Contagious....

Our son has something that is extremely contagious.....but it's ok, don't stay away from him, what he has is a joy to catch!

It's a SMILE! :)

Smile though your heart is aching

Smile even though it's breaking

When there are clouds in the sky, you'll get by

If you smile through your fear and sorrow

Smile and maybe tomorrow

You'll see the sun come shining through for you

Light up your face with gladness

Hide every trace of sadness
Although a tear may be ever so near

That's the time you must keep on trying

Smile, what's the use of crying?

You'll find that life is still worthwhile

If you just smile

That's the time you must keep on trying

Smile, what's the use of crying?

You'll find that life is still worthwhile

If you just smile

Nat King Cole song lyrics

Keep smiling though the skies are grey

And look upon the bright side

But if no bright side you can see

Then polish up the dark side

Author unknown

Smile at each other,

smile at your wife,

smile at your husband,

smile at your children,

smile at each other -

it doesn't matter who it is -

and that will help you to grow up in greater love for each other.

Mother Teresa

You haven't lost your smile at all, it's right under your nose.  You just forgot it was there.

If you see a friend without a smile, give them one of yours.

Too often we underestimate the power of a touch,

a smile,

a kind word,

a listening ear,

an honest compliment,

or the smallest act of caring,

all of which have the potential to turn a life around.

Leo F Buscaglia

Every time you smile at someone,

it is an action of love,

a gift to that person,

a beautiful thing.

Mother Teresa

Because of your smile, you make life more beautiful

Thich Nhat Hanh

Woman's best friend...

So, we all get it, most of us loath it, some think it's taboo to talk about, others embrace it.

What am I talking about?

Menstruation.  The bleed. Your period. Being in the red tent. Visit from Aunt Flo. On your rags.  Your monthly.  Your best friend. And so on and so on....

But here's something I've recently discovered that really is gonna be your best friend during this time.....cloth pads.

EEeeeeeeewwwww?  Well, how many of you cloth your bubs bot?  That wasn't as icky as you first thought it would be, am I right?  You deal with bubs poo ok, how hard can a bit of blood be?

If it were just for the environmental factor, a factor we all include in our reasoning for clothing our babes, maybe I couldn't convince you it's worth it for these, but here's an extra factor that is oh so worth it....

COMFORT!!!!

They are so soft and comfy, you barely even notice they're there.  If, like me, you suffer from the unfortunate "nappy rash" type discomfort during your period, using these all but eliminates that, affording you one less pain to deal with during this horrid but necessary part of womanhood.

These are the up side....minky sorta like minky nappies.....nioce against your delicates!

This is the under side....patterned cotton.

As you can see, just like modern cloth nappies, modern cloth menstrual pads are shaped just like the disposable version, using press-studs to secure the "wings" around your undies.

Mine are by Twinkle Lilly, which I bought through my BabyBeeHinds(MCN) rep, my friend Kint http://domesticdeluisons.blogspot.com/ see direct from the website http://www.babybeehinds.com.au/store/pc/TwinkleLily-Mamapads-4p291.htm

One of my friends uses Green Chickadee http://www.greenchickadee.com.au/menstrual.html which are flannel topped and has some pretty funky looking fabrics.

I've been using them for about 4 cycles now, and am loving them, they absolutely aid you having a bit of an easier time ;)

I have so far bought 2 of the part-time packs, which is a total of 8 pads, which I'm finding adequate given that we wash almost daily, and just like our MCN's I just chuck these in with the rest of the clothes in a washing machine load, no extra care needed  And just like I say with the MCN's, basically the only difference between the cloth v disposable is instead of throwing it in the bin, you throw it in the wash! Easy peezy!! ;)

Easter hunting....

Tonight we had dinner at JackJack's Grammy's house(Tyler's Mum).

She's going away for Easter, so Tyler's side of the family had Easter celebrations today, which included a little Easter hunt for buba!!

Grammy gave JackJack a special basket to collect his treasures in

oOo found one!

Into the basket they go....

Jack also got a cool treasure from Grammy's front yard, Daddy picked this little feathery piece off a plant, which he called a "possum tail" and Grammy calls them "pussy tails" and told Jack it's like our Sophie's tail :)

Any up there?

What about around there?

oOo puppy!!

This is Harry, an American Cocker Spaniel, which Helen breeds & shows

This is Kyle, can't remember his breed but he's so fluffy you could mop the floor with him! lol

Kyle followed JackJack during the hunt, hoping to score something ;)

oOOo What's that?

Caaaaaarrrr!!!!

Lucky buba, there were even cars to find in the hunt!

A big egg with a little fluffy duck sitting on top

Bunny!

More up on the table

Hiding behind his own picture!

Cars and choccy!

Look Nanny....your favourite bunny, Lindt, yum yum

Basket full of treats and lots of cars :)

We ended up having to put the basket up high coz once JackJack had one egg, got the taste for it and realised what they were, he wanted them all unwrapped!! Oooohhh he's his Muma's son! lol

Cuddles for Kyle

Yum yum dinner!

This basket of eggs was quickly moved after Mr GoGoGadget arms grabbed a hand full! lol

Marshmallow bunny....looks good but even I found it sickly sweet and I'm a sweet tooth

Bilby in a pond for buba's dessert :)

Neighbour Day

Today we celebrated Neighbour Day.

neighbourday.org

Nanny, Muma, JackJack and Polly headed down to the local park for a community barbie chew, yum yum....Muma's favourite!

We frequent this park often, it's brilliantly located almost exactly half way between our house and Nanny and Papa's house, so we often meet Nanny there for an afternoon play, especially when she's minding the cousins.

Our local neighbourhood community group put on a free sausage sizzle, golly was Muma stoked, scrumptious sausages in bread, complete with a delish home made tomato sauce(seems to be a secret recipe of one of the ladies, no luck getting it!)

Nanny helps serve up some sausages

Jack is parroting lots lately and picking up so many new things.... he now waves his hand over hot food and goes "fff ffff" trying to blow it cool!

MMmmm snausages!!

And of course we can't visit the park without a play!

So proud of himself on the slide

Smart lil cookie, learnt to go down on his belly coz some slide bases are high and when he goes down on his bottom or back he thuds onto the ground and gets winded

Woa, who's that cool lil dude?!!

This mirror was the first thing JackJack played with when we started taking him to the park, we sat him in front of it and he would giggle at himself :)

Back to the picnic table to have a sip of water and rest with Nanny

Polly was a lucky pup, she found a sausage on the ground, plus was being fed sausages by the barbie chef when we were off at the play equipment :)

We had a lovely time at the park, and Nanny found out about a social group ran by the community centre that she is keen to check out!

The meaning of the day got me thinking though, of our immediate neighbours, the one's in our own street.  We don't know any, don't even see any for that matter.....of course they're there, but apart from cars arriving home I couldn't describe for you what they look like.

The neighbours that share the driveway have a little boy, probably 3 or 4 years old.  Jack and I have sometimes been playing outside and we can hear him playing in his yard, Jack longs to play with him

Here is Jack standing at the neighbours fence, watching the little boy.  We have a high hedge between our properties, but I can see a pair of little legs running up and down the driveway on the other side.  Jack calls out to him, in his own toddler babble way, but alas the little boy doesn't come over.  I watch Jack and feel sad.....memories of jumping fences and riding bikes around the streets with my childhood neighbours makes me sad to see today's neighbours don't interact like days gone by.

As well as this, I also think of safety...in today's society would my neighbour come running if they heard screams?  Would anyone respond to a house alarm?  Would they notice unusual activity and realise something is wrong?

What are your neighbours like?

FUCK YOU HORMONES, FAAAAARRK YOU!!!!!

I HATE my god damn period, loath it, despise it, and all the freakin hormone charged emotional roller coaster and binge eating that goes with it, ggggrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!

Today marks 4dys since I was due for my period.....time enough for the stupid thoughts in my head to send me crazy with the "oh my golly I'm pregnant!" crap....even though I knew I wouldn't be, did a test to satisfy the stupid thoughts, and yet deep down there is always those stupid mind fuck thoughts of "oh the test is wrong!".

FUCK YOU HORMONES, FUCK YOU!!!!!!!

Leading up to every period my god damn fricken hormones play havoc with my body, fucks with my mind to make me think this month, finally, we have conceived.  I've felt really ill and dizzy this past week, certainly signs of a pregnancy.  Tried not to get my hopes up, knowing it was unlikely.  Especially would be pissed off if I was pregnant, not that we don't want it, but that we are taking a break from the stress of the ttc, and it would be so freakin ironic if stopping the active trying was all that was needed for a baby to come along.

But no, not this month again, period was just 4 days late.

Now I get to hopefully at least see my clothes fit more comfy as I bleed out the bloat...... arrrrgh fuck you hormones, fuck you.

I'm off to go eat some chocolate...... ;)

Let there be light!

Earth Hour 2010 - 8.30pm-9.30pm 27th March 2010.

Did you participate?

What did you do during the hour?

This is what we did.......

Woa, open the mains power box to discover some icko spiders in there!

Switch goes off!

Earth Hour is turning your lights out, but I like to turn everything off, so rather then go around and flick them all, I went out to the power box and switched off the house power.

A facebook friend suggested this, as it is what she does, and she said for the hour it wouldn't effect the food in fridge/freezer.

Some goodies for our hours entertainment....sparklers, chocolate and a torch

On a side note....note on the Chocolate pack that Cadbury's is now Fairtrade, well done to you Cadbury, even more reason to love you choccy!! ;)

MMmmmm....choccy!

I had planned for us to sit out on the grass, but it started raining not long before so I put a blanket under the pergola and we had a little dessert picnic!

Sparklers!!

oOo pretty, I wana touch it Muma ;)

Rrrrrroooaaarrrr!

JackJack's lion torch.

This is was a present from his mate Bradley for his first Christmas, 2008.  It's a favourite play toy, Jack likes to bring it to me and get me to squeeze the handle, which makes the lion open it's mouth and turn the light on and RRRrrroooooaaarrrrrs!!

ooOOOooooo!!!

Slightly unprepared....wasn't til now that I realised the two stove guns we have are near empty and don't hold a flame, so lucky we had some matches

JackJack loved the sparklers, kept passing more and more to me

Polly wasn't so keen on them, but as usual, didn't stray far from her Muma's side ;)

The pack of sparklers were old(I found them in my glory box and they could easily be 10+yrs old) and it seems old sparklers don't work so well, they took a bit to light.  Plus many of them had dropped there powder.....so I dumped it on the ground and lit it!!

Ooh the inner piro in me was pretty impressed with the results, hehehe!!

And this is the burnt out powder pile....looked like larva, cool

More sparklies....by request of the little piro bub ;)

Back inside for the last 10mins and bub plays cars by torch light

In Jack's world....it's never too dark for cars

Lights off....

Lights on.....let there be light!

Did you participate? 

Has it made you more aware of the electricity used in your home?

Did it make you think of how many electronics you leave on "stand by"?  The telly, the microwave, the kettle, mobile charger, etc

Be more conscious of your consumerism....not just for now, but for our future...our children's future and their children's future