22nd August - 12 Week Challenge

The Horley 12 week challenge officially started on 22nd August. I was convinced by my Personal Trainer to sign up and 'enjoy' the ride. It's basically a hard slog for 12 weeks to maximise your weight loss. Tomorrow is my first saturday beach session with my trainer at Shelly Beach near King Beach. I"m a little scared now as everyone else has chickened out so it's a 1 on 1 session with Jayne. She's awesome but makes me work pretty darn hard. Last night was the first of our 7pm night sessions. sometimes they show slides about nutrition etc. and then we go to woolworths to read food labels, and they even throw in surprise training sessions.

http://www.12weekchallenge.net.au/Home/

But i've stuffed my back on Thursday before the boxing class so that's not the greatest start to the challenge. Here's hoping i survive Saturday.

Nambour Nightmare

Well not long after our wonderful Anniversary Friday, we had horrible Sunday. Hayley being sick for hours and hours, ambulance rides to Caloundra, transfering to Nambour in the night and then the worst nurse i've ever come across EVER. She was rude to everyone so it wasn't something i did.

We were enjoying our local strawberry feast at Bulcock Beach on Sunday when the fun quickly turned to horror. I've never seen hayley or kirrily sick like this and i never want to see it again. although, if you look at the photo taken just moments after her first up and under, you would never have guessed what was going to play out for the next 36 hrs in the hospital.

Anyway, that was a learning experience that i'll never want to repeat. Although hayley did get the star treatment to Caloundra Hospital. Allira Richardson was our 'student' ambulance lady. If you don't know who i'm talking about (like lots of other people who went who?), she's is or was an iron lady/lifesaver from up here on the sunny coast. We almost named little Hayley Emma as Hayley Allira. Must have known one day she would save us.

21st August - our 5th Wedding Anniversary

The 21st of August seemed to come around very quickly this year. We organised for Nan and Pop to baby sit the monkey's while we went out for lunch. David took me to the vineyard near Montville. To say it's tiny and not quite the Hunter Valley is an understatement but who cares. YOu can't get a view of Mooloolaba, Mt Coolum and Caloundra from Cessnock. :-)

We wined and dined for a few hours and enjoyed the fantastic views too.

Even the local magpie came up on the balcony for a look around.

The Beach Visit

"Mum, can you take me to the beach tomorrow".

Kirrily has been asking me for weeks, over and over and over again to take her to the beach. So we went to Big W and splurged on the most expensive bucket and spade (well the lot cost about $4 so not a huge splurge). She picked the blue bucket and the light blue spade and carried it everywhere through the shops. When we got home the "mmaaaaaaaaaaaaaaam, can you take me to the beach tomorrow" kept going and going again.

We crumbled yesterday. The weather was only 23 but with a little cloud cover we put on her "Santa's" pink beach shoes and took the bucket and spade to Happy Valley.

She shells were fantastic and even lots of little bits of coral were along the beach. We were collecting for about an hour, the bucket was filling fast before we finally dragged her away. Kirrily had a fantastic time and Hayley didn't miss out either. She was in the sling on the front of david laughing and squeeling in delight and excitement watching kirrily. Or was she just trying to tell me i'm mad for going in the water up to my knees. I would have gone further but i didn't take my swimmers. The water temp is a cool 20deg which isn't too bad for winter.

Here she is:

Back and Blogging again

Well it's been a long time between blogs but spare time is a luxury lately.

Kirrily's birthday cake turned out better than i'd expected. And even if the icing wasn't 100% perfect, do you think Kirrily knew or even worried. No way.

Here are some photo's of what we have been getting up to recently.

Cupcake Teahouse - Buderim

The cupcake of choice was one covered in bright pink icing. Who would have guessed. Pretty similar to the colour of her shirt.

Hayley's first ride going fowards in her new car seat

Hayley is pretty pleased with herself in her new surrounds and loves facing forwards in the car. when you turn around there is always a cheeky grin waiting.

One of 'those' photo's.

I've been told that this beanie (thanks to Panadol) will be one of those moments you will just have to bring up at her 21st birthday. It's a dragon and keeps her lovely and warm. What you can't see is the dragons tail at the back of the beanie.

Hayley's first ride on the 'swings'

We arrived at Picinic Point and kirrily loves these swings so was happy for hayley to share some sea-saw time with her. (that's Pop's arms holding hayley on).

You will see that in the photo's we've had to get out the jumpers or long sleeves. who would have thought. Once it gets below 20 degress we all become cold frogs (or whimps).

Is it June already?

Well i haven't posted for ages. There never seems to be much time left for these luxuries anymore.

Since my last update many moons ago, i've been going to the gym 3 x per week. The gym is great as the creche for the kids is excellent so that gives me peace of mind that they are being looked after as i slave my guts out over a treadmill or a spin cycle class. Kirrily loves it as she gets to play at "little gym school" with Hayley, unlike Pelican's Nest where she is there on her own.

The other 2 spare days, well they aren't really spare. Tuesday is Kawana Library 'story time' in the morning followed by a play in the park behind the library with James. there is a little ice-cream toy shop, a pretend petrol station and the all import 'fort' where kirrily climbs ladders and looks though the telescope in charge of the big pirate ship. Thursday is usually Mooloolaba fish market day. we did go on the Caloundra Cruise before all this nasty weather kicked in. Kirrily was over the moon riding along in the boat. I was told by other families on the boat that kirrily and hayley were the best kids and were extremely well behaved. Now that was pretty good. Made me feel all warm and fuzzy.

David has been in his new job at Dept. of Communities for 1 week today. Got to love full time permanent work with the Government. And perfect timing too. Next Monday is Queens birthday and the Friday is Maroochy show holiday. All paid holidays now whereas before, no $$$$.

Before David started, we had 4 days off and enjoyed the flooding rains. We had to postpone our Coolangatta holiday as we couldn't get there due to the flooded highways and roads. We managed to stay high and dry and the tarps on the roof held out and didn't blow away which is always good. We went to Noosa Junction and found a little chocolate shop. to say it's expensive is an understatement but so is Lindt chocolate and it too is worth every cent spent. david ordered what i called death by chocolate, aka dark chocolate hot chocolate. the glass is coated in dark chocolate on the inside, and then filled with the richest hot milk i've ever tried. this then melts the chocolate in the glass but then there is more chocolate sprinkled over the top. So much for going to the gym. :-)

We also dined in Marochydore, Cotton Tree and wandered around in between rain showers. It was nice relaxing.

But back to reality this week. and back to the gym. Maybe i shouldn't have told my trainer just what i got up to. My legs are still sore for my last weeks session. ahhhhhhhhhh.

So here are some snaps of our last few months. i wont' bore you with too many.

This is on our day trip to Maleny. Kirrily wore her new "investigator" or as i call it, a vest. It was actually cold. Well for me, being a sooky Queenslander now, it was 23 deg. I think Hayley even has a jumper on in this photo. We bought some farm fresh mandarines and kirrily ate 3 in a row. But there was still room for the jelly shark at the Miss Molly Lolly shop.

This is Hayley doing what she does best - smiling and having a great time. This was before the little teeth peeped through. The 2 teeth are growing very very fast now. Giving her grief, yes, but so is the man cold that david so kindly shared. not sure man cold and teething is a good combination.

Family photo at Cotton Tree. Have you noticed, we are all actually looking at the camera. not sure how we managed that. A nice lady sitting near us offered to take it so i couldn't hide from this photo. that's the beauty of being behind the camera and taking the photo's.

Kirrily is reading her Caloundra Cruise brochure. It has all her favourite things, ferry's, pelican's and seagulls not to mention the mountains too.

March - April Update

Little School - 1st birthday party
On March 25th, Pelican's Nest had their 1st birthday party. The invites came out to take friends, family and whoever else to the official cutting of the cake. So we decided to park at mum's place and walk the 15 mins to Pelican's Nest, fearing there would be no parks within whoop whoop. We arrived and there were plenty of parks and not one other parent, friends or anything around. So, feeling a little like a third wheel, we watched kirrily for a while, then headed home. Plus i had the worst cold EVER so wasn't keen to give it to the kids (even though i'm sure that's where i got it from to start with). I did manage to snap kirrily with her party hat on. She was very impressed with the hat and the blue birthday cake.



Visit to Cotton Tree
One rainy boring Sunday morning, we decided to jump in the car (after many hours of just looking at each other at home) and headed to Cotton Tree. By the time we arrived, the sun was out which was rather nice but extremely hot and humid (and we'd dressed the kids for what looked like a snow storm). Kirrily played in the wet leaves and chased the poor Ibis for hours. I'm sure the Ibis are as silly as seagulls as they just kept coming back and waited for her to chase them again, either that or they are used to being chased.

While Kirrily played and gave me piles of wet and dirty pine needles (we all need those don't we), Hayley happily sat on David's lap. she had very little sleep but was still a happy little trooper. I think it was the lovely fresh air and squeals of delight from Kirrily that kept her going. It didn't take long before she went to the land of Nod in the car after our leaf playing.



Dora & Aunty Megan
Well Aunty Megan came for a visit on 3rd April. Kirrily was waiting at the front door for the shuttle bus to arrive. She sat patiently for 20minutes waiting. When Megan did arrive, she jumped up and bashed on the door and waved like crazy. Once she was in the door, Megan didn't have much time to rest before "Can we play with my Thomas Lego", quickly followed by "can we get the Dora bike out". She's finally after a few rides, figured out to push the peddles down and not turn the handles at 90 deg to the bike. She is now flying along the hallway, missing the walls my millimetres but loves it. "we have to do lots and lots of dora bike". after about 1 1/2hrs she hopped off and went straight back to Thomas (or should i say Percy).



Easter Bunny Came to Visit - Little School


I picked Kirrily up from Pelican's Nest last week (1st April) and noticed she had dirt of something all over her face. When i took a closer look, i noticed whiskers and freckles painted on her face. I wasn't thinking (obviously) when i asked her if she was a cat. After getting a rather disapproving look Kirrily quickly told me "no it's an Easter Bunny mummy". Oops. They had painted Easter Bunny's during the day with yellow paint (so im told) and then they all painted their own faces. This week, the Easter Bunny is going to play an Easter Egg Hunt, although in this weather they will need gum boots, snorkles and flippers to get outside.


The Cook and the Chef
No not the ABC program, this is Kirrily and my cooking efforts. Kirrily is obsessed with cooking and asks to cook. We bought a packet of blueberry Better Crocker muffins and mixed them up. Kirrily mixes the ingredients together and puts the muffin papers into the tin and also has a help in resetting my digital scales. Oh and she's pretty fond of licking the bowl at the end. David has to be quick if he ever wants to do that again.





Boxing Anyone?
I've finally managed to find time to get my boxing gloves back out again for some indoor exercise (the only outdoor exercise is running in flippers or snokling the backyard). Kirrily never wants to miss out so she grabbed my gloves once i finished and wanted to punch the mits david had. She does miss a bit and did punch david in the head once or twice but didn't do anything too damaging.


(ps. yes david does actually have clothes on). :-)


Solids
Hayley has been nibbling yogurt on and off for about a month now but every time we eat, she looks at us and gobbles at us. We bought her some rice cereal and mixed it with yogurt and she demolishes about 1tablespoon of that in addition to her milk. We had to go and find the high chair as it's been packed away for months but Hayley has made it her new comfy chair already. It's good too as we can now all sit at the table together. Hayley was in the bouncer on the floor before this and looked like she was missing out. Not now!!!!! I'm sure she can't wait to get her little gums into the fresh fruit and yogurt. Not until your 6 month Hayley.



That's all to report this time.


We are off to see Vaughan and Zoe on Easter Sunday but not much is planned for the near or distant future. We had planned a visit to Newcastle in late Feb but best laid plans..... One day soon I hope.