My very own Pause for Beauty...

My daughter...
(edited: adjusted brightness & contrast and cropped very slightly)

Ryan will be six so soon!

I've only just got over Toby's birthday and now Ryan's is fast approaching. In 6 more days my biggest boy will be 6. I'm not sure how I feel about it... He's certainly eating like a horse at the moment, and he's seeming more mature, and he has a wobbly tooth... My beautiful blue-eyed boy - in so many ways I still can't believe he's mine...

Ryan's Reading!

Ryan's in the "Reading Recovery" program at school (he's in year 1). Its 20 weeks every day with half an hour one-on-one for reading and writing. On Friday night, he chose "Little Miss Stubbon" to read. I made a comment that I couldn't wait for him to read himself (I don't like reading those books much - no rhythm), and so what did he do???? All the little common words he managed by himself and we did the finger pointing to each word and he was really READING!!!! I was SO thrilled! It took us about 30 minutes to read the book, but I didn't care, cos I was just SOOOOOO proud! :)

Toby's bedthings

Toby was so thrilled with his bedding that Grandma-Lynne gave him, he had to lay it out on the floor right then and there and use it! So precious!

I've also scrapped - there's a few... Laugh out loud:

Little brother:

And Fabrics I love:

Busy! :)

Toby's birthday

Well, Toby had a lovely birthday yesterday - I took a tonne of cupcakes to his family day care playgroup at his carers house and they ate up a storm! We had the same sort of cake for dinner - looked like a giant freckle - and Toby was absolutely stoked - as you can see by the cake all around his face!


We did pressies today and I've got to sort out his cake for playgroup tomorrow. Next is Ryan's birthday and then mine. I think maybe we'll be a bit over the cake thing by 11 March! Anyway, slowly feeling better except for a really tight left shoulder muscle.

dropped off the face of the world

Well, after the busy-ness of last week, and my craft stall on Sunday where I sold 2 bookmarks ($2 total) but had lots of chats with local people coming past, I've now stopped long enough to get a cold. Its been brewing through Ryan for a week or so, and Darren started over the weekend, so now its my turn. Stuffed head, grumpy, tired, a bit achy and just feeling *blergh* really. So I've been avoiding the 'net and just concentrating on the little things - feeding kids, catching up on TV shows, watching Heros (OH WOW do I love this show!!) and trying to get through every day this week when Darren's working 12-9pm every day except Sunday, when he's doing 8-6:30. *sigh* I hate his "late" shift week. With a passion. And having a cold just makes it that little bit harder.

Whinge, whinge, whine, whine! Well, hopefully that's now out of my system!

What a night

What a night we had last night. Caitlyn threw up at about 4:30, including the paracetamol that I'd given her to get her fever of 39.5 down. At about 4:45pm Caitlyn had a febrile convulsion with a full body seizure. I put her on her side, sat beside her and phoned 000 (sounds very calm, doesn't it?? I was absolutely panicking and crying and...) She started to go blue after making some gagging sounds - I threw her over my knee so her head was lower than her body and that seemed to clear everything out of the way. Darren got home from work and the ambulance arrived. She was so hot! You could have cooked an egg on her skin!

I grabbed my purse - the ambo suggested I'd need my medicare card, and that was it - bare feet, dressed in a singlet and shorts, I'm off to the hospital. 5 hours later we were allowed to go home. The magic of paracetamol worked within about half an hour and she was sleeping peacefully for a while. We had to wait on a chest x-ray because they wanted to be sure she didn't have pneumonia and that her lungs were clear of anything she might have breathed in while seizing. Then we had to wait for a wee... Oh, god, convincing a 4 year old to wee on command!!! The option was she go on her own, or she have a catheter. I convinced her this is much less painful doing the wee on her own. Finally she did a wee on a bedpan. But its not a "clean" sample, so I have to collect some more this morning and take it back...

Oh, and my brother & his wife had a little boy yesterday. No name yet. 6 pounds - I don't remember the rest - it was a bit of a blur and quite the last thing on my mind when I arrived home last night at 10 o'clock. ETA: Terrence Fletcher is his name. Overcooked and at home as of Tuesday 20 Feb

Gosh I must be a nice person!

Well! I must really like my friend Anita!! :) I made her THREE tim-tam cheesecakes this evening:



They taste BETTER than they look!! :)

My beautiful daughter...

Lots of pictures today - this is a layout using the same range of papers as Toby's and Ryan's. "A glimpse of the woman you'll become"



And this is a photograph of the gorgeous rose she gave me from our garden... What a sweetheart!



And this is a picture DH took of the double (almost triple) rainbow over our place during the thunderstorm the other night. I've only adjusted the contrast & brightness to get the rainbow more visible... I just wish we'd caught the lightning flash through both rainbows with the camera! That would have been truly spectacular!

Ryan is responsible for the lot of us trooping outside to look at the beautiful Rainbows! Imagine all the Gibb-lets standing outside ooo-ing and ah-ing over the rainbows... ;)

Scrappin' mojo!

Well, I've managed to scrap a couple of pages - so easy with beautiful products... Love this layout, love my bubby boy who isn't so bubby anymore and love my gorgeous hubby in the background with a grin from ear to ear.


Dredged up some old pictures and did them too. Find it hard to do my older photos because I didn't take very good pictures. Anyway, I didn't take these ones, so they "worked"!


Feeling a bit lacking in motivation to do things like clean at the moment. The house is a bit disgusting and I hate it but just can't find the enthusiasm or drive to do anything about it. Will have to tomorrow - I am rostered on for Canteen on Monday and so won't have the day to myself... *SIGH* Might have to drop Canteen this year if I'm expected at the Uniform shop more often. Oh the trials of the full-time Mum!!! LOL

Feelin' better

Well, feeling much chirpier after loads of TLC from darling hubby (and a pack of Love Potions Choc Mud Tim Tams!!).

Did some scrapping:


Madness today - got to get kids off to FDC and Preschool and School - but then I have the day to myself! Yay!

Found this on the wall by my computer this morning:


Its fine as long as it doesn't move and doesn't hide!!

crying

Well, I think its just spilling out - been a really emotional week. I've been offered two jobs and Ryan started school again and I've had to get back into the swing of getting three kids ready in the morning. Hope so... Haven't been sleeping well lately (sometimes I feel like I'm sleeping too much) and have been getting a bit anxious about whether I should be taking a larger dose of Zoloft... Probably just a little blip, not a bump. Just need a bit more sleep. Feeling a bit stressed about money right now too which doesn't help. Behind with a couple of things and feeling like I'm failing as a Mum again - wish I could be as good at the parenthood thing as I am with craft and computers and ... Wish it was a bit more like adding numbers, doing a proof, solving an equation... But it isn't.