More Connor Time

Just can't get enough. Had loads more cuddles today and also had the gorgeous pleasure of having him fall asleep on me - that is the ultimate in my book. And best of all, when this happens, no-one comes to grab him from you - mwah-ha-ha. Long may he sleep on me. Actually, after about 15 minutes, I went and put him in his bed as I still had loads to do before Jo's party, but there's still a whole week to go before they head home. Actually, that's not that long, might have to come back later for more cuddles!!! Here's a picture of Connor with his mum, my sister in law, Cathie.

Haircut Diversion

Dad called me and asked about getting a haircut, asking if I could come to his house to do it - that was a first, a little weird too I thought, but what the heck. I told him I'd come around lunchtime. Mike then got home and asked if we could go to the mall and do a few things and have lunch together, so i called Dad and advised him I'd be there is an hour, unless he wanted to come over right away and I could cut his hair while Mike was in the shower - his reply, no I'll wait for you to come here. OK, I said.

So when I arrived, imagine my surprise to find out the haircut was a diversion 9although he did actually want it cut). What he was really after was getting me to his house to discover my Brother, his wife Cathie and my new nephew Conner were there (over from Australia). Can't remember what I said. it may have been Holy Crap, (or worse), but loads of hugs all round.

Connor is a placid little baby boy with loads of laughs and giggles in him. I got in as many cuddles as I could. he is so sweet, I could just bite him!!! But give him a gentle squeeze instead.

They are here for 10 days - yeah. Not really long enough, but at least I finally got to meet my new nephew. He's gorgeous.

Yeah for long weekends

I love long weekends - 2 good sleep ins (although if you asked my hubby, he'd tell you I get one every morning, seeing as he does the breakfast thing with the kids and I get to sleep in till 7.45am) , loads of time to do those jobs you seem to have put off for a while and plenty of family time.

Yesterday was a semi spring cleaning day. The kids did their rooms, I cleaned out the fish tank, the kitchen, some of the studio and generally just did loads of housework and washing.

Mike then took the kids out to see his mum, brother and nephew and I took the opportunity to clear out the office a little and then decided to give the place a bit of a vacuum. As I started, I noticed the hose had split in an entirely new place. This old vacuum already had tape in 2 other places and had started making weird nosies lately, so the new hole was the final straw. So, with the knowledge that I had just sold some glazes on Trademe, I went out and bought a new one. A cheap one, but quite good for the price. I got a bagless one with a Hepa filter. I hadn't had a new vacuum for about 15 years, so I was very excited by the purchase and couldn't wait to get home and try it. It was then that I laughed out loud to myself (once in my car), realising that I use to get excited just before a race, back when I dabbled in a touch of motor sport, or excited as I thought about my upcoming jump as I went up in the plane, when I used to skydive and here I was, married with kids and all sensible and safe now, being excited over a new vacuum cleaner. Boy how my life has changed. The vacuum is damn good - we have majorly clean floors now!!

We had a very easy going balance of the day and a nice family dinner together. The kids stayed up till nearly 11pm and I went to bed not long after that. This morning they were up way too early, but that was kind of good for me, as I needed to be up getting organised to teach for a kids ceramic birthday party at 11am. Mike went off with the kids to my parents house and removed some rubbish for them and took a load to the tip. We all then went over to Don's place for a BBQ for Jayden's rugby coach's 30th birthday. We got home around 8.30, to give the kids a slightly earlier night tonight. I've just finished updating all the booking info and payments for camp and am now completely up to date!

A good weekend all round and the best part - there is still another day of it to go. Yeah for long weekends!

School Camp at MERC

Got back from Taryn's school camp at MERC last night. We had a great time. What an awesome bunch of kids. Some of the little darlings did keep us up till 3am on the first night though and so with just on 3 hours sleep, a few of the teachers and parents were not happy campers the second morning, however the groups responsible was soon identified and had therefore volunteered themselves for clean up duties for the balance of camp. I am happy to report my daughter was not part of this group (although she was caught out of bed at 10pm the following night).

So I came home somewhat tired last night and after getting the kids to bed, went to bed myself at 8.15pm!!! Slept right through, but could still do a few extra hours.

I took loads of photos during camp and have come home with over 300 photos and a couple of videos as well. I know I'll have to cull that lot before I can print them, but that's a job a find really difficult, to get rid of shots. Of course any out of focus or too distant photos (them sailing) will be easy, but I'd like to get it down to around 200 before I print. I want to do an album for Taryn and perhaps a couple of small photo books for the kids from my group.

Hope I get to go on camp in year 8 as well!

Old friends and memories

I've posted a bit recently on friendships and lately I have found myself (mainly through Facebook) reconnecting with friends from years gone by. Whilst it is only online and I am still to meet some of them face to face (and with others this is not likely due to being in different countries), I am amazed at the clarity of memories that suddenly stream to the surface when you start thinking so much about that particular person.

It's interesting to see what people have been up to and see where they currently are. There have certainly been some surprises. I have found 1 friend who had sworn off ever having children and along with her husband had decided to proceed in other directions. She has since divorced, found a new man and is now a mum! Upon asking her about it, she said it just felt right with this new man and perhaps originally (in her first marriage), she just wasn't with the right person after all.

In some cases (whilst I am happy in life at present), it has made me yearn for the days gone by, especially some of those carefree teen and early 20's years. Life seemed so good back then. I can sit back know and fully understand that saying "If I knew then, what I know now". For sure my life would be a whole lot different. Not sure if that would be a good thing or not, because I truly believe it is all our life experiences that make us who we are and so my life would be different, but then I guess I would be too right?

So I took some time out for myself and thought back over my life. I've actually had a pretty damn good life. I have way, way more happy memories than sad ones and now as a parent myself, I can clearly see why my parents did some of the things they did (because they loved me and wanted to keep me safe) and I understand this so well, because I'm now doing some of them with my own children. I've made some really good decisions in life that have been very fruitful and placed me where I am today. And, Yes I made some mistakes along the way. A couple of really big ones where the regret of my actions sort of stayed with me all this time. I've now realised that as per the above, I am who I am because of those mistakes and so I need to just get over or past them now and keep moving forward, leaving them way in the past where they belong.

That in mind, I've decided to work more towards what I really want in life. I'm going to do a little less for others (as I've mentioned before) and start focusing more on my immediately family and creating more happy memories with and for them. This in itself has made me think deeply about how I am with certain things and what I am and am not happy with. Some tough discussions will no doubt follow - nothing serious, but I'm just not happy to settle for anything less than what it will take to get me (and my family) to where I want to be. So watch this space!

Kids @ Camp

Every school holidays, I take the kids up to camp with me for 2 days (1 night), so that they get to have a bit of fun before my ScrapCamp starts. This time around, I had 7 with me. My 2, my sister's 2, 2 of one friends and 1 of another, as well as 2 other kids that were there at the same time. 9 kids altogether - madness! (actually the more there are, the easier it seems). They all had a great time, but the most fun of all, I think, was held by 3 of the boys on the last day. It had rained just about continually, so our usual scavenger hunt was not as extensive as it would have been as we couldn't really send them down into the bush. It had however made the grass outside the building very soggy-perfect I thought for a wee bit of a mud slide. Only Shelby was brave enough my from crew. But Bailey and his friend were keen as and joined in as well. Here's a video of Shelby during one of his slides. Note the pose on the end - truly his fathers son! sorry Paul!

Yummy Day

hat a yummy day yesterday was. It started with a sleep in after a late night out at Jeni's (where for once, being with Jeni didn't spell trouble for me-amazing!). Late breakfast, followed by shopping with Taryn for new sports shoes. That started to shape up like a 'go home with nothing' shopping trip, but after (almost tearfully) coming to accept mum's warning about those flat, all white, Velcro on shoes not really being suitable for school camp speech, Taryn found a pair of sand shoes that she liked. And they were on special, with $20 off - double yeah! We also bought some new potting mix and a couple of tomato plants and home we went.

The sun was shining, so onto the deck we went and cleared out last years soggy potting mix from the planter boxes. The boys (who were water blasting Mike's work equipment), kindly washed out all the pots for me too. We then planted the new plants and I transplanted some of the strawberry plants to space them out a little. Some of them have a bunch of berries on them. Can't wait for those babies to ripen up!

Then Mike took the kids and headed off to see his mum and brother and I changed into a singlet, grabbed a cold Madori RTD and sat on the deck reading New Moon for about an hour. It was bliss, with the sun on my back, not too hot for any chance of sunburn, but just enough to keep me warm. As the temperature dropped, I headed inside to prepare dinner. Steaks, chicken kebabs and garlic/herb potatoes on the BBQ - Yum.

Family came home and we enjoyed a nice leisurely dinner together followed by brandy snap baskets and ice-cream. Man I love the warmer weather. Bring on summer!