We had a blast...

Our trip to the Gold Coast with our Neighbours was fantastic! We had a slow start, Woodi, the kids and I are quite used to the trek to the Gold Coast and usually achieve the trip in 8hrs.... This time however the trip was a bit longer taking 11.5 hours, which I guess is to be expected traveling with a family that also have 3 kids that aren't used to the trek. I'm proud to say that Loo made the (extended) trip nappy and accident free, I was stressing for no reason :)

It was great catching up with our Gold Coast Family and the kids are always so excited to see each other and to get big hugs and kisses off Nanna, Poppy and their Aunties and Uncles. As always we sat up for hours chatting, catching up and having a good laugh.

The next day we went & joined our neighbours and spent the day at Seaworld, despite the disappointment of half the park being closed for maintenance we had a great day! The kids paired up, stuck together and behaved so well. The shows were fun and interesting as always, the weather fantastic and the company even better.

Our next day was a day of relaxation spent around the pool at the neighbours holiday complex, the weather was beautiful and the pool was heated! Friends, drinks, swimming, BBQ, fun and sunshine, you couldn't ask for a better day!!

For our 3rd day we once again joined our neighbours and went to Movie World. It was another a fabulous day with so much more for the kids to do and they had an absolute ball!! I was so proud of all six girls, they paired up again and were beautifully behaved. It was so much fun watching their faces on the rides and during the many shows and performances.

We spent the rest of the week catching up with our Qld family and getting to know it's newest member - our little nephew Lachy :)

We're off to the Gold Coast

Images from www.myfun.com.au

We have been planning a trip away with our next door neighbors and were tossing up between traveling to Dubbo and going to Western Plains Zoo or going North and doing the Gold Coast Theme Parks. The Gold Coast won hands down in the end and we have all been excitedly planning for the past two months. For us the Gold Coast is a wonderful choice because we will spend the weekend doing the theme park thing with the neighbors then stay on for the rest of the week to catch up with all our much greatly missed QLD family!! We also get free accommodation which has allowed us to be able to splurge on the 3 park passes for our visit.
 We leave at 4am in the morning..... provided the neighbors and our little family get out of bed and in the car on time, a mission for all of us! Our plan is to put the girls in the car in their Pj's with our fingers crossed they will go back to sleep (don't know who I'm trying to kid) and then we will have our first stop for breakky around 7.30. We were going to buy like we always do on our road trips to QLD but I decided to pack some cereal, buy some disposable bowls and spoons and a small carton of milk that will fit in our little car fridge/esky. I have bought some grapes, muesli bars, chips, lollies, poppers, cans of drink and some rolls for when we stop for lunch. Hopefully I have the food for travel covered and have saved us a considerable amount of money!
 I am almost packed (one of my least favorite jobs), the kids bags are in the car and I have their Pj's and change of clothes ready. I am just waiting for a load of washing to dry to finish off packing my clothes, as usual Woodi has left his packing for when he gets home from work tonight because it only ever takes him 5 minutes with very little thought or effort - the complete opposite to me!!
 This will be the first time in years we are driving to the Gold Coast during the day, we usually leave late afternoon so that the girls will sleep most of the way. I am hoping that the assortment of DVD's, the girls travel activity packs and the food will make the trip a relatively smooth one. I'm a bit undecided as to what to do with Loo and her potty training. She has been doing fantastic with no accidents for about a month now, and I'm wondering how much of a challenge the trip will be for her. I don't want to put a nappy on her and the potty training go backward. But I also don't want her to be devastated over any accidents, especially if the urge comes at a time we are unable to pull over.... I guess all we can do is give it a go and we'll know for the way home whether a nappy will be needed or not. one of those Huggies disposable change mats would be real handy right now!
 For Woodi and I, I have made several MP3 Cd's for the car, one is music we both enjoy, one with Josh's music and one with mine - you know the one you put on when he is sleeping so he doesn't have to put up with it and vice versa. My sister in-laws always like my travel CD's and usually copy or keep them, so it's always a fun challenge to make them with music that I think is new for them or that they will like, we'll see how I did when we get up there. Well I'm planning on taking lots of photos and having lots of fun so I can post it all here.... So excited, wish I could click my fingers and be on our way with everything successfully packed and a nice clean house to come back to!

Images from www.myfun.com.au

Thankful Thursday with Kate says stuff :o)

First up I wanna say I am Thankful for Kate and her Thankful Thursday link up... I have been having a hard time trying to blog lately but have been wanting to. Today when I opened up Blogger and saw this link up, it was just the "Get Blogging" gift I needed, so thanks Kate!!

I am thankful for:

* Good Days :o) After a week or more of Bad Days that saw yet another Med increase :( It is really nice to be back to a good place.

* The HomeRoutine app on my iPhone! It is fantastic for implementing my Fly Lady Routine and keeping on top of it! I am loving how easy it is to "Fly" with the help from this application!

* The Shift Worker app on my iPhone! Our social calander is filling up rather nicely and I have been planning upcoming holidays and appointments. This application is making it so easy to find out which of Woodi's 3 shifts he will be on at any given time, which makes planning so much easier!! Goodbye to counting out the shifts on a calander :o))

* Wonderful, kind and generous friends :o) We have some wonderful people in our lives who are helping us out with our car situation/s at the moment, for them and all they do I am very Thankful xox

* Our wonderful neighbours and friends, we have been helping each other through several things lately and enjoying some fun social times.... we have some fun things in the works to that I'm looking forward to :o))

* Getting tickets to CMC Rocks the Hunter!!! Woop, woop!! We will be camping at the festival for three days and watching some amazing performances..... and all before my Birthday, meaning I can tick another of my 30 Before 30 list :o))

* Loo recovering from her bout of Potty & Toilet Phobia! She is back on the toilet training trail and has been nappy free (during the days) for a week now with only 2 accidents!! I am so thankful and proud!!

* The wonderful news I received today but am unable to share just yet..... hopefully soon though.

* A wonderful small school with fantastic teachers and having a great relationship with those teachers! Boo's Teacher MissC took me back to their room yesterday after school to have a word with me. Boo was on the Smart Board the other day writing a sentence about their day. When Bella only wrote one word and seemed frustrated MissC took her aside and asked what was wrong. Boo said that the words on the screen were 'glowing' and 'moving'. MissC immediately tried looking for the source of the problem, eliminating light reflections etc and tested Boo with a book. Boo told her that she hasn't had it happen with a book before, only on the Smart Board. So thank you to MissC we now have Boo booked into the optometrist (along with myself and the other 2 girls) to try and solve her vision troubles with the Smart Board.

So what are you Thankful for this week? Head on over to Kate Says Stuff to link up and let us know xox

Painting, painting, painting!

Well I spent pretty much all of my day watching the news about the horrific QLD floods, texting back & forth with my bestie about the disaster & the news we were hearing & praying that the various people we know in the area were safe. Of course this meant a lot of "shhh mummy's trying to watch this", "just go and play", "wait mummy is just sending Joz a message" etc etc....

So when the neighbors girls came back at 2pm as requested by me earlier in the day (in my texting and news watching craze) it was time to start paying more attention to my kiddies and make good on the promises I made the day before. This resulted in me painting 6 sets of little nails - 1 x sparkly light blue, 3 x metallic blue & 2 x red. Also painting 5 little faces!!!

I practiced my sponging technique on my twins and slowly got better with our 3 visitors. Here is the bumble bee my little next door neighbor chose:

And the Rainbow Parrot her big sister chose:

And as repayment for letting me practice on her, she wanted to paint MY face....... being the good sport I am, I did:

Not a good enough sport to put a big picture of my mug on here though lol

It was a nice break from watching the devastation and feeling helpless while so many families are suffering across Australia right now. It's important to make the most of our very good situation here right now!