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Welcome Billy, born at 2.01am on 30 September 2009

Beautiful Billy

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Weekly Winners #2 – Still Awesome

Well despite the football loss (and expected moodiness) and then a rip roaring case of nits and a secondary case sported by girl-child leading to a later than planned night after de-nitting the hair of two beautiful girls, the weekend is still awesome.  Look here area few photos of the awesomeness of today.

After breakfast we wandered along the river looking for creepy crawlies.  The crabs didn’t want to come out to play but there were bajillions of starfish to catch.  Girl-child even gave her starfish a kiss before saying goodbye to it.  Of course I was too busy taking photos to notice the disgustingness of it!  Then there were the dragonflies that were as big as the kids hand just resting on the rocky ground followed by games of statues under the train bridge.  Of course there was the real statue, the statue of the Heavenly Queen.

Starfish Smiles

Kissing Stars?

A HUGE Dragonfly

Shooting Statue

Girl Statue

The REAL Statue - the Heavenly Queen

Photographic proof of a great weekend and the wonderful area in which I live.

Awesomely Awesomeness

It has been a while since I have loitered in these parts and normally the reason for my hibernation is that I feel like the whole world is going to implode, either that or my head is going to explode and I feel like crap and am sick of complaining all the time.  Well today things are different.  I have been away because I have been busy, insanely busy, but I am happy.

It is the middle of the afternoon on Father’s Day.  The house is momentarily quiet, boy-child has wandered over to a friend’s house to watch a movie and man-child has taken girl-child to visit a friend during half time of the football.  Of course all that peace and quiet will shatter in minutes when man-child returns to watch the rest of the football.  The awesomely awesomeness of the week may will change depending on the score of the football.  Currently his team, Collingwood is 10 points down but by the sounds of the sporadic cheering and shouting it sounds like it is a great match.  Of course that is half time down according to the TV and delayed telecast when in actual fact his team is currently 4 goals behind (24 point) at three quarter time.  I am making the most of my good mood by posting now rather than this evening when I am listening to his melancholy mopy moodiness.

So I hear you say, what has made me be in such a good mood?  Surely it can’t be work?  Well as strange as it sounds, I have been working insane hours and haven’t even had time to follow blogs.  Instead of working my typical 6 hour days and then going home to the kids I have had a few 12 hour days.  Sure they aren’t typical days, they have included dinner functions.

One of the dinner functions I was fortunate enough to be invited to a Ramadan celebration.  Now I am not a religious person at all, in fact I am quite oblivious to religion and what it involves but I do appreciate the sense of community and belonging that it can foster.  I admit that I was apprehensive before going to the dinner, so apprehensive in fact that I drove 30 minutes in the opposite direction to be able to travel to the dinner with colleagues!  I needn’t have worried, the other dinner guests (there were a few hundred more of them) were all wonderful and welcoming.  There were many different presentations throughout the night, as well as time for the practicing Muslims in the group to pray at the appropriate times.  I have to say that not only was the food amazing, but the evening was educational too.  I managed to learn more about the Muslim religion and culture in one evening than I have learnt in many years.  I was also pleasantly surprised that instead of being annoyed at my ignorance, the people I was sharing a table with were happy to explain elements of their belief to me and even to point out similarities between the religions of Islam and Christianity.  I had a thoroughly enjoyable evening and it has left me wanting to learn more about religions and the communities that they foster as a result.

The second after hours work function was at an award ceremony, celebrating volunteers within the community.  My boss had encouraged me to nominate a volunteer that I have worked with this past year.  Another cross-sectorial colleague nominated the wife of the person I nominated.  Together we were very apprehensive, the nominees are selfless volunteers within the community and feel that they have already been recognised for all of their tireless work through the smiles and thanks of the people whom they constantly assist, that they really didn’t want or need to be recognised publicly.  That said, together they did win an award celebrating their excellent work within the community.  In their thank you speech, they were very humble and grateful for the award and recognition but again emphasised that they has already been recognised for their work by their friends in need.  It amazed me at just how selfless a family can be, I wish there were more families like theirs in fact I wish I wish I could be more like them.  Hopefully some of their beauty can rub off on me and I will also become a better person.

Speaking about families, have I mentioned that my family is ace?  Yesterday was a nothing day.  I say a nothing day because we had nothing planned but much to do.  Nothing exciting, grocery shopping and shoe shopping that involved a detour to a local park, watching the kids (all three of them) running wild and burning off excess energy and for me a chance to lie in the sunshine again.  It was relaxing and enjoyable, surprisingly it was even productive.

That brings me to today, Father’s Day.  It has become a tradition of sorts to catch up with friends for brunch.  We used to spend many a day together relaxing at the beach, playing in parks or exploring museums but with moves to different suburbs, additional children and now kids at school every day, the time to catch up is few and far between.  We made the effort today, well actually they made the effort to come over and eat at one of our local cafes.  Again the food was delicious, the company was great and the following walk along the river was enjoyable.  The kids spent the afternoon splashing about in the hot tub until the football began.

Man-child is the only one of us interested in the teams playing today. Actually he is the only one interested in the footy so everyone else drifted away, younger kids to have a sleep and older kids to play with other friends.  Me, I get an hour or two to catch up, get dinner ready and just enjoy the afternoon.

The football is about to end (in real life) and the scores aren’t in man-child’s favour.  We have friends coming over for an impromptu dinner so the mopiness will be improved by the great company.  It should be the perfect way to finish a great week.

In other news of awesomely awesomeness, friends have just travelled to the Philippines to complete their family.  After many many years of waiting their family of three is now a family of four as they brought home a beautiful little 2 year old boy to share their hearts, their home and their lives.  I am so happy for them that each time I think of them or see photos of them I am so overcome by happiness and love that my eyes well up and my chest feels like it is going to explode, I am over the moon happy for them.

Weekly Winners

It has been a crazy weekend and I am tired.  Instead of writing about the entire melodramatic weekend I am taking my lead from Trish over at Little Drummer Boys and posting a few photos instead, my weekly winners – all of which were from the weekend.

Time for Golf

My boys heading off for a hit of golf.

See Saw

Girl-child enjoying the fear, shock exhilaration of a real, old school see saw.

Feeding the Horse

Boy-child (and girl-child too) fed a horse for the first time.   They named the horse Big Guy.

Jumping for Joy over the Fairy Houses

Girl-child was having such a great time exploring the area that she danced around everywhere and jumped for joy.

So these are only a few of the many photos of the weekend.  The weekend wasn’t quite what we had planned, but it was fantastic none the less.

Lake Nagambie

It looks like we will be heading back here in the not too distant future.

Holiday Fun?

I used to love school holidays with endless lists of fun things to do, school holiday programs and the kids begging to go to my parents for a holiday.  It used to be that there were far too many things to do and not enough days in the holidays to enjoy all that was on offer.  The last school holiday period was exhausting to say the least, with broken arms, hospital stays, raging fevers, infections and of course chicken pox.  I managed to use up most of my leave and all of my sick leave just surviving the last lot of holidays, as a result, my love of the school holidays is not so great.  Finding a holiday program that suits both kids, that is near by and is affordable is harder than I ever imagined.  Of course trying to find a balance between working almost full time hours and keeping the kids entertained is near on impossible but somehow we seem to have survived.  Today is the last day of school holidays and tomorrow it is back to school and some sort of normalcy around here I hope.

I feel like I haven’t done anything special with the kids this holiday.  In fact it has been so spectacularly ordinary that I am miles behind on the kids blog and need to play catch up.  It is time to flick through the photos to actually see where we have been and what we have been doing.  Here goes another bullet list!

 

• We played changing rooms (again).  The kids are sharing a bedroom again, apparently forever because they like being able to keep each other company.  They are sharing primarily to make room for a gorgeous student who has been staying with us for 3 weeks and will be here for another week.
• We had a girl’s morning out, looking at the Barbie Forever exhibition and making our own Barbie dolls.
• We celebrated man-child’s birthday with too much cake and a trip to the Healesville Sanctuary.
• The girl’s began another craft project but I haven’t had the time nor the energy to help them finish them, perhaps one day after school they will be completed.
• We celebrated hair cut day, with both kids and two of their friends getting their hair cut.  Boy-child is devastated that his hair is now too short.  He was after short back and sides with long hair at the top and front that he can constantly sweep to the side, emo style.  Now it is short all over, really short and he isn’t a happy chappy!  
• We visited Harbour Town.  Of course with kids in tow their was no time for shopping but they did get to play on the carousel and chase ’snow flakes’ (bubbles).
• The school holiday program we found was fantastic, albeit expensive and negating the concept of working to have extra cash!  
• Sharing the love of Ikea with the kids.  Now they not only love visiting the store and climbing through the displays, they also like making the items purchased AND know how to follow the instructions to build the item correctly.
• Throw in a few birthday parties, a few tantrums and lots of late nights for everyone and I am really, really looking forward to school starting back tomorrow, I might be able to rest a little (or at least settle back into a routine of madness and insanity).

Hooray for bullet lists and photos, I now feel like the kids haven’t been neglected all holidays.

So what should we do to for the last day of the holidays?  Do we go out and try and find something special to do or do I leave the kids to their own devices and listen to them play Harry Potter over and over again?  I wonder if I can convince them that they need a nanna nap this afternoon?

My ‘Old’ Man

Today my man was able to add yet another year to his age and is now at the ripe old age of 36.  Now naturally having a birthday requires celebrating and in our case, 2 days of celebrating.

Last night it was time for a lamb roast with my family (because having dinner with your outlaws just what every man wants for their birthday!) followed by cakes – butter cake, brownies and shortbread.   Far too much food was followed by presents a day early.  The kids had helped me shop for gifts – Star Wars lego and Space Police lego.  Man child is lucky that he loves lego and that his birthday coincides with the major toy sales.  Of course he had purchased himself the birthday present he really wanted, an iphone.  

My Wonderful Family

Today we all traipsed out to Healesville to go to the sanctuary.  The rain held off but it was a mighty cold day and we were all rugged up and wearing beanies.  Now man-child looks great in hats but when he wears a beanie he looks like a thug, more than ever when he is sporting a beautiful shiner.

 

The Shiner

 

 

Now of course he is a gentle giant and the shiner is a result of an elbow vs the eye socket during a game of basketball and quite clearly the elbow won.

Happy 36th birthday man-child.  I have had a wonderful weekend with you and our amazing family.  Shiner or not I love you and hope that you had a wonderful birthday too.

A Weird Weekend

This is going to be a very brief post, a summary of the weekend, to just get some info out into the big wide world.  

Firstly, ANZAC day, a day that I love to share with family and friends watching the march on TV feeling patriotic and proud to be Australian.  In a diverse football home were man-child follows Collingwood and boy-child follows Essendon, the traditional ANZAC day footy match is always going to be on the TV.  It is also a great opportunity to invite a few like-minded friends over to watch the game.  I lasted until around 11.30am and went upstairs to bed.  I was feeling exhausted and my back was aching when I stood for more than a few minutes, then hurt when I sat for a while.  

Bed was clearly the best place to be.  I read and slept off and on for about 4 hours.  When I finally wandered downstairs, the game was almost over.  The house was full of people all laughing and joking and having a great time.  We sat around eating and drinking until around 8.  By 8.11pm, I was back in bed and not far from sleep.  I stayed in bed until almost 10 this morning and still I was tired and uncomfortable but there was no more time for sleep, it was time to get ready to head into Docklands to see Dralion, Cirque du Soleil.  

The day out with the family was fantastic, despite the freezing cold wind and the rain.  Dralion was amazing.  The performers were spectacular.  They made every movement look effortless and after my year of circus classes with girl-child a year or 2 ago, let me you that the skills they made look simple are far from that.  I truly can’t describe the beauty of the show.

After the show we came home to spend the afternoon quietly pottering, the boys playing chess and the girls attempting to be crafting.  They kids were exhausted after a huge weekend for them, so they were happy to go to bed even earlier than anticipated.  

Man-child and I were just settling in to watch the grand final of So You Think You Can Dance (go Talia) when the phone rang.  It was the home phone so that meant that it was either someone selling something or his family, either way I wasn’t going to answer the phone.  He can’t sit there and listen to a phone ring, so he answered it.  It was his sister calling to tell us that his dad had died.

So here I am, sitting at home, feeling kind of deflated.  Not exactly sad, he was not a nice person, but then I feel guilty for not feeling sad.  I am concerned for man-child who is living in turmoil and has to deal with his family.  I feel bad that I am sitting here in comfort enjoying a glass of Chandon and watching dance.

27 Again

Well as of yesterday I am 27 again, and if I can count accurately, I have been 27 for a decade now.  For some reason I have been saying that I am 27 since I was 24.  I can’t remember why, or if there even was a reason in the first place.  From memory, being 27 was a great year so I am sticking with it.  Although it is kind of sad when I have to actually ask my daughter how old I really am!

So the day of my 27th birthday part 10 was actually a pleasant day.  I know that I shouldn’t sound surprised that it was a nice day, but I don’t actually enjoy birthdays.  More accurately, I don’t enjoy my birthday and surprisingly it isn’t about the whole getting old thing, although the latest crop of grey hair appears to be impervious to hair dye.  Grey hair and getting old aside, I don’t know why I don’t enjoy them, perhaps it is the feeling of anticipation combined with a fear of disappointment.  That doesn’t really sound right – nothing bad or overly disappointing has ever happened but it is an underlying emotion that I feel.  Perhaps it is all of the attention that birthdays bring, I really don’t like being the centre of attention.  I am much more happy skimming under the radar whenever I can.  

All of the extra attention is occasionally nice, but generally it is irksome, particularly when it involves phone calls and small talk about how wonderful the day is to people who don’t really care, yet feel obliged to call.  Facebook has a lot to answer for, more people actually remember birthdays now that a reminder pops up on their home page.  Fortunately most Facebookers just send messages rather than call.  I like messages, messages are good they show that people are thinking but not imposing.  

I have just re-read what I have written and I sound like a total prat and truly I am not, well not all of the time.  Perhaps it is best said that I don’t do small talk and to me, birthdays (particularly when they are your own) involve small talk.  Don’t get me wrong, I love talking, I just don’t feel like talking for no reason to a person that generally doesn’t care what the response it.  Crap, I am sounding like a prat again.  I will just move on to why yesterday was a particularly pleasant birthday.

The day started off with some sleep, boy-child slept from midnight until almost 7.30, so I managed to sleep too.  I was annoyed at waking for no reason at 6.30, but I did enjoy peace and quiet for a few minutes before the day began.  The morning was just like any other holiday morning, only quieter as girl-child had stayed at a friends house.  I did what any other normal parent would do, I celebrated by cleaning her room.

After an early lunch we wandered up to get girl-child and bring all the kids back here for a play.  The boys did their own thing on the Wii and the girls were drawing pictures.  They went over to the park to be able to draw in peace.  I was still in girl-child’s room, so I could watch them wandering back and forwards getting more supplies.  Eventually they came to get me to help them ‘carry something heavy’.  I grabbed my camera and over I wandered.

This is what I found stuck to the pillar in the middle of the park.  

The kids and their friends were hiding behind the pillar and jumped out to ’surprise’ me.  I love kids, they are what makes birthdays special.  They then told me that we were having a party, ‘do you have any party food we can use?’  So it was back home to chop up some fruit, cook some popcorn and open some chips.  Grown-up friends arrived during this impromptu party and the bubbles were opened.  Next thing I knew, another friend dropped by with all the makings for gourmet pizza.

Before I knew it, we were all sitting around around the table drinking bubbles, nibbling cheese and crackers with quince paste and devouring divine pizza – pumpkin, caramelised onion and feta with rocket – delicious.

 

Delicious Bocconcini and Basil Tomatoes

 

Fantastic Pumpkin Pizza

 

Of course that was followed by cupcakes for all.

Looking back, it really was a spectacularly fine birthday.  

Tonight the ‘celebrating’ continues, with more delicious food – slow baked lamb roast with the neighbours.  I am starting to like birthdays, but why do we have to wait for a birthday to have such fun?

A Birthday Weekend of Weather Reports

Well we have had 3 days of birthday celebrations in excessive heat.  I know I have mentioned it over and over and over again, but we are in the heat wave of a century. This is the heat wave and how it has affected me and my family

• OK, so the excessive temperatures are obvious, but there has been no breeze to cool things down.  Without air conditioning that works, the kids have been sleeping on the sofa in our room under the only air conditioning vent that works.  Fortunately the room is large enough to fit us all.  However as the air con doesn’t really cool our area of the room, we have been sleeping with ice packs in our pillow cases to cool us down enough to sleep.
• Stifling heat lifts out the smell of stale cat urine – HOORAY!
• Random power shortages sometimes have beneficial side effects – if there is no power to allow the use of a computer at work, I can’t do any work!  (OK, so I did have my laptop there, but that is not the point, going home is much better!)  The down side, not knowing how long the power will be down, should we fill the esky with ice just in case or ride it out?  Do I try and conserve battery power on the laptop?  Hmmm, what if it goes on all night, where are the candles?
• Public transport, what public transport?  If it wasn’t the power shortages that were causing the delays, trains were cancelled because the tracks were buckling in the heat.  Despite dire water shortages, tracks were watered to try and cool them to prevent damages.

These were the issues that had impact on us, the heat hit the whole state hard and some of the major issues are listed in this news article.  Today it was cooler and apparently storms were supposed to hit.  It wasn’t much cooler but it was better, although the humidity picked up today so instead of oppressive heat, it was sticky heat.

But enough about my weather report, despite this we have had a fantastic extended birthday party, beginning with a bacon breakfast and a cake cook-up.  3 cakes were made, the first for the birthday day birthday cake, a second for when extended vance came to visit and boy-child insisted on a gluten free cake for me too (isn’t he just adorable).  OK, so I said it was time to shut-up already about the weather, but it is mighty hot cooking during a heat wave.  Once the oven was turned off, it was time to hit the swimming pool, along with about a half of the city.  It was packed, but the bonus with a packed pool is that heaps of the kids friends were there so they had a great time.

In typical superRelish birthday tradition, the person celebrating their birthday gets to choose dinner.  So it was off to a local kid-friendly restaurant.  Even though I knew the kids meals were likely to be little more than chips, I thought that this was a much better option than last year’s birthday request – broccoli and pumpkin!  The birthday day was completed with cake at home.

The weekend followed in similar fashion, overeating and having fun with family and friends.  I am sure I could write more about the weather and the food that I ate, but no, So You Think You Can Dance is back – HOORAY!

Happy Days

Today is Australia day, a day that celebrates the arrival of white people in Australia a couple of  hundred years ago.  It is a day that is celebrated or protested Australia wide.  Whether you agree or disagree, celebrate or protest, for most it is a day off work.  My opinions of whether Australia Day is a day to celebrate or commiserate aren’t fully formed, so instead of spouting inaccurate political guff, I will instead write about what Australia Day is in my little world.  For me, it is simple, it is a day to spend time with family and friends, celebrating all that is wonderful in this amazing country of ours.  

We began this gloriously sunny day at Windy Hill, home of the Essendon Bombers football team.  Now this isn’t a typical activity for our family as we all support different teams (and the team man-child supports is feral isn’t very supportive of other teams), but it seemed like something fun and new to do.  We were meeting friends there and planned to watch some of the first open training session of the season and hopefully boy-child would get a chance to meet a few players and score a few autographs.  

The day began with a rousing rendition of Advance Australia Fair.  As usual, as the singing began, I choked out the first few words and then a lump formed in my throat and I was holding back the tears.  It doesn’t matter where I am that I hear the anthem, my heart swells and my body fills with pride.  It makes me realise that no matter where ever I am, I am an Aussie and damn proud of it.  I love that we live in a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic community that welcomes and embraces everyone irrespective of ethnicity or creed, it makes me proud.  

What better way to continue celebrate this amazing country and the people in it than by sharing the day with family and friends relaxing, eating, drinking and listening to music.  

Happy Australia Day