Things I Know - Brought to us by Yay for Home...

Yay it's Friday and time for Things I know!! I missed it last week and am glad to be back!!

This week I know:

* At this moment I am supposed to be showered, getting dressed, jumping in the car and meeting my hubby at a friends place to pick him up and get some shopping done as I will be car-less from 1pm

* The above is less important than making sure I don't miss my Things I know post this week..... not sure Woodi will agree :o)

* Waking up one morning and finding wrinkles have crept in and must be dealt with IMMEDIATELY has lead to the realisation that just cleansing morning and night isn't enough.....

* The above has also led to numerous deliveries from Mr Postman and a new morning and night regime`

* It is difficult getting used to putting effort into your own appearance when all your time goes into your kids and a beauty regime` was thought to be something for models, celebrities and older (yes I'm in denial about my aging) women.

* News from my Brother in QLD has me wanting to move back..... like yesterday!

So what do you know today..... other than if I don't move my butt I'm going to have one crank hubby on my hands??

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

Wordless Wednesday with My Little Drummer Boys

It's Wednesday!! That means it's time to link up with the Lovely Trish at My Little Drummer Boys for Wordless Wednesday :o)

Hunter Valley Commodore Cruise for Charity - Jeans for Genes Day

Happy Wordless Wednesday xox

5 reasons not to leave lunchbox unpacking until the next day!

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In case you are ever tempted to leave the mundane duties of emptying the childrens lunch bags until the following morning, I thought I would share with you 5 reasons NOT to!

1. The night of abandoned lunch bag duties is likely to be a night where you are up all night with little children who refuse to sleep in their own bed, with little sleep for all involved. This resulting in the snooze button being hit 1,2,3,4,5 several times before turning the alarm off altogether.
2. This will be the morning when one child failed to replace the lid on the sauce container before packing it away the day before. Resulting in a sauce explosion through the lunch bag coating everything left inside.
3. This will also be the occasion when the other child opens their yogurt at school, takes a mouthful and decides the content is no longer desirable, choosing to place it back in the lunch bag instead of the bin. This also resulting in a lunch bag explosion, this time of the yogurt variety.... oh the joy!
4. The last two will result in the children needing to examine the damage as yet another delay tactic in not getting dressed for school. Because just what you need when up to your eyeballs in yogurt and sauce is to be fighting with your kids every-step-of-the-way to GET DRESSED!!
5. All of the above will have you running out of time to get dressed and groomed yourself, resulting in you leaving the house in hubby's old tracky daks (cos you miss him and slept in them and your sad like that), a jacket thrown on to cover the bra-less state and hair swept up into a bun in a failed attempt to disguise your unbrushed hair! And the scenario wouldn't be complete with the argument with the above children about why we cannot walk to school this fine morning!! Umm, hello?!! Have you looked at your mother???

This experience has provided me with the wisdom, that no matter how tired and over it all you are because your husband has been away with work and the kids have been little ratbags (or whatever the situation may be) and you just want to go straight to bed..... Do not leave this "little" task for the following morning..... it's just not worth risking the above!

30 Day Mom/Mum Challenge progress report

lol that sounds kinda serious for something so sweet! On the 1st August I started a 30 Day Mom/Mum Challenge that I found on Pinterest, you can see my post on it here. I thought I would give a little update on how it's working out for me...

Day 1 - We decided to go to Dizzyland one day this month, I wrote about this in the above post :o)

Day 2 - I thought it would be pretty difficult for me, turns out I breezed through it. Though I'm not sure it's something to be proud of, instead of finding a better way of dealing with the issues that normally have me yelling at my kids I was more like tuning the behavior out.

Day 3 - Such an easy one for me, I naturally hug and kiss all my children many times throughout the day. It was good though to make sure that I was hugging each one as much as the other rather than just grabbing on to whoever is closest to me - which is my normal practice and might not always work out fairly.

Day 4 - This one actually put me back a day, I was sooo exhausted that I believe I fell asleep before my kiddies stopped chattering. But I did manage to kiss my sleeping cherubs the following night.

Day 5 - This one I do from time to time but probably not often enough, it can be so easy to forget how young our children are, to treat them their age and not have to high expectations of them. It was good to focus on this again.

Day 6 - I bought the ingredients to make LCM Bars, the are always asking for them at the shops and LOVE them. Unfortunately they are just too expensive for us to buy on a weekly basis. So I looked up a recipe to try making them at home.

Day 7 -

Today my mission is to calculate how many weekends left until my children graduate.... I will have to let you know what I come up with. I have also made the LCM bars and can't wait to see what the girls think when they get home :o) If they are a hit I will post the recipe xox

Belated Slimming Down Sunday...

Well I had a shocker last week :o( I'm disappointed to say that I didn't achieve a loss - although my pants and tops are all a little roomier. I am relieved to say though that I didn't gain any weight, meaning I didn't break my promise to myself of NEVER tipping those scales over the 100kg ever again.

The week started off well until we hit Wednesday evening, we had spent the day at a funeral and the wake into the evening. I was fantastic there, stuck to my water and protein..... but in the car on the way home the weight of everything fell on me and I caved - BIG TIME! And then of course I fell into the usual patterns of negative attitude of failure. "Oh well, I've stuffed this week up anyway so we may as well...." you can insert just about anything not good for you in there and I probably had it :o(

I know I was just being weak and using events and emotions as excuses for my bad choices! But I am owning and acknowledging and hopefully going to overcome this flaw in myself. I have decided to start this week with a 3 day detox again on the Body Trim System. For me it's a horrible time to be starting this, Woodi is away from early this morning until Wednesday afternoon on some 'Team Building' thing for work.... more like drinking, eating and having a good time if you ask me.

So this week is going to be hard for me, and such a BIG part of me was saying "It will be too hard this week, I'll just have (another) week off and start again when Woodi gets back". But I knew that this was just giving in to my weakness again and letting events be my excuses for bad choices. I have started the detox today and am willing myself to succeed, knowing if I can get through this, I will be stronger in the face of future challenges! It honestly doesn't help knowing Woodi has left 2 chocolate bars and a bottle of coke in the fridge... 2 of my hugest weaknesses right there! I know he would have been thinking it would be good for me to have something on hand for a parental meltdown moment while he is away, but I am using them as inspiration to impress him when he gets back and see's they're still there - fingers crossed!

I wish you all strength and success on your weight loss journeys this week and could really use some myself xox

Things I Know - Brought to us by Yay for Home...

I Loved Shae's Things I know - My Mentally Sexy husband Edition you really should go have a read and link up what you know :o)

This week I know:

* This week has been so huge, including today that I almost thought I wouldn't get to attend one of my fave bloggy link-ups! But I'm here :o)

* This beautiful weather has been such a lovely sneak preview of Spring , my kids and I are loving it!! I know some of you have yet to experience this warmer change, and I hope it is headed your way real soon!

* A Funeral and the Celebration of a life lived and lost is a sad but amazing way to find some much needed perspective on life. I am grateful for the wisdom I took away from my Uncles Funeral this week.

* At times it feels as a Mum you can never win or keep everyone happy, but truthfully it doesn't take much to make a child smile and feel loved & special. The way my kiddies faces light up when I arrive to volunteer or watch them perform at their school makes my heart sing. I am amazed how one simple act from me can hold so much pride and happiness from them.

* It also doesn't take much to make another child happy or feel special. This week helping out the Kindy's at the Athletics Carnival was such an amazing experience. I know that not all Mums and Dads have the leisure of making it to these events and wish they could, and I know how hard it can be on a kid to not have them there. It didn't take much to extend myself to these kids, to cheer them on, give them Hi-5's and even a hug when they needed it. Seeing these little cuties having a go and looking over to see if I'm watching, and then watching their faces glow when they saw my smiles and encouragement filled my heart with so much warmth. I definitely took away much more than I gave :o)

* It is amazing how much love, joy and happiness can fill your life when you remove the negativity and the people who weigh you down. Everyone deserves to be loved, treated with respect and without judgement, and we shouldn't be made to feel guilty for wanting to be treated so. Many doors are waiting to be opened, and I am enjoying those that are opening in my life. I truly am surrounded by wonderful people and opportunities :o)

I love hearing what you all know, Have a wonderful weekend xox

There's hope for me yet...

Image found on Pinterest

I've always known the kind of Mum I want to be or felt I should be, but always doubted my ability to live up to my high hopes. I've always looked at these awesome school and sporting Mums that do so much with and for their kids and then some. I hoped and wished I could be even slightly like these mums, but didn't hold much hope for myself.... I mean there are days where getting out of bed seems almost impossible, so being an active part of my girls schooling, social and sporting lives really seemed like some far off dream.

But this last fortnight has shown me I don't need to hope and dream, I just need to keep on being me! I am a great Mum and what I do with and for my kids is working for them. I don't need to worry about what other Mums are and aren't doing, some may be more organised and capable, but what I do, I do well. (Please don't think I am tooting my own horn here. I'm not a person who thinks very highly of myself, but have come to realise "I'm OK")


At the beginning of the year I volunteered for the canteen, the usual is once a month but our poor canteen is very short on volunteers, so I offered to do once a fortnight. Loo is in care on Thursday's so it is nice to be able to give this time for my Twins at school. In term 2 the kindy classes requested parent volunteers for 'Structured Play' groups. With only having 1 free day a week (and that being booked with canteen), I didn't put my name down and my girls were devastated. I felt like the worst Mum on the planet with the tears and hurt feelings because their Mum wouldn't be in the classroom when other Mums were!!

This term notes came home from Kindy again for both Structured Play and reading groups, learning my lesson and still feeling guilty I put my name down for both! I'm lucky enough to have a young family, so even though my Mum works full time and can't help out with Loo, My Grandma and Grandad are still young enough and very eager to look after Loo :o) So on Mondays Loo loves going to GG's and Grandpa's after lunch for a lovely little visit, allowing me to go do 'Structured Play' for Moo & Boo. Reading Group is only for a half hour in the morning, so I put my name down for the Thursday as I'm already there and figure the canteen can do without me for half hour.

This past fortnight has been pretty huge for me, my first 'Structured Play' Day and the twins 1st Parent Teacher Interviews were last  week with play dates and sleep overs too. This week I had Structured Play on Monday, (A funeral Wednesday making the week seem even bigger), Today was the girls 1st Athletics Carnival... I figured I'd be there anyway so why not put my name down to help out and then tomorrow Kindy to Yr 2 are performing at a Shopping Centre for Education week, so I will be Trekking up there to watch that of course :o) It has all been fun and enjoyable, but has been a lot! I'm not one that could keep up this momentum for a long period of time and I'm thankful that things will be back to normal next week!

The feedback I have received at the Interviews and from my days of volunteering from both teachers and other parents has helped me to look at myself in a kinder light and acknowledge that I do what I can, when I can and when I do it, I do it well. And that is something I should and can be proud of :o)

Wordless Wednesday ~ A walk to the park ~

Joining My Little Drummer Boys for Wordless Wednesday

30 Day Mom/Mum Challenge - AUGUST

I found and fell in love with this (among with many other wonderful things) on Pinterest and thought I would give it a go :o)

So August will be my 30 Day Mum Challenge!

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Day 1 ~ Asking my kids "What is one thing we can do together this month" was a little painful.... I of course got all the normal answers like painting, play-doh, colouring in etc. It took a while for me to get them thinking a little outside the box. We threw around lots of ideas, from our local zoo, taking a train ride, visiting the Hunter Valley Gardens, catching a plane and decided on visiting a local theme park of sorts "Dizzyland".

The kids are really excited and I can't wait to take them either :o)

Wish me luck for tomorrow - "Go a whole day without yelling at your kids" lol.....