Red Is The Best, Forget The Rest!

No, not my hair colour, though I am rocking a newly red-ed do at the moment! We're talking the annual school sports carnival. There's my boy, in the middle of all the girls. Of course!

The kids had school carnival on Friday and while Offspring #2 wasn't well enough to take part she did have fun cheering (and eating!) her way through the day. I got to sit with one of my BFF's and catch up on all the news. And we all got to enjoy a gorgeously warm, sunny day doing not a whole lot more than yelling at our kids to RUNNNNN!!!!  After the super-busy week I'd had, with another to come, it was exactly the kind of enforced inactivity I needed.

Offspring #1 seemed to be in just about every single event. He did really well in the team events and put in a great effort in the individual events brigng home a whole swag of coloured ribbons. I was so caught up in the cheering and relaxing that I only grabbed the camera out a couple of times - and most of them turned into a blurry, eyes closed, really bad kind of shot anyway. But my favourite was from a fun team event. The tug-of-war.

And the best part? Red faction was the overal winner for the day. Oh yeah!

Cough, Splutter, Wheeze

No not me. My poor girl is a sick little possum and the asthma that has been so much better this year has reared its big fat ugly head and hit her with a mighty whomp. She had four separate attacks last night but slept pretty well for a couple of hours between each one so I was kinda hoping that today would see her feeling a little bit better. But instead, after three solid nights of asthma attacks, she's got a full scale rotten cold. Her poor little face is puffed up with it and she's got the biggest black circles under her eyes. I knew it was really knocking her around when she ate two hot chips for dinner then asked if she could just go to bed instead. At six thirty.

So she's been tucked up for almost two hours and I'm thinking I should be crawling into my bed too and making the most of what sleep I can get before we start all over again. Thank heavens tomorrow is my day off.

Work Is Really Getting In The Way Of Blogging!

I didn't mean to go MIA there. I've been away for a few days for a conference with work and had fully intended to drop in a post or two while I was away but... after Hubby very kindly charged up my laptop, updated the virus protection, did all the software updates and all but packed it in my bag I arrived at the hotel to discover they didn't have wifi. Wait. What? Yeah, no wifi in a hotel in the middle of the city. A slightly seedy, actually fairly cheap hotel but still, a hotel in the middle of our state's capital city. It wasn't even like I was expecting it to be free. I was fully anticipating having to pay for it - my facebook habit alone needed feeding, never mind the blogging I'd need to do. Instead I arrived home suffering from technology withdrawal. And a sick girl. She's asthma attacking all over the place and I'm anticipating a trip to the hospital at some point tonight.

But my brain is all full of work stuff and I'm quite excited about some of the changes that we're going to implementing at my site.

And regular posting will resume just as soon as I catch up on some sleep!

Pretty Faces

Hubby was tied up this afternoon so, for a rare change, I collected the kids from their after school care. And this is what greeted me:

A beautiful butterfly girl.

And a Blues face for my footy-mad, Carlton supporting boy.

Not a bad way to spend the afternoon really. 

Gratituesday

I found a new tea to try so, over the weekend, I broke out the teapot (yeah, one of many!) and Hubby and I had a pot of tea with our Sunday morning breakfast. There's nothing quite like real tea, out of a teapot. It makes you slow down a bit and really enjoy whatever it is you're doing. In this case the tea was very nice and we've managed to have tea in a pot every morning since. Lovely.

So this week I'm thankful for my new discovery. And for it's follow on effect of making me stop and smell the roses. Or sip my tea, as the case is.

He Makes Me Laugh

As a bit of backstory - George Clooney is the true movie star love of my life. Sure I had juvenile crushes on the likes of Rob Lowe, Andrew McCarthy and Judd Nelson but that was way back in the 80's. And I admit that I did think I was in love with Brad Pitt for a good long time. But then he took off with the husband stealing slut Angelina and I didn't love him anymore. George isn't a teenager and he doesn't appeal to the teenager side of my brain. He isn't married and screwing around. And I love him. Deeply and forever. And you know how you have a completely unrealistic, never gonna meet him, never gonna happen free pass? He's mine. Hubby has always agreed that if George Clooney lands his helicopter in our backyard, I'm free to go. He's good like that.

Anyway... this morning I was flicking through the newspaper and came across a brief article and picture of George Clooney. Unable to contain my lust glee, I exclaimed (loudly, it must be admitted) "George!!"

Hubby stopped and stared at me. Then put on his listening face. Then shook his head in a soul-destroying pitying way. "No Honey," he told me. "That's just a plane going over. It's not a helicopter."

Shoes, Shoes, Shoes!

I'm a total shoe addict. Many years ago, before I had children who needed all my spare money (and more!) spent on them, it would be fair to say that most of my disposable income went on shoes. And champagne. In fact when my then almost-brand-new-boyfriend and I moved in together and he came to my place with his trailer, all ready to load me and my belongings up and into the other end of town, he was ever so slightly horrified to realised that it would probably take four trips to move all my household possessions and another full load to move my shoes. Luckily it didn't totally put him off.

Since then circumstances - both work-wise and financially - have dictated that I spend far less on shoes and as a result I have fewer shoes to play with. I still have more than completely necessary (but don't tell Hubby I said that) but it doesn't stop me drooling and lusting over shoes. At the moment I'm on the hunt for a comfortable nude platform or wedge that I can wear at work. I have no idea what clothes I'm going to pair them with, I just know I want them.

Tonight I clicked on one of the facebook ads that showed up in my sidebar. To quote Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman: Big mistake. Huge. I found me an online shoe store and have wasted the past ninety or so minutes drooling over pretty shoes. And deciding whether they are going to be my first ever online purchase. Look at these and tell me you're not falling in love, just a little bit.

And Finally The Day Dawns

Dear Offspring #2,

It seems to have gone on forever but your birthday has finally arrived! After several days of celebrating you woke up this morning a great big six year old. You made us all stop and look at how big you were now that you'd turned six. And you were a little disappointed that I still had to roll your jeans up tonight - you thought that now you were six they'd fit. Maybe you'll need to be six for a little while before that happens?

You have had a huge day of presents, cake at school, more presents, phone calls, the grandparents to birthday dinner, more presents, ice-cream birthday cake and finally falling into bed completely worn out. You've been totally spoilt with wonderful gifts and lots of good wishes from family and friends and I'm not entirely sure how you'll cope with not being the centre of the world in the next few days. But I guess we'll see that for ourselves...

We had your favourite dinner tonight- spaghetti bolognaise and garlic bread - as we have for every single birthday you've celebrated so far (actually you might have had something different when you turned one, being as how you couldn't actually verbalise what you'd like so I got to decide).

I'm thinking that six is going to be a pretty awesome year for you. You're starting to learn to read and I love how you pick random words out of books I'm reading and demand to know what they are. I really love cudding with you and reading books together. Your favourite joke at the moment is the one you stole from your big brother - why did the toilet paper roll down the hill? Because it wanted to get to the bottom! You think it is hilarious and laugh like a loon every time you tell it. Then explain to your audience exactly why it's funny. Then you crack up all over again. You're still the fussiest eater I know but you are attempting to be a bit more adventurous and have recently discovered that you actually don't mind the odd different vegie. I was incredibly proud this week when you didn't go into complete meltdown mode when Aunty Lynette dared to put your curried sausages on top of your rice rather than next to it. Could this mean you're finally going to let your foods touch each other? Or were you just showing some rare restraint?

You give the best cuddles, have the brightest smile and tell the funniest (and loudest!) secrets. You are such a girly girl with all your hair bits and bobs, Barbies, babies and painted toe nails but you're also such a tomboy running around the yard, helping Dad and trying desperately to keep up with your brother. I love you more than all the leaves on all the trees in the whole world ever.

Happy Birthday my beautiful princess.

Lots of love

Mum xx

What A Day

Phew. I feel like I just crammed about a week's worth of stuff into one single day!

I was parent helper in Offspring #2's class this morning and that's always exhausting. Lots of fun, but exhausting. Then off to do the food shopping, home to unpack it and get dinner into the slow cooker (curried sausages, for those who are interested) then back to collect the kids. The kids and I raced back to the shop to pick up the all important ice-cream Freddo birthday cake that I'd forgotten earlier. Then home again to get on with a few of my regular Monday chores - vacuum, tidy up, washing, etc - as well as bake #2's birthday cake for her to take to school  and cook the spaghetti sauce for tomorrow's birthday dinner (as per the birthday girl's request). We had one of the neighbours in for dinner as her partner is away for work at the moment and I dished up the aforementioned curried sausages with rice and steamed vegies as well as a (bought) apple pie, custard and cream. The neighbour headed home to feed her dogs and do her own chores and I got on with the dishes, icing of the birthday cake, folding of washing and wrapping of birthday presents.

The craziness of the week will continue for a few days yet and I fear I'm not nearly as organised as I really need to be. I'm thinking there's going to be beans on toast for dinner at some point. But if I do manage to hold it all together this is what I hope we'll be eating:

Slow Cooker Curried Sausages

Spaghetti Bolognaise

Meat pie and steamed vegies

Crunchy Parmesan Crumbed Chicken

Homemade Pizza

BBQ

Roast Rolled Chicken and roasted vegies

As for baking? Well, I'm kinda feeling like I've baked myself silly the last few days and we have enough cakes, lollies, chocolates and general junk to last for several weeks. Though it might only last for one.

A Princess Party

Offspring #2 officially celebrates her birthday next week but, like all true royalty, she has her subjects celebrate on another day. In this case, she had her birthday party this afternoon. She'd decided on a princess theme so we hosted a Princess Afternoon Tea Party and had a few of her little friends around to help celebrate and the girls all dressed up in their princess finery. Here's our little Princess ready for her party.

We dressed the table appropriately.

And baked up a storm with fairy cakes and lollies, party pies and sausage rolls, and of course our favourite honey joys. This year we had a honey joy tower. Yum.

The birthday princess had a throne at the head of the table.

And she held court for the visiting princesses.

We drank special fruit flavoured tea (ie, juice) poured from the Queen's beautiful teapots. And each princess had their own special teacup, along with a party bag, to take home as a little memento of the day.

The Crown Prince, aka Big Brother, aka Offspring #1, entertained the princesses. He delighted them with games such as pass-the-parcel and musical statues. He helped to organise the princesses and was an all round wonderful helper and was mightily praised by the Queen and King as well as the visiting princesses parents.

And the afternoon was rounded off with a rousing rendition of Happy Birthday and the ceremonial cutting and eating of the birthday cake.

It was an afternoon of much merriment and was enjoyed verily. And as all the tired little princesses waved goodbye, our own princess was heard to remark that it was the best birthday party of her whole life. And the Queen rejoiced for her hard work, baking and cleaning was all worth it to see the shining smile on the face of her favourite princess.