Glow Stick Bath

Ok, so I can't remember where I first saw this - I think on my friend Gypsy's blog, as she does the coolest stuff with and for her kids, but I just can't remember, so let's just give her the credit anyway!

Anyway, Jayden was having a bit of a rough day the other day and so asked if he could have a bath (instead of his usual shower).  As he was filling the bath I remembered seeing the photos of a glow stick bath and thought I would treat him to the same.  I grabbed some glow sticks, then knocked on the bathroom door asking him if I could pop my head in for a moment.  I dropped the sticks into the bath and took a photo (with the light on).  It's cool how the light is bouncing around on the water, but not too spectacular right?

So, spread them out throughout the bath and turn the lights off and take a photograph without any flash and the effect is way better.  He thought it was great and ended up staying in the bath for about 1/2 an hour.  Cheap exercise too, as the glow sticks were $2 for a packet of 15 and I only used 5.

So busy!

I say it every year about this time:  I am so busy - next year I am not going to take on as much and yet the next year come right around the corner and before you know it, I have actually added to list instead of making it shorter.  I guess I just love helping others and my volunteering hand is on automatic - ie it jumps up into the air as soon as someone asks for help.  I managed to sit on it one year and not take on anything new, so I guess I might have to try that again next year.

It is however also Jayden's last year at Manuka (sob, sob).  I'm going to miss being a part of such a wonderful place.  I have truly enjoyed my time there, working with the kids on various things and on the Parent Support Group for the past 5 years, 4 of them as Chairperson.  But, with all good things, change is necessary and it's time for me to move on and change course and for someone else to step up and bring fresh ideas to the group.

So, my goal for 2013 is to stick with everything I am currently doing (aside from the PSG) and then not to take on any other roles.  Wish me luck!

Legs 11

How quickly the time flies.  Can't believe Jayden turned 11 in May.  

In the morning before school, we let him open up some of his presents.

 He was really thrilled with the M&M dispenser that Taryn bought him.

 And seemed to like the skull shirt.

 He thought the All Blacks duvet cover was pretty neat too.  He's actually quite an easy kid to please, as he appreciates everything that people give to him.

 He was blow away with the new sports watch that sported both analogue and digital displays.

 But I'm pretty sure his favourite was what he got that night before going to bed.  His first Swiss Army Pocket Knife.

 On the Sunday we had family over for afternoon tea and this is the rainbow cake I made for him.  7 layers - Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo & Violet.  Complete with matching pebbles (although the green and violet pebbles were a bit pale in comparison.  Jayden just thought it was awesome, which is all that really matters.

More presents on Sunday - lollies & money

 Star Wars PlayStation game

 Puzzle of the London Underground.

 And as part of the present from Nan & Pop, firstly (as a joke) Special K - mum had seen it on special and knows how much Jayden loves it, so added a box to his present, which also included 2 pairs of shoes that he had pointed out previously, a pair of gloves and another puzzle.

 Jayden wanted to light the candles

 And then blew them out again.

All in all, a great birthday week for Jayden.

Milo the kitten

The kids begged us for ages to get a kitten.  We sat them down and discussed how they would need to be prepared to pay for her, her food, her vet bills etc.  We also said they would need to be the primary caregivers, cleaning up any accidents, cleaning out her litterbox box, feeding her etc.  The two of them discussed it, worked out the cost of everything and a plan of how much pocket money it would take each week and then agreed to go forward and get a kitten.

Due to some soft brown markings, they decided she looked like she had Milo stains down her back and so called her 'Milo'

She was so tiny when we brought her home, but grew super quickly.  Milo is a bit mischievous, so fits into our family well! 

She loves to cuddle up and fall asleep on us, or just sit on us and watch what's going on.

 Sometimes she lies down in some funny positions.

We love her dearly and hope she will be with us for a very long time. 

Bed Hut

Since he was a baby, Jayden has always liked to be wrapped when going to sleep.  Even at 10 he likes the feel of an extra blanket wrapped around him before the rest are pulled up over him.  

Lately he has also started to build low bed huts before going to sleep.  We try to keep it just to the weekends, as it's quite time consuming to get just right, but when he does, his smile says it all and he happily goes off to sleep.  He does a pretty good job too, as the huts last right through the night.  Quite different from me, in that I'm a bit too claustrophobic to be able to sleep in such a small enclosed space.

Oh and if you read the last post about his drawing on walls, you can see the totally stripped walls in these photos.  So far, so good - not one bit of new writing/drawing.  He may just get his room redecorated before his birthday!

Done drawing on walls...

...well, so he says anyway.  One of the ways Jayden would take out his frustraions in life was to write on his walls.  We let it slide for a while and then said he really needed to stop, which he said he had.  We decided that there was just so much on the walls, that it was hard to know if there was anything new there or not, so we have stripped the walls completely (was previously just the backing paper he was writing/drawing on) and have said if there is nothing new on there in a months time, we will redecorate his room.

Some unusual looking creations could be found on his walls.

Plus the notice to "stay out of my room"

And the final bit found behind the bedroom door... anyone know what a PW is?  Mike says he can think of one term, but don't think Jayden knows that term, so pretty sure that's not it.  We did ask him, but he says he wrote it a long time ago and can't remember now.  We had to laugh!

Will keep you posted as to how it goes.

Ouch!!!

Taryn loves her cricket and despite a few injuries and many bruises, just keeps playing.  A couple of weeks ago however, she had to seriously rest up as she received a massive bruise on one leg from a fast ball at practice and...

...had a small tear in her groin muscle on the other.  The school physio (who had previously played women's cricket for Northern districts herself), knew where Taryn was coming from in not wanting to miss a game, so she worked on her injury every other day, strapped her up well and gave her some exercises to do.  She did still end up having to miss 1 game (to which she still went to watch & support the team and was chomping at the bit to get on the field) and 1 practice, but was fit to play again within 2 weeks.  Physio Action are just awesome!

Kinex Contraption

Here is one of Jayden's impressive Kinex contraptions.  I really must photograph more of them as he has made some impressive looking vehicles, towers and other visual items such as this one.

Creative Plea

Jayden was sent to his room for some time out.  I cannot even remember why now, but, we were sitting in the lounge when this little 3 wheeled contraption appeared from out the hallway. 

Very creative 'plea' vehicle and I love the way he kept adding extension posts to get it out to us without ever leaving his room!  Some of the contraptions he comes up with out of his Lego and Kinex are just awesome.

Weeks 24 & 25 - So slow going

The title says it all really.  Feel like I have been in a time warp.  Started week 24 well, then ran out of the shakes and it wasn't affordable for that week to get some more, so basically went full on back to all real food meals.  did manage to lose 400gms however.  Week 25 wasn't so kind, but will admit, I wasn't so kind to my weight loss plan either.  No exercise, which I know has a big impact and a bit too many taste tests on the baking I did for cricket and home.  Still on real food.  Put on 100gms, so total currently 19.4kgs. The 20kg target is so close I can taste it (pun intended) and yet feels so far away.

We have a family reunion in May, so hoping I will get my weight loss gusto back real soon and manage to get the scales heading back in the right direction.  Watch this space!

First Harvest

The first items to be harvested from my garden were my beetroot.  I love beetroot and will admit to being a Watties beetroot snob, as nothing else seems to even come close, but I figured hey, I'll try to grow and pickle my own just once and then I can at least say I did try home-grown ones.

Well here they are after being cooked and mildly pickled and you know what - they taste pretty darn close to Wattie's sliced beetroot, so I think I will definitely grow them again.  Probably not so many this time, as had so many, I couldn't have preserved them all in time and so gave mum a bunch and my dear friend Denise  a bunch and still have some left in the garden.

Will have to find another recipe to try for the last harvest of beetroot coming out soon.

Vege Garden

Having dabbled with growing veges in pots and planter boxes on the deck, I wanted to try and expand my crop size and range.  We had an unused corner in the backyard beside the shed, so I bought a couple of metres of half round edging, some stakes and off I set.  first I cleared the area (which had become a bit of a rubbish pile), then Jayden helped me set up the garden edge.

Not a pretty shot, but looking at this know, I definitely know I have lost a fair bit of weight!!! anyway, back to the subject at hand...

Once the edging was secure, I filled the entire areas with the compost Mike had been making in his compost bins and planted out tomatoes, chillies and beetroot.  It looked so sparse, I wondered if I had planted enough in there.

A few weeks later, my wondering was answered with a definite YES.  I had planted more than enough in there and these plants were obviously loving all that compost.  I had to stake all the plants within a matter of weeks, then had to re-stake the tomato plants with taller stronger stakes.  the garden just went wild!

All i used in the garden was the compost and the water, with a little soap based spray to more naturally control the bugs.  Big plans in place for the veges that come out of this garden!

Rats, it's gone!

I can't really remember exactly when Jayden decided he wanted to grow a rats tail, but I think it was roughly  about 2 years ago.  I must say, at the time, I was quite surprised.  He never, ever did anything that would make him stand out, be different or draw more attention to himself on purpose before this.  It was nice to see him want to have something a little different for a change, even if I wasn't too sure about the whole rats tail thing.

The rats tail had a couple of trims when it was getting really raggy on the ends, but he would never let me cut off more than 1cm.  So many people teased him (jokingly) about chopping it off and heaps of people asked him if they could cut it off to which he gave an adamant NO WAY!

So, imagine my surprise just before the school year started when he asked me to cut it off.  Really??? I had actually become quite accustomed to it and when sitting next to him, would often twirl it around my fingers.  I let him think about it for a few days, just to be sure, but he was absolutely sure and so I got Taryn to take these photos.

Just hanging loose.

It reached half way down his back if pulled straight.

As I often did when we were going out, I plaited it before cutting it off, that way I could keep it tidy and it meant it was ready if I decided to pop it into the scrapbook.

You can barely see it here, but it's hanging over his right shoulder.  Even plaited it was quite long!

Then off it came with 1 snip!

I was kind of glad and kind of sad at the same time!  Funny old emotions!

So few posts!

I know, I know, other than my weight loss journey and a few bits here and there, I haven't posted much for months.  Loads has been happening, just haven't found the time to post, so will try and catch up with a few posts to show what's been happening around here the past few months.  Stay tuned!

Weeks 22 & 23

Week 22 - zilch, zippo, nada, not even 100gms!!!, despite gardening, walking and good eating.  Have kind of felt over the past few weeks that it's 1 step forward 2 steps back, but in fact it must be the other way around cause the total weight loss is still slowly getting larger not smaller.  I know most people who lose a fair amount of weight hit some form of plateau at some stage along the way, sometimes two or three times even.  I think it's your body's way of saying hey, can we just stop for a second so I can adjust, then once it has you're off again so I guess it's just that some weeks you feel like your not wining even if you really are.  So...

...week 23, I mixed it up a little.  I skipped my usual morning shake a couple of days and had cereal with fruit and yoghurt.  I did some work outs instead of gardening (as it rained so much) and even decided to have some treat foods (some biscuits, some chocolate and some cake - yummo).  so, I was kind of expecting a bit of a hit on the scales.  Instead, I lost 1.3 and now my total is 19.1kgs.  Go figure?

So far this week, I've only had the odd shake, but trying to keep the exercise up and keeping the food to good healthy, low carb, low calorie, small portions.  We'll see how that translates on the scales on Monday, then might shake it all up the following week with a back to basics like I was doing in my first 6 weeks to see if we can't get things moving a bit more again.  That'll be back to shakes for breakfast, light meals for lunch and salad and fish for dinner, with fruit and WW jelly in between times if hungry.

Weeks 18,19,20 & 21

January got so damn busy that weigh ins were few and far between, (as was the healthy eating some days-lol).  I did get on the scales a few times but my weight was going up and down like a yoyo and I didn't blog or facebook any results.

Holidays are by far the hardest time for me.  Meal times are all over the place, routines are all out of whack, so many treat foods around the house (mainly gifts I might add)  and there is just something about home baking with the kids and enjoying food together with family and friends.

Anyway, somewhere along those 4 weeks, managed to lose another 700gms and then was good at Kids Camp with Tania (well relatively good) and lost another 400gms in the 3 days of camp, so total now sits at 17.8kgs.

Have been good so far this week and back into the exercise big time, but no difference on the scales as yet, so doubting I will reach my goal of 20kgs by the time the kids are back at school, but never mind, once they are both back and my routines return, hoping to kick start the losing again.

We are planning a family reunion in May and I would really like to get at least another 6 kilos off in the 12 weeks.  I think that is realistic - 500gms per week, so will keep you posted.

Jayden's Insightful words

As part of my exercise plan for my weight loss, I have been going for walks on the beach over the past week.  The first time we went, my niece Olivia was collecting sea-glass and Jayden helped her.  Since then, he has been collecting some for himself, with great visions of somehow fusing it all together (he had said he would use the soldering iron, but I think he needs to work on his plan a little more).  Anyway, my purpose for the walks was to exercise, burn off some calories and so for the better part, I wanted to keep up a good pace and get a bit of a sweat going.  Yesterday, it was just Jayden and I, so I gave him advance warning, that I wanted to keep up a good pace, not dawdle.  He agreed, so off we set.
     Once there, he immediately started searching for sea-glass and asked me to do the same.  I had to keep calling to him to keep up.  Once we got to the end (where we turn around), he begged me to stop for a while so he could search in the small bay that was covered in shells, so I stopped and just watched him. He delighted in digging, searching, finding big rocks and throwing them into the water and then running to escape the splash.  I sat down and started searching with him and we found some very interesting shaped pieces.  It was actually really nice to just stop for a while.  After 15 minutes, I said we needed to head off again and so off we went.  As we started back, he asked me to keep searching for more sea-glass.  After a few hundred feet, he'd found several more pieces, I had found none.  After learning this information, he informed me "Mum, if you look too far ahead, instead of where you are right now, you wont see what's right in front of you and you might miss some good stuff"  I had to wonder if we were still talking about the sea-glass.  A few paces on (at a much slower pace), I found a really nice twisted shell, with a small hole in the top section, perfect for threading a necklace through.  I would never have seen it if I had been looking further ahead instead of closer to where I was actually walking.  So I guess it doesn't really matter if I walk a bit slower and don't build up a sweat.  It's still exercise and I get so much more from watching him, really taking in what he is doing and who knows what I might find right in front of me!

Week 17

Deciding I was still enjoying the Christmas treats too much to give them up totally, I decided to cut back, rather than cut out and ramp up my exercise to balance it all out.  Lost 900gms in the process, so considering what I got to eat, it was all worth it.  Off to camp today for 5 days camp clean and have planned a fairly healthy menu and plan to continue to exercise, so hopefully next Monday will be another good loss and I'll be just that much closer to my interim goal of 20kgs by the time the kids go back to school.  currently at 16.7kgs.