Coming!

Post's one of these days on the chicken coop, life, thrifty finds, project updates and our soon to be gottenened piano!

Wonderful hearin' from you Nelle!

Mandarin Duck

E: What is that duckie called?

K: A Mandarin duck....Mandarin like the fruit....

E: Ohhhh.....so you kill the duckie and cut it open and look inside and it looks orange like a mandarin.

Baking results

Ok so obviously I was going for the rustic look as well as the taste fantastic look!

Hot cross bun cross and glaze need tweaking but the taste....maybe I should slice a thigh or two open and shove them right in there!?

I decided since we last spoke to also make banana bread.

Here's hoping the critic comes home and tries them and doesn't say

Not as good as J (his 10 year old niece, his sister or his mum) or nah, prefer safeway.

He's so funny because he is really encouraging just not overly emotional (like me) so he is just saying.....

p.s. I wished today that I got married 4 years earlier and had kids 4 years later and half of them amount of kids....today feels like it sucks but have hope because the day is not over!

p.p.s I feel horrible about my p.s but sometimes you just gotta get it out....of my web and into the web

Doing it all....or at least most of it....

Some may say (and have said) WAIT till your kids are older....and a bit more independant...

MANAGE your time better

PICK your battles

RESIGN yourself to

PACE yourself

ONE thing at a time

I just used the words your/yourself FIVE times in nearly as many sentences.

It isn't all about me but yet I have this 'ideal'....no, that's not the right word.

I have things I would like to do...

Bake my own bread, make things from scratch.....but alas at this moment it seems like these things aren't meant to be. Or are they?

Today for the first time I am making my own bread and making hot cross buns. I figured if I was going into yeast territory why not just go the double whammy.

Currently in the 'proving' and 'rising' stages so I am not posting about any end results yet because the end has not yet been reached.

In the meantime I was grumpy. My kids must be too little? Or I have let them get away with things that now annoy the hell out of me?

They like to stand on little steps on the other side of the kitchen and watch me cook.....can some of you already see what might be annoying?

Could it be 3 kids trying to get the best view on the same one person step?

Could it be the leaning over the ledge into the kitchen?

Could it be bringing toys up with them and dropping all manner of things accidentially onto the bench?

I don't know. Well I do know that in my head I was yelling WOULD YOU JUST GO AWAY!

I think I have been kidding myself a bit. I think the kids are around me too much in terms of hanging off me or if they see me doing something in the kitchen they come to ask for food.

I have been told to ignore them more. Mother guilt can be such a terrible thing at times.

This is really just a big ramble into the web.....mind you at the moment my head feels like it is filled with webs. All my thoughts getting jumbled up and mixed around.

The question of me doing what I want to do and not worrying about other people....this transition stuff is hard!

Midgey's

There is no photo that could ever truly show you how wonderful Grace's cheeks are. She is so funny! Grace has been going well with her glasses. She never takes them off unless we ask her to for her bath or at bedtime. She carefully closes the arms (are they seriously called 'arms'.....Ethan would not be happy with that because glasses aren't alive).

Grace is now a running champion and loves the puppies who you and I might might know as pooper scoopers or coco and zia. To Grace they are both either Zia but usually Dodo. We are also amazed with her level of comprehension! Talking a lot but sometimes even the unpaid translator doesn't even understand.

Awww. Awwwwwwwwwwwww

Sister's share a room although lately I have considered putting Ethan in with them too because Levi is so noisey!

Ashley is real life RIGHT NOW is not a happy camper. She has just left the room so let's focus on her photo and move on. Ashley is so helpful and eager to help mummy. Getting better at just being a child and having fun without getting bogged down thinking mummy is folding washing so I must help her! Not something anyone but a crazy person would squash right?!

Blue lips on a cold morning! This BABY (perhaps he didn't get the memo?) crawls everywhere! Escapes out the back door (heart failure), climbs up steps and does about 10 push ups a day and sits up on his own too. He feeds himself and chomps away with he 2 bottom teeth. Very friendly and smiley most of the time but I thought I would show you his serious side. :) 

It is like reliving having Ethan as a baby again! Except this time with smokey eyes! I decided we needed a pajama clad excursion to a Chinese laundry.

Doing up seatbelts by himself in his carseat, climbing, jumping, running, talking and learning how to read! He gets most excited over noticed punctuation being used on signs.

For now.....I must depart!

I've been searchin'

Lately I have been thinking about my kids.....no scrap that, I prefer the word children....ok, let's be honest go back to old faithful....the midgey's

They are so amazingly wonderful and cute! I find it so amazing to think I have had 4 children occupying the same space inside of me but yet they come out different...and the same...

I watch Ethan these days. Such an interesting FIVE year old! I used to wonder before I had children and let's be honest up until April 30th 2010 if I could handle a five year old. They (the other children, not my own) all seemed so annoying and selfish and tantrumy and annoying).

Children can appear to be annoying (for those following at home I am jumping back to my children now) but is it my lack of discipline that makes them seem annoying. Lack of discipline on myself and them. Surely, my husband and I steer the ship when it comes to their literal punishment?

I digress......what I have reeeeally been wondering is......have I wasted those 5 years, 3 years, 2 years and nearly 9 months? Not enough kisses and smooshing of my lips into that pillowly soft JUICY cheek. Smelling the smells that last for but a brief time?

Now I am told "Mummy, kisses on the Wips are DISGUSTING".

So now we barter and trade for them....of course!

So kiss your babies, tell them you love them and praise the One who has entrusted you with them for but a short time.