Tish's Talking (so listen 'cause it will be fast): August 2008

What the heck happened to the rest of 2008???

* Steve still stay at home Dad...we're still all loving it! He's started playing ....shhh....lawn bowls!! shhh...stop laughing!!! He seems to really be enjoying it. Of course being Mr Competitive, he's frustrated that he hasn't perfected it yet but I'm sure he'll get there. He has also commented that he has never seen so many hearing aides in the one place and that he has to use his outside voice when he's inside!! Quite a lot of young people play though, so I don't think it is all oldies!!

* Kids bathroom renovation - Emily came downstairs one morning a couple of months ago and asked Steve why the shower was falling apart. We had no idea but when Steve looked at it, a tile was coming loose. So he got out what he need to fix that one little tile and when he pulled it off, it peeled away a little too easily....as did about 25 other tiles so we made the decision to bite the bullet and renovate it. Steve decided to take on the challenge of renovating it for under $1000. I didn't think he had a hope of sticking to that budget but I should have known better.....so it's done, just needs to be painted. I love it, kids love it and the bank balance loves it too...total was just over $1000 - he was a little extravagent with the tapware and I didn't even notice them oops...LOL! Will have to take a pic of it all.

* We've all been struck down with the dreaded flu that most of Brisbane currently has. I'm still trying to shake it off and have had it now for about 5 weeks!!! Over it!!! Spent nearly all of last week sleeping all day...not good! I'm hoping we've almost got rid of it. Matthew has been home from school this week, hopefully he's on the mend. By the way have you seen this??

Oh too funny, "got a man with a hurty knee" and "haven't you ever heard of Lemsip?" Hahaha!...I love it! Not that it's like this in our house when the man of the house isn't feeling so well...*roll eyes* LOL! Matthew seems to be suffering from "Boy Cold"...a slightly gentler version of the Man Flu...yes he's dying LOL!

* Uni has been crazy - I opted to do 2 of my subjects in an intensive 6 week period. Nearly finished them but OMG 13 weeks of work in 5 weeks...not fun!!! But at least it means 2 subjects down for the semester!

* Talking of uni - Brad finished his degree and graduated recently! Congratulations Brad (have I mentioned I hate you?!!!) Serously though, we're all so proud of you. I know how hard it is to balance everything and you did so well balancing it all, so a huge congratulations to you!

* Sarah turned 3 in May. 3?!!! 3!!!!!! Yes I am having issues! I can't believe she is 3 and goes to school year after next. She's a clever little thing and very very funny. She copies everything that Emily does which Em both loves and hates! Right now Sarah loves: TV - Dora the Explorer, Wonderpets, Fairies, Lazy Town, Playschool. She loves Kindy and hates the days she has to stay home. Loves books and will often grab a book and 'read' it. She talks to herself ALL OF THE TIME! Actually she just talks all of the time!!! At Kindy, at sleep time, they have to put her to the side of the room, by herself as she doesn't sleep but talks to herself the entire time! She loves to eat all day long but doesn't eat a lot as such, she nibbles all day long. She often sings to herself and cracks us up when she starts singing regular radio songs - some not so appropriate for a 3 year old "I kissed a girl and I liked it" for example!!! She is a shit-stirrer though and constantly stirs the older 2. She loves shoes...seriously LOVES shoes - mine, hers, Emily's, doesn't matter...she loves them. At the beginning of Winter I bought Emily some long brown boots. A few weeks later she was at the shops with Mum and she tells her "Mama, these shoes are hurting my feet, I think they are too small." Derr...we'd had an arguement about them being too small before she left the house, but she insisted that she loved them and they were fine!! So Mum goes to buy her some shoes...any guesses what type of shoes she just had to have? Yep Long brown boots!! They do look pretty cute on, she loves them - THANKS Mum!! :)

Here's a pic of her going to Bella's birthday party back in July. She was so excited to be going to a birthday party by herself without the other kids!

* Emily - is growing up WAAAAAY too quickly! She turned 6 last week. I can't believe how fast it has gone. I also can't believe that this child is the same person as the one who was here 2 years ago! I could have given that little girl away....we fought CONSTANTLY, she didn't do anything she was told, argued with everyone, didn't seem to care who she upset...but she has grown into the most amazingly loving, kind hearted young lady and I canot even begin to say how proud I am of her. She still has that determined streak in her that I admire so much but she doesn't argue all of the time. She still stands up for what she believes in and won't be walked over but generally tries to keep the peace and is just so, so sweet and kind. Obviously she just needed to find out who she was and realise how important she was but she is seriously a different child these days! She's also 6 going on 16!!! Very concerned about looking pretty/cool/trendy etc. She still adores Luke (her boyfriend...remember the one she "married" ion Preschool?). She doesn't get to see him as often but when they do see each other they have so much fun and it's like no time has passed at all.

She loves - ART! Oh and art and anything remotely artistic and all things arty! Yep...loves art! LOL! Paint, glitter, cutting stuff up, glue, drawing, crayons, anything creative and she is in her element! She reminds me so much of Tammie as a young kid. Tammie was always cutting stuff up, creating something, (aka making a mess!!!), we'd all be watching TV and Tam would have disappeared and would be out in the garage making something. Emily is exactly the same. She is always leaving little notes and pictures around the place for us. Unfortunately she has limited things that she can write so we often find "Mum/Dad, I {heart} u" around the place. lots of drawings of flowers, suns, butterflies and always colourful. Back in July at school her class had an art gallery and they spent weeks creating lots of different types of artwork to display in the gallery (pencil drawings, colourful paintings, paper bag puppets, wet chalk drawings, black and white drawings, photography, charcoal drawings....heaps of things!!) It was fabulous and Emily loved being a part of it. She has started gymnastics and seems to love it or as she would say "this is SO me!!" With the Olympics recently on, I think she has set herself some serious goals, I'm not sure if she realises how many years those athletes have trained to be able to do all of that! With her determination, I am sure she'll be doing it in no time!

Here's a photo of her taken earlier this year that I just love....

and another couple of photos taken on the day of the school Walkathon a few weeks ago. They had to have crazy hair/socks/hat for the day, so she had crazy hair and crazy socks!

And of course, as I said earlier...someone likes to copy her big sister so Sarah also went to Kindy with Crazy hair!!!

* Matthew - turns 8 in about 2 weeks. Now that is seriously scary! 8!! We were talking the other day about the Olympics and he pointed out that he will be 12 when the next Olympics is on.....then of course he had to point out that he'll be 16 at the Olympics after that!!! 16!!!!! The bizarre thing is, the Sydney Olympics were on when he was a newborn and they don't seem that long ago. When you look at it that way...is he going to be 16 before I know it??

He's still completely football obsessed! He's just finished his first season of Aussie Rules (Aspley U8 Pies) and absolutely LOVED it! He did really well and amazed everyone with the way he could bounce that silly shaped ball while running (hours and hours and hours of practice in the back yard probably helped!!). Every time he got the ball, a few of the parents would yell out "Bounce it Browny". He idolises Jonothan Brown and on the field he walks like him, tucks his shirt in like him, has his socks pulled up like him, goes through the same motions before he kicks the ball etc etc. Steve was the coach (he did such a great job too!!) It was funny at the start of the season Matthew had no idea what to call him "Do I call you Coach, Dad, Steve or what?"

Matthew really listened to everything Steve told him...in fact sometimes too literally! Steve told him after one game that his kicking was great but he should start looking to handball more. He explained that sometimes a better option is handballing so he should start handballing more in the game. Matthew took it all in, nodded and said that he would definitely try next game. Next game Matthew did nothing but handball. Steve had to explain afterwards that he had done a great job but the idea was to mix it up a little and try handballing AND kicking and part of being a great footballer was knowing when to do what! He laughed at himself though and found a good mix in the next game. Sadly the season has finished now but he's looking forward to next year and playing Under 9's. He's madly trying to convince Steve to coach again. Actually all of the boys and parents are too. Matthew told him a few days ago that it was really cool having Dad as the coach so I think he may have convinced him to coach again next year. I hope he does because he did such a great job and the boys all improved so much over the season. It seems most will be back and are hoping to all be together again. The parents are all really lovely too so I hope so.

Matthew made some great friendships with the boys in his team. I think it was really refreshing for him to be around boys who shared his passion. The kids at school play rugby league and soccer and don't particularly like or play aussie rules which disappoints Matty greatly. He had one of the boys, Bailey, over for a sleep over a few weeks ago and they had a ball. VERY little sleep mind you. Steve fell asleep on the lounge and woke up around 11.30pm and could hear them still chatting, giggling (and I think playing Playstation) then Matthew said Bailey woke him at 5am because they hadn't finished their game the night before. LOL!

As well as footy he also currently loves - High School Musical (movie), Hannah Montana (TV), Miniclip and Club Penguin on the computer, Aussie Nibble/Aussie Bites, Harry Potter and Specky McGee books - he reads every night when he goes to bed. He reads until he gets tired and turns his lamp off when he has had enough. He's currently reading Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban and is nearly finished...just in time for his birthday ;) He also loves "inventing" things...he's recently invented a sport and spent every night for a few weeks designing the sport and rules etc, he has invented a pretend country (along with a flag, a map of what it looks like - named all of the states and everything), and he's always thinking of things that he could invent or proposing 'what if' questions. Yes he's a funny little man at times! LOL!

Here's a few pics of Matthew and his team mates:

First game of the season.

Last game of the season.

At a night game in full club jersey's.

Secrets between mates (photo a little dark, will have to lighten it)

Matthew in action.

Actually funny story here...this team had a girl on the team (you can see her in the photo. When the boys got there they saw there was a girl and started laughing at the girl on the other team. I turned to Matthew and said "I wouldn't laugh if I was you, if she's in the team she's probably pretty good" All the boys laughed at me and I could tell they were thinking "as if!" Well...... girl power at it's best!!! She killed them! She was amazing and at the end of the 1st quarter they were all coming off saying "Did you see how good she is" She ended up winning her teams best player for the season award. And our boys learnt a good lesson too! LOL!

* As far as scrapping goes....I haven't done much at all this year :( :( I keep trying to find the time but then feel guilty that I should be studying so don't scrap. I was going to enter Scrapbooking Memories Masters but didn't get one of the items finished in time. Here are the 3 I did get done:

- Single layout had to be in a shape other than traditional square/rectangle so I chose to do mine in the shape of a crown: "Mum to a Princess"

- Double layout - had to be about your hopes and dreams and I chose to take mine from a slightly different angle. I based it around this beautiful song:

"Cherish Now"

The journalling reads: "Dear Matthew, Emily and Sarah, I heard this song recently and it has made me think and I realised that so many of my dreams at the moment focus on you all being a bit older and not so needy of me. I've been dreaming of the days when I'll be able to have a hot cup of coffee or talk uninterrupted on the phone, when I've finished my degree, when we'll have the house paid off and therefore have more money, when you'll all be old enough to travel with, to do your own seatbelts up, stay home without a babysitter while we go out, drive your own cars wherever you want to go. but then I realised what I already know deep down - that time will come all too soon and I'll miss these days. So I'm going to Cherish now and stop dreaming life away. Love Mum."

- BTP - Keepsake gift for someone special - Sarah is forever collecting little bits and pieces and carrying them around in her pockets or in a handbag so I made this little tin for her "Sarah's Treasures"