Ok, a quick update on Ethan visiting the hospital the other week...he had been unwell over the weekend, just a temp and generally feeling unwell. He had the day off school on Monday as he was still quite flushed and glassy eyed and he'd been complaining of a sore stomach every now and then. Come Tuesday, he seemed fine and only complained of a sore tummy when I told him to get dressed for school. I thought he was putting it on so I sent him off to school anyway.

Tuesday afternoon, he got a note home from school about a "spooky party" their class was having on the Thursday. He wanted to go as Harry Potter. So, we spent the next 2 hours driving around to every shop I could think of that might have a Harry Potter costume to no avail. We managed to find his scarf, a magic wand and a pair of glasses, but no robe. And Ethan didn't want to go as anything else but HP!

So Wednesday morning rolls on an seeing as there was only today left to organise this costume I went and got some material and got cutting and sewing to make this robe. I had no pattern, just pretty much drew it on the material and sewed away! Finally by the afternoon I had it finished and ready for him to wear.

Sometime after school on Wednesday he started complaining of a stomach ache again. By tea time, he could hardly eat from the pain and he was soon doubled over in pain and in tears. So I took him up to the hospital and we spent 2 hours up there. The doctor we saw seemed to think that it was due to a virus he must've had over the weekend when he was unwell. It was likely to be constipation, even though he had been to the toilet that day. We finally got home at 9.30pm to have a phone call from the doctor asking if we could come back because he forgot to ask him to do a urine sample. I said I would bring him back in the morning.

So in the morning we go back to the hospital, do the test and wait. It comes back fine and the nurse gave him an oral laxative, but said it wouldn't work for 24 hours anyway and he could go to school if he was fine. He still had a bit of pain but seemed to be alot better. And he was going to be dressing up as HP today!!

However, we get home, and within an hour of taking the laxative the poor kid has diarohhea :( I couldn't send him to school if that was going to be happening all day! So he missed out on "spooky day", after I spent all day the day before making his costume! Nevermind, he still wore it all day anyway, lol, and the day after that and the day after that. He hasn't had any pain since, thankfully.

So that is the story!

And here is just a piccy of Angus I took the other day. He loves drawing (with pens, it has to be a pen) and he'll lay down on the floor on his stomach and draw away. The other day he was doing this whilst I was vaccuming the floor right next to him and he fell asleep:

I knew he was tired but I was trying to get the vaccuming done before I put him to bed...seems I didn't need to wait!

Spider-Dan

We went to a 4yo birthday party today. Candy the Clown turned up and kept all 17 kids entertained for a while. She also does face painting. Dan was the only one of our 3 boys to want his face painted...as spider-dan of course! After I showed him this photo on my camera he was m ost upset that the paint had come off his chin.

Just a couple...

...of pics of Angus I took this morning at breakfast. He was hamming it up to the camera - which he doesn't normally do - so I had to shoot away while I had the chance. He is such a doofus, which rarely anyone gets to see as he's so different at home to when we go out.

Here he is being that doofus and hamming it up> His brothers were on the other side of the bench and egging him on to be silly:

Here he is hiding behind his hands - you can't see him when he does this, lol:

This is a new thing he has learnt to show off his muscles. He strains and all! So here are his muscles...and double chin...teehee!

Just being a doofus again:

And the novelty of having his photo taken has worn off now:

I will be back over the weekend to update on Ethan being unwell and the Harry Potter costume (it's the same story) as a few people have been asking about it. I promise, it's not that exciting really, just something that happened that week!

Nighty night all xxx

Meet Bobby

My apologies in advance for the lack of spacing - I can't work out why it wont space my paragraphs.

I came home at lunchtime on Monday to hear Bundy barking like crazy out the back (nothing unusual). But then he just kept going on and on so I went outside to see what he was barking at. The dogs had found a blue tongue lizard out by the pool and Bundy was trying to catch the poor thing. Everytime Bundy went to bite it it would raise it's head up and hiss at him. Jessie, the blonde, just watched behind Bundy and would bark encouragement every now and then.

So I picked up the dogs and put them in the carport and called the neighbour to come around and catch the lizard - I am such a wuss. Jane came around with her cat cage and as Daniel and Carson watched on we managed to corner poor Bobby and get him into the cat cage. PS, when Daniel first saw him he shat himself and ran screaming like a girl all the way back to the back door!

We kept Bobby (the bob-tail, did you work it out??) in the cage in our carport and I rang up a reptile specialist to get some info and was told to let him out in the bush early on in the day so he would have time to find a hiding spot by nightfall. I remembered Ethan had his news day the next morning so we decided to keep him for that, then let him go the next morning.

We fed him strawberries & dried dog food (the reptile man said to) and a dish of water. I cut off a couple of branches from the neighbours bottle brush - it was hanging over my fence anyway - and put those in his cage along with some large rocks (actually, more like cement pieces), and draped a blanket over the cage. Every now and then the kids would go out to check on him and tell me what he was up to at the time (sleeping...hiding...I found this beetle for him...now he wants this bit of fluff I found on the floor...). Ethan wanted to know what would happen if he stuck his finger in. I told him to try it and find out but he wouldn't be in that.

Yesterday morning I took him into Ethan's class around news time. Ethan got to tell the kids about Bobby and they wanted me to take him out for a look but there was no way I was sticking my hand in there! Besides, he was hissing at me everytime I opened the door so I think he was a bit stressed.

I wanted to get all the kids to come with me to set him free but Ethan had to be at school early this morning for their school carnival. But when I checked on Bobby this morning he barely moved when I poked him to check if he was still alive. He still hadn't eaten any of the food we'd left him either so I thought I had better do it after I dropped Ethan off at school otherwise he may not last much longer.

So the above photos are from when we set him free this morning. Daniel and Angus were with me and they weren't scared at all. Daniel kept trying to shoo him away with a branch he found, and Angus kept leaning over him and yelling "Jessie!" at him. Eventually he moved on away from us and towards the bushes. I hope he finds his way home.

Well, I probably should catch up a little on the week...but it's past 11pm and I just can't be bothered right now! Maybe I will indulge you all in the next post, just remind me. It had to do with a trip to the hospital one night with Ethan, and a Harry Potter costume. I'll come back to it, I promise!

For now, I just want to share some photos that I took today. This morning I took the boys to the Aboretum, as I have a family photo session there this coming week and I hadn't yet been out there to check out the lighting and stuff. So we toddled around there for about an hour this morning, and came back with some snaps...

Then this afternoon we had our neighbours two kids over whilst our neighbours went off to the races for the Kal Cup. Ash decided to get out the bouncy castle out (yes, we bought a bouncy castle from Target when they had a special on. I swear, we have already gotten plenty of use out of it through parties and neighbourhood get togethers, well worth the money) so I got a few more snaps this arvo. I can't put up any photos of the neighbours kids without permission so I have just weeded out a few. Oh, plus one of Bundy, heehee!

Bundy "I'm not looking at the cheezel"

Oh, and look...can you tell spring is here?! This is the one flowering plant I found at the Aboretum. I'm so glad I took my macro lens and was able to get some great shots of this flower, as I just don't have any flowers in my yard to practise on!

And now I really must go to bed as it is 11.40pm and it's not my turn to sleep in in the morning!

Until next time.

A quiet Monday

A quiet day (and weekend just gone) here for us. Ethan is off school sick today so the boys and I have been bumming around the house. I managed to do a bit of a spring clean on clothes this morning, and sort out the toys in Daniel's room - it is just ridiculous the amount of toys in his room. He pulls them out of his wardrobe nearly every night at bed time and we wake in the morning to find his floor and bed just covered in them. I managed to get a big container of toys filled to put in the shed, I bet they won't even know they're gone.

While I was out hanging the washing this morning Dan came out with me and played on the grass under the clothes line, like they normally do whilst I'm hanging out washing. Anyhow, I found him talking to a slater - only he was calling it a ladybug. He had the slater on his hand and had put some grass on his hand aswell and was saying to the slater "come and get your dinner!!" in a loud voice like I do when I'm calling them for dinner.

I got down with him and tried to show him how the slater rolls up into a ball and he says "it's ok I can do it" and proceeds to roll the poor slater between the palms of his hand like you would do when rolling playdough into a ball! The slater wouldn't roll into a ball and instead ended up on it's back with it's legs kicking in the air and Daniel says "oh, he's going to get some pants to put on" What the!?? He has some imagination, that kid.

And Angus has been feeling quite patriotic today for some reason. Try and take this flag off him and you'll hear about it!

He and Dan are currently playing out the back and have been out there for some time now. I want to go see what they are doing but then I don't want to disturb them as I need to go make tea now and if I disturb them now I'll end up having them in the kitchen under my feet. I think they are digging holes in the sand next to the carport though - I really need to convince Ash to refill their sandpit again!

Until next time...

Post No. 1

Okay, so I have succumbed to peer (read: family) pressure to keep a blog for updates on us and the kids...purely personal stuff! Nah, no pressure, but it really would be nice to keep friends and family updated as we live so far away from them all. So be prepared to read some really enthralling stories about our lives here in the desert, lol. No really...it's interesting here...a couple of times a year at least.

But for now I have to sign off (yes, already) as Angus is in his cot NOT sleeping and NOT very happy about it. He is having an off day and hasn't been very happy for most of the day. Trust me, that's not unusual. He reminds me a lot of how Ethan was at the same age and I'm holding out hope that the age of 3 will be that magical age where the light begins to shine at the end of the tunnel and the whining stops! Too bad we're not quite half way there yet but nevermind...as long as I know that we will eventually get there!

Meanwhile, Ethan and Daniel are currently playing 'mums and dads'. Naturally Ethan is the 'dad'. Daniel just goes along with the rules. The two of them have lately taken to playing behind a closed door in one of their bedrooms, which is fine. If Angus is awake he will go looking for them then call out for me to come and open the door. When I open the door the 2 boys usually either scramble to get up on the bed with their toys where Angus can't reach them, or run out to play somewhere else. It's not malicious against Angus as they do all get on, they just don't want him playing with their toys, lol. Oh, the joys of siblings *sigh*. I imagine that this is just the beginning.

Well, I can't hear Angus anymore so I think he may either have gone back to sleep or is happy for now...

So, Daniel, Angus and I went to a park this morning. Daniel found a big log that he had to climb along then jump off at the end like Superman:

And this is the best I could get of Angus, lol:

He wasn't in the mood for looking at the camera strapped to my face this morning. He was more interested in watching Daniel bash down a sandcastle that someone had built before us and singing very loudly "bashing down a castle, bashing down a castle..." over and over again.

Now I am really going. Dinner to cook, phone calls to make and children asking me enough questions to drive me up the wall... ta ta for now xxxx