Quick Update On Our Kids

Our happy chappy

I'm going to start with Sarah as she always seems to be the over looked one (dominated by her loud bossy sister). Sarah has 'suddenly' grown up so much. Her vocabulary, the 'maturity'/intelligence/understanding in her eyes and face as she converses and talks to me. I love this girl. She's our moody one, but she's learning to be self-controlled. We're slowly working on allaying her fear of hair washing at present - one of us has to hold her hands (at her insistence - for comfort), while the other washes with her 'special' new No Tears shampoo. Saturday night is hair wash night for the girls.

Our cookie monster

Abigail continues to be our loud crazy one (such a contrast to how she was as a baby!). She is looking forward to growing up and having a wedding - wearing a white dress and a veil. Last night Great Grandmas Randall and Sheehy came for dinner and Abigail discovered their stockinged feet - wearing such stockings is also now on her list of things for when she's a woman. And she is very keen to wear any of my jewellery whenever I let her (something I've only recently started wearing). My little girl is looking forward to becoming a big girl! Both girls are getting very helpful with doing jobs around the home; it is such a help! Now I'm greatly looking forward to when they can wash dishes!

Our spunky monkey

Caleb (almost 8 months old now) continues to charge through his mobility milestones. He can now climb and is practicing standing alone. He has started babbling lately which is very cute. And loud. We went to an afternoon service at Great Grandma Randall's church a couple of weeks ago and I had to stand outside with him as he kept up a steady loud sermon of his own. He likes to eat dirt and tissues. Well, any small bits of rubbish that fit in his mouth! He's finally learning the meaning of 'no' and what the 'don't touch' areas/objects are which is helping! Hopefully that means cords and plugs will soon be safe from his attention.....

May 2013 - Family Update

I had a really great May. I've really been enjoying my kids and life's happenings in general. Much to be thankful for.

This month Caleb started standing and walking with support (5 1/2 months). And a few days past the 6 month mark he started crawling and is now very proficient at it. He is also able to pull himself up and cruise around lower pieces of furniture (he has discovered that the girls' hair is useful for pulling himself up to stand which neither of them appreciate). He is a very happy little explorer and I love watching him as he discovers his world. Much delight in this little boy! He is now eating solids thrice daily (but is still feeding at least 3 times a night). This week he cut his first tooth (lower gum) and has been quite unsettled through the nights. Last night we finally pulled out the Bonjela and voila! he slept soundly for a few hours. He's doing really well with the toilet training - he often grizzles at us until we take him to the loo! Simply hold him over the toilet bowl and he pees and poops away! (We tried sitting him on the potty but he crawls straight off it and then plays with it instead....) I love not having poopy nappies to scrub each day! 

Sarah continues to love on Caleb with pats and snuggles. Abigail prefers more raucous interaction - Caleb laughs at the silly antics she performs for him and that tickles her fancy. Abigail really enjoyed a couple of Dr. Seuss books from the library this month - even being able to recite passages! Jon and I enjoy the word play in them too. Both girls have also been enjoying some Winnie-the-Pooh stories. I'm looking forward to reading through many more classics with them as they grow older. Both girls like to peel onion and garlic for me, put away the dishes, and make toast. They're getting pretty good and buttering their own too.

I had a friend and two of her littlies over one morning earlier in the month - the rest of that week the girls insisted they be called Bekky and Jessica. We visited Grandma Randall Mother's Day weekend. I visited another friend the next week - the girls have since pretended that they are Hannah and Aurora. They've also been various aunties and uncles (this morning they were fighting over who got to be Uncle Andrew). Sarah often gets landed with the male name or the part of prince :) We missed a couple of weeks of playgroup, MOPS, church, library story time - ie. any social outings - due to a cold bug working its way through the family. It has mostly left us now and so we made it out to a birthday party on the weekend and back to playgroup this week. I wasn't able to do the Climb for Cancer in the middle of the month as Caleb and I came down sick that weekend.

This month we finally bought our digital piano. Jon did LOTS and LOTS of research into digital pianos over the past few months, with many trips to music stores to try various ones out, and we finally picked the one we wanted. It is now assembled and set up in our lounge (we've moved the computer upstairs) and we are enjoying playing music again. I am keen to learn new pieces of music and have starting learning the music to the song 'Blessings' by Laura Story. Jon's looking forward to doing some recording with it soon.

We had a big clean up around home with our area's kerbside collection being on. It is nice to be rid of the large junk items that were piling up for this occasion. Jon's cleared out the cupboard under the stairs and made it into a little cubby for the girls to play in, which they enjoy. We also upgraded our trampoline as the mat on our one was worn through and we were having trouble sourcing a replacement the same size. Last weekend we made a trip to Surfers Paradise to pick up a piece of furniture and turned the morning into an outing for the kids - stopped at a nearby playground and then took them out for lunch and ice cream. They like getting ice creams.

April 2013

No longer content to lie in the bouncinette - he strains forward
until he manages to get in a sitting position.

Enjoying the swing

Caleb started sitting unsupported and eating solids at the beginning of this month, and now as the month closes he has started to get up on his hands and knees and rocks back and forth. Sometime in the month he worked out how to roll from his tummy to his back (by sticking his bottom up in the air), and so now has enough arsenal of movement to get around the floor a bit. He was very keen to start eating (though only 4 1/2 months! Must be a boy thing?), sitting at the table screaming at us while we ate until we gave him food, so is now having solids at dinner time with us. He gets very messy. The floor gets very messy. And the table/highchair gets very messy. But he is very fun to watch eating - he gets quite frenzied about getting the spoon/food in his mouth!

Still keep pillows around him for the eventual tipping over

The girls busy colouring

Sarah has had a sudden jump in independence in the last couple of weeks. She can now dress herself (even if some things go on backwards). She's stopped wetting her knickers all the time, and can change them herself when needed. And she can put her straps on in her car seat. At the beginning of the month these were all "I can't!"s whenever we prompted her to try, and at some point she decided to try and succeeded! It makes life that little bit easier for me. Sarah has been inseparable from a novelty toothbrush Little Grandma (my mum) sent over - it goes everywhere with her. Until it was lost at playgroup this week. After one day without it we went and found a replacement at the shops (thankfully we found one exactly the same!)

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The girls now share a 'booster seat' at meal times. They'll often put their arms around each
other for a hug - it's very cute :)

Abigail has started drawing pictures. She used to just colour and scribble or try drawing letters, but now I find pictures she's drawn. I love finding them and then getting her to tell me about them.

And she has started using more colours than just brown (which was her favourite colour for a while - everything was coloured brown!). Abigail is now at the stage where she will listen to longer stories, and so Jonathan has been reading her a shortened version of Heidi - a chapter each day when he gets home from work - which she has seemed to really enjoy.

Abigail's first drawing (I thought Jon must have done it!) - on the far left is Cinderella
and the smaller people are children Cinderellas

Jon and I have started learning some card games this month. So far we have learnt to play Gin Rummy, Cribbage and Canasta. Gin Rummy is probably the most played so far. Canasta would be better with 3 or 4 players. A lot of our evenings have been spent playing cards together. Now we just have to build up our board game stash, and we'll have plenty of game options for when family and friends come over. We have found playing games with people is a good way to get conversations happening and relationships growing, and I am looking forward to having games nights with the kids as they grow older (I tried Snakes and Ladders with the girls this week but they're not grasping the concept yet).

Playing cards like mummy and daddy

Jonathan has been quite busy at work this month; his plate is kept full. And he has a couple of big gigs over the next two weekends, so a busy time for him at the moment. 

I had a growing need to clean my blinds this month. It's been one of those jobs that I haven't done because venetian blinds are such a pain to clean. And then I found out that you can detach them from the window, take them outside on the trampoline and scrub and hose them down. Once I had the blinds clean, the windows and frames had to be done too. My windows and blinds are now so clean looking it gives me much joy :) I also finally got out to Wynumm last Saturday for a second-hand shopping spree (Caleb accompanied me). 

God has been teaching me a lot this month. Big lessons. I've learnt that I am not the only mother who struggles. And that experiencing the doldrums isn't the same as depression. And that this time of Jon and my life is intense - we have 3 young children close together. These realisations seem simple and fairly obvious but they have been hugely freeing for me. It has been incredible - this month has been full of conversations with family and friends, links shared on Facebook, and articles in my blog feed about these things.

For the days when the doldrums strike (my older sister, Johanna, helped me see the difference between discouragement and depression - that terminology clarification was immensely helpful), I knew I had to have a plan for getting out of them and printed myself out a plan of action for such times. Then a week later, my friend Ruth posted a link to this article, which summed up what I had learnt in a very helpful way. 

For the days that felt pointless and lacking in purpose, I knew I needed to look at the bigger picture of raising my children and to not get stuck in the day to day stuff - I am raising children, not just keeping house. There is always character to work on, skills to teach, education to impart, and relationships to build. I felt the need to plot out some of these bigger goals - and then the next MOPS session happened to be on planning the 'destination' for our families and setting long-term family goals.

For the days that are trying with their constant barrage of needs, noise, messes and demands (......children), I  need to relax and enjoy (and forget my to-do list). This is a season that will be over before I know it, and I don't want to miss the joys and opportunities that it holds. I want to enjoy my children now. I have suddenly come across so many articles about doing just that and how to do it better. 

I started the month asking God why He kept sending me hard days (all the while knowing that He'd keep sending them until I learnt to deal with them in a godly way). I come to the end of the month feeling very enriched and better armed. That's not to say I'm not going to fail at times, but I do hope that in the days ahead I will go from 'strength to strength', and when that Day comes He will say to me, "Well done, good and faithful servant".

March 2013

The past month saw us celebrate my birthday, camp at Mt Tamborine, reach our 100th geocache the day before our 1 year geocaching anniversary, and spend Easter up in Bundy.

Tent up, now for lunch

As is his custom, Jon took holiday leave on my birthday, and as it fell on a Friday this year we made a long weekend of it and went camping at Mt Tamborine. It was a bit of a wet weekend, but it was dry for when we put the tent up (well, there was the lightest of rain) and when we took it down. We enjoyed the sound of rain on the tent at night. I took frozen meals with us for the weekend so I barely had any cooking to do. We explored Gallery Walk (Jon bought me a German cuckoo clock - something I've been wanting; and some specialty fudge), visited the Botanic Gardens briefly for lunch (there was a cache there), went to the art and craft market, and did some geocaching. We didn't do any of the bush walks - it was too wet and there was plenty of other things to do.... and the girls are still not over our Bunya Mountain bush marathon :) They enjoyed jumping on their air mattress and playing frisbee with daddy. Caleb enjoyed hanging in his jolly jumper :)

Swinging in between rain showers

Getting rained on at the markets

Mummy thought Abigail might enjoy a pony ride - I think the petting farm would have been enjoyed more...

A couple of days after my birthday is when we found our first geocache a year ago, and Jonathan was keen to make it to 100 finds before then. Well, a couple of days out we still had 9 caches to find, but we did it - we found our 101st cache on the anniversary! I think he has hopes we'll find another 100 this year.....

Jon signing our 101st cache's log

For the Easter long weekend we went up to Bundaberg to see my Grandma. I was keen to travel during the kids' sleeping times as much as possible so we left at 5am on the Friday morning and came back home Sunday night after dinner. It certainly helped as far as travelling with children goes, but Jon and I were somewhat tired. However, our visits with Grandma are always relaxing (for me anyway!). The girls had a blast with the new array of toys for them to play with, and Jon and I enjoyed a good game of Cluedo with Grandma one evening.

Breakfast at Curra

Running around Grandma's yard

Watching Jon and the girls play

We had a young man over for dinner one night earlier in the month - he and his dad helped Jon with the audio at Philip Island and has just started uni near us. For the week after, Abigail's toys were named Amos (sorry uncles - Jachin, Andrew, Jono, and Philip - you were displaced for a while there). We've also been up to Caloundra to visit (Great) Grandma Randall, visited (Great) Grandma Sheehy, and had Uncle Jono over one night for dinner.

Caleb is rolling and can sit unsupported for short periods now. He enjoys playing with toys, sitting in the high chair, and watching the girls playing - won't be long before he's up chasing after them!

Sarah lost a fingernail earlier in the month after getting her finger shut in a door. The nail isn't getting much chance to grow back because it's on one of her sucking fingers and she keeps sucking it off!

Abigail has informed Sarah that her name is not Abby. She has taken to Richard Scarry books after Jon found some at the library, so lots of his stories have been read (over and over).

And that roughly covers our happenings for the month of March.

February 2013

Caleb is now 3 months old. He loves to sit up. The bouncinette just doesn't cut it anymore! On a lap, in the highchair or on the couch, he likes to sit up (I think he likes the vantage point). This morning at the library (for storytime), I sat on a couch with him on my knee and he sat there cooing and looking around eagerly for ages (until he got tired and wanted to feed and sleep). He no longer needs the baby insert for the ergo - he feels so small without the bulk of it; and putting him in is so much easier now. I wonder whether I'll need to fashion him some dribble bibs, as he sure seems to drool. He's discovered his hands and tries to eat them all the time.

I started going to MOPS (Mothers of PreSchoolers) at our church this month (it's on fortnightly). The girls go to a creche while I (with Caleb) spend a couple of hours with other mums - hearing a short talk, discussion, craft, etc. I am enjoying the opportunity to connect with other mums at church. It took me a while to come to the point I was happy to leave the girls in a creche, but I felt we were all ready. The first time, I told Abigail (Sarah didn't come - she stayed home with an unwell Jonathan) that she could ask to come to me at any time - she assured me that she wouldn't need me. And when I collected her afterwards, she let me know that she hadn't needed me :)

Sarah's vocabulary has been widening quickly. She loves playing with LEGO (micro Megablocks, actually).  Her night toileting hasn't been going so well (I had to wash 5 sets of sheets in 2 days!) so we've put her back in nappies. After having the cloth ones leak a couple of times and in light of all the rain and an upcoming camping trip, I've bought some disposable nappies for her for the time being. We'll try the night toileting again once I'm getting more sleep and the sun is out to dry our washing!

Abigail is absorbing all sorts of information! I've started teaching her a Catechism for young children. She enjoys me asking her the questions and she rattles off the answers. She's memorised the first 5 so far (out of 145!). We've started some reading lessons with her, and she's working on her writing skills. We'll see how it goes - for now she seems to be enjoying it and comes to me asking for her 'lessons'. Sarah sometimes sits in on them and joins in too. And we always end with colouring - which I enjoy as well :)

Both girls still love being read to (ALL THE TIME!!!). Jonah and the big fish is the current favoured Bible story. I love watching all their imaginary play. And we continue our Saturday night routine of watching the David Attenborough series on TV with the girls. (The current series is on Africa, previously Mammals and Oceans.) And they are making the most of the rainy days by playing in the rain :)

I've been doing lots of research into homeschooling methods and resources. I am quite excited about when we 'start' (Abigail is only 3 1/2 so we have a few years before we'll need to register). Currently, I am drawn to the Charlotte Mason methods. I've ordered a few books off Fishpond which I am keen to read and hope will help steer me in the direction that will work best for us. And I am praying God will guide my research to that which is helpful and beneficial to us as there are so many options nowadays!

Jon and I are currently listening to an audio book, 'Sarah' - a historical fiction on the life of Abraham and Sarah. I am really enjoying it. Jon washes the dishes and I usually fold washing while we listen. 'The Hiding Place' and a couple of CS Lewis' shorter books were other recent 'listens'.

And that is an overview of February.

After church on Sunday, we made the 'big drive' to the northside to buy a new swing for the girls. After our swing purchase, we bought some hot chips from a nearby takeaway and went for a picnic lunch at Kalinga Park (great park - we all had fun) and then visited the Andersons (and Grandma Sheehy) before heading back home. One of those spur of the moment decisions that led to a fun day out!

Lunch time!

Meeting Rachel and Sharn

Relaxing on the new swing after a big day out

Watching a short animal doco together :)

I'm not sure how regular my posts will be from now on - it seems time to myself is not as long as the list of things I want to do in it! And since I feel I'm getting better at keeping in touch with most of you regularly, the need for regular blog posts isn't so important?? That said, I will keep the photos coming, but at this stage I'm thinking I might cut back to posting once a month. We'll see how things eventuate! For now, here's a few photos to show some of the things we've been up to recently:

At Dennis Pond with daddy while mummy runs up and down stairs

As far as Jon and I got after 2 days work on this 1,000 piece puzzle while the outside world was wet  and windy

Our growing boy, 10 weeks old

Wild Horse Mountain Lookout - stopped in on our way to Caloundra to find a cache and  found a very steep 700m walk uphill!

Great Grandma  Randall  finally meets Caleb