Archive for » March, 2010 «

Tonights Guests

30 Mar 2010 | By Tracey

We had a random phone call from a nearby town today, asking if there was a caravan park in our sleepy little town(there isn’t – it’s just the school, us and the shop). It turns out that two brothers are cycling across Australia and were in need of somewhere to set up camp for the night.

So it’s not unusual for cyclists to come past here, but these brothers are ding it for a good cause – Vision Australia. You see, the brothers – Dean and Lorin Nicholson – have retinitis pigmentosa, they have less than 10% vision. They left Perth yesterday and reached us this evening – over 400km.

Good on them I say! I’ll be following their journey across the country and we wish them the best of luck for the remainder of their trip.

Edited to add: Just after I blogged about this, I found out that they had just blogged about US! Check it out here: http://www.blindcourage.com/?p=314

Category: General  Tags:  View Comments

Nesting!

29 Mar 2010 | By Tracey

I don’t believe it, I’m actually nesting. I’ve never had the nesting bug before, must be because I am pregnant with a little girly this time.

I had every intention of finishing the bookwork for the business today. Unfortunately a little almost 3 year old got to our computer and goodness knows what he did to it, it’s no longer working :( We are taking it to the city with us on Thursday and there is a guy that works on computers from home that will fix it over Easter for us. Phew.

So with that plan out of action, I managed to fold almost the entire mountain o’ washing. Seriously. I don’t think the mountain has been this small since we moved here in June last year. There are now piles of washing all over the place that need to be homed, but we’re in the middle of moving the kids around and we’ll be able to organise their clothes into the right spots when we’re done.

I completely cleaned out the babies room. We were originally going to put the boy boys in the room down the end, the baby boys in the middle room and the baby girl and stepdaughter in the room next to ours. Instead, we are putting Owen in with the big boys. He is in a toddler bed and they will be going into a bunk bed. The middle room will be the ‘play room’ and the baby girl and Jye can share the room next to ours. We’ll bring in a bed when my stepdaughter comes, she is with us on school holidays only.It’s just getting too messy with the kids having toys in their room.

As I was saying, I cleaned up the babies room. We rearranged the furniture and put up some wall stickers to make it look a bit more lived in. Baby girl’s side of the room looks like this.

The walls are so blah. It’s the same colour throughout the entire place. Also we have no windows in the bedrooms(there is a door in the middle of the back wall that use to access the exterior of the building, but now goes into a store room).

We scored the change table from Freecycle for absolutely nothing. What a find! There are two doorknobs missing thanks to a mischievous 15 month old of mine.

The pink drawers are from Ikea, as soon as I found out we were having a girl I had to get those drawers. Believe it or not they are full to the brim of baby clothes already!

The cot also has green sheets, I know. Jye is still using the cot at this stage.

The wall stickers are  Disney Fairies. I love Tinkerbell, so it seemed fitting. Jye will just have to deal with them for the time being! Haha.

The cot is also from Ikea. It is meant to turn into a toddler bed, but we haven’t gotten that far with it yet. We bought the cot of Owen, so it’s going to have it’s 3rd child using it soon. And we’ll hopefully be able to turn it into a toddler bed for the baby girl when she gets older!

Owen wanted to get into his bed when I went to take pictures! The toddler bed we have for Jye is the same, only his is plain timber. We haven’t got a mattress for it yet. The wall stickers are these cute little jungle animals.

You can see that door on the left there too with the ugly curtain that I’ll replace.

Cute little pink drawer/shelve, I got those on Deals Direct – they are stackable and you can get all sorts of cubes and drawers. They come in a few different colours too.

Then behind the door is the chest of drawers that house the boys clothes. A few boxes on top that have clothes that Jye has outgrown and needs a new home.

Owen was not impressed about me taking his photo. Little grump.

Oh and his awesome Diego blanket was made for him by a friend of mine. He was sooo wrapped with it and has to have it in his bed with him every night.

Then we got about halfway through putting the bunk beds together before it got too late and customers started coming in. We’re hoping to get that done tomorrow.

Anyway, I feel better now because I can finally see things progressing, I just may be organised before I have to leave town!

Category: Pregnancy, kids  Tags: ,  View Comments

Shattered

27 Mar 2010 | By Tracey

Yes, I am absolutely shattered. While I did a lot of prep work yesterday for the dinner tonight, I still spent a solid 8 hours in the kitchen today!

I still panicked that there wasn’t enough food. I am always paranoid when I have buffet dinners to do. But they have eaten and they all said the food was great…phew.

Mind you, I did have everything done by 6.30. It’s also a Saturday night, which means that I still had the regular patrons to cook meals for and also the miner guys that are staying in our accommodation.

My back aches, I can barely walk(more like shuffle), my feet are throbbing…there better be some cheesecake or pavlova leftover for me to pig out on!!

And bless my little darling boys who have been very patient and non demanding today! I missed them though :( My big boys were lovely though and kept the little ones entertained. I love them all so much.

Speaking of kids, Jayden smacked Bailey in the gob(ok, so they were a bit naughty at times lol) today and it knocked his really, really wobbly tooth out. So I’d better go play the tooth fairy before I forget!!!

That’s all that my poor brain can rattle out tonight, sorry for the blah blog post but I thought I’d better update and let you know that I’ve survived.

Category: Business, kids  Tags: , ,  View Comments

You guessed it…

26 Mar 2010 | By Tracey

I’m busy! Do I feel like I’ve gotten anywhere since my last post?

Nope.

My life is a never ending circle of being busy. I took for granted the days when I use to lay about on the couch and play with my babies and watch TV – oh and spending all day in my pyjamas!

Today I shopped(and not the fun type, it was for groceries). That alone took up half the day seeing as it takes almost an hour to get to town. We came home and I had a nap(shush! I’m allowed one, I’m pregnant! :P ), hung out nappies on the line despite the black clouds overhead, picked up the kids from school, tackled half of my mountain ‘o clean washing and peeled potatoes.

We have a function tomorrow night, hence the potato peeling. I’m actually quite proud of myself because I always seem to leave things to the last minute and then spend the entire day rushing and crying because I have soooo much work to do. It’s a buffet dinner, so I have already done the roast chicken(they are in foil bags ready to be reheated), the lasagne needs to be put together and heated up(have done the meat – just need to do the bechamel sauce in the morning),  chicken tortellini needs to be cooked – the sauce is ready to be stirred through. Sushi is ready to be put onto platters, the rest is to be deep fried – salt & pepper squid, seafood parcels, etc. Salads and hot veges will be done tomorrow, pavlova has been topped with whipped cream and just needs decorating with fruit, fruit salad and then everything needs to be set out in the dining room.

So really, there is a bit to do – but fairly easy things and between the two of us it’ll be done in no time(as long as I get a nap in between). Let’s just hope it’s not stinking hot tomorrow.

I have just about finished fixing out business books. Not an easy task but I think it’s sorted now. Sunday I’ll just be going over everything in case I’ve missed anything, but sheesh, I don’t think I could be an accountant. Me and numbers just don’t mesh!

Speaking of business, I’m still working on finishing off my Business Administration certificate that I started at my traineeship. I managed to somehow get an assignment completed and submitted last week – not sure how I managed that – anyhow, my assessor sent me this:

Excellent work Tracey, Well presented minutes in an easy to read format, listed all the legal requirements for the meeting and demonstrated an understanding, a well deserved grade.

Grade: 90/100

Venise

Sooo happy with that! I have another assignment that I need to get my butt into gear on but that will probably get done over the few days ‘off’ that I’ll have when we go to the city next week. It’s an easy one, just time consuming.

I’m still yet to organise this big cooking day for freezer meals for Matt and the boys. It’ll probably be next week or perhaps the week after, but I really need to get on it soon.

Category: Business, Study, Uncategorized  Tags: ,  View Comments

Sheesh!

23 Mar 2010 | By Tracey

It’s Tuesday(night!) already?? I forgot to Meal Plan Monday – I was all set to do it yesterday but the posting time was changed to today and yeah…I forgot.

I’m still working on the business books. *sigh* Things went askew somewhere along the line(probably hubby and his impatience with things like this) and some things have been entered incorrectly, so it’s been my job to go back through and try and fix it all up. not to say that I’ve been slaving over the computer all day. I’ve been on and off Facebook and a few forums – and playing with my kids. Pretty much trying to avoid what I really need to do.

Hubby is going through what I think is a mid 20′s crisis. He has been in desperate need of a haircut. So I got the clippers out and we shaved it down to a number 2. He’s been on at me for years to let him go completely bald. But ewww, I don’t like it and I think he’d look funny with a completely bald head – mind you, he is starting to get quite thin on top, so he’ll probably end up going bald naturally some day. Today he kept on about shaving it off completely and I relented. It’s all gone and it looks(and feels) weird. I wonder what his mother will say?!

Easter Holidays are fast approaching. Hubby called his ex to let her know that we were going to be in the city on Good Friday, so she could bring his daughter up(they live 1.5 hours south of the city) and we’d have her for the holidays as usual. Well. That didn’t go down well because apparently we’ve had her enough(last school holidays) and that we weren’t going to have her this holidays because it is going to affect her child support and welfare income.

Tell me how that is fair? That it’s not about the relationship that her daughter gets with her father but about the MONEY she gets. If we don’t see her this holidays, we will have to wait until the July school holidays. That’s 6 months without seeing her. We’ve said that we wouldn’t tell child support or welfare, because we don’t care about the money – that means the only way they would know is if she told them.

I really don’t get it! So many single women have it tough with fathers who can’t be bothered with their children and don’t want to see them. My ex rarely sees my kids and I am lucky to get a cent of child support at times but I never deny him access. Then here is my husband – a wonderful father – who tries to do the right thing, who WANTS to have his daughter with him and the mother won’t give. All for some money. Nope, I don’t understand it at all.

At this stage we don’t know whether she will ‘allow’ us to have her. She has a big thing about not letting us have her for any important days of the year(birthdays, x-mas, easter – you name it), which is unfair because there’s got to be some compromise.

So cross your fingers and hope of a positive update next week. It’s time I get off the computer and go to bed(only to be stuck at the computer again tomorrow).

Category: Family  Tags:  View Comments

Toilet Adventures

21 Mar 2010 | By Tracey

I did touch on Owen using the toilet(well lack of using the toilet I should say) briefly on the old blog before I cleverly deleted it. I didn’t have much to say really, we had tried him in jocks during the day but it was pretty hit and miss. More miss than hit. We’ve slowly been plodding along with it – some days he’ll go through 8 pairs of jocks in a matter of hours. Some days we give up and he wears pull up(it’s the hubby that leans towards this too!). He flat out refused to sit on a potty. ARGH! So we stopped asking.

Yesterday, whilst in training pants, he took himself out to the backyard. Hubby poked his head out the door and there is Owen – leaning against the veranda pole with one hand and ‘aiming’ with the other.

“Are you weeing on the grass Owen?”

“I’m NOT weeing on the grass. I’m weeing on the rocks!”

Ooook, but at least he isn’t wetting himself. He took himself off to the loo later in the day though and did a wee – he also used half a roll of toilet paper.

Then today. Today he did a wee AND poo on the toilet. He will tell anyone who will listen(and so have I by putting it up as my facebook status).

Slowly, slowly we are getting there. I hope that he’ll be using the toilet before the baby comes(the idea of 3 in nappies is somewhat scary).

Doesn’t it just go to show that you really can’t force a child to use the toilet. When you take a step back and just leave them be, they will get the idea on their own and just do it. Sure we talk about where the wee and poo goes. We tell him that he is doing so well wearing jocks like his big brothers. But we don’t hound him about sitting on the toilet.

Yes we still have accidents, we don’t make a fuss. We just tell him to forget about it and next time he could try and go on the toilet. Granted we do do the naughty thing and reward him with sugarfree lollies when he does go, but I did it with my older kids and at 6 and 7, they don’t still ask for their reward for using the toilet!!

The toileting thing is definitely a challenge, but it’s really not a race. It’ll be a light bulb moment at some stage and nappies will be soon forgotten!

Category: kids  Tags:  View Comments

Homebirth Kit

20 Mar 2010 | By Tracey

I’m 32 weeks pregnant today. Only 8 weeks until my ‘due’ date. That means only 4 weeks to get what I need ready to make the move out of here until she arrives. Now I’m wondering how to fit it all into the car, especially on the return trip home with an extra child and all our stuff! Ah well, we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. We may have to tie a few kids to the roof ;)

What I need to start thinking about is assembling my Homebirth Kit, ready for the big day. Here’s what we learnt last time around.

Anyway, the most important thing you’ll need is the birth pool. That is besides my midwife and her birth kit of course. Some women prefer to buy their own, but depending on what kind of pool you want it can get pretty costly. You can pick up some pools pretty cheap – just have a look at children’s wading pools, as long as it has an inflatable bottom, sturdy sides and is deep enough to be able to submerge yourself in the water then it’s good enough to birth in. Or you can just ask your midwife if she has pools to hire. My midwife hires them out  for $40 and charges another $40 for a pool liner.

Then there’s the accessories for the pool. You’ll need drop sheets to go underneath and around it – these are pretty cheap from the local hardware. Or you could put down a few sheets of tarp and some old bedsheets over the top(which is what I did last time). You’ll also need a pump to pump up the pool. Nothing fancy like those plug in type ones, just a hand or foot pump will do. It doesn’t take long to pump the pool up, maybe 15 minutes tops. The pool will need filling, the local hardware should also sell tap connections. We got a little pack that had a whole bunch of different connections and it was fairly easy to connect to our bathroom sink tap, don’t forget the hose! I would suggest having a play around with it and make sure you can get it working properly before the actual time comes. We ended up leaving the connection on the tap when we got to ‘full term’ and then it was just a matter of plugging the hose onto the end when it came time to fill the pool.

Worried about keeping the water warm if you fill it before you’re ready to get in? You can buy covers for the pool but hubby worked out a cheaper way. We purchased a couple of shower curtains – the really thick plastic kind. One was enough to cover the entire top of the pool and kept it warm, I hopped into the pool maybe an hour after it had been filled and it was still deliciously warm.

The other plastic shower curtain we used on our bed. First put a nice clean sheet on the bed, then cover with the shower curtain followed by another sheet. That way if the bed seems more inviting to birth on than the pool, you can just pull off the first sheet and shower curtain and have a nice clean sheet to snuggle in bed with your new baby!

Oh and a bucket, to scoop water out before you top it up with more warm water. We only had to do this once in my whole labour.

What else do you need? Towels – lots of old towels. I don’t think we went through that many to be honest, but I didn’t bleed a hell of a lot after the birth. I went through two or three from the multiple times of getting in and out of the pool to pee. I used a couple folded up on the side of the pool to rest my head on because face it, who wants to rest their face on hot plastic? One for the baby to get dried coming out of the pool(and one for Mama too) and then one for the shower after the placenta was birthed.

I mentioned sheets already – to cover tarp, and for the bed. I suggest putting old sheets that you don’t mind throwing out if they get too dirty as the top layer.

A bowl – to catch the placenta in. I used an ice cream container and then we just popped a lid on it and put it in the fridge.

A strainer – to scoop out things from the water…yeah I won’t go into detail about that one. We never had to use it.

Baby gear – a nappy, beanie, clothes, bunny rugs. We didn’t get dressed for some time after the birth. We had lots of blissful skin to skin time with a bunny rug over baby and then our quilt over all of us. He didn’t even have a nappy on – and no he didn’t wee or poo all over the place.

Plastic bags/garbage bags – For cleaning up afterwards.

A torch – Some midwives ask you to provide one. I guess it’s to see what’s happening. I forgot about it and we didn’t need one anyway.

Your CAMERA – VERY important if you want photos. We had ours nearby on the bedside table and our midwife grabbed it and snapped away :)

Candles, oil burner, radio and anything else that you may want to use for relaxation. It’s your home and your birth. Anything goes.

T-shirt, underwear and pads – For you. Having them close by for after the birth means that your midwife can easily grab them for you while you and your partner and falling in love with your baby!

Another tip is to make sure you have you kitchen stocked weeks in advance. Have some meals prepared and frozen so that it’s simply a matter of heating and eating. Be well stocked with bread and milk and coffee. If you have a marathon labour, your midwife will need refreshments too!

Have some spare pillows and blankets around too because if you do labour for a long time, your midwife and support people might need a bit of shut eye on the couch at some point.

Anyway, I would suggest keeping all your bits and pieces in a box. That way your support person isn’t scrambling around the house looking for bowls or towels. And if they are busy tending to you, the midwife can easily find things that she needs.

Category: Homebirth, Pregnancy  Tags: ,  View Comments

We’re all going on a Summer Holiday!

19 Mar 2010 | By Tracey

Firstly, I am getting so frustrated at the moment! My big intentions to blog lots are falling by the wayside at the moment. Really, be careful what you wish for. I wished for the last few weeks of my pregnancy to go by quickly – so of course that means mountains of work to get done before I go. We’re talking 4 weeks before I am out of this place. So I’m getting through the piles of bookwork that need fixing and I have two sick toddlers. My house is a mess.

Now I’m wishing for more time. It’s not going to happen though.

In amongst everything that is happening, my mum is making the move back to her home country – Thailand. She’s been back and had another house built(as my half brother lives in her house up there). It’s just been finished but she is planning on waiting until I have the baby before she goes home for good. She did say though that if we wanted to come visit her, that she would help pay for our trip. At this stage we’re thinking early January 2011. It means a bit huge tighten on our purse strings and the credit card is going to take a battering, but with the help of what mum will pay for – it’s doable. Really doable. I’d be crazy not to take my family to meet the rest of my family in Thailand.

We plan to stay in Bangkok for a few days. To go shopping! ;) My Dad only lives about an hours drive, so if he is not away working, we’ll drive down and visit him and my sisters. Anyhow, it’ll be a fantastic opportunity for Matt and the kids to see the Thai culture.

Did I mention the shopping? Oh how I love to shop in Thailand, it’s so cheap. I best get my butt into gear and lose some weight after the baby comes, I found it hard enough to get anything in my size when I visited at 17(I was a size 14 then). Still, I have kids now and I can shop for them. I guess we’ll just take empty suitcases?

My mum is from way up north. We’ll fly from Bangkok to Chiang Rai and then we’ll have to drive from Chiang Rai to her village. This is the part I’m most excited about. My kids seeing where their grandmother grew up(and she’ll tell them her tales of not having toys and having to make dolls out of banana leaves when she was a kid or about the time she rode a water buffalo and couldn’t get off it so roamed around on it’s back for hours until her siblings found her). We can go to the Golden Triangle and visit the Hill Tribes. So very very exciting.

So for now it’s save, save, save. The baby bonus will come in handy(because face it, what can I spend $5000 on for baby number 5?). Hmm maybe that puts me right up there with mothers who spend their baby bonus on plasma TVs? To be honest, I think it’ll be a wonderful educational thing for the kids to visit another country – especially one that they have family ties in. Meh. Judge me if you want. it’s mostly spending money that we’re saving if we do it that way with mum’s contribution.

I want to go now(I’m not the most patient person in the world)! It’ll be our first overseas family holiday :) I suppose I’d better run it past my ex too because I’m sure he’ll have to sign the passport paperwork for Jayden and Bailey.

On a side note, I keep forgetting to mention that Jye’s birth story has been posted on two wonderful blogs that you really should check out: Faerie Midwife and Birth Routes.

Category: Holidays  Tags: ,  View Comments

Bebe Update

17 Mar 2010 | By Tracey

I’m so tired. Last night was probably the worst nights sleep I’ve had since Jye was a newborn. I had trouble actually getting to sleep, between Jye waking and crying and needing to go to the toilet I didn’t get much at all.

Today I was meant to be driving to the city to see my midwife, but on a whim yesterday I decided to leave then. Don’t ask me why I felt the need to go. It wasn’t until I got to my in laws house and found a letter that arrived from the hospital telling me that I had an appointment this morning that I was grateful for whatever it was that made me leave.

I bundled Jye up in the car this morning and it took me 90 minutes to get to the hospital and then finding parking…ugh! What a nightmare. I actually got seen in record time though – I was out an hour and 10 minutes after my appointment time – I’ve had to wait 2 hours before. This appointment went better than the appointment at the last hospital, but they still went on at me about my declining the Glucose Test. Apparently it’s not normal to birth big babies without having gestational diabetes. Anyway, it was a whole lot of waiting around for about 10 minutes with the OB.

Oh, and some lovely person(not) slipped Jye some chocolate in the waiting room! I grabbed him because my name got called to find him with two squares of chocolate in his mouth. I can bet it was the elderly woman with a pregnant woman who was sitting nearby and kept smiling and talking to him. Sheesh, was it too hard to ask me if it was ok? And by the smell of it, it was rum and raisin flavoured :( He made a huge mess in the OB office.

My midwife came to visit in the afternoon, I love meeting with her. it’s just so much more relaxing and my blood pressure came down significantly in the few hours since I was at the hospital. Baby girl is measuring bang on for 32 weeks, she is also starting to engage – 3/5ths above the brim, let’s just hope she doesn’t go too far down too soon. Jye was at plus 1 station for weeks and weeks and it was painful! Good to know she knows where she needs to be to make her exit though ;)

*****

I went to visit my mum this afternoon, she’s gearing up to make the move back to Thailand. We’re getting her fridge and we’re going to buy her lounge suite and a double bed from her. Then she hands me her sewing machine! Hurrah!! I’ve been wanting one for a while and now I’ve been looking at all these gorgeous creations on other peoples blogs – well now I can get creative too!

Category: Pregnancy  Tags:  View Comments

Meal Plan Monday

15 Mar 2010 | By Tracey

Well back to the meal planning. Yet another attempt at getting organised(yes I know I say it way too often).

Monday – Sweet chilli chicken wraps

Tuesday – Chilli Con Carne Nachos

Wednesday – *Takeaway because I’ll be in the city for the night. Hubby and kids will be having steak, sausages and vegetables.

Thursday – Roast chicken with roasted vegetables

Friday – Homemade Pizza

Saturday – Beef Curry and Rice

Sunday – Rack of Lamb with salad

Pretty average I know, but I do have plans to do a big cook up for the 3 weeks that I am out of town to have the baby, so stay tuned for a post about that later this week.

Check out what everyone else is cooking HERE.

******

I have been trying so hard to get on here and post but it’s just not happening right now. There’s been a thousand and one blog posts running around in my head, every time I get the chance to sit down and try and write one I fall asleep. Yes, you read that right. I FALL ASLEEP. I’ll just blame that on pregnancy ;)

Things have truly been hectic. ALL our accommodation rooms are full meaning I spent a solid 3 hours cooking tonight. I am really messy when I cook too, so then I had this big kitchen to clean. It kind of blew me away though because business has been extremely quiet and we’ve been struggling to pay the bills. Plus, it’s Monday today. We don’t even open the doors until 4pm on a Monday because we’re just never busy.

I promise I’ll get to writing more in the upcoming day, I’ve finished most of the paperwork that I was doing over the last week!

Category: Meal Plan Monday  Tags:  View Comments
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