I am still alive!

LOL.

I know it is only Tuesday but after my heavy hearted post on Sunday I thought I should really pop back with an update! I have survived to busy days so far and I am still standing! woo hoo :-)

Today I had a helper though, my girly was off school. She was "sick" in a not really sick, but slighty under the weather and needs a day at home sick. So she played and played with the kids today and now I am seriously considering home-schooling! For reals! She can learn at night when Daddy gets home right? And can play the day away with the millions of kids that are crammed in our house :-)

Tomorrow is going to be so much easier than I thought as I will have one child instead of the 4 that I thought I may have :-) and then the wonderful Mr Peat is going to be off on Thursday and Friday. I think he took one look at the state of me on Sunday and figured that a 3 day week would be a good idea.

I think he may just be my hero ;-)

Happy Tuesday everyone!

Sprinting in the hamster wheel!

This week has been one of those weeks. That's about all  I can say about it.

We have had a lovely weekend though, filled with lots of family time and fun moments.

 However,  this afternoon was filled with those horrible moments that you often have with kids. Those moments that start off with something silly, like a futon bed and silly little lie and just build into an argument and what you hope will become a life lesson. I know these moments are there, these little lessons tucked into the patchwork of childhood. But I don't like them. These moments throw me and make me feel sad and uneasy. I look back at how I handled it and I feel inadequate somehow, even though I know I did my best to explain things out. know I always act out of love and with the best will in the world for my babies.

Life is so easy when they are babies huh? It's all black and white. They need fed, changed and loved. That's all they need to make them happy. As they grow older they become so much more complex and I am always always learning.

And So, that brings us to tonight. I have a bit of a heavy heart. The last week has brought about some changes for me and I feel it weighing heavily tonight.
If I had known last weekend what I know now, well I don't know what I would have done differently really. I guess I would have tied up a lot of loose ends and a lot of sewing and housework!!

I took on a new little one to mind for. It is going to make life hectic - but only for about 9 weeks as one of the others is only here during term time. This new little one will tide me through the 6 weeks of school holidays where I was worried I would have next to no income!   I am grateful for sure!
But, would you believe that the day after we made this agreement we got news that the mum of one of my other littles is going to have to go back to work temporarily. The woman employed to cover her maternity leave has left her high and dry. The up shot is that I am going to get lots of snuggly time with a teeny weeny 7 week old precious boy! The down side is that if I had known I woud never taken on the other little one and I wasn't prepared for the guilt that would come along with those snuggles! I feel awful knowing that I am getting those moments , not his mum, but rationally I know it is not my fault, I am helping her the only way I can. But the guilt is still there.

I am grateful for them all and I know I can rise to the challenge of caring for all these wee ones, but I am ever so anxious tonight. I am anxious for the coming week and all of the juggling and balancing it will entail, as I find my feet. I am more than a little sad to lose the 1.5 hours a day that I get to myself. This is all that keeps me sane some weeks! This is sometimes the only creative or crafty time I get too.  Goodness knows what is going to happen now, I guess I am about to find out!! I will have to carve out some moments somewhere else, who needs to sleep anyway.............

Add to that the fact that I have two kiddos of my own who need me, need to be fed, need clean clothes and a mummy who's brain isn't having to shoot off into a hundred different directions at the same time. They need to play and have a home that is the same in spite of the extra bodies that will be running through it and I can feel the pressure stacking up.

Add on top a  helping of an upcoming craft fair and a list of orders for my polka dot world, that is growing by the day and you can see me begin to bend beneath the pressure.

I only have two hands and that is a lot of balls to juggle! Why is it that the parts that I love the most are going to be the ones I have to give up?

 I think it is going to be a mammoth week.

So what am I doing tonight?

I am hiding. I am doing my world famous ostrich impression. I am snuggled on the couch under my favourite quilt, watching murder she wrote and writing it all out on a nice blank page.

In a wee while I will write out a list of things that need done this week, prioritise what is most pressing and what will make my life easier..
Then I will make a list of the things that I can "drop"Things that can wait or be carried over to the next week
I will pack my girly's lunch and have it all ready for the off tomorrow morning.
I will make sure I make plans to relax this week too as I need to be able to have patience for my own kids and all of the babies who are coming through this week.
I will convince myself that I will do it because I always do. I always mange. If there is one thing in life that I can say I am it is a coper.

I know I must make sure that of all the balls that will drop this week, because I have no doubt that some will, they will not be the ones that are vital to my family :-) that's about all I can hope for. I don't like to be the kind of  person that puts work before the pleasures in life. I very much believe in working to live and not living to work, I think that is what is making me the most anxious tonight. The thought of stretching myself too thin.
 But the reality is that I can't afford to turn down this extra work, it will mean we can eat and live and even have fun during the summer. I have no choice.  Unless I win the lottery of course, there is always that dream.........

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Sometimes - I guess it isn't as easy as others.

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For this I love my hubby and my crazy crazy babies - they can always make me smile :-) I hope I smile lots this week
 I hope they can remind me of what it is that I love the most.

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THIS is how I want to live my week - I hope I will have busy, full  hands and a very very full heart :-)


I am so grateful for this space where I can come and have a brain dump. I feel so much more positive now and ready to tackle my list :-) and who knows, it may all be easier than I think! You never know right?

And if all else fails?  I will breathe and love deeply, it usually gets me through even the toughest of times xxx

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Randoms.

I think random is the best way to describe us at the moment. I don't have a nice well thought out post for you. Very few pics of what we have been up to . We have not really done anything. It is a very weird stage in our lives at themoment, for blogging purposes anyway. But I don't want this little bloggy space to disappear, I must try to post stuff. I have loads of non-family - hey look at this cute jug of flowers type moments most days. I will just have to post those too!

 Weekends are filled with real lazy days and relaxing times.
 Fraser is either sleeping over somewhere or sleeping til lunchtime. The rest of the time he is holed up in his room only coming down to raid the cupboards or share some part of his book or fancy move he made on his game.
Now that K is at school our time is so limited together, after school we have been pretty busy with other kiddos for after school care. Weekends are for playing games, reading books, going for walks and of course visits with Granny's.

None of this makes for many blogworthy moments. I seem to have loads of phone pics of random things, tiny moments. But that's it. There isn't much in between! Obviously, we still have many awesome moments in between. Like tonight for instance - I thought our car just had to be physically rocking with the laughter and hilarity going on inside it. It was all we could do to draw breath in between fits of laughter.

Tomorrow the guys go back to school, I am hoping for a full 1.5 hours in the afternoon to get on with some polka dot creating , I have a huge to do list and an even longer want to do list! I already feel slightly melancholy at the thought of my nest being empty again, but I have to say there is a tiny flicker of enthusiasm for the time I will gain to be productive.

We have lots of fun things coming up, in a couple of weeks we have a family party with a rock theme. The whole family have been invited and we are all starting to think about our outfits and possible celebs that we could be :-)

In 5 weeks K and I are flying to Spain to Aunt Sarah and the gorgeous Joe boy. Who, unbelievably, just turned two this week! Can you believe that? 2??

Look at how ig he has grown!

I am so sad I didn't get to smooch him on his special day :-( but I only have to wait a matter of weeks until I get to love on that gorgeous boy xx

Cue an onslaught of cute/crazy/random pics from the last week or so in our house, I don't think poor Frase is in a single one! He has his own life now! Teenagers...... sigh........ ;-)

mmm homemade salsa

I love it when it is Lelli Kelli time :-)

Spring blossom on our teeny cherry tree

some wii bowling fun

an easter Sunday Craft fair

Chocolate bunny

a twirly wirly straw from a special friend in Canada

a wee trip to Ikea......

roses from my girl - for being a nice Mummy :-)

A magnet I ordered! lol I love them :-)

a haircut for our girly!!

a small wine for mummy! Ooh just remembered there is still half a bottle in the fridge! hmmmm.........

Our silly girl playing in Granny's dress up bag!

I will try to be back before the end of the week - that is my challenge to myself!!

Maybe some wine would be inspirational..........

Happy Easter

It is Spring time people! Daffodils and baby lambs and chocolate eggs :-) Easter weekend is usually a family fillled time for us. This year was no exception.  We started off with our annual egg hunt. This year Granny C &co held the egg hunt on Saturday instead of Easter Sunday. GC , Beebs and I were taking part in a craft fair on Easter Sunday.

This year, K can read. I know!! Crazy right?? So Granny C mixed it up. Instead of just hiding eggs, she hid clues for the kids to follow. We flipped a coin to see who would go first. K won the flip! And she was off!

And true to form, there was not just a chocolate egg at the end of the clues, there was a whole bag of easter goodies.

Next up was Frase. Fraser took one look at his first clue and realised GC had made his hunt super tricky! His face was an absolute picture! It was so funny.

On Easter Sunday , we woke bright and early for some egg rolling. We headed round to Granny Mary's house and she had breakfast waiting for us. Mmmmmm. It was yummy!!

Then we popped out to the steep hill behind her house to roll our eggs.

K had decorated 2 eggs - one with a ladybird and one with a polkadot sweetheart butterfly :-)

Murray coloured his egg like and angry bird

Fraser made his into "Eggzio"

and mine was a polka dot egg.

I'm sure I took a pic! I would have sworn to it!

But I can't find a pic. Boo.

Next year I think we may roll them down the steep road next to this hill. Trying to wade our way through the long grass to find our eggs (that had been wiped clean by the wet grass)  was, um, challenging! lol.

Fraser managed to roll himself.

Twice.

My egg at the bottom, still whole!!

We are still munching our way through a mountain of chocolate eggs!

Although I may need to gift my eggs to Peaty.

K and I are going to be leaving on a jet plane!!

We are off to sunny spain , to see Aunt Sarah and Joe boy!!! :-)

aaaaaaaa! Excited!!