With silver bells and cockle shells.....

Ok so we don't really have silver bells and cockle shells in our garden (not actually sure what a cockle is hmmmm), but it is certainly growing, which is very exciting cause I've never gardened before. Jaden's favourite job is snail patrol, I hate squishing them but he takes great delight in it! The picture above is of some of our 'festival of flowers'. We have 2 pots of these and there's quite a lot of different types of leaves poking up, can't wait to see what flowers appear.

The pic below is our lettuce starting to grow beautifully (the row behind isn't doing so well cause it seems to be too close to other plants and therefore too shaded, never mind)

This is our parsley. When it first started growing the leaves didn't look like parsley, but they are changing shape now. The carrot leaves did that too, it's these small things that fascinate me!!

This is our zucchini. I have learnt since planting them that they spread so they probably need more room, but apparently you can try and divert them in a set direction so I'll have to try and do that if they take over the garden!

This is our lovely corn (so looking forward to when we actually get some corn, I LOVE fresh corn!)

These are my sunflowers (my fave flower). We started with 3 little seedlings but forgot the snail bait the first night and one got munched on and didn't survive, we are now very vigilant about the snails!!!

This is the pumpkin. This garden bed is around the side of the house near our compost bin and we put it there so the pumkin can jump the garden and go for it's life (as pumpkin does) and it doesn't matter round there.

We have other herbs and flowers growing too, and carrots which seem to be doing well. The capsicum and tomatoes are just starting to really get growing now. The only thing we tried that didn't work was the strawberries, they never sprouted :-( But we actually don't have any room left anyway so it doesn't matter. We'll try strawberrries again next year and maybe go from seedlings instead of seeds. It's all trial and error at the moment, which is what learning is all about, but I get a big kick at looking at these plants that started out as tiny seeds in a yoghurt pot and thinking wow how amazing is that, how could anyone ever doubt there's a clever creator behind this stuff ????? :-)

Praise Points!

On the weekend my father had a car accident and his car was a write off but thankfully he was ok, just a bit shaken up, and on the same day my father in law went to hospital with pains and it tunrs out he had a mild haeart attack and has spent a couple of days in the cardiac ward. Thankfully both men are doing ok, but it's always scary when something like that happens and we are very thankful for God's care and protection cause we could've lost both our dads in one day!!!

Mumma Mia, here I go again.....

There are days when I forget what a blessing children are supposed to be. You'd think that after struggling for years with infertility, my children would seem even more precious, and most of the time they do, but I'm finding lately that being mum to a special needs child is constantly pushing my buttons and making me feel like motherhood is sent to torment me!!!!

The meltdowns, the attitude, the arguing cause the world must run according to how his head sees it wear me down, and the tics, well they just drive me nuts. I try to ignore them but there are times when I just feel like yelling "would you just shut up and stop it!!!!". I also get downhearted when we go out and people stare, so often I wonder if I should just say "he has tourettes, stop staring" but I never do unless people actually comment cause I'm afraid I'll lose my temper and let loose at some poor ignorant stranger at the shops. There are good days when I see his creative mind and kind heart and feel so blessed to have such a special boy, but I think after weeks and weeks of so much time together I am failing to notice these as much and I think we need a break!! Thankfully my mum is having Jaden on Tues so Bethany and I can enjoy a day together and I am very much looking forward to the time out.

I think what really frightens me is that I don't have it in me to cope with what God has given me. There are twins in Brett's family and God's shown us both years ago that we would have twins ( a boy and a girl), so I am anxiously awaiting an ultrasound which I am having on 6th Oct, to see if this is them. The thought of twin newborns, a 14 month old and then Jaden on top of that is so overwhelming, and yet I am so excited about this pregnancy and think I'll actually be disappointed if they only find one, so my own head can't even agree on how I feel. I guess it comes down to trusting that God knows what he's doing and that he needs to be my strength no matter how many kids I have.

I have also found encouragement recently from reading the Sheila Walsh book "I'm not wonder woman but God did make me wonderful", so freeing to realise I don't have to be perfect at everything all the time (some childhood baggage there), I just have to be who God asks me to be!! I have also found encouragement in a book written by Kate Gosselin who trusted God with her fertility and got twins then sextuplets ( and God that would be so not funny, so please don't try that with me!!!!!), she said " early in my pregnancy when we learned I was carrying multiples I felt insignificant and unworthy to mother so many children. As time passed we realised God did not make a mistake when he gave us 6 instead of 1. For us this was the beginning of learning to trust God completely." Wise words, and I have found many nuggets of encouragement in her little gift book called "8 little faces".

One of the things I am very much enjoying in motherhood is watching my baby girl grow and learn new things. She can now sit on her own and only topples if she reaches too far to grab something, and she is trying so hard to crawl. It's funny watching her trying to wriggle towards something but she ends up going backwards in a sort of commando crawl/slide and the confusion on her face is priceless when she realises she's the opposite of where she wanted to be. I keep looking at this beautiful little bub and can't believe she is going to be a big sister soon.

So here I am exhausted, feeling nauseated a lot of the time (but definately not as bad as the last 2 pregnancies) and I've hurt my back on top of that too, and feeling totally overwhelmed by motherhood, but at the same time I am excited and know this is what God has called me to do. Especially since yet again a pregnancy arrived just when I was planning something new, I had literally just started making plans to go on a 10 day mission trip next year into outback Aus to an Indigenous community and was planning to take Bethany with me, but now that there is another bub (or 2) on the way that's not gonna happen, think I should just stop making plans to leave the house and get the hint LOL

Wow!!!

I have been feeling really crappy all week, exhausted, nauseated, emotional, you'd think any logical person would know what that meant but my body has tricked me many times before during the 2 years it took us to fall pregnant with Bethany, but no tricks this time. I am pregnant!!! My dates make me due on the 9th May but they usually do an ultrasound to check dates anyway. I am going to be a very busy mummy next year cause Bethany will only be 14 months old when the baby comes, plus of course the home schooling of a special needs boy who will be almost 11, but I am so excited and Jaden is really thrilled that there is a new sibling on the way :-)

complaining versus thankfulness!!

I could complain (indeed I did all winter) that our new house has an outdoor laundry and although it is just 2 steps from the back door and under a covered verandah it is a freezing place to be bright and early in the morning.... however...

I am thankful that because the laundry is outside it doesn't matter that when my washing machine leaks everywhere the water just flows on the verandah and down the back steps without ever coming in the house.

I could complain that the said washing machine is dying.... however...

I am thankful that it still works for now and am even more thankful that I overestimated our income with centrelink and we got a nice backpay after doing our tax which means we have enough to go buy a new washing machine this weekend.

I could complain that I have been awake since 2am with a grumpy baby... however....

I am thankful that while Bethany is needing more attention and cuddles today (I suspect it's teeth) she is generally a fabulous baby. And today Jaden has been wonderful, he started doing maths work at 7.30am and did heaps of good bookwork today in maths and engish. He also showed me just how sweet he is by picking some daisies this morning to help cheer up his tired grumpy mummy.

I could go on.... so much to be thankful for in just an ordinary day.... and nothing worth complaining about cause in the bigger picture I am truly blessed!!!!!

we've been doing......

This is my big girl in her brand new bath seat for the first time today. She looks so grown up sitting up like that and liked playing with some new duckies too. I turned the car seat around today too cause she now weighs enough and is sitting well enough to do it. Will be interesting to see what she thinks next time we take a car trip!! Don't know what happened to my teeny tiny bubba, so much change in 6 1/2 months.

We've had lots of unexciting appointments lately and Friday was our annual trip to the tic clinic at Westmead. It usually takes hours but we were out of there after only an hour and a half so I did something spontaneous (which is not a trait that's normal for a planned out, organised control freak like me) and we headed to Rouse Hill park for a picnic lunch. I already had our lunches packed cause I figured we'd be out all day, but it was much nicer eating it at the park than a clinic or hospital. Jaden loves Rouse Hill park and had a fabulous time on some of the equipment, his only complaint was no-one to play with so we'll have to take a friend next time.

One of the other 'fun' things Jaden has enjoyed in the past few days was getting creative with some clay. He was doing Australian landmarks....

his version of Uluru....

an interpretation of Cradle Mountain.....

and then this which he decided was Mt Everest, even though it's not Australian, because he wanted to do the tallest mountain in the world.

Something else we've done in the past week is go back to eating food as pure as possible. It's how we used to eat, a way of life that God showed me years ago, obediently eating what He created for our bodies instead of filling them with man made rubbish. Yet every now and then I get off track and since having Bethany and then moving house not long after I was busy and tired and started relying on convenience foods and take away. But my health is suffering, I've been getting pains and nausea again like when I had gallstones but this time it's my body trying to digest food without the help of my gallbladder, I've also put on heaps of weight and my menstrual cycle is all haywire again complete with extreme pain, plus some other issues I'm sure no-one wants to hear about. My body is telling me what God's been trying to remind me of for a while.

So now we mostly eat fruit and veg with some wholegrains, lean meat and low fat dairy thrown in. I found these huge mushrooms and stuffed them with spinach, capsicum and topped them with a tiny bit of low fat cheese, and instead of making a creamy sauce for the chicken like I would've before, I just lightly cooked some cherry tomatoes and a little bit of avocado (which I don't even usually like that much, but mixed with other stuff it tastes ok). I'm working on portion sizes too, still feeding Brett bigger meals for the moment but have cut my sizes down heaps and yet I feel quite content. Can already tell the difference in how I am feeling too :-)

As part of helping Jaden get on board I'm trying to involve him in helping with dinner. I bought a cookbook from the oxfam shop while we were at Rouse Hill the other day (I love the shopping centre out there!!) which is full of easy foods for kids to cook and it's looking at dishes from around the world. So tonight we made some spicy lamb and veg kebabs and he loved helping stab everything onto the skewers. We also made some home made wedges of sweet potato and then a dipping kind of guacamole sauce thing, all totally experimental and all low fat and nice and healthy. The amazing thing was that Jaden ate it, although he had salad and just had meat on his skewers cause he reckons he doesn't eat mushrooms, capsicum or zucchini, little does he know he actually eats them in plenty of things I cook, they're just either cut small or grated and he never notices LOL.

He's actually been quite helpful around the house lately because he's trying to earn rewards as part of this new system we've implemented with the help of his psychologist. Things like tv, computer time, a new book or comic or even a playdate are all privileges not rights and he has to earn them by his behaviour. Certain things are worth an amount of tickets (eg. to watch 2 hours of TV or a DVD he has to earn 5 tickets in that day)and he gets tickets for obeying our house rules and doing as he's told. Some days it works a treat, others not as much, but it's definately been helpful so far. Yesterday he brought in all the washing and he's never even done it before so he got a bonus for that.

With our bookwork I'm finding that Jaden is actually a lot further behind where he should be than I thought. Obviously with all his emotional struggles at school and attention difficulties he has missed a lot of the basics and I am finding that a lot of maths and grammar stuff that he should be able to do he doesn't know how to. So I am adjusting what we've been doing and going back to some basic stuff before we keep going on with year 4 work. Things like spelling rules, basic maths concepts etc. I wonder how far he would have slipped through the cracks in the system if I hadn't brought him home and realised how much he's really been struggling.

Anyway that's us, long blog post but I haven't had a chance to get on here for about a week and there's always plenty to share :-)

The creative mind of a future inventor!

My uniquely gifted young man wants to be an inventor when he grows up and it's moments like these when I truly believe it will happen. He wanted to make a pretend TV for his cubby house (maybe somethingto do with the fact he has to earn TV time now through good behaviour and wanted a 2nd option LOL), but decided that in order to have TV you need electricity. So he raided my craft cupboard and attached a piece of gold cardboard to the cubby roof as a solar panel. He also then make an antenna, and then a radar (not sure why he needed a radar but it was apparently essential).

The tricky thing was that yesterday was very windy and his solar panel flew over the fence at one point. So after initially getting frustrated and cranky Jaden decided to try a few options. He used up half my pegs to no avail and then had the fabulous idea of weighing it down with string (my lovely purple curling ribbon actually) tied to a bucket full of dirt. Excellent problem solving and also some engineering ingenuity there :-)

This piece of cardboard is his TV which he is going to draw all the appropraite knobs etc on...

and once again to prevent the wind from taking it away he used weights to hold it down at the back. Very clever!!

Would love to hear some comments or feedback from people. My blog has been very quiet lately, haven't had any comments at all on my last few posts and am beginning to wonder if I am talking to myself (which is fine cause I find it quite therapeutic blogging my thoughts actually), but it would be nice to have some company :-)

Bits and Pieces.

One of the things I love about home schooling is that Jaden and Bethany spend so much time together. In fact I have to make Jaden leave the room while I feed her cause she is always distracted trying to see what he is doing. He loves reading stories to her and it is so cute to watch :-)

Last week after we did some special craft for father's day Jaden decided he wanted to do a big painting for our wall. He experimented mixing coulours to make several different shades of green and was very pleased with himself.

This is the finished product. It is a dinosaur lost in the land of colour.

We are very excited that most of our seeds have sprouted. The lettuce in particular has gone nuts and will be moved into the garden very soon. We have discovered that we should've put the carrots straight into the ground as they may not survive being transplanted, but oh well, it's all about learning and we've never done this before so if they don't grow we'll get some more carrot seed and try again.

Making daddy's day :-)

A proud daddy with his 2 children. It was a special day for Brett cause although he's celebrated father's day since we got married and he took on the role of being Jaden's father, it was Bethany's first father's day and his first one as a biological dad which means a lot to him.

To prepare for the big day we got out our paints out on Friday and decided to make a poster for daddy with hand and foot prints. It turned out to be quite a challenging task to do with a 6 month old baby. The feet weren't so bad, but the hands were really hard. She kept grabbing the paper and scrunching it or I'd hold her hand flat, get a great print and then she'd pull her hand out and smudge it everywhere, and of course I had to clean each hand and foot straight way to stop from getting paint everywhere, especially in her mouth. We did several attempts and finally got some very cute prints before whisking Bethany away for a bath. Jaden was much easier, he did it himself, I tried painting his feet but he's so ticklish he wouldn't let me do it :-)

And here is the finished product!

On father's day we had a family snuggle in the bed before giving Brett his card and present. Bethany was so funny, she was fascinated by it all and kept grabbing everything, especially the envelope and wrapping paper that she scrunched and then tried to eat, christmas will be lots of fun with a new bub and all that wrapping paper that's for sure! We got Brett a Bunnings voucher (it is his favourite place!!!) and a keyring that stores and shows photos so he can proudly show off his family.

I cooked Brett a big brekky of scrambled eggs, bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes and toast.

In the afternoon we had both sets of parents over for a lovely afternoon tea. We had fruit, cheese, cabanossi and crackers and a honey roll that I made the night before. It was always dad's favourite but I hadn't made it in years and only realised once I started that I didn't have the right tin cause the one I used to use was mum's, so I made do but it wasn't thin and flat enough and instead of rolling it all cracked, and then when I put the cream in it oozed out the sides. It looked pretty crappy actually, but we sliced it up and served it and it was so yummy every piece was gone, so it was a success evene though it would've failed on masterchef LOL

We gave Brett his poster and we found a spot for it on the wall next to his desk. All in all it was a lovely special family day :-)

Lessons in thankfulness and a cupful of Spring :-)

I've been throwing some big tantrums at God in the past few days over the fact He gave me a special needs child. Thursday in particular was a shocker after Jaden had 4 huge meltdowns in 1 day (1 at someone else's house which is always fun). When Brett got home I took myself out to the shops alone, bought a coffee at Gloria Jeans and also treated myself to a scrapbooking magazine (haven't bought one in years) and sat down and had some much needed me time. The trouble is that coffee and magazines don't fix a grumpy attitude and on the way home I couldn't stop crying. I got home and dumped on Brett about how crappy my life was because I don't get 5 minutes to myself and am sick of being stuck in a job that God gave me where I am treated like crap and not appreciated. He listened and prayed for me and then I went to sleep. ( I have such a wonderful hubby who knew I just needed to have my vent and that God would sort me out later).

I woke up on Friday and felt a real yearning to just spend some time with God and sort out my foul attitude, I realised I was giving God the same treatment that I was whingeing about my son giving me. The depth of God's love and grace to his ungrateful, disobedient, whingeing children is amazing and I'm so glad that he extends it to me, even when I am so bad sometimes at extending it to my own children. As usual the verses I read were just what I needed and then I read Donna's blog about Lot's wife looking back and got another much needed kick up the pants, then I flipped over my little verse thing for the day and it was Jer29:11 "For I know the plans I have for you" declares the Lord.. plans to give you a hope and a future". I know He is good and I can't believe how often he needs to remind my wayward heart of that.

As part of Jaden's schoolwork that day I decided we needed to focus on how blessed we really are and we got out the letters and pictures from our sponsor kids and read through them and listed all the simple things that they were thankful for, like enough food to eat, the chance to go to school, medicine when they're sick etc and then we made our own lists, so very humbling!!!! How dare I complain about anything when these four amazing children praise Jesus for the blessings in their live no matter how small and simple. We then put up our world map with arrows from the kids photos to the countries they come from and it's right in the middle of our loungeroom wall to remind us how blessed we are, how thankful we need to be and to also remember to pray for these precious ones!!!

To top the day off I then went outside and saw such beuaty blooming in my own front yard and decided to bring a cupful of it inside to my table where I could gaze on the beauty of God's cretaion blooming in Spring and ask for him to keep pruning my own heart so that I can bloom beautifully where I am planted too :-)

We didn't even know these Irises were beside our driveway until they popped up almost overnight. We found jonquils out the back too, gotta love being blessed by someone else's planting efforts. How nice to know that all during winter such beauty was just waiting to burst forth!

I love lavender and it grows all along the front of my house. I have it all underneath our bedroom window and love the scent that wafts in if I open the windows!

6 months of Bethany :-)

After waiting for so long to get pregnant, where 2 years felt like an eternity, I am finding it hard to believe that 6 months with my beautiful girl has gone so quick. She was a tiny little 6 pound 5 ounce newborn and now she is an 8kg 6 month old girl eating 3 meals a day and rolling around on the floor.

Getting acquainted with my new daughter. 3 days old and coming home from the hospital.

First bath at home, she was so scrawny back then, she has lovely chubby legs now :-)

In the snuggle bed, sleeping peacefully. Just a couple of weeks old.

2 months old and getting excited on the playmat!

9 weeks old and hanging out in our new house. My cute little butterfly girl :-)

With daddy on her dedication day, almost 4 months old. Trying out the highchair at 4 1/2 months old ready to eat some yummy pumpkin.

5 months old, sitting up in the bumbo.

A sample pic we were emailed from our family portraits of my adorable angel!!






6 months old and looking pretty in her new size 0 dress :-)

I have been so blessed to be the mummy of this precious girl and am looking forward to years and years of watching her grow and learn!!!