Oh brother!

Oh my goodness!!!  I have some serious catching up to do here!!!  I have pictures and stories and all sorts to tell.  So I think what I'll do is give you a few today, and hopefully a few more tomorrow and over the next few days.

Why am I bothering to catch up?  Well, because I think you guys are awesome for reading my blog so I want to continue to entertain you.  And because my friends and family who live a long way away say that they like to see and hear what we get up to, so I want to keep letting them into our lives.

So, here we go!

I am the oldest of four.  I love my siblings and, although we had our fair share of fights as we were growing up, we've always been friends as well.

At the start of the month we had the pleasure of having my brother stay with us.  He lives two states away - about 24 hours drive.  So it was awesome to see him.

He'd flown up and was staying with my sister in our old town, then caught the train to here.  The train was supposed to arrive at 2am but due to the heavy rains and a couple of trains breaking down he didn't get here until 6:30am (or something like that).

Sunrise while waiting for the my brother's train to arrive.

Unfortunately, we were all sick while he was here :(  We had head and chest colds so we ended up spending most of our time reading and watching movies and attempting to sleep.

But we also played some board games, did the shopping and just spent time talking.  And we were really quite happy with that!

The last day of his visit with us was my brother's birthday, so I attempted my first ever sponge cake!  Mum used to make sponges for our birthdays every year so it was fun to recreate the tradition.

The cake turned out great!  It was light and fluffy and delicious!  But I'd forgotten that Mum used to cut the cake in half horizontally, then put the jam and cream in the middle and ice the top.  The recipe makes two cakes though, so I put the jam and cream on the bottom cake (by the way, we'd bought low fat cream.  Turns out you can't whip low fat cream!  So I just poured it over the bottom layer and let it soak in a bit, then put the jam over that), then put the other cake on top of it and iced it.

The Little Big Fella decided he wanted us to put red icing on top.  Well, that icing just wouldn't turn red!!!  So after about half a bottle of red food colouring, I ended up adding some yellow to make it orange-ish.

Okay, fine!  It's pink!

So after a pretty quiet couple of days, it was time for my little bro to go.  The exciting thing is that I'll be seeing him in July when we go to the P!nk concert with my youngest sister!!!!  Woo hoo!!!!

About to say goodbye as the sun sets on the day and our visit.

Our next new adventure for the year actually happened in February!  We went to our first Race Day!

Last year the Big Fella was living here in the quarters and went with one of his classmates.  He called me up telling me how much fun he was having and that we should definitely go next year.

Well, this year he was working so I had to take the Little Big Fella instead :-D  They cater to kids and had a few rides and bits and pieces.  Initially the Little Big Fella was NOT interested!  The slide looked too big and he just wanted to be near me.

That didn't last too long!

And once he'd been on the slide, he had to go on the horses, then the rocket, then the jumping castle.  He had a ball!

Being new to races, I didn't realise there would only be 5 races for the whole afternoon.  But once the races started, the Little Big Fella and I got up to the fence and cheered everyone on, not caring a bit who won!  It was good fun!

There were heaps of people there too, including some of the Little Big Fella's friends, so we had a lovely afternoon.

The funny thing was when the police turned up and drove through the carpark.  Everyone who could see them kind of stopped what they were doing and watched them.  Then once the police left, it was as if someone had turned the music back on or something!

Hmmm, what else have we been up to?

Okay, one more for today.

This is one of our Rhode Island red chicken's eggs.  She lays her eggs in the dog house.  If I don't collect the egg very quickly after she vacates the dog house, the dog retaliates for being kicked out of her house by cracking (and sometimes eating) the egg.

At least the other chicken lays her eggs in the chicken house!

Rain, friends and sleep

Today...


Today has been a funny day in some ways.


I went to bed way too late last night and went back to bed after breakfast this morning because I was falling asleep sitting up.


While the boys were watching a movie together I started going through my several boxes of memorabilia.  I have cards and letters, yearbooks, teddy bears and various gifts and bits and pieces and when we moved I didn't have a chance to go through them and see if anything needed to be tossed.


As I was reading through various cards and notes I realised that people have said some really lovely things about me in the past.  And while the life I live now is not the same in so many ways, I am still that person and their lovely comments are still valid and validating for me.


I realised that I haven't written heartfelt appreciation notes to people in a long time and I'd like to do that some more.  It feels good to be appreciated and there are so many people that I do appreciate!


I also re-felt the need to start giving my time and energy to others and the community again.  It's been a long time but I'm ready to give without feeling guilty if I don't, and I want to be an active participant in life here.


This afternoon the Little Big Fella and I were invited for a playdate with some friends from the park/playgroup.  It was really lovely to have a sit around and watch the kids play happily together.  The Little Big Fella mostly played on his own but I guess he'll make his way when he's ready.


As we were sitting out on the verandah (it's a great verandah too!), one of the bigger kids came running from the park saying that someone had cut their neck open.  Parents went running - one to the park, one with a phone, and one to the kid's parents to let them know what was happening.  The kids started scattering too so the rest of the adults shepherded them off the road and made sure they were all safe and not freaking out.


As far as I understand, the boy had a decent cut on the back of his head.  It bled a lot but he seemed to be basically okay, but possibly with concussion.  He was taken to hospital to get checked out.


It took a while for everyone to calm down after that - understandably.


While we were there it rained.  It rained pretty hard.  I was very glad I'd brought my big golf umbrella because when it was time to go the Little Big Fella and I huddled under it and walked together.  He had his gumboots on so wanted to "jump in muddy puddles" (thanks Peppa Pig!) so by the time we got home (about 400 metres maybe) we were both drenched!  :-D


I fed the Little Big Fella then sat down with a glass of red and some cheese and bikkies.  It's a great way to go after a walk in the rain :-D


This evening we all went to the Lion's Club changeover dinner.  We were on a table with some great people and it was a lovely evening.  There were some formalities of the night and I have to say they dragged out for an awfully long time!


The dinner started when the Little Big Fella would normally be going to bed so before we'd even finished our meal he was very ready to sleep.  At the last minute I'd put a thick blanket in my bag (love my big red bag!) so I folded it over, put it under a table on the side of the room and he lay down on it.  Within a few minutes he was asleep!


During the formalities they read out the purpose of the Lion's Club.  It is an impressive list covering individual, community and international goals.  And the contributions made by the three clubs that were meeting tonight over the past 12 months were really impressive!  It's a great organisation!


The Little Big Fella woke about three quarters through the evening and just wanted to lay down and go back to sleep but couldn't.  I tried to settle him but it wasn't working so I ended up leaving and bringing him home.  He fell asleep in the car on the way home - about a 2 minute drive by the time I started the car, drove home, opened the gate and shed and pulled in.  I guess he was tired :-)


Speaking of tired, I am!  So goodnight!  Thanks for reading and I will "see" you soon :-)

TV-less funny faces

I know I've said it before, and it's likely to be slightly boring to you guys, but I am completely blown away by the fact that people from around the world are reading my blog!  Apparently I have some new readers from Kenya and Brazil this week, and a few people in Russia who seem to be regulars.  Knock me out with a feather people!  G'day to all of you who are not in Australia, by the way! Thanks for reading and making my day :-D


So, what have we been up to these past few blog-less days?  I was going to say nothing much but then I looked at my phone and realised we've done a little bit.


Yesterday we had our first completely TV-free day in ages!  I know, I'm a terrible mother ;-)


The reality is, TV helped us get through 6 months without a husband/Daddy at home and then we just got into the habit of having it on at various points in the day or when I was completely stressed out.  So no, I won't be apologising for that.


But, we did have a TV-free day and I think it nearly killed us :-D  I have been a super-grumpy bum the last few days and I'd swear it was extra-bad PMS or something except it's the wrong part of the cycle for that (sorry if that's too much info).  I've been very easily frustrated and feel like everything I'm attempting is way harder than it should be.


So, of course, the Little Big Fella reacts to that.  That, and he's 3!  Whoever says terrible twos are the worst hasn't had a three year old yet!  They're really good at pushing the limits :-)


But, besides that, I've been in the garden trying to get rid of the huge amount of prickles and weeds.  Today the Little Big Fella helped me whipper snip (I had to keep reminding myself not to get annoyed because we were having a bonding moment and he was enjoying it) and I mowed.  I'm seriously thinking of getting a ride-on mower.  Although, I probably got more exercise today than I've had in a while :-D


We also did some crafty learning yesterday.  I got the glue stick, a piece of paper and some foam shapes out and let the Little Big Fella at 'em!  He loves glueing.  As he was going I helped him learn his shapes and review his colours (in a fun kind of way - "what colour should we do next?  Oooh!  What shape is that?  Can you see an orange triangle?").

And we played funny faces with my phone camera.  It's one of our favourite games.  (Don't mind the "at-home" face and hair ;-).)

Even with bits of apple all over his face, he's pretty cute :-D

Oh!  And it's been COLD!  Like around 5 degrees overnight!  And it's not even winter yet!!!  The houses here are not built for those kinds of temps!!!


The Little Big Fella ran out of cold-weather clothes (he has 3 or 4 pairs of long pants and two jumpers (sweaters for you lovely Americans), and they all happened to be in the machine or on the line... oops!) so I got on eBay and bid on nearly everything I saw in his size.


Then I realised that I didn't need that many pants and jumpers for him so I had a serious case of bidder's remorse.  Thankfully I didn't win them all!


So hopefully the post office will have some parcels for us this week!  Yay!  I love parcels :-D


Other than that, it's been normal housework, playtime, puppy training, cooking (the Little Big Fella loves cracking eggs!), collecting more rocks for our garden and playing at the park.  I like my life :-D