVD, The Lion King pack from Porter Novelli and Disney DVD along with a gift card to supply our party. All opinions expressed are entirely my own... and my kids.

Competition runs until 7pm AEST, Friday Dec 23rd 2011 and is open to Australian residents only. Please make sure you comment with a valid email address (if you are a noreply@blogger.com address please include an email in your comment), if I cannot get hold of you I will have to pick someone else.

My blogger account has not been notifying me by email of comments to my posts but I promise I will check regularly to make sure all comments are included!

You can't put this on facebook

2011-11-08T16:15:00.000+10:00

Okay, I'm pretty careful about remembering that not all my facebook friends have little kids and even fewer have such a male dominated family. They may not want to know all the gross stuff that goes on in our house that although funny, is still poop related. As such, some things just don't go on facebook... this one had to be shared.

Monkey is getting better at manipulating his big brothers to get his way. He's learning from their cues what his appropriate response should be. This afternoon he walked into the middle of their room and filled his nappy. From the gagging/choking/gasping for air sounds his brothers were making I'd say it had a good odour to it. Their crazy reaction made Monkey's day! He'd walk towards them and their increased wailing and backing off would just encourage him to go and try it on the other one. Their passionate plea of "go out to mama, pleeeeeeease" was just more than one little Monkey could handle. All of a sudden I heard the door close and his little giggle as he trapped his brothers in their room while it steadily filled with the stench of a thousand rotting eggs.

I'm not sure if I should be proud of his masterminding or horrified that my two year old has figured out for himself the basic concept of playing Dutch Oven.

Monkey talk

2011-11-05T22:53:00.002+10:00

See that kid up there... he's a charmer. I worried for so long that his talking was going to be a bit slow but lately he's been talking in full sentences and blowing my mind with the things he comes out with.

He's just realised that he can turn my to putty in his hand with three small words. "Lub you mummy". Awwww. He also tells me "Kiss you now" and "no, other side" (he is rather picky about being offered the right cheek to kiss). "Go Drammar, EAT!" I tried to tell Grannysaurus that the kids see her house as a never-ending buffet of good stuff to eat.

We went and fed some ducks with friends on Monday and he chatted and chatted about the "peedin' da ducks". He also asks for his own "cheeenow" (babycino) if we go out for coffee.

But that tongue... see that tongue hanging out in the photo... that one. He's got another sentence... "Lickin' it". He's started licking things! Not normal things to lick like lollipops and stuff. I'm talking shop floors, carparks, his carseat, handrailings, the fridge door, his brothers leg, the lounge room carpet... hideously gross stuff. He's TWO! He's not supposed to be doing that stuff anymore.

Thankfully because he knows I don't like him doing it he moves away from me so I can pretend it isn't my child licking the floor in the middle of the shops. We went into the garden section of one shop the other day, I watched that kid like a hawk. I was ready to pounce should he so much as look at a bag of poop. Thankfully we made out to the checkout before he wandered off to the middle of the walkway while I sorted out the bags and he lay down to do a biiiiiiiiiig lick... he lay on the floor, arms outstretched and started at one hand and licked right across to the other hand. I did my best to pretend he wasn't mine... I mean, other than the fact that I dropped everything in my hands and screamed

"NOMONKEYDON'TLICKTHEFLOOROFTHESHOP!"

I totally got away with it, I'm sure no one knew he was mine. Anyone want one of those kisses of he's handing out?

Excitement!

2011-09-27T16:38:00.000+10:00

I just got an email saying that there is a super awesome parcel on it's way to me! Do you want to know what the best bit for you is? It's for a FANTASTIC GIVE AWAY!

But that's all I'm telling you right now.

So, what else has been going on around here in my bloggy quietness? Lots. That is partly to blame for the quietness. It's been a busy two terms at school and last holidays we were so busy with endless invitations to here and there that we didn't get much of a break. Now we are in our second week of these holidays and I am feeling refreshed and ready to face the final chaotic term of school. I made a purposeful decision to stay home a lot these holidays. As much as possible to do things that included all of the kids and to spend lots of time just being together.

But, leading up to the holidays we did have a little bit of fun...

Lion's school does a school concert every second year and in the other year the do something on a much smaller scale. This year they presented a Food & Dance Fiesta! Each year level presented a dance and there was all sorts of food for sale and the year levels all manned stalls selling different things. The year ones all had to bring in cupcakes to be sold at their stall which was a raging success. Lion's class danced to "boot scootin' baby". I was thrilled when the classes came out in lines and Lion was right at the front down the end where I was standing (I had Monkey in the pram so I could only get to the ends). Then they decided to do a re-shuffle for some reason... Lion ended up at the back, in the middle, behind some rather tall kids. I got rare glances of him and managed to get a couple of photos that weren't real good but hey, we got a record of the event. After the first time through they had to come and get a parent to dance with them. Unfortunately with Monkey in the pram (against his wishes) and Wolf at work, I couldn't be the one to go and dance with him. He had taught Dragon some of the moves so I encouraged (bribed with an extra cupcake) Dragon to go and dance with him. You can imaging how much of that I saw with all the parents of the kids in the front two rows dancing in front of my tiny little boys. Oh well, I was proud of both of them for getting up there... even if I couldn't see most of it.

We went down to The Strand Ephemera to check out some of the artwork on the day before Father's Day. The kids had a ball but I was suffering with sinus headaches from a horrid sinus infection that just wont go away. Some of the art was good... some was just really really poor. These are two pieces that the kids particularly enjoyed.

Last week (1st week of school holidays) Wolf had the Tuesday off so we took of up the the beach hut for the day with Grannysaurus and Cheetah. We played in the sand, swam in the ocean, boogy boarded, went to Frosty Mango (Aunty Chimera and Little Bear joined us for that)... we had a generally awesome time. Not many photos were taken because the photographer was having too much fun! Mum did grab a few on my camera while I was in the ocean though.

I was so proud of my kids... and Cheetah. We'll start at the oldest... Cheetah had never ridden a boogy board before and was struggling to catch a wave. Even after I explained when to push off. I had a thought... I don't use the top of the wave to tell when to jump, I use the feeling around my ankles of the water rushing back out to sea as well as the look of the wave... As the next lot of "big" waves were starting to roll in I quickly explained how waves work and at which point in the waves life you need to push off and all of a sudden he was riding like a pro!

Lion was dumped wave after wave. He saw a particularly big wave coming and got a gleam in his eye... He caught it and it took him two metres and dumped him. HARD. His little head popped up from under the water, he spat mouthfuls of sand and sea water out and looked at me. I thought he might be about to cry... his little voice spoke up... "that. was. AWESOME". He grabbed his hat, wrung the water out of it, put it back on his head and took of to find his next wave.

Dragon is usually a one wave boy. He gets dumped once and that's it. He's sitting in the shallows and wont try again. He was dumped over and over and over and he just kept going back for more.

Monkey is also a stick to what he knows kinda kid. Especially in the ocean. He got out there and was riding the boards with no one holding on to him (much to mummy's horror), he was jumping waves and pretending to fall over... he had a blast!

So there's a little of what we have been up to. There's still so much more to share... but not today. I hope there are still people reading this little old blog... it'd be a shame if there was no one to win the fantastic prize I'll have to give away soon!

Happy Birthday Monkey

2011-09-24T12:50:00.000+10:00

Waaaay back on August 31st Monkey celebrated his 2nd birthday. It was a rather confusing day for all of us... not your run of the mill birthday. Daddy had to leave for work at 6am so we decided to leave the normal morning stuff of presents and chaos until later when daddy was able to be there and we were all awake for it. So our day started off with a school and kindy drop off like any other Wednesday then heading to the city for morning tea at one of our favourite cafes.

They only had pink cupcakes, he didn't seem to mind

We love this cafe. It's a ~~lot~~ bit out of our way and is a ~~lot~~ bit more expensive than other places but it has tables that the kids can draw on, a wonderful kids menu and toys and books and really good coffee. That wasn't why we picked it though, Monkey's great Nanny had come for a visit and she was leaving later that day from the city train station and Aunty Chimera works just down the road so she could get an hour or so off work and join us. So we had a special birthday morning tea with Great Nanny, Grannysaurus, Aunty Chimera, Aunty Juliette and our favourite Ladybug.

"It's just what I've always wanted"

Later that evening once everyone was home from work, school and kindy we FINALLY got to the presents! Two small gifts that his brothers picked for him while we were on our camping trip in Winton (post to follow on that trip) and some more gifts and cards from family and friends and the gift to end all gifts... the Lego Duplo fire truck he has longed for and dreamed of for what seems like forever (to a two year old).

CANDLES!!!

That evening we had a special birthday dinner. His only request was that he had GRABY! He has come to love gravy, it's amazing what he'll suddenly eat if it it's smothered in gravy. So, with his only request being "GRABY!" (yes, it's always yelled, he loves it that much) I decided that a lovely lamb roast was in order... and a store bought cake since I was making cakes for his birthday party the following day. So, decorated with only sprinkles and his little Muttaburrasaurus figurine he bought in Winton he had cake and candles... and he was beyond thrilled!

"Who are these people and why are they in MY photo?"

We had a small gathering the following afternoon for his birthday. His request was for "RAAAAA caycakes" which with my mummy interpretation skills I figured out was dinosaur cupcakes. Still, our small gathering cleared up 45 dinosaur cupcakes!

"Mummy, someone has left footprints in my cupcakes"

It was a wonderful fun filled couple of days for my little two year old... as you can tell, he had fallen in love with dinosaurs after our dinosaur hunting adventure the weekend before his birthday. Having a birthday 24 hours after returning from camping isn't ideal... but he had a blast and I'd do it again tomorrow for him if I had to. I love little kid birthdays, they really do seem to be magical for them.

A few of his favourite things...

2011-09-16T17:26:00.000+10:00

It's been a while... I am going to get back into this blog, I promise. But it's going to be slow. I just wanted to share this little one with you.

Lion often worries. He worries about a lot of things. One of his worries is that Monkey doesn't like him. Why does Monkey always want to be with Dragon, why does Monkey cuddle Dragon and not Lion, why doesn't Monkey love his as much as he loves Dragon? I can only try to reassure him... Monkey does love you, he loves you just as much as he loves Dragon. He just knows how to show it better to Dragon.

Lion is in drawing mood this afternoon. He's drawing us pictures of our favourite things. We've all received a love note from him, a picture of our favourite planet, a picture of our favourite form of transport... all very special. Wolf has his sitting beside him on the seat as he watches TV. I've placed mine beside me here on the computer. Dragon has put his on the fridge with a couple of magnets. Monkey will not let his out of his hands. When he found he didn't have pockets to put them in I suggested he put them on the fridge like Dragon's. He shook his little head and wandered off with them clasped in his little hands. He's been outside playing with them still held tightly in this hand or that depending on what else he needed to hold, he's attacked Dragon with a broom while holding them, he held tightly to them as Dragon chased him with the broom in retaliation. They are so precious. A note saying "I ♥ you", a picture of Pluto and a picture of his trike... a few of his favourite things, drawn by one of his favourite people.

Enabling the Addiction

2011-07-27T16:42:00.001+10:00

There is a raging problem with addiction that I have become aware of around here... 1 in every 3 people will ~~really enjoy~~ suffer with this addiction.* Look around at the other two people dining with you tonight, if neither of them has ordered Southern Fried Chicken Crispers with Sweet Mustard Dipping Sauce then it's probably what you are ordering, isn't it?** Some are so ashamed of their addiction they seek help, and in seeking help they have come to me. The thing is, I don't exactly go for the Dr Phil method... I'm more of an enabler. So now, as part of my service to the community I am going to enable so many more of you to feed your addiction and get your fix of Crispers. Better still, you can do it in private, at home where no one can judge you anymore***

Here it is folks, passed down through the secret Association of Crisper Enablers (ACE) the recipe for Cactus Jacks Southern Fried Chicken Crispers with Sweet Mustard Dipping Sauce.

For the sauce you need

300ml Pure Cream
1 tablespoon Australian Mustard
1/4 cup Apricot Jam

Do use the pure cream, a little extra time beating it and you get to miss out on all those icky things that they add to it to keep the thickened stuff thick on the shelf.

For the crispers you will need

Cornflake Crumbs
3 eggs
500g Chicken Tenderloins

You may need an extra egg, it depends on the size of them and how much sticks to the chicken. I used 3 on this day. You can also use chicken breast cut into even sized strips, thigh wont work as well because it's hard to cut it all even thickness. Also, for more manageable sized pieces you may want to cut each tenderloin in half.

Prepare the sauce first so you can have it ready to go when your crispers are hot and freshly fried.

I used all the mustard I had left (about a dessert spoon) which wasn't enough so my sauce was a little too sweet... and I think my jam is sweeter than I usually use too, the measurements will depend on the different brands but what I have given up the top is a good starting point. (don't you love my babushka measuring cup set my sweet boy got me... they make me happy)

Beat your cream until is is just starting to thicken. Add in the jam and mustard and continue beating until it is thick and globby (technical cooking term that means it falls off the spoon in blobs rather than running off the spoon). You can see in the picture below that it doesn't immediately flow back and settle when you stop beating. Be careful... it is easy to get carried away releasing all your pent up frustrations on the cream but no one wants to eat Southern Fried Chicken Crispers with Sweet Mustard Dipping Butter... or maybe.... hmmm. If that becomes a raging success then you heard it here first. Cactus Jacks, you can send me a big fat cheque for thinking that one up for you.

Cover that and place in the fridge until you are ready to serve.

Set yourself up like this...

L-R Dinner plate with bake paper on it, large shallow bowl with breadcrumbs, small bowl with beaten eggs, tray of chicken.

Start by dipping each tenderloin into the beaten egg and then wiping off the excess drippy bits. If you leave it dripping you will end up with all the crumb coating falling off.

Any extra dangly bits of chicken like this you can pull off and keep aside for later (they are very important).

Next, toss it in the breadcrumbs, try to make sure it is thoroughly coated, it doesn't have to be a thick coating just as long as it's all coated.

Place each piece on the bake paper on the plate, try not to let them touch because they will pull the crumbs off each other if they do touch.

After your first layer is full, put another sheet of bake paper on top and keep crumbing. When you get to all those little bits that you pulled off, crumb them too.

Once you have done one layer of crumbs on all the chicken slide the bottom layer of bake paper onto the bench and put the plate back at the end and do a second layer of crumbs. You need to work quite quickly at this point, if you leave them in the egg too long the first layer will start to fall off. You can still very gently wipe off the excess egg mixture before placing them into the crumbs. Because you made sure the first layer coated them really well you don't need to be as fussy this time, you can work faster knowing that all the chicken will be coated.

Make sure all the little pieces that you had are on the top when you have all your chicken crumbed!

Heat a small pan and pour in enough oil to cover the bottom.. I am sure you can do these in a deep fryer but I don't have one so I shallow fry. I only use a small pan because I have trouble keeping track of what I'm doing if I have too many on the go. Now, get your oil to the right temp, remember they should sizzle as soon as you put them in, that is what those little ones are for... checking if it's hot enough. Then you eat them while you cook the rest.**** It's also good to remember that if the oil is too cool it will soak into the chicken and you'll get oily icky chicken instead of crispy yummy chicken.

Fry both sides until cooked through and golden on the outside and transfer them to some paper towel to soak the extra oil. I then put them on a cooling rack placed over an oven tray so I could put them in the oven to keep warm while I kept cooking more.

They should look lovely and crispy and golden when they are done. You may need to eat a few more at this point to make sure they really are cooked well and taste good enough to serve to people you love. We don't want to give dodgy food to people we love, do we?

Serve them with a big glob of Sweet Mustard Dipping Sauce and enjoy.

The kids gobbled them down the last time I made them but this time they weren't so keen... they did try and eat all of the little bits I fried up though and were calling it "pop-corn chicken but better than KFC"... but that may have just been so that I would let them have more than a mouse sized nibble each. I think next time I might do a heap that I cut into small bits for them... and some for me too.

So there you have it, Southern Fried Chicken Crispers with Sweet Mustard Dipping Sauce... now go, feed that addiction... and make some for me while you're at it!

Oh, and if you don't happen to eat it all at once ~~then you aren't really trying hard enough~~ we found that the chicken was delicious cut up over a spinach salad and the sauce used as a dressing (with wholegrain mustard added the second night to get rid of some of the sweetness.

*all statistics totally made up.

**only if you are dining at Cactus Jacks. If you aren't dining there then you probably wish you were because you want your crispers!

***lets face it, no one was judging, but at least if you are at home by yourself no one can steal your crispers!

**** This is essential to the cooking process. If you don't eat all those little bits while you are cooking then your crispers wont work out*****

*****This may or may not be an outright lie... it's your risk to take.

Time Team is in my backyard...

2011-07-26T15:23:00.000+10:00

This can only end badly. I'm hearing phrases like 'dig a little deeper'... 'brush that off so I can dig under it'... 'I think we found an ancient civilisation'... And the scariest of all 'I think we need to bring in a bobcat'

I have visions of Phineas & Ferb cartoons. But hey, at least they are playing well together.

Time Team on YouTube.
Phineas & Ferb on YouTube.

Blog it then bin it... 2

2011-07-09T16:54:00.000+10:00

Last night I found this little note that I had stashed away too. The boys had been playing some game with their GI Joes and other assorted "action figures". One of the characters, as part of the story had written this note to Lion and Dragon's characters (who use their names, but you totally can't tell that I've edited the photo, can you...yeah, anyway). Lion has known how to spell "we" for a VERY long time... owning a Wii for two weeks had completely taken over his mind and he had no idea how to spell it the correct way anymore. But a pretty good attempt at spelling 'hate' for himself... even if I had to say to them that I don't even really like these sorts of notes in games.

"Wii hat Lion Dragon"

and VERY tiny writing, that is my index finger holding down the note which is less than an inch square... how come when I ask him to write small in a birthday card or something, each letter is the size of a small country?

Blog it then bin it...

2011-07-08T21:35:00.000+10:00

As I sort through things around here, I'm hoping a few funny things that aren't worth keeping but have funny stories attached will get blogged then binned to preserve the story and save some space.

Lion got a bee in his bonnet one day about needing me to remember what year it was. He is such a helpful little man. So, he got industrious, and wrote and wrote and wrote on a piece of A4 white paper and then asked me for some blu-tak to stick his reminder to the wall...

Helpful, isn't he?

Burnt

2011-06-26T16:05:00.000+10:00

It's our dry season here. There's a fire somewhere around every day and the smoke stays low on the horizon. All the hills are slowly turning black and then softening to a dark charcoal grey. So many negatives about the fires around. The kids worry terribly about the animals caught in the path of the slick moving flames. Asthma sufferers are staying indoors on the worst afternoons. It's rare for any properties or people to be caught in the bush fires around here, we are so thankful for that, but it has taken a while to convince the kids. The hills that were still tinged with green from our fantastic wet season are looking depressing now. But I know that for many plants this season of fire means they will have a chance to flourish. As grey and dark as it is now, soon we will see shoot of green sprouting on the hills. Seeds brought alive by the heat of the fire, fed by the ash on the ground, growing and sprouting ready for the next wet season.

For now though, we can enjoy the beautiful colours of the sunsets caused by all the smoke in the air.

These were taken on two afternoons recently. The first one, I got home with the kids and saw the beautiful colours changing as I drove down the street. I had just enough time to dash inside, throw my stuff down and grab the camera. I got off very few shots before all the light was gone. The second one was taken while we were playing with the kids out on the street, riding bikes and taking sunset photos. Taking advantage of a slightly warmer afternoon than usual. Our usual rule is that it's inside time once the streetlight at the bottom of our driveway comes on... I saw it flick on and prayed that the kids wouldn't notice because I wanted "just a few more minutes". I'm glad they didn't notice it because I got this shot long after it came on.

Both photos taken on my lovely new camera that my wonderful family bought me for my birthday :-)

Sacrifice

2011-06-21T21:40:00.000+10:00

Over the years, many people have tried to teach me about sacrifice. Sacrifice in my Christian walk, sacrifice for my work, sacrifice for others, it's an endless list really. But none have taught me quite so much about all these areas as my kids. Mothers sacrifice so much, ~~then we go and feel guilty that we haven't quite sacrificed enough,~~ we would do anything for our kids. Sometimes we need to make a call... is this sacrifice worth it?

I have put my body on the line, because lets face it, although plenty of people do it, giving birth isn't exactly safe... least of all for your figure. My abs resemble more "rolling hills" than "washboard". My hips are kinda clicky and gumby, my feet are getting a little wider with each baby... and kinda hairier, I'll be a hobbit soon. Don't even get me started on what three C-sections will do to a girl! Sacrifice.

I have given up the chance for a bigger house, nicer clothes, more chocolate, all the things that a job providing more money could buy. Some women have to work so they can just keep the food on the table. Sacrifice.

There are so many sacrifices that I make every day, little ones. Four biscuits left in the packet so I go without, not getting that nice pair of pants I saw for me so that I can get a pair of jeans for Lion, giving up time out with a friend so that the kids can stay home and nap, sitting up at night with a child who can't sleep so that he doesn't have to be alone in the dark, being the last to sit down at the table and the first to get up again so that everyone can have a nice dinner, cooking dinner instead of watching the news, watching that kids movie that I can't stand ~~over and over and over~~ again because someone wants to sit and snuggle while they watch it ~~again~~, missing out on time alone in the day so that a small child can feel like he's had some one on one time with me.

Then, one day, you are called to make a sacrifice that stops you. It stops you in your tracks and you just don't know what to do, where do you go for advice? Who has been down this path before? Who can help you make this decision? The answer, if I'm honest, is that no one can. You need to do what is right for your family, for your child. Maybe it is time to let them grow up that bit more, spread their wings, assert their independence... maybe it's not. If you let them do this one thing, your relationship may never be the same again, you may never be the same again. Can your heart handle it? Can you face that sacrifice so large that it will change who you are as a person? Your fear realised and come to life?

For me, that time has come. Far sooner than I thought. I tried to talk him out of it. He tried to talk me into it. I tried to convince him that "maybe later" was a better option. He did his best to convince me that he was ready. I tried to tell him that it's just not what we do in our family. He told me that maybe our family needs to change. He presented some good arguments. He didn't nag. He accepted that I was not going to give in but he persisted in his pursuit. I started to question myself a little more. My motives. My strength. My sacrifice... was this one that I had to give in? Where I had to go against my better judgement and make this sacrifice for my child? This was something that I held to with everything in me, it was never going to happen... so how had it come to the point where I was actually considering the sacrifice? Then, he did it... "It's okay mum, I know you don't like it so that's okay." He was giving up his dream, for me.

So, I made the sacrifice for him.

I went ahead and let him buy a remote control Tarantula.

Sacrifice.

This hideous creature is sitting in my cupboard waiting for Dragon to earn the money for it. He's been the tough one to teach to save. I've been trying to get him to set goals to save for but he never makes it, he quits and settles for something else before he reaches his goal. He's been wanting one of these for ages, he has not given in. I've not been pleased with his determination. They aren't often in the shops so when I decided he could have one I said I'd buy it and keep it aside until he earned the money for it... and he's getting there... a little too fast. He is the one that takes the here and now over the sit and wait. Something small in his hand RIGHT NOW will always win out over waiting for the small things to turn into something bigger. He's changed. For a spider. Turning down the offer to purchase of a new matchbox car for the chance to add $2 more to his total savings. Offering to help with cleaning for another 50c marked off his chart. Suggesting jobs that I have never had any success in getting him to help with... not even for money... just so he can get his spider sooner. Responsibility... Determination... Forward planning... not things that I would associate with my Dragon... until now.

I'm still regularly regretting my sacrifice... like every time I walk past his earning chart and see that he's almost half way there... but I can see what this has taught him. The lessons he is learning from this are ones that he'll need to remember. Lessons that will keep him in the future... like if you pull at Mum's heart strings hard enough she'll break like a twig.

Sacrifice.

Patient Notes: Dragon McTavish

2011-06-15T22:05:00.000+10:00

Case Notes: 4 year old male patient presented well after bed time with severe Textatinge to the face, hands and feet. Further examination also showed Textatinge to the torso with the most worrying symptom being the dark tint to the belly button. The child's mother said he was supposed to be sleeping and she knew he was finding it hard to fall asleep but had no idea of his condition until he came to her while she sat enjoying the quiet of the house.

Pay careful note to the back of the right hand. The Textatinge seemed to only go to his wrist initially, but upon closer examination after the images were taken, it was discovered it was far more serious and ended closer to the elbow than the wrist. Initial treatment was discussed and it was suggested that we let the Textatinge wear off with time and the child give the cause to all who ask, a common combined form of the treatments "Imasillydill" and "Embarrassment". After further discussion that treatment seemed too strong for a first outbreak and another common treatment was decided upon with a topical application of dihydrogenmonoxide (H2O). The Textatinge did not immediately clear up and certain areas responded better than others with the forehead showing the best (and most rapid) improvement. Treatment will continue over the course of a few days with the added treatment of a liquid detergent at approximately 24 hours after the first symptoms appeared combined with a dihydrogenmonoxide bath.

Should the Textatinge return in the future we will discuss more severe treatments to deter further outbreaks.

Dr McTavish.

Did I ever tell you I loved working as a clinical photographer? If only all my cases had been this cute (and non-infectious).

Random thoughts and a random winner...

2011-06-14T20:14:00.000+10:00

My brain is a little random today. So I am just going to dump it all out on here and hope that helps. It also fits with the other need for this post... picking a random winner for the Walt Disney Studios Alice in Wonderland 60th Anniversary Special Edition giveaway... but I'm going to make you wait for that.

Monkey has FINALLY cut the missing tooth from his crooked little smile. He has had 3 bottom teeth at the front for the last 6 months. The fourth one just wouldn't come through. FINALLY it has shown itself and is a sharp little fang, I think it may even be responsible for his cranky moods and upset nights of late. Even if it's not, I'm going to blame it anyway because the other option is just that my child is a little feral.

I turned 30 last week. I don't feel old but apparently I'm pretty much geriatric now.

I'm still getting pimples. This is beyond a joke. They were supposed to stop after puberty. I guess officially this is still after puberty but I was kind of expecting something a little closer to the end of puberty, not still be going at 30. I hate pimples.

I cleaned my lounge room at least 5 times over the weekend. Is it any wonder I can't get the house clean if I have to keep re-cleaning the same rooms over and over and over?

Last night at 10pm I was scrubbing out the cupboards under the sink... I like to live on the wild side. I spilt half a litre of milk under the dishwasher last week and I cleaned up the milk straight away but with the dishwasher pulled out I figured I'd better clean up all the other gunk that was collected under there. So finally last night I got around to that and when we went to put the dishwasher back we realised that when Wolf pulled it out the spot where the drain hose connects to the drain under the sink had cracked and grotty drain water had been dripping under the sink all weekend... Thus, at 10pm I had just finished cleaning under the dishwasher when we conducted emergency repairs to the connection (the dishwasher was running before we realised so it was a race against the cycle) and then commenced pulling the cupboards apart and cleaning it all out. Admit it, you are jealous of my exciting life.

I have made white sauce approximately 9349428490 times. I know that you NEVER walk away from it, not even for 'just a second'. It will, without fail, be that exact second that it starts to thicken and grab at the pot and because you aren't there to stir it you'll get a million lumps that you can't get rid of. I KNOW THIS... yet I do it every time. I walk away... I get lumps. Oh well, no one complains... they know better than that.

There's still more random in my brain but this will do for now, I can't keep you waiting forever.

Now, the moment you've all been waiting for... The winner of the Walt Disney Studios Alice in Wonderland 60th Anniversary Special Edition is comment number...

The third eligible comment belonged to...

Kym from mumma's Mini Mes

Congratulations Kym, if you can email me at MummyMcTavish@gmail.com and let me know your mailing address I will pass the details on so you can be sent your copy of Alice in Wonderland.

For the rest of you, I'm sorry but you'll have to go out and buy your own copy... or hunt down one of the other competitions running to win it ☺

It really is a wonderful family movie and we will be enjoying it over and over and over again!

'sup?

2011-06-08T13:00:00.006+10:00

This post has been sitting in my drafts to add some photos to and then post... I'm just going to post it, okay? I'm glad you're going with me on this one, I'm trying to get posts up, they will never be perfect so just getting them published will have to be my goal, no more languishing in the drafts for months...

Things have been changing around here. Wolf got a new (long prayed for) job. Wolfs new job went from being contract to permanent. Lion started a new year at school. Dragon started a new year/class at kindy. Monkey has grown up so very much. Mummy has... done stuff... or something... I can't really remember, I am having enough trouble remember which classrooms my boys need to go to and dropping the right child at kindy and at school and making sure that at least one child comes home with me...

Anyway, part of Wolf's job now is weird shifts. His old job meant that he was around in the mornings to help (a bit) with getting us off to school before he went to work. He was then home about three quarters through the afternoon to help with dinner, bath and bedtime. His new job has some shifts that I don't like very much. I enjoy the perks of these shifts like starting at 7am means he's home at 3:30pm and we get lots more play time. Starting at 2pm means we've had the morning to play and go for a coffee if we want to. Unfortunately it also means that I get a little stressed in the mornings if he's got to head off early. Or I flip out in the evenings if he's going to be home after bedtime. The big boys are very light sleepers in the early hours so they wake up when Wolf is getting ready... at 5:30am. Which means they wake their little brother about that time too... which means I am dealing with tired cranky kids from the start. Getting tired cranky kids ready to leave the house is not fun. But at times it does come with some entertainment.

One particular night we finished two separate boxes of tissues so the next morning beside the bin were the two empty boxes. Monkey thought these were great and while Mummy was busy trying to convince Dragon that he really did need to wear clothes to kindy Monkey put them on his hands and went around the house banging them together to make as much noise as he could.

Lion always wears joggers to school, Monkey found his own joggers and decided that was what he wanted to wear today so I found him some socks and we put them on him, Dragon decided that since everybody else was doing it that he wanted to wear his joggers too. The problem with that is he never puts his socks back in the wash. Or one goes in the wash and the other disappears. So I went hunting for two matching socks. After a few minutes I called to him that I was having trouble finding two socks that matched and could he just wear his clogs today? "No mum, I want two socks that are not the same as the other one"... well, that might also account for why none of the socks I can find match, they aren't even worn as a pair! So, you can't get more mismatched than one blue sock pulled almost to his knee and one grey sock that comes about an inch above his ankle. I didn't explain to his teachers at kindy what was going on, they see me drop him off twice a week, they probably figure that it's lucky we remembered to turn up each day... and that I don't accidentally leave the wrong child behind.

On the way to kindy there was a general cacophony in the car, I assumed it was coming from all three boys. We stopped at the traffic lights and I glanced back and saw Monkey sitting in his seat, worn out look on his face, fingers in his ears. I know just how he feels. I thought I'd have a better listen to what was bringing on this reaction from him...

Dragon was burping "baa baa black sheep"... the whole song.
Lion was baaing (yes, like a sheep) the ABCs... all of it.

I wonder what effect this will have on my little Monkey, will he go for a "can't beat 'em, join 'em" approach? Will he be "the quiet one"? Will he raise his voice louder still to be heard above the din? Who knows.

*Don't forget to check out my Walt Disney Studios Alice In Wonderland 60th Anniversary Edition giveaway here. It ends this Sunday*

I'm the princess around here.

2011-06-07T23:04:00.001+10:00

It's hard to teach the boys how to treat girls/ladies when they really only have mummy to practice on. Mums are just different. You'd spit some food you don't like into your mums hand but you'd never do that to any other girl. It's fine for your mum to help you blow your nose but you are expected to turn away if you need to blow your nose in front of any other girl. Your mum washes your undies, cleans your school lunch box, picks your pyjamas up off the floor... not much is held back for mum. So, it's nice that we have a small but very special supply of other princesses to help in this training.

My brother's little Ladybird was dedicated to the Lord a few weeks ago. She's such a special little darling. It meant that the boys got to spend some precious time with her and practice their princess care.

Ladybird is one well cared for princess. Lion would do anything for her... he just doesn't really want that advertised. Boys aren't supposed to get all gushy over babies... or something like that. Dragon would love nothing more than to teach her everything she needs to know in life, especially about accessorising... he loves to see her wearing jewelry. Monkey is her loyal protector... though we're still kind of ironing out the kinks with that one. Currently he seems to have gone to the Slobbery Dog school of princess protection. He'll keep any unwanted advances (or indeed any wanted ones too) away from you but he may drool all over you and possibly even crush you in his attempts to keep you safe.

Now we just need to teach them not to bow to the every whim of these princesses... Even a princess needs to be told "get your own drink" occasionally. But thankfully Ladybird is too little for that yet.

*Don't forget to check out my Walt Disney Studios Alice In Wonderland 60th Anniversary Edition giveaway here. It ends this Sunday*

A Very Happy Un-Birthday To ME!

2011-06-06T22:19:00.002+10:00

Sadly I only get 6 un-birthdays this week but I do get 1 birthday to make up for it. It's a big week for birthdays around here. REALLY big. My father-in-law's was on Sunday. My sister-in-law's (Mum-me) is on this Sunday and mine is on Thursday. You'd think that was enough excitement. Then you go a little further out and you find out that my cousin was born on my 3rd birthday so his is also on Thursday and we were both born the day after our Grandad's birthday, so although he's not alive anymore we will still remember his birthday on Wednesday. See what I mean it's a big week. But we aren't the only ones celebrating this week. Walt Disney Studios is having a little bit of a celebration too... they are releasing the 60th Anniversary Edition of Alice in Wonderland!!!

I LOVE this movie. I loved it as a kid, I have loved it as an adult and I loved this new, remastered and fancified version too! But before I start raving on about Alice let me tell you something...

When I was a kid we didn't have our own VCR.

I'll let that sink in for a minute...

What? What's a VCR? Um, well, it was a big box thing that you plugged into your TV and you shoved these other boxes inside it that were kind of like a big cassette tape and... what's a cassette tape? oh, uh, never mind.

Anyway, we had no way to see anything that wasn't on the 2 or 3 channels of free to air TV. Now don't even get me started on the time when we only had a tiny black and white TV and the sound was shot so we had to watch ABC so we could tune in the radio to be able to hear it... talk about deprived childhoods!

So, on the holidays dad would borrow a VCR (remember, that's a movie player thingamabob) from whichever school he was teaching at at the time and we'd be able to go to the video shop and hire some movies. We also got to watch movies at our Grandparents on the weekends.

Now, I'm not sure if it was at my grandparents or if we just always got the same movies from the video shop but we ALWAYS seemed to end up watching Disney's Alice in Wonderland. LOVE IT. But the thing about Videos was that once the tape got a little stretched everything on that section of tape got a little stretched too... so you can just imagine what the sound was like. Hooooboy, I can not believe how beautiful this new 60th anniversary edition sounds! I heard every word... when I could get the kids to stop talking over it "Shhhhh, mummy's reliving her deprived childhood". Also, I'm not usually a fan of all the talkey talkey "bonus" stuff they put on DVDs but I was HOOKED. I loved hearing about what Walt Disney went through to produce this movie, I especially loved hearing from the lady that was the voice of Alice... LOVED IT ALL!

They are releasing it as a DVD & Blu-Ray value pack! We don't have a Blu-Ray player so I couldn't watch all the bonus stuff that was exclusive to the Blu-Ray version but if you do then you get to see even more exciting stuff. If you want a taste of what it's like you can check out the official trailer...

But ya wanna know something? It's not available yet. Not until Wednesday June 8th. So, how have I seen it? Well, the lovely folk at Porter Novelli sent me a copy on behalf of Walt Disney Studios. Sweet, aren't they? But the even more exciting thing is that they want to send one of you a copy too! How sweet is that?

So if you want to WIN your VERY OWN copy of Walt Disney Studios Alice in Wonderland 60th Anniversary Special Edition then you'd better enter my little competition.

It's easy to do, all you need to do is tell me in the comments who your favourite character is from Alice in Wonderland. If you haven't seen it just tell me your favourite Disney character from any movie.

Mine is Alice, no, no, uh, actually it's the March Hare... or, uh, maybe it's the crazy White Rabbit... but sometimes I can really associate with the Queen of Hearts...

Well, I don't really know who mine is, but I'd love to know who your favourite is so get commenting.

*Official stuff that I need you to read starts here*

One entry per person.
Australian residents only.
This requires no skill, the winner will be randomly selected from all valid entries.
Please make sure I can find your email address easily either in your comment, on your blog, in your profile... just put it somewhere, please!
Competition ends Midday Sunday June 12th.

Disclosure: I received a complimentary review copy of the DVD courtesy of Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment via Digital Parents. No financial payment was offered nor accepted for this post. All opinions expressed are purely my own.

Super Brother To The Rescue!

2011-05-28T21:50:00.000+10:00

Now that I can post photos again I am going back through the albums and seeing what needs to be blogged. In amongst some photos from Easter I came across this little group of photos that I wanted to share... I thought the event deserved a post all it's own.

My little Monkey, not quite 20 months old at the time, decided to wade himself out into the water. He was doing fine, stopping and steeling himself as each swell came along. Just as I was about to let Wolf know that he might need to be stopped before it gets too much for him he got into trouble!

He could still touch the bottom of the sand with his hand and could just keep his face above water during the swell but he couldn't right himself again... and he was ready to panic. Wolf moved into action. But so did someone else...

A little yell came from my sweet Lion... "Don't worry, I'll save him!" and he started madly paddling towards him on his boogy board. Wolf beat him there but Lion was only a second away. I was so proud of my big boy, ready to rescue his brother in an instant.

Sweet little terror.

2011-05-28T17:44:00.000+10:00

Things have been a bit quiet around here. Around the blog, that is. Around our home things are NEVER quiet. We've had Wolf's parents visit, a couple of birthdays (Wolf's and Grannysaurus'), Mothers' Day, school sports day for Lion and a whole bunch of craziness. But you see, just as I got my photoshop problem sorted out, I got a bit of a picasa storage problem... so this is just a test to see if I am allowed to post photos again.

Monkey

I think it's a pretty sweet little test subject that I picked. This is him, grubby face, shaggy hair, innocent look, butter wouldn't melt in his mouth... well, that last part might be a lie, the kid can SCREAM. He squeals like a girl actually. But, he's slowly learning new words and with each new (useful) word a little tiny bit of the squealing stops.

This looks like it is going to work... so you may see me back here again!

I wonder...

2011-05-20T13:06:00.002+10:00

On any given day I do a lot of wondering.

I wonder when I will ever get to have another hair cut...

I wonder how many more massages I can get for my back before our health fund bonus runs out...

I wonder how I can convince my kids to eat more good food...

I wonder how I can eat more chocolate without the negatives that it brings...

I wonder if I can convince a cleaner to come to my house every couple of days and work for cupcakes...

I wonder how work at home mums do it...

I wonder how work outside the home mums do it...

I wonder if my kids are going to turn out messed up...

I wonder if my middle child will ever decide to wipe his own butt...

I wonder why we just can't all be well at the same time lately...

I wonder if peanut butter sandwiches every day for lunch is really a good thing for Monkey...

I wonder if I should get a worm farm or a Bokashi Bucket...

My wonders have a hierarchy, or perhaps a rating system would be a better explanation. Some wonders have a higher importance on one day than others. Today, my highest rating wonder is this...

I wonder if a worm farm counts as getting the kids a pet?

They did get rather excited about finding worms when they were digging at Grannysaurus' place a couple of weeks ago. They do get completely freaked out by dogs and I have said that I'm not buying a pet that needs toilet training until we are no longer toilet training children... and that seems forever away. The plus side is at least worm wee and poo is good for the garden, unlike the barkers eggs and dead grass patches that a dog leaves around. The kids have asked for a bird... but Monkey is afraid of anything with eyes so that gets rid of that option. It looks like our only real option for a pet is a rock or worms... and Lion gave me a pet rock for Mothers' Day and Monkey threw it out a hole in our window screen. I guess it's down to worms... or maybe that Bokashi Bucket...

Hmmmm, I wonder....

A letter to my children on Mothers Day

2011-05-08T01:00:00.003+10:00

My Dear Children,

I feel that I have little to offer in the way of 'words of wisdom'. I have done my best to raise you as *mostly* well balanced human beings who know not to eat with your mouth open and not to be rude to old people. But on this day, as I examine my roll as a mother and my level of success in that roll, I feel that I have let you down. So, my precious children, as you head out into the world there are some things I want you to know...

I love you so incredibly much that I can't put it into words. I don't love you enough to let you sit on my lap while I go to the toilet... there are such things as boundaries and I would be a poor example of a mother if I didn't teach you this.

I am so proud of you when I see you share. It swells my heart and makes me want to scoop you up and hug you forever. Wiping your boogers on someone else' shirt, however, does not come under the banner of sharing. Wiping your boogers on MY shirt is just plain gross.

I love to see your sense of justice developing. Seeing you fight for the weaker ones around. Watching you make sure no one misses out. I love all these moments! Flogging a toy off one brother so that the other brother can have it is not justice.

I have tried my best to teach you to be frugal. To use things up before you throw them out. I love to see the creations you make out of empty boxes. Hauling the Doritos packet out of the bin, taking the dead battery and other junk out of it and then gobbling up the crumbs in the bottom of the packet is a little extreme. How about we just stick with making sure the toothpaste tube is empty before it gets binned and stuff like that.

Compassion for animals is another admirable quality that I have tried to instill in you. Caring for animals who cannot care for themselves will teach you so much in life. But please, lets stop crying over every fossilised frog and gecko we find in the house. If they are silly enough to hop behind a bookshelf into the dust then they will just have to deal with the outcome.

I pray that you will keep your fantastic imagination. I love to see you pretending to be something or someone else, to listen to the stories that you come up with, to see you acting out amazingly intricate storylines with your GI Joes and HotWheels. There are times that we do need to draw the line between imagination and real life... like when sticking in character will get you killed. No more cement mixers sinking to the bottom of the pool, no pterodactyls soaring through the air from the cubby house. No more. Ever.

Your love for your brothers is heartwarming. It makes me go all soft and gooey to see the way you all love each other so much. I would ask, however, that when one has a vomiting bug, a cold, a cough, whatever, that you show that love not with affection but rather by keeping your distance so you don't all get the bug and in turn infect me. Love is not found in 38478 extra loads of washing, in spite of what those gushy mothers day poems say.

I love to see you teaching your brothers new and exciting things. Teaching them how to turn the bucket over for the perfect sandcastle, sharing your knowledge of the stars at night, reading a book together, teaching them how to maneuver the skateboard to do that neat trick you just did. Teaching them the best places to hide an apple core in the playroom so you don't have to walk 5 metres to the bin does not count. Teaching them to eat their boogers to save time getting a tissue does not count either. Teaching them how to intricately wind the words "poo" and "wee" *legitimately* into a conversation so mummy can't get cranky at you is also not something I am thrilled with. Yes, I am sure.

So to the ones who are the reason that I so proudly wear the label "Mother", I love you, now please get off my lap so I can finish on the toilet and wash my hands...

Good Friday 2011

2011-04-22T22:03:00.002+10:00

Continuing from the last couple of Easters I'll post some favourite Hymns of mine that reflect on the wonder of Easter.

There's a good chance, even if you've never put a foot inside a church that you have heard the hymn "The Old Rugged Cross". Whether you go to church or not, there's good chance that when you heard it you thought it was a bit of a stodgy old hymn... it's not. Don't get me wrong, I have heard it played so incredibly terribly... just a little google search to check I had the words right gave me a dozen more dodgy versions. THE BEST version I have ever heard was acapella... no music... at all. Fantastic.

So, without distractions... just the words...

The Old Rugged Cross
George Bennard (1873-1958)

On a hill far away stood an old rugged cross,
the emblem of suffering and shame;
and I love that old cross where the dearest and best
for a world of lost sinners was slain.

So I'll cherish the old rugged cross,
till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
and exchange it some day for a crown.

O that old rugged cross, so despised by the world,
has a wondrous attraction for me;
for the dear Lamb of God left his glory above
to bear it to dark Calvary.

So I'll cherish the old rugged cross,
till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
and exchange it some day for a crown.

In that old rugged cross, stained with blood so divine,
a wondrous beauty I see,
for 'twas on that old cross Jesus suffered and died,
to pardon and sanctify me.

So I'll cherish the old rugged cross,
till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
and exchange it some day for a crown.

To that old rugged cross I will ever be true,
its shame and reproach gladly bear;
then he'll call me some day to my home far away,
where his glory forever I'll share.

So I'll cherish the old rugged cross,
till my trophies at last I lay down;
I will cling to the old rugged cross,
and exchange it some day for a crown.

If you want to know more about why this Friday is GOOD, why Jesus had to die, or if you have anything else you want to talk to me about... you can leave a comment or you can email me at MummyMcTavish(at)gmail(dot)com

Take care over this long weekend!

072-078/365

2011-04-17T21:50:00.000+10:00

Mar 13 - Mar 19

072

Extreme Matchbox Racing

073

There's a frog on my bonnet... he's clinging on like crazy!

074

So cute.

He wanted to go to sleep with headphones on because he knows that daddy does that sometimes.

075

Will you believe me if I tell you there is a photo of snow up there?

In North Queensland... In summer...

Yeah, probably not.

076

Photobomb

Lion wanted a photo of himself with his daddy.

Dragon wanted to be in the photo with his hot cross bun.

077

Another photo of snow?

Yeah, that's it... another photo of snow.

078

Distress

Monkey helped me to make potato salad for a BBQ lunch. He REALLY loved it and was rather upset when I put it in the fridge. I did get some out for his morning tea but I think that if I had let him he would have finished off the entire bowl we made!

065-071/365

2011-04-17T21:06:00.001+10:00

Mar 6- Mar 12

065

Oops, no photos.

066

Late Night Pancake Stack

This was the day before Shrove Tuesday

The fantastic mother I am, I PROMISED my sweet Lion that I would send him to school with pancakes for Pancake Day. I then promptly forgot about my promise until 10pm the night before. They weren't the most fantastic pancakes, I don't do my most fantastic baking when I would rather be sleeping... but I kept my promise ~~without having to duck to woolies to buy ready made ones on the day~~ and he took pancakes for Pancake Day.

067

ahem, please ignore the lack of photos... we'll call it a technical error ~~in my brain~~

068

Interior Designer?

We were about to head out and I called Monkey to come out to the car.

He decided he couldn't come until he had grabbed his Home Beautiful magazine and then promptly sat in the doorway to read it.

069

Hipster.

Like all the best hipsters, Monkey likes to sit and read in a cafe while enjoying a medley of cheerios and plump sultanas, sipping on the finest babycino money can buy with his pop top of water to refresh the pallet when needed... or something like that.

070

Mmmmm, Jaffles for dinner.

Unfortunately Mummy has to clean the jaffle iron once it's all over.

071

Homemade Ham and Cheese Scrolls

So very tasty and so good to chuck in lunch boxes.

058-064/365

2011-04-04T20:36:00.000+10:00

feb 27- mar 5

058

Bacon, heart shaped eggs, fried tomato and cheeeeeeesy toast.

Yum.

059

Frustratingly this is the only photo I took this day. I don't want to lie and say I didn't take any, I'll just tell you why I took this hideous shot. I woke up feeling a bit icky that morning, like something wasn't right. I looked in the mirror and I just didn't look right. I never do first thing in the morning so I wasn't too concerned but my face kept up it's funny feeling and I didn't start to look any better (I wasn't expecting some supermodel, just to look a bit more like me). One side of my face was a bit droopy, only slightly, and I could feel it constantly. You know how when everything is working as it should, you really aren't aware of the 'feel' of your body. But when something isn't working right you can feel that part of your body. I could feel my cheek, I could feel my tongue, I could feel my EYEBROW... it was weird.

060

We had a rough day this day... I think that makes me want to take a photo of their peaceful sleeping even more.

061

We were trying on rings... but I'm not showing you this one... because it's too similar to the one that I fell in love with. The one that I am pretending I don't know about. The one that I have to wait until our 10th anniversary in July to see again :-(

Now I'm pondering that my hands aren't all that attractive, I could never be a hand model. I was never intending this image to see the light of day, it was just so when I went back and looked at the other ring I could remember what this one looked like and how it sat against my other rings. But I didn't take any other photos on this day and rules are rules.

062

Lion asked me to take this. It was his idea, he wanted a photo that looked like he was really big and leaning on a really little bench... I'm not sure where he's seen this idea before but I was really impressed when he lined himself up by checking where I was with the camera and where the seat was and positioning himself and asking me if it looked right. So cute.

063

Because no trip to the museum is complete without pretending you are locked up somewhere deep inside the HMS Pandora.

[insert image of something fun and exciting here]

064

Clearly we must have had so much fun on this day that I just didn't have time to take a photo... or something like that.

Photoshop is giving me issues with saving soooo, um, it's really not an excuse for many photos, it just means that when I have one that needs something blurred out (like on Lion's uniform) I have to use another program... I'm not any good with other programs. I have tried to do this post about a dozen times and something goes wrong each time. I think this is it, here goes...

Chocolate, Tantrums & Rain. The Good, The Bad & The Ugly.

2011-03-31T21:54:00.000+10:00

To those who are still in drought, battling bush fires, struggling to get their garden to grow etc. I am sorry for what you are about to read but it has to be said...

ENOUGH WITH THE RAIN!

We have not had, since BEFORE CHRISTMAS, an entire week without rain. I am so sick of rain, the smell of rain in the air no longer excites me, it depresses me. I am sick of making sure we have dry shoes, that no one is tracking slippery footprints into the house, that kids don't slip on the footpaths that have become slime covered concrete -a death trap if ever there was one. Sick of feeling like even the clothes I am wearing are damp, like my hair is never quite dry unless I have just put down the hairdryer, like I am living in a fishbowl... and not because everyone can see into our house because no one closes the blinds, it's because the air is so damp, so very icky and damp.

When I say that it's been since before Christmas that we had an entire week without rain, I am not meaning that we get maybe 5 or 6 days without rain, we get 1 or 2 if we are lucky. Some people are still able to mow their lawns if we get a couple of days in a row but even then, they usually leave mower tracks in the lawn. Us, well, it's pretty much swamp land out the back. Even the front, with it's sloping angle is rather swampy. This does bring me to one positive about the rain, the yard hasn't been able to get the manky swamp smell about it because it is constantly being flushed with fresh rain water. Thankful for small mercies? Hmm, maybe.

*****

Scream scream scream if you feel you want to-ooooooo
scream scream scream if you feel you ca-aaaaaaaan
scream scream scream if you feel you want to-ooooooo
scream scream scream if you feel you can.

This is Monkey's personal theme song at the moment. 39470 times a day we find ourselves saying to him "Use your words"... the thing is, he really doesn't have many words to use yet. I know he's frustrated but really, there are some times when he can help himself. He used to be able to ask to be picked up- "up-bah" was his way of saying "up please". Now he screams. I tell him to say "up please" and he screams some more. In the end I usually comply if he will at least stop screaming and make some kind of agreeable, attempt at communication. He loves to walk himself most places where I would rather he was picked up, so we can go faster/he's safer/I have hands for his brothers to hold... But instead he'd rather dawdle along slooooow as can be (he can go fast if he wants to). Then, when his brothers decide to dawdle when he wants to be moving he walks up behind them, puts his hand flat on the small of their back and gives them a guiding shove as he forcefully tells them "GO". So he can make his needs known if he really wants to.

*****

It's been a loooong term this one. We are in week IdontknowbecauseIlostcountatsix and Lion is sooo tired. He is ready for the holidays! I was hoping we would be going away these holidays, perhaps to Brisbane, but it looks like we will be at home with Wolf working most of the time. At least it will give Lion a good chance to rest and get ready for the next term.

Lion is loving school, even if it is making him incredibly tired. He is doing really well with his spelling and sight words. His reading is going great and he loves the feeling of getting to the end of a homework reader and knowing he did it all himself. I helped him do a quick clean up of his desk tidy tray this morning when I dropped him off. He couldn't find what he was looking for so we pulled out all the notes and drawings he's done to facilitate his evil plans and then we pulled out all his crayons, textas, pencils and stuff and put them all in the pencil case that was almost empty (hey, if it's hardly getting used at least it'll still be good for next year). We kept out a few lead pencils, a sharpener and eraser so he could get them easily and stacked everything back neatly in his tray. If he's anything like me it will be back to it's pre-cleanup state by this afternoon. *sigh* It's hard to fight that.

*****

Our big boys share a room. This has it's good points and it's bad points. It's good because they are kinda freaked out by being alone so this way they don't have to be alone. The bad point is that they are never alone. If one needs to go to the toilet or come to our room during the night they wake their brother up to go with them. Whoever gets woken up is NEVER impressed and will hold it against their brother until the next time they want to go to the toilet at 3am... then all is forgiven. This can lead to some interesting situations.
10:30pm Dragon wakes Lion up to take him to the toilet. Lion doesn't want to so walks past the toilet to our room to tell us that Dragon woke him up. He walks in the door and closes it behind him... on Dragon's head. Dragon bursts into tears, Lion says he didn't realise Dragon had followed him. Cuddles for everyone, Wolf takes Lion back to bed, I take Dragon to the toilet and then back to bed. Just what we need at 10:30pm. And neither of them could see that any part of this was a problem. I think it all worked out okay though because when Wolf checked on them before he went to work in the morning they were asleep in the same bed.

*****

Dragon wrote his name so beautifully yesterday! If I could somehow show you what he wrote without showing you his name I would in an instant. Beautifully formed letters, all neatly in a row... made me proud!

*****

I think I need to perhaps do a bit more housework. *insert laughter from my parents and siblings (and friends and generally everyone) here* *Insert choking on the snide remark Wolf is trying not to say here*

This afternoon Monkey put on a pair of my good shoes, grabbed a broom and started sweeping. I guess he hasn't seen enough examples of when those two things get used to know that they don't go together. At least they were flats... he's not old enough to wear the heels yet :-)

*****

I don't actually do heels... I fall off flat shoes so I don't think heels are the right footwear choice for me.

*****

There has been a recall on a whole bunch of Lindt Easter chocolates. I would like to offer this as evidence for why I should be disorganised. If I had thought ahead and purchased my chocolates ~~I probably would have eaten them all by now and be poisoned and need to buy more for Easter~~ I would now have to return them which would be an extra trip, purchase more eggs without the kids seeing, try to not eat those eggs... ugh. It's all too much. Instead, I can go to the supermarket Easter Saturday and everyone else has discovered the poisoned eggs first and they have got their pesky recalls out of the way so I know whatever is left on the shelf is safe to eat ~~even if all that is left is the rubbish that tastes like poop~~ and my kids wont be getting poisoned eggs from us the Easter Bunny this year. Being disorganised is saving my kids from poisoning.

*****

Photoshop isn't letting me save so I'm limited to photo free posts at the moment until I figure out what's wrong or I figure out how to use another program.

*****

Dragon offered this nugget of wisdom this week... "When you add hotness and coldness you get two feet. One is ours and the other one is ours too, so both of them are ours, I saw this". If only I could figure out what he was saying.

*****

If you made it this far through my ranting and raving then you deserve some chocolate. I hope you have some in the fridge that isn't poisoned.

Disclaimer: I actually didn't bother reading what was wrong with the recalled chocolate, only if it was anything I had purchased. It probably isn't poisoned, it just had pieces of someones finger in it or something. I'm sure your chocolate is fine to eat.

2011-03-26T18:00:00.000+10:00

They say a picture is worth a 1000 words, so this should be a Treatise.

Yummy home made green ice blocks.

Wonderful Wolf was trying out the online animated gif maker, it works pretty good and the subjects make it even better.

051-057/365

2011-03-18T21:43:00.000+10:00

Feb 20-26 2011

[insert awesome image here]

051

[insert moaning about being sick so I didn't take photos here]

052

I've got to admit, he's taken his time, but there is a definite love of reading developing in this one.

We often go in late at night and find that he didn't go to sleep when he was supposed to and instead decided to read for a while and fell asleep in the middle of a good Thomas book. We've cramped his style by getting a new nightlight (finally) so they don't have to have their mega bright lamp going.

053

No, Baby Spidey, you must use your powers for good, not evil.

Although, revenge is a totally different story.

(photo for Aunty Chimera)

054

Horsefloat.

055

This little lady hitched a ride to the shops with us.

She wasn't so little actually. She was big and fat. She ran up from the front of the car, onto the bonnet and did a bit of car surfing for the last couple of kilometres. I was pretty impressed with her skills.

They were far superior to those of the frog that tried car surfing the other day... he flew up over the roof after a few hundred metres.

Going to the shops was a mistake... turns out I wasn't feeling as better as I thought.

[insert picture of me collapsed in a heap because I did too much the day before]

056

Bleh, sick of being sick.

057

Green Iceblocks.

This has to be the weirdest photo of all the ones that were taken with the iceblocks.

I love all their expressions.

Wolf took this photo.

A day with Monkey

2011-03-17T20:59:00.000+10:00

I have some Monkey gems gathered from our days alone together... and just another reason to share some 'old' photos of my mischievous Monkey.

Wolf has taught all the boys to use 'The Force' to open the automatic garage door. Arms out, palms up, use a forceful voice and say "UP, up, uuuuup...." and the door does as it's told. One day I was taking monkey out in the afternoon and I opened our garage and he did his thing. He walked out onto the driveway, looked at the neighbours garage door across the road, drunk on his own power he stretched out his arms... "UPUPUPUP".

All the boys sleep with one eye open at times. Sometimes BOTH. It never stops being freaky.

Monkey loves to give kisses. We make a big deal out of it when we get a kiss, they are pretty special! I asked him for a kiss and presented my cheek. He gets his pudgy little finger, points to my cheek, "Ucky". Hmm, no kisses for me.

Monkey & Mr Murphy... they are best buds.

We do the usual pointing to body parts game and I ask him "Monkey, where is your tongue?" he sticks it out. "Monkey, where is your nose?" he squishes his face up and points to his nose. "Monkey, where are your hands?" He looks at his hands then shows them to me. "Monkey, where are your cuddles?"... "Stuck, Ma"... Hmmm, no cuddles for me either.

He still sucks his thumb... or finger... or shoe.

I miss that fluffy hair.

When noisy big brothers are home you can't hear very much EXCEPT the noisy big brothers. When it's just Mummy and Monkey home and you are quietly eating lunch you can hear EVERYTHING. The house makes a noise and he stops to listen "oh oh oh", a car drives around the cul-de-sac and he gets nervous "oh oh oh", a dog barks in the distance "oof oof", the plant by the front of the house scrapes against the security screen and he freaks out and has a screaming fit until I get him out of his highchair so he can cling to me for dear life. I guess noisy brothers can be good for some things.

Ahh, back in the days when he couldn't get away.

He's learning what noises animals make, I got him some cheap board books with some animals in them and he can do a horse noise, a cat noise, a dog noise. He gets a lot of the others confused but with help to remember he can make the noises. I thought this was necessary when a Ulysses butterfly flew past the window and he got all excited... "ooooh, OOF OOF, oooh, OOF OOF". So I guess a big butterfly makes the same noise as a doberman?

He's a mystery, that's for sure.

Quick Wit

2011-03-15T21:08:00.000+10:00

Scene: TV dinner -The KFC "the pigeons called" ad comes on...

Lion turns to Dragon and announces "Dragon, the pigeons called, they want their dinner back". Dragon doesn't skip a beat..."Lion, the pigs called, they want their head back". I just about snorted my dinner out my nose. That kid is developing a quick wit which is getting him into a lot of trouble. It's hard to explain to a 4 year old when it is "quick wit" and when it is "smart mouthing". For instance, if you are getting in trouble and you give one of your jibes to your mother... that'll get you in a whole lot of trouble. If you are mucking around with your brother exchanging good natured barbs... all's fair.

Now for a little "Out & About with Clan Mctavish"

It comforts me that we are not the only family that does this with cheerios...

He had a whole row, this was the only one he didn't find to pull back off

Although having the ladies sitting in front of us at church giggling at my kids as I whisper sharply to them "DON'T lick'n'stick, just eat them" was not one of our finer family moments.

Don't be fooled. He's not really this civilised.

While we were out he decided to be like all the trendies and sit and read his book at the cafe with his snacks, babycino and his water. He fitted right in, he was just with his uncool parents, a major flaw in his social image.

"oof, oof"

Lion found a puddle of water on one of the seats outside his classroom and started blowing it towards the end of the seat to watch it drain off... Monkey misunderstood what was going on and started woofing and slurping the water up. I am running with the theory that the seats were really clean from all the rain that we've had lately... right?

Hugging the dinosaurs at the "Zoo"

We took a little trip to the Zoo, otherwise known as the Museum of Tropical Queensland (MTQ) with our friends. The kids love it, it's all very hands on and although some of the exhibits have been there since forever, the kids see it all as new every time.

This was the ONLY was Monkey would get close to this dino.

It's "the zoo with the dinosaurs in it" to my kids and that is always a thrill. There is also a fantastic display of the HMS Pandora and general North Queensland displays of wildlife and stuff.

We HAVE to take this photo every time.

Dragon & Monkey with the fantastic introduction to the A is for Animals exhibition

The current attraction is A is for Animals, showcasing animals involvement in wars (past and present). I loved it! I particularly loved the artworks and the photography on display but the kids liked the more interactive bits with the cockatoo that talked to you and the puzzles and games where they could get hands-on.

Monkey tried very hard to dress himself, he seemed satisfied with this result.

Lion with his sculpture of a man wearing a kilt.

Sunday School had an art gallery exhibition on Sunday. They had been learning about Creation and we went to see the creations that they had made.

Lion with his painting of... I'll have to check with him again, I can't remember.

Dragon (standing on a chair) with his painting of a desert with a red squiggly road and a sunset and a tree.

Dragon's sculpture of Monkey

Extreme Lounge Room Sports

Lion has often said he wants to be a monster truck driver but I'm getting worried when the monster truck is part of the line up and a TRAIN is doing the jumping. I don't think there was a proper risk assessment for this jump.

My plan is to be back blogging more often (than even BEFORE I was sick) so I don't have to do massive catch ups on our life like this... but I think it's going to take me a while to get back into any sort of pattern. I am setting aside some time each day to write the Yasi story but because I'm not writing it in order it's making it hard to post the next bit but I'll get there... I promise!

044-050/365

2011-03-14T13:12:00.001+10:00

Feb 13-19 2011

Still catching up... we are waaaaay behind but I am pretty much better now so once I catch up we should be all systems go. But I'd love to know if you would rather see these done in a weekly format like this or day by day? I know you'll all say "it's your blog, you do it however you like"... but really, I want to know!

044

He knows mummy is sick.

If mummy is out of bed he is wrapped around her leg.

Black & White because no one really needs to see my bright white thighs in all their blinding glory.

045

Extra eager for cuddles and a feed before bed.

He can get up on "our" chair fast as lightning!

046

Our first night of homework.

Ever.

He loves it!

[Insert fantastic artistic image here]

047

Here we find our first no photo day :-(

I'm forgiving myself because it's my project and I was so incredibly sick.

048

I assured Wolf that I would be fine at home by myself with just Monkey. He was only working a short day, how hard would it be? Lion has school, Dragon has kindy, I didn't have to do any of the drop-offs so I would be fine.

This is me, laying on the couch with Monkey climbing on my back and playing with the (unused) chuck bucket. I didn't do so fine. I was so glad to see Grannysaurus when she picked up my boys and brought them home that afternoon.

[Insert another fantastic artistic shot here]

049

Sick

I know, "excuses, excuses" :-)

[yep, chuck in another imaginary photo here]

050

There's a few days missing around this point... they are missing from my memory too.

I'm pretty sure life went on without me, no one has reported to me that the world stopped spinning just because I couldn't come out to play so I'm assuming stuff happened.

I just didn't take photos.

Yasi Part 1

2011-03-06T22:17:00.000+10:00

Okay, here's the cyclone post. It's taken a while to write because I wanted to get my thoughts in order so they made some sense... turns out that isn't going to happen so just skip over any bits that confuse you... my head is a bit fuzzy from this fluey thing I've got AGAIN (I started writing this ages ago). I'm including a lot of the preparation we did because I'm pretty sure most people reading this haven't prepared for a cyclone before... and the days leading up to a cyclones predicted landfall are full of fun... kinda. Okay, mostly I wanted this as a record for the kids.

Tuesday Feb 1st.

Thankful that Tropical Cyclone Anthony over the weekend ended up being a fizzer because I was too sick to do any preparations, he was never going to be a big one so I knew we'd be fine. At worst the power might go out for a few hours but we have torches and candles and a little camp stove. But this one... well, Yasi is looking a little meaner. I'm feeling a little better but if I had a choice I wouldn't be going shopping. But I drop Monkey and Dragon off with Grannysaurus and Lion off at school and go in search of supplies. More for our every day life rather than cyclone specific supplies. Pretty much if you eat healthily and make most of your food from scratch, your pantry should contain every thing you need to make reasonable meals for a few days with only a gas stove. However, it's been a while since I did any decent shopping so our pantry is rather scant at this point. Before a cyclone the panic buyers come out in force. At the first hint of Anthony coming, every tin of baked beans in Queensland was purchased and stashed away in a cupboard. I hate to think what the shelves are looking like at the shops by this point... and they are saying the supermarkets (along with everything else) will be closed tomorrow because the high winds will have started and police want EVERYONE off the roads. I get a hot tip telling me to head to the newest supermarket in town, I worry when I see the same hot tip on a friends comment thread on facebook... might not be so hot! I head there anyway, it's bedlam. There's a guy down the back, he's unpacking box after box of 1L bottles of water... they are practically being taken out of his hand as he tries to stack them. I grab us some fruit. There's plenty of fruit... PEOPLE, fruit doesn't HAVE to be kept in the fridge and its a darn sight tastier than baked beans! As I browse the aisles getting my tins of tomatoes and bags of pasta I notice some interesting things... no one likes beef flavoured 2 minute noodles. Every other flavour is gone but the beef ones are still all sitting there. In the tinned foods aisle you cannot find a single can of soup (not that I wanted any) unless you want the last can left... creamed celery soup... I can understand why that's left. Every tin of baked beans and spaghetti were gone, every tin of tuna was gone, every tin of 'chicken' was still left sitting on the shelf. Obviously I'm not the only one that finds chicken in a tin a little weird. I buy enough milk for today and tomorrow and assume that our power will be out after that.

I make it through the checkouts and get out a large amount of cash, if there's no power, there's no ATMs.

Eventually getting home I start the job of cleaning out our wardrobe. It'll be the safest place in our house since it has no windows. Between that and every day life, Tuesday passes pretty quickly.

Dinner Tuesday night, Monkey tried a spaghetti tan.

Wednesday Feb 2nd

Wolf has the day off. Apparently this is the first time his work has shut down like this in 8 years. The schools have closed for 2 days so Lion is home as well. It's eerily quiet. I know they said that the winds wouldn't start to pick up until midday but for some reason I expected things to be at least a little breezy in the morning. I guess it's the calm before the storm. I go in for a shower and scrub the bathtub so that at least if we have to fill it it wont have too much undesirable stuff floating it in... this tub does bathe 3 BOYS every night. We make our plan of attack, they are saying there is a good chance we'll be without water for a little while so Wolf gets the fun job of getting through the dishes and the clothes that need to be washed. The kids get told that if they don't clean up their toys that Yasi will blow them all down the street (stellar parenting moment there). I get back to work on the wardrobe... now called "The Bunker". We have a reasonably large wardrobe, we really don't need a wardrobe that large so over the last 7 1/2 years of living here a lot has been stashed in there simply because it doesn't have anywhere else to go... it has to find places NOW. I am determined to strip the bunker bare and then build it back up with what we need. Clothes get hung in other cupboards, suitcases get filled with whatever they can and shoved in the garage, books get put on bookshelves, shoes get put with the other shoes and our boots get put with the cleaning supplies just in case we need them for a clean up afterwards. LOTS of stuff gets thrown out... stinkin' Yasi forcing me to do cleaning.

Some gecko eggs that got evicted from The Bunker

Eventually I get the bunker empty and it's time to start filling it. There's a set of drawers in there, I am determined to have all our food and food related stuff in those drawers. I remember to put the can opener in so we can open any cans, I put in all our food and cooking supplies and eating utensils in the drawers and a few other bits and bobs like scissors and pocket knife and stuff. Next I get to bagging up the things that need to be protected from water. Our birth certificates, passports, Wolf's citizenship certificate all go in a plastic bag, get taped up, put in another plastic bag and that gets taped up.... Then they go in the plastic tub that is our 'cyclone kit' (containing batteries, torches, candles, matches, small first aid kit, etc). Wolfs parents call, they suggest we just leave. It's too late for that, the airport is closing and the cyclone can move faster than we can drive. Everywhere south is completely booked out with people fleeing. I go back to packing the kit. Wolf starts taping windows. There's been debate on facebook and other places online about whether it actually helps or not... I figure I'd rather 'waste' a few rolls of tape and do it, than not do it and find out the hard way that it would have helped. Our biggest glass door I cover with some old contact I have. School books I can cover... large doors I am not skilled at covering. I may have gotten the contact stuck to my face at more than one point. I bet Martha Stewart would have put it on perfectly and probably used a pretty etched design contact so that it looked attractive too, oh well, my bubbly contact, applied straight over the top of the kids glass painting with the odd face print stuck in it works for what we need.

Back to the bunker. Our wedding album goes in a vacuum bag (I figure if they are air tight they should be water tight too) with enough room left for the laptop and external hard drive. I start collecting 3 days worth of clothes for each of us into another vacuum bag. I get wipes and disposable nappies stashed away for Monkey, the kids special friends get put in there, and removed by Monkey, and put back and then removed again by Monkey and... well you get the idea. I put water bottle after water bottle in the bunker. If the water treatment plant goes bad then who knows how long we'll need our own safe water for. The wind has picked up and the trees are blowing a fair bit. Monkey has started mimicking the "whoooooo" noise it makes as it whistles through the house. He's very clingy. The big boys understand what's going on and I've prepared them for what we may need to do and what may happen but Monkey just knows that something is wrong. He wants cuddles and to just sit in my lap all day but that can't happen, I have things to do. I fill the bathtub with water just in case it's needed. Poor Monkey wants to climb in and have a bath, he's very confused.

The Bunker... almost finished

Eventually the bunker is all set up.. food for 3 days, water for quite a while, clothes for 3 days, bedding and extra blankets and pillows (recommended for protection if your roof is lifted off). We're good to go. I make everyone dinner and we get them into their PJ's... no bath tonight, it's full of our emergency supply of water. Monkey goes to bed in his own cot and the big boys are given the choice of where they want to sleep. They can go to bed in their own room and if we need to move them we will, or they can just go to sleep in the bunker and pretend they are having an adventure. They pick the bunker. In we head to read them a story and try to get them settled to sleep... they have other plans and it soon becomes apparent why they picked the bunker. "Can we have some tiny teddies, or a muesli bar, or some chippies..." they saw me put the container we keep those sort of packaged snacks in away in the bunker and they thought that as soon as they were in there they could start snacking.

Story time in The Bunker

So, two disappointed little boys were put to bed... but they didn't sleep... and this is where I will leave this post for now. I don't want to bore you to tears before you even get to the good stuff (yeah, probably too late, I can hear your sobbing all the way through this web of the wide world)

Goodnight

Cooking with kids.

2011-03-04T20:44:00.002+10:00

I posted this first photo as part of my 365 project. I thought I would fill in the rest of the story...

So that was on Sunday, January 30th. I was sick in bed, the kids were going stir crazy from being stuck inside, we had just got through the non-event that was TC Anthony and the boys decided that they didn't need a nap, they needed to cook. Sultanas, 2 types of pasta and a banana... all the ingredients for a yummy lunch. I can't remember what triggered my brain to wake up and think something was wrong but I leapt out of bed (no easy feat when you've barely moved for days) and went to find them cooking their own lunch. They were going to try cooking it but remembered that they weren't allowed to use the stove by themselves. Thank goodness that part of the "no cooking without mummy" lesson was absorbed.

Fast forward to Friday, February 4th... We are coming up fast on 48hours without power thanks to TC Yasi.

In the middle of summer.

With so much rain that we couldn't even open any windows.

We *think* we have everyone down for a nap, in spite of the oppressive heat and humidity.

We fall into a restless sleep, exhausted after a cleaning up the trashed yard and cubby house but too hot to sleep properly.

Hours pass.

I hear a noise...

Bad photo, I think my rage was stopping me from holding the camera still

Keep in mind this is 4 days after the first cooking episode. Four short days after my eyes bulged, my head spun in circles and steam came out of my ears. Four days since they last got in trouble for helping themselves to stuff from the pantry. This time there is about a kilo of sugar, a cup or so of flour, cannelloni tubes, soup pasta, 1/2 a jar of chocolate spread, fruit straps, sultanas... I can't remember what else.

Would you like to see it from a different angle?

I'll give them credit for creativity. Filling the cannelloni tubes with chocolate spread and sugar actually seems rather appealing but that doesn't mean you should go ahead and try it! Though all that sugar spilt on the carpet and no electricity to vacuum it up... bad, very very bad. Moving out that night for almost a week in other peoples houses while we waited for the ~~ants to clean it up for us~~ electricity to come back on so we could clean it up properly wasn't such a bad thing.

I'm hoping at least one of them ends up as a fantastic chef one day so I can write this off as learning to experiment with ingredients rather than disobedience, defiance, mess and general naughtiness.

037-043/365

2011-02-28T21:44:00.001+10:00

Playing a bit more catch-up...

037

After leeching of others for electricity and a cool place to sleep we finally had a place all to ourselves... although, still technically leeching since it wasn't our house, we could watch Bones and Castle on Sunday night without worrying who else might want the TV.

038

Not sure what killed her.

Not sure that I want to know.

This 'little' fella was dead on our driveway when we ducked home to our hot, electricity-less house to grab some stuff.

039

School is back on and our regular walk to school is somewhat changed.

There's a few new obstacles to navigate around.

040

CUE PANIC

This is the point where, going through my photos, I thought I had found the first day of no photos.

Then I remembered taking this one of the boys chilling (way too close to the TV), that I took with Wolf's phone.

The no photo day will come, one day, just not today.

We moved back home this night.

041

Even the empire that is the Golden Arches is not immune to the destruction of a massive tropical cyclone.

The sign-writers around town are laughing though.

042

Sadly, this is the only photo I took this day.

Trying to take a photo for a friend of how many foils the hairdresser put in.

I think we had a miscommunication, I said 1/4 head of foils, she heard 3/4 head of foils... oh well.

043

When there's no electricity there's no washing machine...

030-036/365

2011-02-26T18:04:00.000+10:00

030

Two big boys took advantage of nap time and got into the fridge and pantry and did some 'cooking'.

There was trouble.

031

Week 2 of school.

Fantastic.

(he was clear of any lice, thankfully)

032

These two were super cute on their walk to collect Lion from school.

033

Bunkering down at bed time for Tropical Cyclone Yasi.

034

Yasi was here.

There were so many photos I could have used from the morning we emerged to a town that had been trashed by TC Yasi. This one seemed to show it's impact on the kids better than the others. The Taj Ma Cubby was structurally sound... but left too dangerous to play on.

035

Our neighbours trampoline.

I'll fill in more of the trampoline story when I post my account of TC Yasi.

036

Waiting, waiting, waiting... while the council workers clearing the roads as fast as possible.

They have done an unbelievable job.

Where in the world is Mummy McTavish?

2011-02-19T09:29:00.000+10:00

Things have been a little quiet on here of late. Sorry.

I am still taking photos. I am still collecting cute stories in the form of short notes that hopefully I will remember what they mean later. I am just not feeling well enough to do anything with them right now.

I've been feeling unwell for 4 weeks, I went down suddenly then picked back up for a few days to deal with the cyclone and then back down HARD. I've been taking various antibiotics for 3 weeks but thankfully on Thursday my diagnosis went from "Mystery virus that we'll keep throwing different antibiotics at until it goes away" to Pneumonia. At least they know what to treat that with.

I am spending my days moving between the couch and my bed. I feel totally useless. Every little thing makes me start coughing like I'm going to choke. My brain can't concentrate on anything long enough to blog about it so the blog has taken a back seat for now.

Back to the doctors on Monday for her to decide if the antibiotics are working or if I need to get IV antibiotics in hospital... that's not on my plan.

So, that is where this little blog is right now.

I will come back.

I am even planning a little bloggy clean up to make sure all the links work and stuff so that should be fun.

For now though, you can find me on the couch. Dreaming of eating crunchy things without my throat hurting.... mmmmm, potato chips.....

a quick note...

2011-02-09T22:27:00.000+10:00

...to say that we are all safe and sound. I'll be catching up on the photos and doing a cyclone post or two as I can. We have only just been able to move back home because we were almost a week without power.

For now, you can enjoy a spot of Monkey cuteness...

He just wanted to go outside.

If you can spare a minute...

2011-01-31T21:40:00.000+10:00

We'd all really appreciate your prayers around here. You see, there's this whopping great cyclone headed right for us. As far as cyclones go, there is nothing predictable about them so to say that it WILL hit us isn't true. But all the models they (the experts) are running are saying the same thing... This Cyclone Yasi is one of the biggest that Queensland has ever seen and it will likely be a category 4 (1 being mild 5 being completely devastating) and make landfall between Lucinda and Mackay. Now, our tiny little house with Wolf and I and our three small boys falls smack bang in between Lucinda and Mackay... Lots of people we love also live between Lucinda and Mackay. Some have houses that will fare as well or better than ours, some have houses that will turn into matchsticks with a direct hit. We are all doing what we can to be prepared, the SES is evacuating those who are in storm surge areas, people are making their homes and yards safe but there is no doubting that if Yasi hits he will cause destruction. Please pray.

image from here

For those not familiar with reading a cyclone tracking map...

The black arrows are where he's been, the grey arrows are his predicted path. The shaded grey area is his range of likely paths. The numbers in the middle of the cyclones spots are the category number (1-5) and the red circles are the different wind intensities.

029/365

2011-01-29T22:26:00.000+10:00

029

Lion getting pruney hands playing under the hose.

028/365

2011-01-29T09:18:00.000+10:00

028

Watching Mr W try to fly the Chinook up onto the verandah.

5/8 of the boys that were playing at the W's

027/365

2011-01-27T21:28:00.000+10:00

027

Yes, I am quite shallow sometimes.

Yes, this made me laugh in the middle of Big W

No way, not even off the $5 table it was on, would I buy it.

But it takes all sorts and I'm sure it floats someones boat.

026/365

2011-01-26T22:39:00.000+10:00

026

Meet Garage Snake*

I've finally been able to meet him able to meet him ~~man to man~~ Woman to Snake. Though now he has been renamed to Chased Down The Drain With A Rake Snake.

Wolf earned his lamb roast tonight... he's so brave. We're pretty sure he is just a Spotted Python, harmless. I'm going to email his photo to my new snake peeps just to be sure.

*I just went to link to a post about Garage Snake and it seems I have never shared about Garage Snake. A couple of months ago I had was hearing noises in the garage and getting freaked out. There was a funny smell too, I just put it all down to mice or something living in the gardening stuff. Next thing I know, we are getting something out and there is a snake skin, shed right on top of a box of junk in the garage. That was it, I couldn't use the garage for ages. Eventually, after my dad came and checked out that particular box and we had a little look around and couldn't find anything else I got brave enough to use the garage again. I kept hearing noises but assumed it was just mice or something... I was right... it was the 'or something'.

Lion's First Day of Grade 1

2011-01-26T15:49:00.000+10:00

My Lion, Ready for his first day of grade 1 *wink*

Lion started grade 1 this week. Grade 1 is the big time, y'know. His own desk with a slide out tidy tray. Spelling words to learn. Homework will be given. Not as many "toys" in the classroom. His own pencil case to keep track of his stationery. This is 'real' school.

Monday morning was chaotic. I got us all up nice and early, Wolf had the morning off so he could come along, I got things moving as best I could, but in the usual way I was the only one that bothered to keep an eye on the time so we were running late. Not only did we need to be at school on time, we needed to have time to take some photos before we left.... except I had forgotten to borrow the good camera from mum so all I had was my phone. Still, we can do photos with the phone, all is not lost. 8am, we should have photos done and be loading everyone and all Lion's 3847393 bags of school supplies into the car... except I am still trying to get one child to put some clothes on and trying to stop Monkey from removing all Lion's school stuff from it's spot. While Wolf is finishing getting himself ready I grab Lion for an inside photo so he's not all squinty from the sun.

He's already not too keen on the idea and Monkey wants a piece of the action. After all, don't I usually want photos of him? You'd think with a photographer for a mother there would be some half decent first day of school photos... right? Wrong, nothing creative, nothing spectacular, we barely made it through the point and shoot stuff alive.

Eventually Wolf is ready, Dragon is clothed, everyone is wearing shoes, we can head outside and get some photos by the front door. I try to take photos for first day of kindy and school in the same place each time because I like the idea of keeping the same surroundings to show the child's change... it hasn't been working for us lately.

Talk about squinty! I must have adjusted his hat 500 times so it was sitting straight but it didn't help, it kept twisting back around. *sigh* I guess that'll have to do.

We dropped Dragon and Monkey off with Grannysaurus and found a park without too much of a walk.

In his classroom we met his teacher, put his books on his desk and his stationery in his tidy tray. We had some kisses and cuddles, said Hi to his best mate who is in his class this year (and the teacher knew they were buds so sat them opposite each other, we'll see how long until she moves them apart) and we left him to get down to the business of being a big grade 1 boy.

We were very excited to go and pick him up in the afternoon. We found some shade to park in, ran into Grannysaurus and managed to get the good camera from her, and headed off to collect our Lion. He was TIRED. School is hard work after being on holidays. We walked slowly back to our car and I asked him about his day. Apparently it was really hard, they worked ALL DAY... but he couldn't remember what they did. Eventually he remembered that he had drawn a picture. His new teacher Mrs B had asked them to draw a picture of some of the things they did on their holiday. "So I drew a TV and a couch". WHAT? "oh yeah, and a boogie board". Okay. We took them to be crystal miners, we went to lollipops, we had Christmas, we went to the waterpark, we played in the rain, we spent overnight at the beach hut... and he draws a TV and a couch. At least the boogie board gives a hint to our beach trip, I guess. *sigh*

So, home we go for our special first day of school afternoon tea. But before I even let them in the house, I make them pose for more photos. It's now sunny here now, we can get some without the squinty eyes... you'd think. That is where the top photo came from, our afternoon photo shoot, so not really ready for his first day of school, more like ready to crash AFTER his first day of school. Then remember up the top I said Monkey wanted to be in on the photos in the morning... well that same Monkey wanted nothing to do with photos in the afternoon.

Love these boys.

I'm praying for a fantastic year for you, Lion.

I know you will do well because you try your best at everything you do.

025/365

2011-01-25T20:31:00.000+10:00

025

My Spot

The new school year brings with it a new classroom, a new place to wait for Lion at the end of the day, new people to jostle with for the best seats... I like this spot. I think I need to carve my name on the table so no one dares to take it.

024/365

2011-01-24T22:26:00.000+10:00

024

Picking up Lion from his first day of school

I know, you all expected me to post a first day of school photo... well, they are all coming, in a special first day of school post! One with LOTS of words... maybe some tears... an "awwwww" or two... and plenty of photos. But these two boys were VERY excited to be walking to pick up their big brother this afternoon... so I had to snap a photo.

023/365

2011-01-23T22:05:00.001+10:00

023

I ♥ My Apple Slinky Machine

Note: I am hoping that there will be some real posts up soon... what we've been up to type of stuff. We've been up to LOTS and have had no time to blog about it. Some post are half written, some are in my head, others will require me to look back at the photos taken to remember that we actually did anything at all. School starts tomorrow and with it our return to routine.

Another Note: I need to either get mums camera back or charge some batteries for our not so reliable snappy cam... I'm getting very frustrated only having phone photos!

022/365

2011-01-22T21:57:00.000+10:00

022

Frosty Mango

"No, I'm not eating Daddy's ice-cream. Oh, this ice-cream, um, yeah, it just looks like Daddy's ice-cream... yeah, that's it, it looks like his but really it's mine... all mine."

021/365

2011-01-21T18:22:00.001+10:00

021

Check where I'm blogging from!

Yep, that would be my own deserted piece of paradise.

Off to enjoy some technology free time...

Confessions.

2011-01-21T09:37:00.000+10:00

So, you know in movies and cartoons how someone will be about to tell someone else something really important but there is always a loud noise just as they are about to say it? It goes something like this.

Fred: Hey, I've been wanting to tell you something really important.
Frank: Okaaaaaay.
Fred: Well, you know how when we were little, your favourite truck went missing and you never found it, well *Fred & Frank walk past a construction site and there is a truck reversing*
Frank: Sorry, I didn't hear that because of the truck, what did you say?
Fred: I said *a guy with a boom box blasting "Ice Ice Baby" walks past F&F*
Frank: Sorry, missed it again because of that awesome music.
Fred: (getting louder) I SAID *A herd of velociraptors runs down the street and people are screaming everywhere*
Frank: Sorry, still missed it.
Fred: (Now screaming for all he's worth) I SAID I STOLE YOUR TRUCK AND SOLD IT FOR 5 CENTS. *at this point the velociraptors have emptied the street and all is silent except for Freds yelled confession*

Yeah, I'm a big fan of doing that to the kids with appliances. This morning it was the coffee grinder... it's fun stuff, people, fun stuff.

020/365

2011-01-20T22:55:00.000+10:00

020

lumiere

I love it

taken by Lion

but I still claim that it counts

and I'm the one making up the rules

so there

019/365

2011-01-19T21:15:00.000+10:00

019

*kisses*

MMcT: Do you love Mummy kisses?

Monkey: *shakes head*

MMcT: Do you love Daddy kisses?

Monkey: *shakes head*

MMcT: Do you love Lion kisses?

Monkey: *shakes head*

MMcT: Do you love Dragon kisses?

Monkey*big grin and nodding head*

*sigh*

018/365

2011-01-18T22:52:00.000+10:00

018

sweetness

i♥monkey

017/365

2011-01-17T22:03:00.000+10:00

017

Nearly 3 hours of indoor play-centre fun.

Heaps of great shots.

This is the one I decide to post.

When I was taking the photos I was completely focused on making sure Wolf got my little Monkey safely to the ground. I only noticed Lion's fantastic face first landing right now as I was flicking through deciding which photo to use. Poor boy, we usually are attentive parents... I was just being more attentive to my 1 year old plummeting down a 15 story slide.

I'm not exaggerating... this thing is huge, the first little bit where you push off, the slide just drops away beneath you and you are airborne for a second then drop like a rock... kinda like the cartoons where the ground disintegrates beneath Sylvester and then it takes a few seconds for him to fall. Then it's down the slick slide with all it's bumps and hills where you catch a bit more air before you gracefully slide to a stop at the end... or not so gracefully as the case may be.

016/365

2011-01-16T22:55:00.000+10:00

016

"Aquarium Mortis"

Some days the only photo is a bit of nothingness but it tells a story of our life in the "right now".

The only photo I took today was for a message to my sister, Chimera. I figured I probably should take another set up photo to describe our day but then I realised this photo is a story of us.

After my Great Grandma passed away, we were sorting though her house and my boys came across a motorised "fishtank" that they loved, apparently when my dad took Lion over for visits (Dragon was not quite 1) G'Grandma would turn it on for him. My Grandma said Lion and Dragon NEEDED that fishtank, I think Grandma may have NEEDED for them to have it, we took it. It ended up in Lions room, soon to be Lion and Dragon's room, as a night light (it cast an eerie blue glow about the room). Eventually it gave up and couldn't be repaired. Grandma came across these similar ones in a shop or in one of those home shopping catalogues, or in a Readers Digest catalogue or something... and she bought them for the Grandies. Tonight, ours died. This isn't the actual death of it, this is the attempt at repairing it because apparently Lion and Dragon will never sleep again if it's not in their room. I was pretty sure Chimera's kids weren't using their one so I sent her this photo with a text to see if we could replace ours with theirs... nope. In the decluttering of their house it has ended up in a box... that is stored elsewhere... So, the boys now have an old Bankers Lamp of Wolfs, it's rather bright because we just had to roll with whatever light was in it but it'll do for now.

So there you go, one day when I look back through this 365 I will see this fishtank and remember all this. I'll remember my kids not being able to sleep without a nightlight. I'll remember my Great Grandma. I'll remember my Grandma and her penchant for those catalogues. I'll remember my husband trying to repair something that was beyond repair. I'll remember being worried that my kids would grow up with vision problems. I'll remember how we used to send MMS's and now (in the future, we're imagining remember) we just think about the person and they download the files from our mind... or whatever.

Y'know, I don't want to get too soppy over a fishtank.

015/365

2011-01-15T21:48:00.000+10:00

015

Lion & Bluey

At the PakMag Launch Party at Mini Golf

(He's not sunburned, we're under an orange tent, he's in an orange shirt, his pale skin looked like it was glowing! If you can believe it, it was even better in real life.)

I touched the snakes, I'm very proud of myself.

I'll just leave out the part where I just about wet myself when I turned around and the 2m long snake the guy was holding was looking me in the eye.

014/365

2011-01-14T22:29:00.000+10:00

014

My Man & Me

He is rather a looker, isn't he?

He's rather a dork too.

But I love him anyway.

iPhone photo edited with the Old Photo Pro app...

because this much of a close up in living colour is a bit much.

013/365

2011-01-13T22:24:00.000+10:00

013

Scraping the bottom of the photography barrel here

This is Dragon playing the tambourine on his butt

With his concentration face on

Yes, this really is the only photo taken today

012/365

2011-01-12T22:33:00.000+10:00

012

Labelling school supplies.

1/5 of the HB pencils I had to label.

Plus...

24 coloured pencils

24 windup crayons

9 glue sticks

24 textas

seriously, 9 glue sticks!

25 HB pencils!

Are they feeding them to the kids?

011/365

2011-01-11T22:09:00.000+10:00

011

Rice Paper Rolls

Not the awesome dinner-winner I had expected

Sushi rice, ham, bbq sauce (and cucumber depending on who you ask, shhhh)

Lion ate almost all of his and liked them

Dragon took one bite and professed that he doesn't like rice

Monkey threw the rolls on the floor and licked the bbq sauce off his plate

This latest revelation takes the foods that Dragon professes to like down to pasta, ham, cheese, pickles, grapes.... and lollies. It covers all five food groups... we're still good.

010/365

2011-01-10T22:46:00.000+10:00

010

Minifigs

Lion and Dragon needed something to do today and I had been playing with a site that lets you design your own minifig. They kept wanting to play with it too but they were already arguing enough and the computer just seems to magnify any arguments. So I suggested, instead, that they go look through all the pieces of minifigs that they have pulled apart (what's with that?) and see if they can make minifigs of themselves. Lion was wearing a shirt with light and dark blue horizontal stripes and white boardies. Dragon was wearing a grey shirt with a picture on the front and camo pants. I think they did really well. I also think it's interesting to see the heads they picked out for their minifigs. If you turn Dragon Minifigs head around it has a surprised look too... he also wore a motorbike helmet for much of the day. Lion Minifig got a hat because Lion was a little upset that he doesn't have any of the right sort of hair for him.

This has to go down as one of my better ideas... they then spend well over an hour having minifig adventures with themselves. When you're a minifig you can do ANYTHING!

...Well, anything except bend your knees.

009/365

2011-01-09T21:32:00.000+10:00

009

I realised I didn't take any photos today.

That happens on busy days.

So here's a glimpse at the Lego-centric world I live in...

This little Mini-fig watches every finger stroke on our keyboard.

Tonight he's watching me edit photos of my cute kids.

008/365

2011-01-08T22:45:00.002+10:00

008

Power-Miners.

Panning for gold at Ravenswood.

With plastic flowerpots.

007/365

2011-01-07T22:35:00.002+10:00

007

Lion and Dragon at the waterpark.

Our phone and Internet are down. As well as no blogging from the computer that means no fast wifi connection when blogging from my phone. That means if this takes too long to post tonight I'll save my 365 shots until we're connected again. They say it "should" be back on by the 13th... Great.

Monkey's First Haircut

2011-01-06T20:37:00.000+10:00

Be prepared for photos... lots of photos. For each of the bigger boys we had done something with them in the week or two before their first haircut that resulted in lots of photos of their long hair. We hadn't done much that got the right sort of photos of Monkey so on New Years day I decided to just take him out in the sun, shade, whatever the sky decided to do at the time, and get some photos... I'm feeling a little sad that his hair is all gone, it's making it hard to pick just a couple of photos to post. I did pick just one for my New Years Day 365 post.

It wasn't very clean, it had a fair bit of sweat in it but I didn't want to wash it because it's easier to cut their baby hair when it's not freshly washed. Because of that he didn't have quite the same number of fluffy sticking out bits as usual.

He looks like he's got a bit of an undercut here. Because he so obviously had two distinct layers/types of hair people kept telling me that the longer stuff would fall out... it didn't. He just looked like he had some weird hair extensions. But it was really cute, and fun to play with.

A little close up for you of those sweet straggly bits at the back. Just so soft and wispy.

This is the effect of the two layers at the front, a short fringe and a long fringe. It kept getting in his eyes which, in the end, was what made me decide it was time to cut it. He's just so stinkin' cute. He still has a baby look to him here, he's lost that now. He's still got those smooshy cheeks though.

He ♥'s the swing. I ♥ watching his hair fly all over the place.

There's some more of those sticky-up bits. There's always a few of them, they remind me of his great-grandad, he always had a few of them... though, he had a lot less hair.

Daredevil. He looks like he's on a super-fast roller-coaster... he'd be quite happy on a super-fast roller-coaster. He loves the swing to go REALLY high. He also likes sudden stops. Wow, his hair was long, wasn't it?

Cute as a button. That is all swamp under him. We can't mow because it's rained so much and we have clay right under the topsoil so the top is waterlogged and mushy. But thankfully we aren't flooded like large chunks of the state! Monkey didn't mind, as long as he got a go on the swing.

The event. The haircut. He wasn't really a fan of getting his hair cut. It's pretty weird if you've never had a haircut before. He watched his brothers get a haircut just before Christmas but it didn't help for his haircut.

Tidying up the back. Ignore my upside down concentration face. I was trying to not cut him... and to not cut myself... again. We ended up giving him a packet of tiny teddies to try and distract him... it didn't work real well but it worked enough. Doesn't he look all grown up? This is about half an hour after that baby-faced photo up the top.

So, there you go. New year, new haircut.

006/365

2011-01-06T20:35:00.000+10:00

006

Bad Photo

Cute Baby

Yummy Brownie

The reason for the bad photo is that the cute baby wouldn't hold still because he was trying to convince me to give him more yummy brownie.

005/365

2011-01-05T20:38:00.000+10:00

005

Dragon's first day of kindy 2011

*taking of photos barely tolerated*

*most certainly not welcomed*

004/365

2011-01-04T22:33:00.000+10:00

004

Home-made-ish Alphabet Soup

I may have spent a little too long searching through the pasta container for the right letters... and the ones already in the pot may have stuck to the bottom... that's been my day, focusing on the wrong things... and I probably should have put this word into practice a little more today... A sermon from my Alphabet Soup... I could do a book... Something about soup, inspiration, soul...

oh wait, it's been done.

PS. My boys LOVED this...

I will be creating variations on the theme using every variety of vegetable soup that I can think of.

003/365

2011-01-03T19:44:00.000+10:00

003

It's a great relationship this one.

Great Grandson.

Great Grandma.

One of them would do absolutely anything the other asked of them... Monkey is a bit more stubborn.

002/365

2011-01-02T19:44:00.001+10:00

002

"It's for lookin' through"

001/365

2011-01-01T21:39:00.000+10:00

It's a new year.

Seems like a good time for a new project.

Project 365.

365 Photos.

A photo a day for a whole year.

I'm game...

001

One of the last photos of Monkey's lovely long locks.

*sniff*

This project 365 isn't the only new start for today.

Editors Notes: I'm starting this off in the main blog but I may transfer it all to a new blog if it gets too tricky to handle. I reserve the right to post photos from my phone, I set up a blogging app today for just that purpose, some days I just don't get out the big camera, sorry. The plan is, few or no words, just letting the images talk... after all, each one is worth 1000 words... or so they say. So, have your input, and be prepared for me to ignore it, would you bother following another McTavish blog? Would you rather see them all here? Do you like green eggs and ham? Enquiring minds want to know...

The Post Christmas Post 2010

2010-12-31T22:09:00.000+10:00

Christmas is done and dusted. The tree has been decorated and destroyed. The fat man has been and gone. The presents have been wrapped and unwrapped. The treats have been made and eaten. Carols sung, toasts made, photos taken, children spoilt... it's been a good year.

Now it looks like Santa's Elves threw up all over my house. New toys strewn across the floor... in the lounge room... the play room... the kitchen... the dining room... the bedrooms... EVERYWHERE! Wrapping paper hiding in all sorts of weird places, just when you think you have thrown out the last piece of toy packaging the kids have found another piece that they just can't bear to be separated from because "it can be used as an aircraft carrier" or "but it's perfect for something, mum". Almost every decoration has been stripped from the lower branches of the tree and I've given up re-hanging them, now they just get tossed back under the tree. There are two gifts left for two little boys who were away for Christmas but they will be delivered tomorrow. There's still fruitcake to eat, the ninjabreadmen are all gone, the chocolate pops are all eaten, most of the chocolates people gave us have been consumed during the post Christmas DVD watching stupor. Yes, it has been a good year.

Because I decided not to decorate our Christmas cake this year I left it until quite late to make it. Thankfully I didn't' have any helpers other than a small Monkey on my hip trying to peer into the mixer bowl and a couple of taste testers at every stage. It turns out Monkey quite likes fruit cake mixture...

I gave him the beater first and he licked away at that and I tried to take it back and he growled at me... yes, like a puppy with it's bone. I gave him the spatula thinking I could switch them out... he growled again. I figure if he has the bowl that's three items for two hands, he's got to let me have something! Nope, he wanted it ALL... there were some big tears when I finally had to take it all away and clean him up.

The next big job was decorating the Christmas tree...

Lion got the thrill, not of putting the angel on the top, but putting the top of the tree on the top! He was pretty proud of himself.

After the angel on the top, the first decorations to go on were three identical snowflakes Nano sent last year...

The precious and breakable ornaments go at the top and other than that it's wherever they land.

But, the same as every year, things got a little manic and had to be brought back under control a few times but in the end we had a decorated tree.

So that brings us to Christmas Eve... Wolf was working late so I got moving and got my very last minute baking done and Santa started doing his thing. Santa left them one stocking each this year... and that was it. I think I'll be asking him to do that every year... it was so much nicer. The big boys and I had got into a bit of the wrapping earlier in the week, doing the stuff for Wolf and for the cousins and the things that were for Monkey from each of them. That still left a lot to do though. I will admit, there was much less last minute wrapping than other years which I am thankful for. Wolf helped with the wrapping and general tidying up of the lounge room when he got home. I made our food gifts up for family members and thought I must have been insane when I came up with what I was going to include.

So here we have a representation of what was included in each gift, generally one for each person it was intended for, other than the chocolate powder, that was one per family. Top left, we put in a chocolate pop for them (these are the ones I did for Lion's class, I didn't take a photo of the next batch). Bottom left, my ninjabreadmen... I did as many as I could in ninja pose and decorated but with severe back pain by that point Wolf finished filling in that tray for me and that was it. Right, Italian Hot Chocolate powder (aka Love Potion). This isn't the batch I made for the family gifts, this is another lot but I didn't take a photo of the cute little jars I did up for family.

So, now we are a Christmas day... Lion and Dragon woke early but had been told they were not to come in to us until the sun was up. So, as the first rays of light filled the morning two EXCITED little boys appeared beside our bed telling us "It's CHRISTMAS and SANTA has BEEEEEEEN". Up we got, woke up the poor little Monkey (he did NOT like that idea) and we got into the gifts.

I realise there are way more photos of Monkey here than of his brothers but they didn't exactly sit still enough to take photos. At one point Monkey was doing his best to take photos of all that was going on because that was what mummy was doing! Monkey took a while to figure out what was going on but he was a champion present opener in the end. He opened with gusto but considered each gift carefully before moving on to the next. Special gifts in the above image that need to be pointed out (I'm guessing you can click on it to see it larger) are (top row, middle image) Monkey's gift purchased with money from Lapun Mama, a wooden car parking garage... it is in CONSTANT use. (bottom right corner) Lion and Dragon with their iPod Nano and docking speakers that we purchased with their money from Lapun Mama. (image above that) Three boys trying to decide just what their gift from Grandpap and Nano is... it's a blow-up "carwash" that you can attach the hose to and ride bikes through and it looks like great fun... but it's been TOO wet to use it so far :-( Try explaining that to a 4 year old, it's TOO WET to use a toy that makes you get wet.

So, after church we headed around to Aunty Chimeras for morning tea and to open gifts with the family. Romeo, Juliette and Ladybug couldn't make it because they were with Juliette's family for lunch but the kids that were there were all wearing their Christmas shirts/dress that I had made so we did the best we could to get a photo...

It's pretty much what they are all like anyway... not perfect but perfectly wonderful.

So, although it's late, and it's 2 hours until next year right now, from the McTavish family to your family...

Merry Christmas

You want a WHAT???

2010-12-24T21:36:00.001+10:00

Driving in the car and Lion pipes up...

"I want a bong, I know how to use a bong, I'd really love a bong"

WHAT THE????

Instead of crashing the car and flipping out at my 6 year old knowing about drug related paraphernalia I gently asked him "what's a bong?"

"you know, mum. A bong, china people have them and they have pictures of dragons on them and when you hit them like this (swings hand back, bringing it forward again quickly) they go BONNNNNNNG"

ON THIS CHRISTMAS EVE MAY ALL YOUR CHRISTMAS WISHES COME TRUE!

Vomitageddon

2010-12-16T12:46:00.000+10:00

Those Olympic athletes have nothing on me...

Lion had a temp all morning, just a little one, he just said it was because the weather was hot so I kept doing what needed to be done. We came home and he was just chillin' and we were reading books and having a quiet morning together with no TV on and decided to wrap Christmas gifts and all of a sudden he went green, looked up at me and said those words... "I don't feel good".

I stand up, knocking my chair back, all the while scanning the room Macgyver style for what I can use. I spot a plastic toy box between Lion and I, I shove aside the highchair, it tips slightly but doesn't fall (the baby was in bed, asleep) I put one hand on Lion's shoulder and start herding him towards the tiles while I bend over and with the other hand I grab the toybox, tip the toys out and place the toybox in Lion's hands... we make it onto the tiles and he goes to do what he thinks will be a cough... but mummy knows better and moves the toybox closer to him... yep, there it is.

It's strange... at that point I should be annoyed that we have another vomiting bug, I should be feeling defeated at the thought of all the vomit I will likely have to deal with over the coming hours and days... instead I feel like a champion... I caught this one... well, not caught as in, I have the vomiting bug too, but caught as in IT LANDED IN THE BUCKET!!!

When they start up the Mammalympics I'll be representing Australia for vomit catching... it's a prestigious event...

Now where's my 14 bottles of pine-o-clean I have stashed away for our next Vomitageddon... because it's here!

What's for dinner?

2010-12-14T12:29:00.001+10:00

Life has been moving faster than we can catch up at the moment. Wolf has a new job, Monkey is getting smarter and smarter, Lion has finished his first year of school and Dragon is done with Kindy for the year. It's almost Christmas and I am soooo far behind on blogging what's been going on around here. I'm just going to do my best and see how fast I can catch up.

*****

Driving along in almost silence one day, Dragon was obviously doing some deep thinking when he came out with this doozy... "Mummy, Are we God's Lego?" Wow, what an opportunity... kicking my own deep thinking brain into gear I got on with an answer... I can't remember it exactly what I said but it was along the lines of "yes...and no" Yes, we are like God's Lego because God can make us into whatever he wants to, he has complete control of us. But no, because God loves us perfectly, he loves us more than we could ever love Lego and because of that there's never a person that is out of his sight, he never wanders around saying "now where is that kid with the red cap, I know I had him here somewhere yesterday". He takes care of us better than we could ever take care of our Lego. Dragon took it all in, processed it and gave me a deep response... "I need to wee when we get to the shops".

*****

Lion had a bit of fun a while back helping Grandad to clean their big trailer with the pressure sprayer.

*****

I think I sing too many children's songs when a sudden ant bite sends me into a tuneful (or not) frenzy of "Ants in my armpit, a a a, ants in my armpit, a a a..." Stupid ants.

*****

I found Monkey a few days ago sitting on the floor unwrapping a Dove chocolate like we have in the advent calendar... I don't know where he got it. He tried to pretend he wasn't opening it and gave it to me while looking all innocent... I pretended along and shared it with him... no one need ever know....

*****

These are what Lion and Dragon took for their school and kindy friends instead of Christmas cards or candy canes. I hate candy canes, the kiddie-crack that they are, and there was no way I was going to sit around and supervise as they wrote in 483940 cards for their friends and then when handing them out find that we missed a kid who is now in tears and... and... and... it's all too much for this season of love and goodwill. Something sweet, something with no names attached... easy. Yes, I'd much rather stay up late, after the kids are in bed and make treats for their friends than supervise the Christmas card writing.

*****

Cleaning up the kitchen bench junk piles recently I found...

1 hand grenade (toy, thankfully )
many rocks
2 pairs of socks
1 snake skin
sparklers
matches
an array of things I should have returned to people

Life with boys is never dull.

*****

Lion's class led the school assembly a few weeks ago. It was awesome. This term they were discovering "Who Sank The Boat" so they performed it for us. Lion had to welcome everyone to the assembly and introduce one section then thank everyone for coming at the end. He had a lot to learn but he did a great job!

*****

We had Cheetah and Little Bear come for a sleep over a few weeks ago... it was absolute chaos! But we did have a lot of fun! Believe it or not the last two to go to sleep were Dragon and Little Bear... those two kept going and going and going and going!

Little Bear managed to find our only two Duplo girls... she said one was her and one was me... she's so sweet.

*****

Judge me if you wish but when the kids ask what's for dinner over and over and over they usually get the response "poo on toast". One day Lion came to me and asked "Mum, are we having poo on toast for dinner?" "Yes" I responded... "Oh noooooo" said Dragon... "not TOAST".

*****

Phew... there's a bit of a catch up... still more to go!

Dragon's Birthday

2010-12-13T21:37:00.001+10:00

Dragon's birthday came fast on the heels of Lion's... Same as it does every year... it's just taken me a while to get to blog it.

October 30th was Dragon's 4th birthday. We started the day with presents and kisses!

Big brother kisses are very special... even if he does make it go on forever so that you can't unwrap your gift.

He's not quite sure why Grandpap and Nano are sending him an eyeball... we had to explain that it was a science kit for him to do some 'sperimentin' with and I promise, his expression changed to a little more excited and a little less confused.

He received a Duplo Caravan Family set from mummy and daddy... this is the one I won waaaaay back on Childhood 101. He loved it, I had done some careful implanting of ideas in his sweet little head when we were browsing the Lego aisles at the shops but he has enjoyed taking the family camping and combining it with the Duplo Camping Family set that Aunty Chimera got him he has had a blast... Though he did put aside the dad from the camping set... that way between the two sets there was a dad, mum and three boys... sound familiar?

We went small scale on the 'cake' after dinner that night because he was getting a real cake for his party (family get together) the next day. We had some left over "rocks" from Lion's birthday cake so we piled one each on a plate and melted some candles to the plate and he thought it was the funniest cake but absolutely loved it! The poor boy had to compete with two brothers and a father all trying to blow out the candles for him... but I think he got them all himself in the end.

The next day we gathered the family to celebrate the two boys birthdays... but we called it "Dragon's party" for the sake of peace. Dragon had been trying to decide what sort of cake he wanted for days... it was a really big deal for him and none of my suggestions were working. We were browsing in Target and he came across a silicone cupcake form for a butterfly where you can put all the funny shaped cupcakes together and they make a butterfly. That was what he wanted, since I had been waiting for something definite to be decided I grabbed the form and we headed off... until two rows later the same sort of thing was hanging up only it was a car shape... well, the butterfly went back and a car was purchased. They also do a dinosaur one but try as we might we cannot find it anywhere. This was quite possibly the worst cake I have ever had to do. I did try to convince him that I could do a better car without the form and we can use his favourite mint pattie biscuits for the wheels... nope, it was this and only this cake.

It didn't matter how close together you put the pieces the icing still ran down between them and left gaps, and they kept moving apart as I tried to ice them... but he thought it was wonderful it was his favourite colour and it was the car he had chosen. I am so glad that even when he can be so picky about something he is still really easy to please in the end. Just please, whatever you do, don't judge my cake decorating skills on this cake alone :-) or my mad photoshop skills... you could never tell that I got rid of his real name and wrote in "Dragon" on the computer... could you?

Now, like all 4 year old boys who get a sword wielding ninja for their birthday... he used the sword to cut the cake.

I hope he never tries that trick with a real ninja sword! The cake was my usual chocolate cake recipe but using gluten free flour. So it was egg free, milk free, butter free, gluten free... it was barely a cake at all... but it still tasted really good!

Then to round out the excitement, on Monday he had kindy and wanted a cake to share with his friends like Lion took the cake pops for his friends. I didn't have it in me to make another batch of cake pops so I just made a regular cake. That particular day they were going on an excursion to the aquarium so I went a bit wild and made a Blue Linckia cake. He loved it.

Again with the mad photoshopping skills :-) And that is the best photo I got of this cake, I'll have to check if Kindy got any of him with it.

I think he quite enjoyed his extended birthday. It seemed to go on for days and days, just rubbing in the fact that my sweet little Dragon was turning four. But really, I was ready for three to be over, there has been a few struggles between us for three and four is so much more grown up... at least that's what we're working on.

Happy Birthday to my sweet Dragon boy. xoxoxo.

Lion's Birthday

2010-11-23T21:54:00.000+10:00

On October 26th, our sweet Lion turned Six.

The day started bright and early... and then had to just wait until Daddy woke up.

EVENTUALLY... Daddy woke up and we could get on with the present giving...

Attacked by kisses with each present, he didn't seem to mind.

This was a long awaited, long dreamed about, often talked about Lego model. You can't tell how excited he was, can you?

As you do, Lion took cake to school for his birthday. I tried my best to make something he had seen and fallen in love with. I didn't tell him I what I was trying to do, just in case it didn't work. Thankfully it kind of came together and Lion took cake pops to school for his class mates.

Cake pops shaped like Lego minifig heads. Unfortunately I couldn't get hold of a proper pen for drawing on their faces and although the textas I had were non-toxic, with all the allergies and stuff around I thought it was best I didn't use them.

For their birthday they can ask for anything for dinner, Lion asked for pancakes with bacon and maple syrup. After cake with his class that day and a birthday party to come the next day we compromised so that we could still have a 'cake' for dinner...

The next day he had a few friends over for a party (he only wanted 4 friends, I could not have been happier!) and we did cake all over again!

This one was a crystal mine with a rockmonster protecting it... we love Lego Powerminers here.

He was a bit disappointed that his party was 'just' in our backyard when all the parties he's been invited to for his mates have been at McDonalds or at an indoor play place or something but in the end he was happy to have it at home, I think he just thought that once you are at school, that is what you do because none of the others had partied at home. He had a great time and all his friends enjoyed themselves and ate and ate and ate. I had three very tired boys to put to bed that night.

Happy Birthday Lion!