Just for some fun

I did Miss's make up yesterday as she wanted a nice photo of herself so I thought I would do my self at the same time (plus all the kids had some on as well) I took some nice photos of her and she took some of me....the poor girl has no idea how to focus a automatic digital camera and nearly every single photo came out of focus, bless her heart.

But one did come out .....

So this is me at 32......

The kids at the doctor

Eloise had to go see our doctor yesterday just to make sure that her ear was responding to the antibiotics. Matthews chest was sounding yukky so I asked that Matthew could be seen as well (saves a 120km round trip) and he was seen too.

Eloise's ear was still infected so she is on 7 more days of antibiotics, if this still does not clear the infection the doctor was talking possible grommets......

Matthew has a chest infection so he is also on antibiotics for 7 days.....

There was a 20 min wait at the chemist so the kids and I walked around to the local lions park in Rochester to let them have a play, letting Matthew out of his pusher he walked over to the play equipment and stopped. Then I realized that this was his first time on play equipment.....I felt like such a bad mother....He is 2 and this was his first real taste of swings and slides and climbing.
He climbed up on his own and played with the driving wheel and then slid down the slide....He was having a hoot.

Even though we live 50km away from the nearest good park I am going to start taking him more often. Of course it depends on the weather and the price of fuel...
Things like this will be so much easier when we get to Perth....122 days till we fly

Its the flu season...

Another week has gone so quick,
Wed - came out to find that the puter had a hissy and I couldn't even get into safe mode...ahhhhh
Thursday - the computer tech came out and tried to fix the puter but alas no go and I had to reinstall XP so that meant that Jenni lost all her photos...Everything..The school nurse rang and I had to go pick up Eloise early as she had an ear ache
Friday I had Eloise at the doctor with an ear ache, this ending up being and infection/borderline abscess, antibiotics and a return trip next Wednesday
Sat - Miss and I went and did the food shopping without kids, both Eloise and Matthew were full of the flu
Sun -a quiet day at home

My week wrapped up, one good thing is that we have bought the plane tickets, it is now official, we are leaving at the end of Nov.....Its going to come around quick!

Matthew had his assessment

Yesterday was the day that Matthew had his assessment with the SIRT (specialist information referral team) and everything went well. It took about 1 and half hours but Matthew had fun playing some games and now it is a bit of a wait for the results .

How ever just observing and talking to the assessor, he is not that delayed. His fine motor skills and gross motor skills are average for his age. But he is only slightly delayed in his social and communication. He was able to recognize and name at least 2 body parts and name 3 familiar things on flash cards ( car, cat and bird) His words are not as clear as most 2 year olds but he definatly recognized the objects and the words that he used started with the correct letter.
He was also able to follow simple instructions
So this is good news, he will be going on the wait list for the speech pathologist and an education advisor to help with social skills. There has been a new speech therapist start there so hopefully the wait wont be to long.

I also bought a new DVD player as mine blew up.....This means this house has destroyed 3 DVD players in the last 12 months.

We have also made the decision, and I feel so mush better inside with it, that we are all flying to Perth and are putting the cars on a truck....It will cost about the same and instead of a 5 days trip it will only be a 4 hour plan trip. I think the kids will cope better with this and I wont have to worry about my car (which has been a bit temperamental this year) breaking down in the middle of the Nullabour.

Happy 6th Birthday Eloise

Eloise has been counting down until the 15th for ever and yesterday morning she was so excited. It was nice to have some happiness in the house as we found out that on Friday afternoon that Dave's father had died.

Eloise patiently waited all day for her birthday dinner and cake. We decided that the kids would have party food and us adults would have something kinder on the waist.

I made her cake in the afternoon and most of the family from interstate rang, Eloise was a bit disappointed that no presents had arrived for her yet .

Just before dinner she opened up her presents, She received the High school Musical CD and saddle Club sunglasses from Miss and the game Frogs in the Bog from Aunty Jenni and Uncle Dave. Then she received a Horse round up game from Gran and finally monopoly Junior from Talia, Matthew and I. She was pretty happy.

The kids had the usually yummy things for dinner and then came cake. I made a plain cake and put a My Little Pony cake topper on....

we sang happy birthday and Eloise was one happy 6 year old

Happy Birthday

A bit about me....

Now that I have caught up with all the happenings of the last 2 weeks I can catch my breath.
After my little hissy the other week things have settled down and basically gone back to the way things were, this time though Jenni is helping a bit more and I am making a huge effort not to be so obsessive and martyr- ish (is that a word? , well it is now). I am a huge list maker and I like to know what is happening. So I have been leaving everything and just going on my merry way...OMG it has been so hard. I finally had enough the other day and cleaned the puter table when everything fell on top of me.
Dinner times have been interesting as no one knows who is cooking and who is doing the dishes when, but I'm trying my hardest not to make a schedule as I was before. Don't get me wrong things are working out but it is still the case that Jen and I are doing all of the house work. Gee my strike didn't last but I am feeling a lot less stressed.

Other than that I feel good at the moment, all us girls are on WW until we leave to go to Perth and I am doing at least 45 min exercise every day...Alternate days of walking on the treadmill and low impact aerobics. This is making me feel better as well.

The only thing that is bothering me is the housing situation in Perth. There seems to be a huge shortage of rentals due to the 18 month wait for a house to be built (something about a brick shortage) so this has me a little worried. What if I cant get a house, what then....
I am going to start and apply for rentals as of the begining of Oct and if I have to pay double rent for a while I wont mind...But if I have been applying for 6 weeks or so I may just have to re think my plans....

Can you tell I'm a planner? . I like to know what is happening, going to happen and everything in between.

So all in all things are good....

Happy 2nd Birthday Matthew

I know this is a bit late but we have had computer troubles over the last 12 days. It has been in the shop being fixed. During this time I bought out my computer to use and hunted through my packed boxes to find my dial up modem so we could still talk to the world. I found the modem in the last box that I looked in but alas no software disk, I keep them all together for those reason but the only one that wasn't there was the one that I needed...So no modem...No internet.

A kind friend lent us one which came with no cable (I went out and bought a new one) installed the hardware but when I went to install; the software it was not compatible with XP, so that didn't work either, we were destined to be without internet......

Meanwhile the starter motor in my car died.......Surprise, surprise. Luckily my BIL managed to find a recon one and fitted it for me. I managed to come away only $156 out of pocket this time.

The SIRT ( specialist information referral team) finally rang back about getting Matthew assessed for his speech and we had an appointment for Monday the 10th but come Monday morning they rang up and cancelled and we have been rescheduled for this coming Monday, so fingers crossed.

This appointment is only to assess him, once they know where he is they will decide what skills he is delayed in and he will be put on the appropriate waiting list.

Back to Matthews birthday, which was Thursday 6th. I managed to make a cake for him on the spur off the moment and we sang happy birthday and Talia helped him open his presents. Matthew was a bit bewildered with it all.

the girls and I bought him the Play School Everybody sing DVD and a Baby Einstein DVD and a new book. Aunty Jenni bought him a new book and Miss bought him a tonka tow truck which he just loves...

So that has been our 2 weeks, Eloise's 6th birthday is on Sat and she is hanging out for it.