An afternoon in the garden

Yesterday we spent a wonderful day celebrating my niece's birthday at a water park.  We left with 6 very tired and water logged children :) :)
Today the plan was for DH to get up early and go fishing, come home and we would set off for the Lifeline  Bookfest and then spend the afternoon in the garden.  Well we were woken up with heavy rain so DH didn't go fishing, poor him the world is against him going fishing for some reason.  We did go to the bookfest-GREAT!!!.  I love bookfest and we came away with a nanna trolley full of books: MrJ and MrS scored big with heaps of pokemon books.  We got home and I made a cheesey pull apart and we all sat dpwn to check out our finds.
I got a good 2hrs in the garden and now it is half weeded.  I kept finding tiny little frogs so I rescued them and put them in a safer part of the garden that I had already done, poor little things were exhausted hopping away from my whirling dervish weeding action.

Aren't they the most beautiful little creatures?  All the while I was weeding a group of rosellas were in the tree overhead chattering at me.  Not too sure what they were saying but they sure made themselves heard!!!   

Well I had best get MsR to bed, the kids are watching 'Snow Dogs' and she is tired and wanting to have a cuddle.

KINDY!!!!!!

Yesterday was MsR first day of kindy.  I wasn't sure how she would go  Would she run off and enjoy the interaction, pianting, crafts, singing, storytime?   Would she cling to me screaming so they would peel her off me and tell me to go and I would sit in the carpark crying as I heard her sobbing?  Would she be ok but later miss me and cry and wonder if I was coming back?  
She ran off and was very happy to play and said goodbye to me with a wave :)  :(   When I called later in the day they said she was having a goood time and no tears.  When I went to pick her and MrM up he came running over to me as per usual "mummymummymummy I missed you!"  kiss kiss hug hug.  She notchalantly strolled up
Me  "Had a good day?"
Her "Yep.  Did painting.  Thank you for the crackers mumma" 
Me  "Do you like kindy?  Want to come back tomorrow?"
Her  "Yep"
Hopefully it will continue and she will keep enjoying it.  We have had mixed reactions with the others in regards to kindy.  MrJ loved it at first, would run away when I went to pick him up and then decided he didn't like it and spent the next 6m crying and being very sad.  I was on the point of taking him out, much to everybody's disgust 'he needs to know who's boss'  'what about when he starts school'  'you can't let him rule you'  'he's fine he's just malipulating you'  so on and so forth.  About this time he decided he liked it again so problem solved.  MrS and MsH were OK, MrB for the most part liked it but some of the activities he didn't like (inside play on rainy days "too noisey mumma, hurts my ears")   and on those day he would be very sad and poor MrM never settled.  He got to the point where eveyday even before he got out of bed he would ask "is it daycare today?"  normally at 5am.  He was just so upset that we pulled him out.  And again peoples comments!!!   Yes because taking my 2 1/2yr old child out of daycare where he is desperately unhappy so it affects him when he is not at daycare, his stutter gets worse and he becomes extra clingy is your concern how????  Oh thats right by taking him out now at 2 1/2yrs old  he will never learn that he has to go to school/university/work and become a dole bludger????  
A new center opened up and we thought we'd give it a go.  Its a daycare but only for children 3-5yrs and after the initial settling in he is very happy there.  It helps the staff are so nice and it is a very small place, only 2 groups a day of about 20 children each.    MrM is a grasshopper and MsR is now a dragonfly. 
So here is a photo how the lunches look 6.30am on Thursday and Fridays.

Still not feeling well :(

I'm struggling with this ear infection, its mainly gone but the dr thinks that due to the ear swelling it triggered   Bell's Palsy so for the last week I have had the right half of my face not working.  The dr gave me a course of steriods (horrible things: anger, pmt, racing heart, vicious vicious heartburn to name a few side effects )   and said it may or may not get better.  Thanks!    I don't know if its that or what but I have been soooooo sleepy and most days crash after taking the big kids to school, yesterday MrM had a sleep with me but MsR just perched on my hip for 2hrs and watched cartoons while I slept.  And I still crashed out at 9pm!  So apart from sleeping I have been laying on the couch crocheting.   The house is a mess.
On another down side it seems I am an emotional cook, if I am sad or sick my cooking is crap.    Last night I made a pretty passable beef and green beans but the rice OMG!!  1/2 was raw and the other 1/2 gluggy-think crunchy wall paper paste.  I am hoping I do better tonight bbq chicken with mashed potatoes and steamed veg-pretty basic and I don't think I can mess it up.  Fingers crossed.

Editied to add:  Dinner was a success!!!  I even cooked a chocolate self saucing pudding, they licked their bowls clean.

Busy day and lamb kebabs and wraps for dinner.

Today dh and I tackled the jungle that has become our front garden.  Last November we had a whole new greywater system put in and what with rain, rain and more rain the weeds took off.  Some of them would have been over the little ones heads!!  Got about 1/4 done as they were quite easy to pull up due to the fact that it was sandy not hard packed dirt.  Clouds of mosquitoes went on the attack and eventually we had to make a run for it.  Breakfast and then we took MsH to sewing and the rest of us went to the library and the dump shop.  We scored 2 pingpong paddles and a quick stop on the way home and I bought a dozen balls for $2.   After we got home we tackled the house and now the children all have tidy rooms and I scrubbed the bathrooms and toilets.  Lucky me I always get the good jobs.
Tonight for dinner we had a favourite-lamb kebabs and homemade wraps on the bbq.  Deeeeeelish.  Not many scraps left for the chickens tonight.  I forgot to buy tomatoes so there was only lettuce but it was a lovely fresh crispy one not like the bitter ones of late.  We topped it off with a yoghurt dressing.  It seems the children take after me with their love of lettuce and not Dh who thinks lettuce is food of the devil :)
Tomorrow is supposed to be stormy so a day inside hmmm might have to schedual a lego competition...

School Camp

MrS went on school camp yesterday, just an overnighter.  He was very apprehensive but at the same time wanting to go.  Last year he went with his big brother MrJ and the was telling me up to the last that he didn't want to go.  He went and they shared a tent and the camp got rained out!  He went to bed early with a headache and in the night it rained and rained and rained.  The next morning we got to collect the little drowned rats and wash all the wet bedding and clothes!!!!  This time they are in cabins so hopefully things will be drier. 
Wow the difference with one of them gone-the whole vibe of the house was different and poor MrJ missed him :(  They share a room and are quite close, even sleeping together most nights.  So after moping around and keep coming out to tell us he couldn't sleep MrJ finally fell as;eep in our bed.  I turfed him out when I went to bed.  That was an expereince-you try getting a 45kg 160cm child out of your bed when they are dead asleep.  It did no good as he came back a few hours later :)   Big sleepy cuddles.
Can't wait to see him this afternoon and find out what he did. 

I am sick :( :(

Ouch, ouch, ouch.  I have a ripping ear infection in my right ear and the start one one in the left.  Yippeeeee!  I am feeling more than very sorry for myself.  Its still raining and I was going to get into the garden this w/end and weed.  The warm weather along with heaps of rain has meant that the weeds have taken over the garden. Oh it can wiat until next week-means that I can stock up on the aeroguard to combat the mossies.

Went to the fruit and vegetable shop and got a few bargins from the cheap table.  A box of bananas for $3.50 and 2 boxes of assorted veg mainly tomatoes for $2.50 each.  Wonderful!  I ended up making 3 1/2 jars of tomato sauce, roasted the capsicums and pickled the cucumbers.  I only went in there to get lettuce for dinner but ended up changing dinner plans as MrM and MsR requested mushrooms "but you never get mushrooms and I loooooooove them" so dinner of salad and roast potoatoes became mushroom/chicken pizza for the kids and capscicum and chilli for DH and I.  Mmmm I love homemade pizza and we have it quite a bit here.
The house smelt so richly of the simmering tomato sauce.  I froze it as it is a very rare treat as we eat mainly FAILSAFE .  Same for the bananas, will make them into banana cakes and freeze them and dole them out occassionally and the pickles. 
So back to the original plan of salad and roast potatoes for dinner tomorrow.  Big leafy green salad and teeny tiny crunchy garlic roasted potatoes.  Can hardly wait.......

Rain

Its still raining. Dh has been talking to the old sages at work and some say it will continue until mid April. MID APRIL!!! Everything is so wet, we sink to our ankles if we venture out in to the garden-thats if you can wade through the puddles. And the stench, oh my goodness the stink of stagnent puddles and mud-blurgggg. We are lucky enough to have a wrap around covered veranda so the tribe can go out and play even it its raining but the mossies are out in force. The remaining chickens are bedraggled and everything has that sticky feel due to the wet and heat.
Can you tell I am not liking the weather at the moment? Yes our tank is full-we are on tank water-but enough is enough, please let the ground dry out a little Mother Nature.
Anyway life goes on. Today I have a mountain of laundry to put away-the drier has been going all weekend. Normally when it rains I hang up the clothes outside under the veranda but the air is so muggy and damp that they don't dry, so in the drier they go.
Well I'm off to take the big ones to school.

catch up

Mmmmm....did forget again. I really need to do this more often.
OK lets play catch up. I can't believe its March already. We've had 2 birthdays already with one to come next week. I know ever mother says this but gosh time goes so quickly. My eldest mrJ-is so tall, he's as tall as me!!! He got a lizard for his birthday last month. He has named him/her Colbert (after the TV comedian Steven Colbert) Colbert is cute and I am taken by him/her. That with the surviving rat-Brownie, the giant cockroaches, rhino beetle and the 6 monkeys-hehehehe we are becoming a zoo. With mrJ getting the lizard everyone is now earmarking the pet they will get for their birthdays little msR says she wants a guinea pig but I think not so I made her one instead. msH wants a budgie and mrB and mrM wanting new rats or hermit crabs. mrS says giant stick insect. He really wants a dog but we have no fences at the moment and we are a little worried about mrJ's allergies.
well I'd better be off the kids have a friend staying over tonight and there is lots of banging, yelling and screaming from the bedrooms.