Catch up

I suppose I should do a little catch up seeing as it's been quite a few days since I last entered anything. It's really for our records, so it's probably VERY boring to anyone else.

Thursday we had swimming and Liam is doing really well. His new teacher is great, really fine tuning the techniques. About two weeks ago he could float on his back with no assistance appart from holding two floaties, one in each hand. He's now doing it without the floaties at all (or MUSCLES as they call them!) He can swim the length of the pool on his back, and to swim on him front (ie normally) he will do about three burst up the pool - Stand up and push off, then kick and paddle a little, then stand up and repeat it. But totally unaided. No kickboard, or 'muscles'. After swimming we hit the shops as I had to post off some proofs, but found myself in the clearence section at Target. Got a few little bargains, and got a head start with some birthday presents. From there is was a quick dash home to repack the bags (really quick - the boys stayed in the car!) And off to kinder.

Boy have Friday mornings turned into a rush! They always were a rush to get Liam to kinder by 8.30, but I used to just throw (well not litterally!) Ethan in the car in his PJ's and after dropping Liam off I'd feed/dress etc him. Now I have to have him fed and dressed as well ready for Family Daycare. We drop Liam off then Ethan. Again he was really good and didn't cry at all. He did try to lean over to me with his arms outstretched when I was going and grizzle a little, but apparently he didn't cry at all which is great. I was expecting him to cry when I left, but he should settle down as soon as he is distracted with something else. He loves being outside and loves Birds, so his carer takes him out and they put seed on the birdfeeder straight away. He did a rubbing painting too, and as Friday is their excursion day they all walked to McDonnalds for a play, and I picked him up from there. As I pick him up at 1.00 I didn't want the others to have to rush back for me, or wait until I'd been before they go out, so this works well. L (his carer) tells me where they are going and I go there to pick him up; she'll call if their plans change.

After kinder Liam went back to play with his friend Ethan. It was quite a surprise when I walked into McDonnalds to pick up Ethan, and there was Liam and (big) Ethan having lunch too! Ethan's dad had taken the boys out to play while his mum had gone to order their lunches. His dad didn't quite know what to think when Liam rushed straigh up to our Ethan and started cuddling him and talking to him... after all he was sitting at a table with other people Ethan's dad didn't recognise! When L saw that Liam was there too she told me I should have called her and she'd have held on to Ethan for longer so I could have had a few more hours with no kids. I love the flexibility of Family Daycare! Next time I will!!

Still it was great to have those few hours with no kiddies. After doing all the dropping off it works out the three hours before I have to go back and to the kinder run. So using my little timer that I am loving so much I set it for 60mins and did an hour of cleaning, then another hour of work, then the last hour was scrapping time! I did a little more on my EM layout. Just finishing off the last Family layout. I'm loving that it is making me scrap memories, not just nice photos and quotes. I love that I can look back through Liam's old albums and really be reminded of things he did, his reactions to things etc. I'd been getting away from that, I think as I was concentrating more on photography, and was scrapping more quotes with a nice photo. I didn't realise how much I missed doing the more meaningful layouts. At the start of the year that was my resolution - to scrap fewer pages, but make them more meaningful. So so far I am really happy with the EM layouts - even the one with the junkitz buttons... it's probably my fave of the three! Once I worked out how to make those ugly buttons work, I really like it. I still have no idea whether I'll enter or not, but I'll complete the pages by the guidelines just in case. (As long as I continue to enjoy it)

My little timer has been so good to me! I am so much more organised, our house is clean. I think not only am I keeping track of time better, but also when I know I have a set amount of time to complete a task, I just get straight to it and do it faster. On Friday night I found the Scrap of Faith blog. Great idea with Christian based challenges. It's just really nice to see and hopefully get to know other Christian scrappers too. Can't wait to get involved with it.

Saturday I did the shoot at Sofi's which was fun, and we got some very nice photos. There are especially some very nice ones of Sofi and her DH Jim. It's nice to get some 'couples' photos as I know we have very few. Its always one of us behind the camera.

Then last night we had a girls night out! Had a fantastic time, love those girls. Such amazing, kind, thoughtful, beautiful and inspiring women. Thanks so much girls for a brilliant night! Boy it was a late one (well late for me) I got home at 2am. I dragged myself out of bed to go to church, only to find Brett working on the deck. I asked him if we were going to church and he said he'll go tonight, he wants to get the deck finished. I let that be the easy way out and went back to bed. Wanted to go, just didn't want to get two kids organised and take them on my own. We've finally taken the plunge into putting the boys 'out the back' at church. LOL sounds mean doesn't it. Liam goes to Cubby House which is what we call "church kinder", and Ethan has started to go to creche. Last week Brett and I sat back and listened to the entire sermon and realised we haven't been able to do that in 4.5 years!

Tried to update with some deck photos, but bloggers not loading at the moment :(

Taking a leaf from Megan's book:
Five things I'm thankful for today:
1. Waking up to giggley happy kids
2. A DH who is happy to care for the children and let his wife have a night out (and sleep in).
3. Gorgeous friends to spend time with.
4. A clever DH who is capable of doing a lot of handy stuff to build a beautiful home on budget!
5. A hobby that I love and have been able to turn into a business.