Changes....

Some things have changed and are about to change around here....

1. I had to finish work at the end of August... I was having trouble keeping my blood sugar levels under control and the diabetes doctors said it's time for me to have a rest before the baby comes.... (it's not due until the first week of November) so that means I've got some time to nest, rest, organise and re-organise, and spend time with my kids and husband before one more is added to the family :-). But I must say... I am loving being at home.... it's what I have always wanted.... I just hope that we can make it work that I can permanently stay at home.

2. The down side of finishing so early is that I had to start my paid parental leave earlier..... which means it will run out A LOT sooner than I hoped (like when the baby is just over a month old) .... not sure what I'm going to do after that but I'm sure it'll work itself out.

3. My kids are growing WAY TOO FAST! The other day I looked at Little Miss and noticed that the top that she was wearing has suddenly become too short in the body as well as the sleeves..... I just got it for her 3 weeks ago! What is up with that?

4. The Lad is talking a lot more now.... he's like a little parrot, but he's so deliciously cute.... especially when he says his sister's name.

5. In  6 months time we will have a school girl! Where has the time gone?! But I am looking forward to all that stationery shopping, and book covering, and helping with homework.... what I am not looking forward to is making the school lunch!

6. Matthew got a new job! In I.T! Yay! He is now the new Junior Applications Analyst for RD1. I'm so proud of him! We're so happy - especially me! He has been doing some BIG BIG hours lately - he works so hard, and never complains and we really appreciate it, but it's not fair to be doing the hours that he has been. Anyway.... he will start his new job on the 1st of October.... so here's to some normal working hours for him, and yay for us being able to have dinner as a family, and having him home at night and on the weekends! the not so yay point though.... MAKING HIS LUNCH!

One thing about his job is.... he's now going to be paid monthly.... this is giving me nightmares already. I need help people...... how do we transition from a weekly budget to a monthly budget? especially when our funds are already very limited and short with me finishing work early?
Any tips or advice for living on a monthly budget would be GREATLY appreciated! We're starting fortnightly grocery shopping again so i'm hoping that will save us a little bit of money that we can put towards something else. Please help me!

Anyway that's about it for a little update from us. I'll keep you posted on how things go on the grocrey/budgeting topic.

:-)

A mouthful....

I am eating a toffee pop mellowpuff collision..... I can't talk properly because I have the whole thing in my mouth! I'm just like my Daddy :-)

Just me and daddy

I like to sit down and have talks with my Daddy. I love him lots!

One sick Little Miss having cuddles and a snooze on the couch with Daddy. Awwwwwww!

Learning shapes with Daddy

Here is Daddy teaching Little Miss the names of the shapes from her shape sorter.

Happy...

Sometimes I look at Matthew and think he is so darn hot, and I look at our Little Miss and think she is so darn delicious!
I'm Happy.
The End.

Life...

Things have been busy around here lately....

- Matthew has just started back into his school year
- Matthew also works very hard when he is not at school to help support our little family - I know that he is tired and I really appreciate him and what he does to help us out
- I've just been made the supervisor of the Under 2's license at my work
- There has been lots of sorting out and changes made at work since I've taken on this role - I hope I can do a good job
- My Nana has settled into living with us, and is a great help around here - we love having her here
- I wonder if sometimes she thinks we are a little crazy and wonders what she has gotten herself into
- I had high blood pressure a couple of weeks ago, but no one knows what it was from
- I have to have some more tests done in a months time - oh joy
- Our Little Miss has suddenly acquired an attitude, and acts like she is 16 years old already
- I decided I don't want her to become 16 because I'm not sure i'll be able to handle the attitude then
- Then I remember that this is my chance to learn to deal with the attitude now so i'll be ready in 14 years time when she does turn 16
- We want to have another baby
- But then sometimes I think I don't because I don't want that one to have an attitude too
- But then I think "what the heck, lets have 10 more"
- Then I think, "what was I thinking saying that"
- We're trying
- Little Miss will be 2 next month! I don't even know where to begin to organise a party
- I decided that I want the party at some kind of playground place so I don't have to stress out about it or do the clean up - is that bad?
- I'm tired
- I'm sick of flies hanging around my house and thinking it's ok to sit on the end of my nose or the lenses of my glasses
- Little Miss has decided that she doesn't like sleeping in her bed and comes into ours in the middle of the night
- This makes us tired, cos we don't like legs and arms in our faces!
- Little Miss has decided that some nights it's ok to be awake at 3am in the morning ready for the day
- It's not ok
- It makes me tired, and grumpy which isn't nice or fair, but I'm working on it
- But that's the joy of parenting right?
- I love it how my Nana just came in and got rid of a grasshopper that was crawling around my lounge floor, because I didn't want to go near it
- I love it that I went out for Valentine's Day dinner with my husband last night, and that he went and got more water for us to drink - because I like it when he does little things like that :-)
- We're going to move to a bigger house in a month and a bit so we're getting ready for moving

That's all I have to say right now. The End. :-)

HEART MELTING!

Matthew talking on the phone.... Little Miss copying on her toy phone. My new FAVOURITE picture. Melts my heart. So much! The End.

Happy Anniversary to us!

On Sunday this handsome man and I will celebrate 3 wonderful years of married life!

These photos were taken for our wedding invitations...

Today my lovely husband brought home a surprise for me....

My favourite flowers - yet to open up and show their beauty

AND....
Caramel Mudcake from the Cheesecake Factory!

YUUUUUUUUM! Isn't he wonderful? I think he is!

Happy Anniversary to us!

Look what we've been up to....

Wow, long time no blog! We've been busy - work, school, church and everything else in between.

We have been busy working on a project for the last couple of months.... yip its taken us this long to fins the time here and there to complete it!

We brought a manrobe off Trade Me a couple of months ago for our spare room - it was white and chipped and ugly, so we removed all the handles and painted it up....

Before:

After:

All painted up and handles put back on - the colour is a dark brown called Mayor Island. I love it! It was a joint effort - we both painted, and my wonderful husband put all the handles back on and did this:

He put a new pipe/ hanging rod thingee in but put it the opposite way so that it can fit a full size coathanger! Clever Man!
and I spent forever putting pretty patterned paper on the back wall just to add a nice little touch (forever I tell you because the stupid spray glue wouldn't stick so I used my trusty Mod Podge)

Not bad aye??

Im happy with it for now but not sure how long its life in this house will be. What do you think?

Bless my husband!

Since working full time I don't really have the energy to do the grocery shopping after work so my wonderful husband has taken on this responsibility while I stay home with Little Miss... this is a good thing for me as it stops unnecessary things finding their way into our trolley which means we don't spend as much on our groceries which is also a bonus, and also my Husband is great at comparing items and getting the ones that are best value for money which helps when the budget is a little tight too, and not to mention he's really good at sticking to what's on the list, whereas I tend to buy things because I swear they are calling to me!

Anyway,

Tonight onions was on the list... I'm talking just a couple of Onions as we ony need them for a couple of meals for this week (last time he came back with a small bag of onions which was ok - I wouldn't have minded that again actually)

This is what came home with him tonight...

It's the same size as a sack of Potatoes - BLESS HIM!

Uh.....

So, in our house it's tradition to have a big breakfast/brunch/lunch on special occassions.

Today was a special occassion as it's Mother's Day (HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MUMS!)

On today's menu it was French Toast with Bacon and Bananas - YUM!

We opened a new bottle of Maple Syrup... (just remember there are only 2 of us who eat the french toast)

We may have got a little excited about the Maple Syrup though...

P.S - A tiny fly got stuck in Matthew's Maple syrup.... Lucky he only had a couple of bites left - no where near the fly!

Family Update...

Well I thought it was time to update you all on our family situation...

First of all the rumor is true - we are moving to Hamilton.

Some of you may know the reasons why we are moving and some of you may not so I thought it was time to clear up the confusion ... Matthew and I have talked about moving a few times since we've been married but it has never been the right time... until now - everything has fallen into place and our house is now on the market. We will be moving as soon as it is sold.

Some people have asked us why we are moving... we're moving to Hamilton because Matthew will study for a Bachelor of Information Technology at the Polytech there.

Why is Matthew studying in Hamilton rather then Dunedin.... Matthew is going to study in Hamilton because while he is studying I can work full time there and make enough money to support our family while he studies - something that I cant do if i'm working here in Dunedin (even if I worked full time).

I've been offered 3 jobs - so the next big decision for us is to choose which job i'll be taking!

Some people are worried about us going there.... why? Because they think that we will find the cost of living more expensive and rent etc etc, and they also think that we haven't thought about this properly... don't worry about us! - we've worked everything out VERY carefully, and looked at ALL of our options and this is the best one for our family right now at this time - from the places we have looked at rent is cheaper than our weekly mortgage repayments, food is always going up in price anyway so it wont be much different to living here, and the bonus is that we wont have to pay rates or house insurance and all those lovely other things that come with owning a house.

We are taking a step backwards by going from owning a home to renting but taking this step backwards means that we can take a million steps forwards in other ways that will be better for our family in the long term.

So that's our reasons for moving to Hamilton - we are very excited about this and we know that Heavenly Father has blessed us already - we know that this is what we need to do at this time.

We will miss Dunedin and all of our family and friends here (you are all welcome to come and visit anytime!) but we are looking forward to having a fresh start and a change.

Moving on, the main reason for this post is because I want to show you all the amazing job that my wonderful, fantastic husband has done on getting our section ready so we can sell. (also a BIG THANKYOU to all those other people who helped Matthew when I couldn't both inside and outside)...

When we first moved into our house, there were bushes and trees EVERYWHERE! Over the last 2 years Matthew has been digging here and there, and attacking them with the chainsaw and taking them out - now that they are gone there is so much more light in our house and around the yard - it looks so good.

So here are some photos of the wonderful work Matthew has done (thankyou Honey, you've made the place look AMAZING!) - I'm really sad that we're selling though - because we wont get to enjoy our nice yard for long!

First of all check this out...

Matthew and Mikey digging out the last huge tree stump from our front yard...

It took both Matthew and Mikey to move the tree stump!

It was huge and the hole that was left looked like a giant meteor had landed in our front yard!

Walking up the path...

Front yard...

Street View...

Backyard...

and the grand finale....

Our BBQ area!

Looks AMAZING huh???

A game with my husband.....

So, for christmas Matthew's brother Hugh got me a game called Pictureka.... it's a pretty cool game - this one is the card version of the game which has 4 different games you can play. Last night we played 3 of the games at Matthew's Mum and Dad's house after dinner (a family tradition which I LOVE)
Last night after we got home and Little Miss was asleep Matthew asked if I would play another game with him - this time playing the 4th game that we didn't play - it's called "Cow's Creative Combo".
The aim is to be the first to collect 4 mission cards by completing the missions on your own cards.

Each person gets 3 picture cards and 1 mission card - you get to chose 1 out of the 2 missions to complete and you have to match your 3 picture cards to that mission by going through a process of discarding cards and swapping them with other players - if you find 3 picture cards that have anything in them that match your mission then on your turn you lay them down and say how they match your mission - then other players get to agree or disagree.

Anyway, so Matthew and I are playing, and I've beaten him at a couple of rounds by this stage, and I can see he's getting a little frustrated at losing - something that doesn't go down too well with a very competitive person!

Next round it's Matthew's turn - he's got some cards that match his mission...

Here's his mission: A Male

The first picture card that matches his mission goes down:

I ask "How do you know that's a male"
Matthew looks at me and says, "Because he doesn't have boobs"
I reply, "How do you know it doesn't have boobs - it's wearing a big thick jacket that could be covering them, and anyway some people have little boobs"
Matthew's reply is "he's hunting - only guys hunt"
Oh really??
the answer comes back...."it's a male ok"
THE END...

The next picture card goes down: I don't argue with this one because I'm satisfied that this is a male

and then the final card goes down....

before I even have a chance to say something, Matthew say's "it's a male because he's wearing a tie" I say, "Avril Lavigne wears a tie and she's not a male" Matthew says, "ok then, he's wearing a hat" my reply, "but girl's wear hats too"

I get 'the look' (the 'I'm so competitive and if I don't win a round soon you're gonna be in big trouble' look and then the reply, "They're all male OK"

AND THAT'S THE END OF THE ROUND....

Anyone wanna play a game with us?? We really are very nice people to play games with!

2 years....

Yesterday we celebrated our 2nd wedding anniversary! 2 years has gone so fast! It's been great so far and i'm sure we'll have many more great times ahead!

We didn't do a lot for our anniversary but we did have dinner together and snuggled on the couch to watch a DVD.

I made Matthew's favourite for dinner (Lasagne)

and I ordered a Double Chocolate Cheesecake from the Dessert Room - my favourite place in the whole wide world!

SO DELICIOUS!!

and look what my wonderful husband brought home with him...... JUST FOR ME!....

What a great anniversary!

He's there!

So on Friday night we went out to get junk food and a DVD. On the way to get these things we passed a park near our house.... Matthew spotted some wood from trees that had been cut down there... he said "Hmmmmmm" and nothing else.... deep down I knew he would go back and get some because that's the kind of thing that my husband does (when they were getting new shelves at Countdown, my husband loaded up the van with some of the old shelves and they are now in our laundry with all of our food storage on them) he embarrasses me because I'm not the kind of girl that just picks up things off the side of the road... I was with Matthew when he got the old Countdown shelves - and I hid!

So anyway we come home, and it's getting late - off Matthew goes to get some wood.

This morning I wake up just before 6:30am to find an empty bed - first I wonder if I've pushed Matthew out of the bed and he's asleep on the floor.... nope not there, then I go into the lounge to see if he is asleep on the couch... nope not there either.... he's no where in the house! I then look outside... the van is gone!

Guess where he is? He's gone on an early morning mission to get some wood!

Here is our pile of wood.... thanks Dunedin City Council for chopping down your trees and leaving the wood right where my husband can see it!

I love my husband.... I love the way that he finds little things to help care for his family (even though they may be embarrassing ways) hee hee!

Isn't he wonderful!